Is MMA A Martial Art?

[Buka]

I have to ask as well, why is that a shame? What is martial arts if not fighting? You can wrap it up in fancy words, use nice posters with self righteous mottos on but martial arts is still fighting, if it's not, it's not martial arts is it? What are punches and kicks for if not to hurt someone? if you are doing kicks and punches for 'self enlightenment' or 'inner peace' I'd suggest you are foing something wrong.
Go into an MMA gym/club and you will find discipline, respect and good sportsmanship as well as fitness taken seriously. You wil find self confidence and self esteem being built, attention to rules and details is also learnt. Just because they don't bow (they will shake hands or hug instead) and pretend what they are doing is something akin to a religion doesn't mean they are lesser human beings than those who take a traditional view of things or perhaps the MMAers are the traditional martial artists and those who think they aren't are living out some pseudo Eastern way of martial arts that Westerners have dreamed up as being what was done in Japan etc.

Martial Arts are a lot more than just fighting. If one is training just for sport, that's fine. But if competition isn't the goal of training, it's a different story. Or least it should be. Maybe "self defense" is the goal. But while a great bonus to training it's not really a practical reason. How often do any of us get into fights? Certainly not often enough to spend untold hours on the dojo floor, week after week, year after year.

But the better, more realistic the fight training is, the more reason it has to be tempered with character development. And to me, the development of character is the primary goal in the teaching Martial Arts. Many of the schools I've trained and taught in were in poorer neighborhoods. The majority of the students were young men. A lot of them were/are from one parent families. They are often exposed to drugs, crime and violence in the circles they travel. To give some young men hard core fighting skills - and NOT teach them self respect, social responsibility and discipline - is a damn sham. At least to me.

You say "self enlightenment" and "inner peace" like they are dirty words. I wholeheartedly disagree. They are just another part of training, just like an uppercut and a neck crank.

 

[Tez3]

Martial Arts are a lot more than just fighting. If one is training just for sport, that's fine. But if competition isn't the goal of training, it's a different story. Or least it should be. Maybe "self defense" is the goal. But while a great bonus to training it's not really a practical reason. How often do any of us get into fights? Certainly not often enough to spend untold hours on the dojo floor, week after week, year after year.

But the better, more realistic the fight training is, the more reason it has to be tempered with character development. And to me, the development of character is the primary goal in the teaching Martial Arts. Many of the schools I've trained and taught in were in poorer neighborhoods. The majority of the students were young men. A lot of them were/are from one parent families. They are often exposed to drugs, crime and violence in the circles they travel. To give some young men hard core fighting skills - and NOT teach them self respect, social responsibility and discipline - is a damn sham. At least to me.

You say "self enlightenment" and "inner peace" like they are dirty words. I wholeheartedly disagree. They are just another part of training, just like an uppercut and a neck crank.

No, in many cases they are another way to make money by promoting an 'all in package'.

You are assuming that teaching fighting doesn't teach anything else but I can assure you it does. We have several teenage boys who have been brought to us to learn MMA, they learn far more than fighting. They do learn self discipline, you cannot become a fighter without it, they learn respect because there's always someone better than them, they learn to respect their training partners and their instructors and from there other people, they use their energies to train, their anger and feelings of displacement dissipate as they find in MMA something that calms them and gives them a purpose.
You think that going on about respect and lectoring them will do it? It's won't, seeing it in practice makes it work.

You talk about the young men who are already involved in violence and drugs, do you honestly think they don't know how to fight already, do you really think their going to an MMA gym actually means they trun form nice little boys into monsters, I hardly think so. Blaming MMA for a problem that already exists is foolhardy. There's no skills in MMA that this type of lad doesn't already have. And you know they aren't going to go to any place that wears a Gi or is 'traditional'.

MMA is for competitions, if people want to learn to fight dirty and aggressively on the street an MMA gym is the last place they will look to so please don't dump onto us the problems these young people have.

Do you think then that the original purpose of martial arts was to 'train' character or was it for what most believe civilian self defence, (some believe military fighting) but I don't believe it was ever for training a persons character, that's a western thing that has been plonked into martial arts. In Eastern philosophies everything is intertwined not lik e the west where everything is compartmentalised.

 

[Buka]

No, in many cases they are another way to make money by promoting an 'all in package'.

You are assuming that teaching fighting doesn't teach anything else but I can assure you it does. We have several teenage boys who have been brought to us to learn MMA, they learn far more than fighting. They do learn self discipline, you cannot become a fighter without it, they learn respect because there's always someone better than them, they learn to respect their training partners and their instructors and from there other people, they use their energies to train, their anger and feelings of displacement dissipate as they find in MMA something that calms them and gives them a purpose.
You think that going on about respect and lectoring them will do it? It's won't, seeing it in practice makes it work.

You talk about the young men who are already involved in violence and drugs, do you honestly think they don't know how to fight already, do you really think their going to an MMA gym actually means they trun form nice little boys into monsters, I hardly think so. Blaming MMA for a problem that already exists is foolhardy. There's no skills in MMA that this type of lad doesn't already have. And you know they aren't going to go to any place that wears a Gi or is 'traditional'.

MMA is for competitions, if people want to learn to fight dirty and aggressively on the street an MMA gym is the last place they will look to so please don't dump onto us the problems these young people have.

Do you think then that the original purpose of martial arts was to 'train' character or was it for what most believe civilian self defence, (some believe military fighting) but I don't believe it was ever for training a persons character, that's a western thing that has been plonked into martial arts. In Eastern philosophies everything is intertwined not lik e the west where everything is compartmentalised.

I think we're agreeing without meaning to do so.

As for the "another way to make money with an all in package", I believe you are correct in some cases. I've been teaching for a long time but haven't made much money, but I know of many who have, some diservedly, some not.

As for the respect because "there's always somebody better than them" that's not respect, that's common sense among young men. The real respect comes with there being somebody who's NOT better than them. But I understand your point.

You are incorrect about me thinking that "You think that going on about respect and lectoring them will do it". No, I don't lecture, preach or pontificate. I lead by example, as do all the higher ranks in our dojos. So, yes, you are correct that "seeing it in practice makes it work."

You asked if I thought the kids that were already into violence and drugs knew how to fight already. No. Not even close. They might know how to ambush or beat a helpless fool, but they don't know squat about fighting.

If it's a western thing to "train character", good, I'll take full credit for it.(thanks for pointing that out)

 

[Tez3]

I think we're agreeing without meaning to do so.

As for the "another way to make money with an all in package", I believe you are correct in some cases. I've been teaching for a long time but haven't made much money, but I know of many who have, some diservedly, some not.

As for the respect because "there's always somebody better than them" that's not respect, that's common sense among young men. The real respect comes with there being somebody who's NOT better than them. But I understand your point.

You are incorrect about me thinking that "You think that going on about respect and lectoring them will do it". No, I don't lecture, preach or pontificate. I lead by example, as do all the higher ranks in our dojos. So, yes, you are correct that "seeing it in practice makes it work."

You asked if I thought the kids that were already into violence and drugs knew how to fight already. No. Not even close. They might know how to ambush or beat a helpless fool, but they don't know squat about fighting.

If it's a western thing to "train character", good, I'll take full credit for it.(thanks for pointing that out)

It's not a good thing that in the Western world martial arts is used to 'train character', it should be coming from society as whole, everything is compartmentalised, there's religions, school, homelife, work life, sports, hobbies etc and they are all separate where they should all flow into each other. If you have a belief system it should be with you all the time in everything you do. Teaching discipline and respect isn't a martial arts 'thing', in Asia this starts in the home, carries on at school and throughout society so it does permeate martial arts but it's part of the whole not the whole itself which is what it is in the Western world.

I've seen plenty of kids who are into gangs and violence etc fight, of course they can fight, to think otherwise is to mislead people who are training for self defence.

I'm sure you do lead by example but the fact is you are preaching to the choir. You misunderstand what I meant by there always being someone better than you, but I think you have a downer on MMA so I'm probably wasting my time explaining.

 

[Tez3]

A relevant discussion on 'untrained fighters'.
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?100431-Do-quot-untrained-quot-assailents-exist

 

[Buka]

It's not a good thing that in the Western world martial arts is used to 'train character', it should be coming from society as whole, everything is compartmentalised, there's religions, school, homelife, work life, sports, hobbies etc and they are all separate where they should all flow into each other. If you have a belief system it should be with you all the time in everything you do. Teaching discipline and respect isn't a martial arts 'thing', in Asia this starts in the home, carries on at school and throughout society so it does permeate martial arts but it's part of the whole not the whole itself which is what it is in the Western world.

I've seen plenty of kids who are into gangs and violence etc fight, of course they can fight, to think otherwise is to mislead people who are training for self defence.

I'm sure you do lead by example but the fact is you are preaching to the choir. You misunderstand what I meant by there always being someone better than you, but I think you have a downer on MMA so I'm probably wasting my time explaining.

Actually, no, I don't have a downer on MMA. It's my favorite part of martial arts.

I don't think it's ever a waste of time explaining your views, Tez, I happen to like hearing them.

 

[BostonRedBaron]

The MMA course at my school is taught as the transition between systems. i.e. techniques to go from a striking system to grappling system and back again. As for whether the subset of techniques to transition between systems can be a system in itself is an interesting debate. The technique to transition between say Muay Thai plum clinch and BJJ might be different than going from say Western Boxing dirty boxing clinch to BJJ. So it is dependent on the 2 systems you are transitioning to/from. At least, that is how it is taught at my school.

As for the MMA is just a sport argument, well the Dog Brothers have incorporated traditional Filipino Knife/Stick Techniques into BJJ, Thai, Wrestling, Western boxing etc. And what they train for is absolutely NOT sport, but it is a mix of martial arts. Actually, Dog Brothers knife/stick system is a mix of Krabi Krabong, Filipino and Silat.
So why does or doesn't that make what they do MMA and also a martial art?

 

[Tez3]

The MMA course at my school is taught as the transition between systems. i.e. techniques to go from a striking system to grappling system and back again. As for whether the subset of techniques to transition between systems can be a system in itself is an interesting debate. The technique to transition between say Muay Thai plum clinch and BJJ might be different than going from say Western Boxing dirty boxing clinch to BJJ. So it is dependent on the 2 systems you are transitioning to/from. At least, that is how it is taught at my school.

As for the MMA is just a sport argument, well the Dog Brothers have incorporated traditional Filipino Knife/Stick Techniques into BJJ, Thai, Wrestling, Western boxing etc. And what they train for is absolutely NOT sport, but it is a mix of martial arts. Actually, Dog Brothers knife/stick system is a mix of Krabi Krabong, Filipino and Silat.
So why does or doesn't that make what they do MMA and also a martial art?

MMA is for sport, it's a competitive style specifically for competition. We'd call what you and the Dog brothers are doing cross training not MMA.

 

[Chris Parker]

Yep, or a hybrid system, or an eclectic system. Not MMA.

To go back to the initial question, MMA is a number of different things. It is a ruleset and competitive format. It is a training approach and methodology geared towards success in such a format. And, yes, it is absolutely a distinct martial art in and of itself, same as other sporting-based martial arts. It just depends on how the term is being used. MMA competition is the format and ruleset, as well as the promotions, and MMA training and combative approach is the martial art.