The Resurgence of Traditional Martial Arts in Modern Mixed Martial Arts

[Wing Woo Gar]

I know you are trying to be funny, but there are plenty of people who compete and spar well past their 50s.

You still seem to be arguing that TMA is some route to immortality, and that more modern frameworks like MMA are some sort of limiting factor.

If you don't want to spar with "20 something hard chargers", are you really still doing TMA? Or just going through the motions. My point is that making age a factor doesn't really apply, plenty of those 70-80 year old TMA people never could fight. I'm sure some could, but those would only be the ones who competed or at least sparred a lot.

Again, the argument that sparring or competing (professionally or internally in a school) is somehow anathema to long term practice? That's a very negative viewpoint IMHO.

Nah you got me wrong. I’m generalizing, like some of the mma crowd here does. Re read my first line, sparring is important. Yes, trying to keep it light by joking. I did sparring, boxing and JJJ were my first martial arts. I did fighting, it was not even a choice for me, it was do it, or take two beatings. I bounced in a punk rock club for 3 years every weekend night. I have had too many concussions, and CTE is a real thing for me. My whole point is this; THERE IS A DIMINISHING RETURN on sparring hard long term or fighting full tilt in a ring. You can do it, you should do it, you won’t have real skills without doing it, these are truths I don’t have any arguments against. Do you need to do it after 30 years of doing it? Should you keep doing it when you know you have had several concussions or CTE already? Should kids be doing that? If I did it for 30 years will I somehow lose all my skills by not doing it anymore? Those are questions each person has to answer for themselves.
For me, it depends, if there is something specific to work on that I feel i need to try out then I might do it. Im well aware of what fighting for real is, but either way a concussion or serious injury is not something I can easily afford these days. I don’t like generalization, not all TMA, nor MMA for that matter is the same. Black and white statements don’t apply to this discussion. We can only really compare individual training practices since I’m certain that none of us train exactly the same as any other. Even then, each individual may respond to the training differently. There is no purity in the discussion, MMA is literally a mix of martial arts, that recipe varies from individual to individual. TMA is the foundation of all of it. Often, there might be the temptation to throw the baby out with the bath water because of the rush for the most expedient way to get good enough to ring fight competitively. That’s fine, we all have our reasons to train, there is room for all of us. I think it’s important to look at it holistically, it’s a long life and I’m assuming we all want to do it into old age without dribbling spit and forgetting our own names. Just my one cent, I can’t remember what I did with the other one.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

This is my basic point. It's the whole Pink Unicorn theory. "It's there, YOU just can't see it!"

UFC and MMA is one place you can find TMA people with at least basic fighting skills. The converse is not necessarily true; there is an imbalance.

And modern schools are often harangued by TMA schools that claim to be better or even equivalent but produce no comparable fighters.

And then the argument gets turned to "well define fighting". Fighting is pretty obvious to anyone who watches a combat sport match. Two people locking horns.

Those TMA people with at least basic fight knowledge came from where? TMA? So, at least some TMA is real?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I am a TMA guy, trained a few different styles, dabbled in some non-TMA styles, but about 30 years ago (yes I'm old) in TMA I was part of a multi-style sparing group, great learning experience. Also no protective gear (yes you got hurt from time to time). But I am of the belief that if all you do is spar within your style, you could very likely have an issue sparing outside of your style.

Also about 30 years ago my shifu was looking for ways for us to spar more outside of our styles, He set up a sparing meet between our CMA school and a TKD school. We got there and the teacher of the TKD school gave us a whole lot of rules to follow. At that point I bowed out and told him I will not be sparing, he asked me why and I told him that I come in here trained in Chinese martial arts and I have learned how to spar with Chinese martial arts, and now you want me to be a TKD guy. And half the things I would do, you just told me can't" Heck it ever limited what i could do with respect to my TKD training years before

The Wing Chun school I am currently in actually does have sparing, as far as I know, it is the only one in my area that does. It is a Wing Chun school, the teacher is in a lineage, and was given permission from his teacher to teach, but it is not 100% Wing Chun, the teacher has a very strong Hung Gar background and it appears in his Wing Chun. And he has made changes to some things, also with the aproval of his Wing Chun teacher.

Many styles that depend only on form, at least in CMA, are performance styles. Even if you go to China and train Shaolin long fist, it is very likely will only be form. But many of those schools are now training Sand/Sanshou. This is not how it use to be, but training was harder in the old days. I personally have seen a lot of changes in Traditional martial arts in the last 53 years. Heck when I started as a kid, there were no pads, no head gear, no talk of a mouth guard and no mats, and it was a Japanese Jiujitsu school. And we spared every single class. My TKD school in the mid 70s has sparing, joint locks, in close fighting and takedowns. When the olympics took TKD in students asked my teacher for protective gear....his initial response was laughing and saying there is no protective gear in a fight. There always were drills, and/or forms, and sparing. But I will admit that has changed over the years. My first CMA school had sparing, see multi-style sparing group, but much of his sparing and applications, outside of that group, was sanshou. Although, surprisingly, in his Baguazhang he taught Baguazhang applications. And lastly, one of my Xingyiquan teachers, also had sparing. I once spared my teacher in that school. While sparing he said to me, "It is not sparing unless I get hit", so I hit him, twice, which then produced one of the coolest beatings I ever took, learned a lot that day too....

But admittedly these days I do believe this is seen less and less in TMA

This jives with my experience. It’s gone from rough to soft and now is going back to rough, which I like, to, and with a point.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Your assumption is that MA skill will only work against its own style unless it is publicly tested against others. So you lump all these arts together even though you have no evidence to support this and then say there is no evidence to support that it works. This is like chasing your tail and blaming it for running away.

I took a math course "category theory" in school. There was no homework, no middle or final exam. Everybody in that class got A. Even today, I still didn't know how much I had learned in that class.

Without sparring against a boxer, one won't know where his punching skill is. Without wrestling against a wrestler, one won't know where his wrestling skill is.

Back in 1975, I test my punching skill in golden glove boxing once. In the ring, I felt I was dealing with animal and not dealing with human being. From that testing, I then understood in fighting, only a knocked down opponent is a good opponent. If my opponent is standing, he can knock me down.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Trial and error is kind of the scientific method anyway. Just with a few extra controls to make the experiment standard.

The issue is that it doesn't have to be a perfect science experiment to be better than demonstrations and stories.

And yes MMA still looks like traditional martial arts.
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What MMA doesn't look like is the much more modern systems of theoretical martial arts.

Modern martial arts has waaay better uniforms.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Kin

Trial and error is kind of the scientific method anyway. Just with a few extra controls to make the experiment standard.

The issue is that it doesn't have to be a perfect science experiment to be better than demonstrations and stories.

And yes MMA still looks like traditional martial arts.
View attachment 32638

View attachment 32637

What MMA doesn't look like is the much more modern systems of theoretical martial arts.

Kind of like the scientific method is like kind of pregnant.

My point being, trying to use the “scientific method” to show MMA is better, is meaningless, since it is trial and error

As for looks similar, all i have to say is…. Thank God you wear clothes now and don’t do MMA naked.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

If you don't want to spar with "20 something hard chargers", are you really still doing TMA?

When you are

- young, you want to knock/take your opponent down.
- old, you don't want your opponent to knock/take you down.

Today, when a

- boxer challenges me, I'll tell him, "You can throw 20 punches at me. If any of your 20 punches can land on my head, you win, if you can't land punch on me, I win."
- wrestler challenges me, I'll tell him, "You can try to take me down within 2 minutes. If you can take me down, you win, if you can't take me down, I win."

This way, spar/wrestle during old age can be done. I'll still call this "competition" even someone may say it's just a "game".

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

just a few techniques from TMA being borrowed ...

In TMA, there are many skills that require a long time to develop. If a certain MA skill that may take a long time to develop, MMA guys won't be interested to train it. After that MMA guy have developed that MA skill, he may be too old to compete.