Mixed Martial Arts... Helped or Hindered?

[Indie12]

What's everyones opinion about Mixed Martial Arts?

Has it Helped or Hindered The Martial Arts?

Do you consider Mixed Martial Arts....Martial Arts?

Has Mixed Martial Arts helped or hurt the progress of Martial Arts towards becoming better understanding and accepting by the genereal public?

Just another topic!

 

[K-man]

I have several friends who run MA schools but all started out with karate. Next they incorporated kick boxing, then when it became popular, Muay Thai. Then BJJ was added and for the kids XMA. These were all being taught independently. Recently they experienced reduced enrolments that were addressed by advertising MMA. I think it has just become another sport style MA with an emphasis on grappling, basically a mix of kickboxing and jujutsu, with a bit of 'blood and brutality'.

So for their schools, promoting MMA has maintained or grown their businesses. For me, I don't care one way or the other. There are many people (not martial artists) who are totally turned off by MMA (boxing would probably have the same effect) and there are those that can't get enough. Just as their are many people who train boxing for fitness without having any intention of fighting in the ring, so there will be huge numbers of people who will be attracted to MMA who have no intention of actually fighting in the octagon. No different to most Martial Arts really.

Helped or hindered? Neither really. Just a progression. :asian:

 

[Indie12]

Yeah, I'd agree with the revenue part!! It has helped many schools with income and participation... And I agree that it is just another Sport. Unfortunately I also believe that it has done more damage to the reputation of the Arts then good! What I mean is that when people (in general) look at Martial Arts, they automatically think "Mixed Martial Arts, I.E Sport/Cage Fighting/Blood bath... My real concern is the integrity of the Arts being compromised by Sport...

In my opinion... (and in my personal experience- both direct and indirect)

- It has hindered...
- MMA is NOT MA!!
- It has hurt the progression of the Arts as a whole!!

 

[ralphmcpherson]

I dont really belive it has helped or hindered. I think from a sport perspective it adds another option. We have a couple of guys at our club (tkd) who train only tkd but on the weekend they fight in MMA competitions because their arent enough tkd comps to keep them occupied. Ive spoken to them about this and their view is that they get the "martial" side from their day in day out training and get to enjoy the "sport" side of things occasionally in the ring/cage, and from all reports they do quite well. I think this is a perfect example of how they can co-exist.

 

[Josh Oakley]

I gotta disagree with you, indie, primarily on the "MMA is not MA" statement. If MMA is not MA, than neither is any other sport martial art. This would include: Boxing, collegiate wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, Muay Thai, Sanda, Bokh, Sumo, Olympic Taekwondo, and Judo. All of these are for sport, first and formost.

All of these are martial arts. Why is MMA different?

 

[OzPaul]

I personally think that MMA has helped Martial Arts out, although i can see why some may think it has hindered and not helped the cause. It is common now to see a TMA school also offer grappling and MMA lessons as part of their class structure. This could be for financial reasons or that the teacher/s generally have an interest in MMA. My opinion is that MMA has made TMA instructors start thinking about what they are teaching again. In this day and age people want results quickly and will not (generally speaking) put in the time to achieve something if it can be achieved quicker elsewhere. Grappling for example will be seen a lot more in TMA's than before due to the fact that a lot of people now study some form of grappling and we need to combat that. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Kudo Daido but check this link out and see how many different type of martial art techniques they use. Great video and exceptional fighters. Cheers, Paul.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I don't think MMA by itself is a Martial Art, but rather a martial sport. There isn't a cohesive single "MMA", which in my opinion, is a good thing.

As far as it's affect on martial arts, I think it's been a good one. It's got more traditional martial artists to look at very important things like conditioning, resistant training, and fighting outside of your comfort zone. All of which are very important in a SD situation.

Is it the end all and be all that some make it out to be? No, but it's great stuff and a lot more interesting to watch than boxing, kickboxing, or grappling competitions.

Jeff

 

[Josh Oakley]

I don't think MMA by itself is a Martial Art, but rather a martial sport. There isn't a cohesive single "MMA", which in my opinion, is a good thing.

As far as it's affect on martial arts, I think it's been a good one. It's got more traditional martial artists to look at very important things like conditioning, resistant training, and fighting outside of your comfort zone. All of which are very important in a SD situation.

Is it the end all and be all that some make it out to be? No, but it's great stuff and a lot more interesting to watch than boxing, kickboxing, or grappling competitions.

Jeff

So, are Boxing, collegiate wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, Muay Thai, Sanda, Bokh, Sumo, Olympic Taekwondo, and Judo also martial sports?

 

[Cryozombie]

IMO It has helped in some ways and hurt in others.

It has, as has been pointed out helped with things like realistic training concepts, conditioning, dealing with resistant opponents etc... it has helped many traditional artists "think outside the box". It certainly has helped raise enrollment at dojos, and brought exposure to many great Martial Artists and individual styles.

It has also created a negative impact in areas where douchebags who wear various MMA brand gear and think that they are the next big MMA fighter because they watch UFC on television treat everyone with total disrespect if they arent MMA fighters.

It has also fostered a negative opinion by some lawmakers as "Human Cock Fighting" and caused them to take a hard look at Martial arts in general. Where I think crap like Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles helped soften the Idea that MA were "kidstuff" and not some uber dangerous deadly weapon training that needed to be controlled and regulated, MMA has turned that back around again in the minds of some of the lawmakers who just don't get it. Similar to what Ninja Movies in the 80's did... and how we see stupid bans on martial arts training eqipment and weapons in many places even tho they really aren't as dangerous as these lawmakers think they are.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

So, are Boxing, collegiate wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, Muay Thai, Sanda, Bokh, Sumo, Olympic Taekwondo, and Judo also martial sports?

I don't really think that this argument is within the scope of this thread. That being said, yes and no. Boxing, Wrestling, Sumo, are sports. Sure, some teachers of them might also include the SD applications but their primary focus is sport. Others in your list evolved into primarily sport orientied arts, such as a lot of Judo, some Muay Thai, and Olympic TKD. Sanda, as far as I know has proponents of both sport and SD going and growing in it. I can't comment on Bokh, as I know nothing of it.

I think if we got into an argument over it, it would just be semantics anyways.

Jeff

 

[Indie12]

IMO It has helped in some ways and hurt in others.

It has, as has been pointed out helped with things like realistic training concepts, conditioning, dealing with resistant opponents etc... it has helped many traditional artists "think outside the box". It certainly has helped raise enrollment at dojos, and brought exposure to many great Martial Artists and individual styles.

It has also created a negative impact in areas where douchebags who wear various MMA brand gear and think that they are the next big MMA fighter because they watch UFC on television treat everyone with total disrespect if they arent MMA fighters.

It has also fostered a negative opinion by some lawmakers as "Human Cock Fighting" and caused them to take a hard look at Martial arts in general. Where I think crap like Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles helped soften the Idea that MA were "kidstuff" and not some uber dangerous deadly weapon training that needed to be controlled and regulated, MMA has turned that back around again in the minds of some of the lawmakers who just don't get it. Similar to what Ninja Movies in the 80's did... and how we see stupid bans on martial arts training eqipment and weapons in many places even tho they really aren't as dangerous as these lawmakers think they are.

Agreed on all points! Except for the 1st statement, though I will agree that it has helped with the enrollment and financial gain, the reasons for enrollment are usually for MMA purposes, (I.E. Cage Fighting)... And are not generally for learning the 'Art' in Martial Arts...

Also I will add that I actually started Martial Arts for the reason you mentioned in the last statement... About Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles (though I do agree with the explanation now!) I started because of the Ninja Turtles, lol... I wanted to be Leonardo! haha!!

 

[Indie12]

So, are Boxing, collegiate wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, Muay Thai, Sanda, Bokh, Sumo, Olympic Taekwondo, and Judo also martial sports?

Are you talking about Olympic Style Tae Kwon Do or Tae Kwon Do in general?

I think where I was coming from (in my opinion of course!) is MMA not being MA in the sense of what MA stands for, the philosophy behind many of the arts, and in general (not in all cases) why and what the art is about...

This is true across the Martail Art/ Hand2Hand spectrum... (Art/Sport/Combat)

 

[Indie12]

What's the difference between 'Hybrid' and 'MMA'? If you consider MMA=MA?

Since both common grounds in both Hybrid and MMA are that they borrow from different sources, although Hybrid itself could be considered an 'Art' and 'Martial Art' in that it may not be used for Sport purposes, MMA 99.99% of the times are!