Has MMA hindered the spread of other hybrid arts?

[pmosiun1]

I don't think MMA has hindered the spread of other hybrid martial arts. It looked that way but it may just be that new muay thai and jiu jitsu gym are popping everywhere where there were no martial art school to begin with in that area.

The fact is you may not considered yourself the average MMA fan, we had already seen the success of Fedor and Lyoto. Sambo and Karate does prove to work in an MMA environment and who knows what other martial art out there would work, maybe Chinese kung fu because their local MMA event in China is just getting started.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I think MMA has helped the spread of other hybrid arts. It brought attention to the fact that many classical end all and be all's that existed were in some ways deficient, it brought a competition element to things......and, here's where it's helped many other hybrid arts, it created a QUEST to find novel new edges in competition, so folks have been exploring every esoteric and obscure art form out there looking for some angle that might give an advantage.

That can only help some obscure arts.

 

[punisher73]

No, MMA is the fastest increasing SPECTATOR sport. I have not seen any data from schools saying that they are dropping of percentages of students because an MMA gym opened up down the road. The people who would leave a regular dojo to go to the MMA place, would have probably left the dojo on their own because it wasn't meeting what they wanted.

The other thing is, what is MMA? Sambo has a ranking system and you can see if the instructor is qualified, same with Pankration. MMA gyms are popping up all over because no one can really check the credentials (it happens with all martial arts and TMA's also with fake credentials, just that MMA is the flavor of the month). They say they teach Muay Thai, but who did they get their teaching credential from? Most of the time, they are just regular kickboxers who now call themselves Muay Thai. I saw that in the city next to me. They have a very good Judo team and an instructor who also knows Sambo. They have other arts there as well taught be other instructors (they all share the rent/costs to keep overhead/dues low for it's members) and they used to teach kickboxing. The guy who instructed it used to compete and fought kickboxing matches. I happened to stop in there awhile ago and they were advertising Muay Thai/MMA. Same instructor as before, just saying what he taught was Muay Thai. Watching the class and participating in it, it was american kickboxing and basic wrestling with some submissions added. I have seen that situation a couple other times as well. REAL MMA gyms are not very common in most places even though that is what is advertised.

 

[Omar B]

I really don't see what one has to do with another. People eating at Burger King isn't really a detriment to some fine dining place or even a regular old family style restaurant. Different focuses, different audiences being catered to.