Traditional vs MMA

[Andrew Green]

After all the rulsets are based around what they do, this is quite an advantage.

Can you give a ruleset that doesn't?

Basically we base what we do around fighting one on one with no rules, or as few rules as possible. In a sense, allowing everything from all rulesets. Which was the initial idea, let everyone in, let them all do everything there rules normally allow and see who comes out on top.

I really don't see what else could be included and still have a fair and safe sporting event...?

 

[zDom]

The truth is we don't know how many are. We don't even know how to define ineffective. Remember, I'm a traditional martial artist, not a mixed martial artist.

You SOUND like a mixed martial artist though "I find your lack of faith disturbing"

But in addition to being a TMA, I am a professional wordsmith, so I'm pretty confident of my ability to define ineffective even without grabbing a dictionary.

How about, "doesn't work"?

Yeah, everybody's curriculum has worked for them in the past.

Not true. Saying so doesn't make it so. The great majority, I'm willing to believe, have never been forced to test their ability (it probably has something to do with TMA building character.)

We could to a quick poll here if you like. I'd find it interesting.

(I wasn't able to find the poll feature last time I tried. Maybe I'll give it another shot.)

An anecdote from a reliable source is still just an anecdote, and if you're convinced, well there's not much I can say about that. I could give you a long lecture, but what would that accomplish?

We need a "pong" smiley around here, don't we?

What if you're unprepared?

So far, so good. I continue to train hard, so God willing, I will be prepared for the next time, if there ever is a next time

I'm not worried -- but then, I'm not overconfident either. I just keep pushing hard and hoping for the best.

And as I won't willingly be stepping into any cages for a martial art contest, I find it unlikely I will be attacked by a skilled opponent in the near future. But I sure do enjoy watching those who have something to prove beat each other up. Lot to learn by watching. And it doesn't bother me if those types end up with career-ending injuries that make it difficult to defend themselves in the future.

Better than them trying to prove themselves against innocent, unwilling participants, after all

Cheers!

 

[Floating Egg]

Fu_Bag,

I agree with most of what you've written, so I'm just going to highlight the points that I think need clarification.

Someone is going to have a hard time convincing me that a soldier, or even an untrained civilian for that matter, who is fighting for their life so that they can go home to their family, is inferior in mindset, pain tolerance, commitment, and survival instinct to someone who plays for trophies professionally.

What if the professional fighter is fighting for his or her life?

They're not going to care what you do to them and they're not going to stop trying to kill their attacker until they are able to get to go home to their family. Once again, big difference between real fighting and trophy playing.

We have a pretty decadent civilization here, and a lot of us have been killed or assaulted without even raising a hand.

Tough is "I'm going home, you're not", not "HA HA HA!!! I whoopped your *** GOOD!!!". Like I said before, MMA who could care less about trophy playing have the first mindset, not the second. The only way you're going to pressure test that is to constantly endanger people's loved ones.

You don't think that a safe test could be devised? Has anyone tried?

 

[Fu_Bag]

Floating Egg,

Once again, great points!!

************"What if the professional fighter is fighting for his or her life?"

What did they do to end up in that situation in the first place? Did they bring it on themselves through their behavior or lifestyle? A fair answer is that a professional fighter, fighting for their life or, especially, for the lives of their loved ones, isn't someone I'd want to mess with. Of course, I'm also not a criminal who is intent on achieving their goal without being harmed.


*****************"We have a pretty decadent civilization here, and a lot of us have been killed or assaulted without even raising a hand."


Agreed, and that's why training the danger sense to operate naturally is so critical. Danger avoidance is the most primal of self-preservation strategies. Training under the premise of becoming an invincible, unbeatable, ultimate fighter seems like a deadly mistake to me. In my opinion, if there was only one thing that all martial arts should develop in their students, it should be the natural danger avoidance, self-preservation sense. That is about as close to a perfect technique as I can think of and it doesn't boost an unhealthy false confidence in the practitioner.


****************"You don't think that a safe test could be devised? Has anyone tried?"


I think that would be a really bad idea. If you put one person who is 1000% comitted to killing their opponent against a person who is 1000% commited to proving that they can't be killed by said person, nothing good is going to come of it. If people want to test it, let them take it with them to the battlefield. If they actually use it for unarmed combat, great. Personally, if I had to go to war, the last person I'd want watching my back is someone who has something to prove.

Great conversation, Floating Egg.


Fu Bag

 

[Floating Egg]

Agreed, and that's why training the danger sense to operate naturally is so critical. Danger avoidance is the most primal of self-preservation strategies. Training under the premise of becoming an invincible, unbeatable, ultimate fighter seems like a deadly mistake to me. In my opinion, if there was only one thing that all martial arts should develop in their students, it should be the natural danger avoidance, self-preservation sense. That is about as close to a perfect technique as I can think of and it doesn't boost an unhealthy false confidence in the practitioner.

We don't need a martial art to teach us those skills, and I'm not confident that the majority of martial arts instill the awareness and avoidance that you describe.

I think that would be a really bad idea. If you put one person who is 1000% comitted to killing their opponent against a person who is 1000% commited to proving that they can't be killed by said person, nothing good is going to come of it. If people want to test it, let them take it with them to the battlefield. If they actually use it for unarmed combat, great. Personally, if I had to go to war, the last person I'd want watching my back is someone who has something to prove.

I should have explained myself better. I'm thinking of Grossman's field of interest, like the physiology of combat, though with more scientific scrutity. On his website Killology, you can read some publications that might interest you. He refers to the work of Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall and his observations of low firing rates among soldiers. I think the same kind of rigorous study can be applied to the martial arts that we practice.

 

[Fu_Bag]

Floating Egg,

Thank you for the articles link. I'll definitely be checking them out. Good point about danger avoidance.

Take care,


Fu Bag

 

[Bigshadow]

What if the professional fighter is fighting for his or her life?

Doesn't a professional fighter train and hone their skills and techniques that are "Within" the scope of the "fighting" rules, while intentionally disregarding those skills and techniques that fall outside the scope of the rules of competition?

Analogy....

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Whatever is drilled in during training comes out the other end in combat--no more, no less[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Whatever you would make habitual, practise it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practise it, but habituate yourself to something else."
- Epictetus (1st century A.D.)
How the Semblances of Things are to be Combated

[/FONT]
One example of this can be observed in the way police officers conducted range training with revolvers for almost a century. Because they wanted to avoid having to pick up all the spent brass afterwards, the officers would fire six shots, stop, dump their empty brass from their revolvers into their hands, place the brass in their pockets, reload, and then continue shooting. Everyone assumed that officers would never do that in a real gunfight. Can you imagine this in a real situation? “Kings X! Time out! Stop shooting so I can save my brass.” Well, it happened. After the smoke had settled in many real gunfights, officers were shocked to discover empty brass in their pockets with no memory of how it got there. On several occasions, dead cops were found with brass in their hands, dying in the middle of an administrative procedure that had been drilled into them.

Source: http://www.killology.com/on_combat_ch2.htm

 

[Cryozombie]

I don't know how we could test something like what you're referring to without rules. Would it be fair to include weapons?

Fair no, real, yes.

What can we do while remaining within the law?

UFC, PRIDE, Etc... but Probably not test the reality of a street confontation, since most of them occur outside the law in the first place.

Do we let people tap out or do we wait for unconsciousness? Do we stop the fight if someone is bleeding into their eyes and can't see? Do we stop the fight if someone breaks their arm, but still wants to continue? If someone bites off their opponent's nose, is that an automatic win?

Stopping the fight in any of those circumstances is safe and fair, but again, unrealistic if you are going to talk about survivability in a street encounter.


Basically I agree with what you say, there isnt a safe way to test this theory. You cant know you will beat an armed guy, (and this goes for both TMA and MMA) until you take him down before he gets a gun or knife drawn and goes to town on you with it, and you dont live, or wind up in surgery fighting for your life a second time, or you dispatch him. That cant be tested in a "safe" environment. I give props to the TMA AND MMA guys who at least address these ideas in their regular training, and think that anyone who doesnt train with and against them but thinks they are "street lethal fighters" are just as fantasy prone as any TMA guy they might think of that way because of their "less than ring ready" approach to training.

 

[Floating Egg]

Doesn't a professional fighter train and hone their skills and techniques that are "Within" the scope of the "fighting" rules, while intentionally disregarding those skills and techniques that fall outside the scope of the rules of competition?

Probably, but there's a bit of a gray area with professional fighters because what they use in the ring often does work in the street.

Basically I agree with what you say, there isnt a safe way to test this theory. You cant know you will beat an armed guy, (and this goes for both TMA and MMA) until you take him down before he gets a gun or knife drawn and goes to town on you with it, and you dont live, or wind up in surgery fighting for your life a second time, or you dispatch him. That cant be tested in a "safe" environment.

I don't think we can be certain, but we can do better. Take scenario based adrenal stress training for example: most of us aren't used to having someone in our face yelling at us about how much they want to kill us. We can simulate these kinds of behaviours in the dojo because of the way our brains work. It's very easy to piss someone off or scare them in a controlled environment even if they know what you're doing. We can also drop the training that isn't applicable to modern self-defense situations.

 

[Rook]

I'm not disputing that but you do of course realize that the same can be said for TMA as well.

Absolutely. Fu Bag tries to make it sound as though the only people who carry weapons and are skilled in there use are traditional martial artists. In point of fact, I doubt very much there is any association between the carrying or use of weapons and any martial style.

You forgot the Chinese Military and Sanshou aka Qinna Gedou

A modern sports style.

 

[Rook]

Really?

Cuz MCMAP, the current Marine Corp H2H program is based on a COMBINATION of Arts and was IMSC created in combination with Ken Shamrock AND Bujinkan Shidoshi and former marine Jack Hoban.

BJJ isnt the "basis" for it. Its an element IN it.

Look at the stuff in the basic hand to hand taught in training. It is BJJ with bits and pieces of previous systems. The MCMAP, which is a seperate program, is supposed to inculate fighting spirit, and is based on a combination of several arts, including BJJ.

 

[Rook]

It’s true; MMA practitioners have had a lot of success against others in competion. After all the rulsets are based around what they do, this is quite an advantage. Remember the Ali and Inoki fight, both very good at what they did and both very confident individuals; however neither one was going to meet the other outside of their normal fighting environment.

I’m sure that in a self defence situation where there are no rules a TMA practitioner who had trained hard would fare well. Would he be better than a MMA guy? I don’t know.

Regarding the anecdotal evidence of Don’s. Some years ago one of our younger students wanted to go in a Kyokushinkai tournament. Normally in Shorinji Kempo we don’t compete, our randori is just for learning how to apply techniques realistically not to make a winner. Anyway the instructor eventually allowed him to compete because he was so determined to do so. His fight lasted only a few seconds, as his opponent came at him our guy punched him in the head and knocked him down. He of course was immediately disqualified, but it did highlight trained responses. Our guy who knew he was not allowed to punch to the head did so anyway. All it took was a little stress and seeing an opening, he then reacted the way he was trained to.

Have you considered no-rules challenge matches as a comparison tool?

 

[Rook]

Floating Egg,

All MMA are actually TMA even if they refuse to admit it. The fact that they train in a certain way doesn't mean they are no longer TMA. The arts they train in are TMA and that will never change.

What the heck are you talking about? All four of the primary arts, wrestling, BJJ, Muay Thai and boxing are sports styles, not traditional styles.

That said, however, sports have nothing to do with the application of martial techniques, tactics, strategy, or victory. Sports may be challenging on many levels but, seriously, unless sportists go into the ring intending to either die, or to kill the other person, they're not applying, or engaging in, anything martial.

You do realize that people have gone into the ring fully intending to kill the other person, and with the intention of disregarding the rules? They don't generally do well... Heck, just watch the SAFSA guy try to eyegouge repreatedly in the UFC and then find his interviews... he's not exactly the only one.

They are playing "who has the bigger weiner" for trophies. Some people can be happy winning prizes in an arcade, others need to do it violently. In the end, though, the result is the same. To me, the one who found that they could win a prize using only a quarter is the one who would be more likely survive on a battlefield.

There's a big difference in a coach, or a fight promoter, saying "Get out there and BEAT THIS GUY!!!", and a drill seargent saying "Gentlemen, you're here to learn how to die like men and to neutralize the enemy by any means necessary.". One is martial, the other is sport. When someone undergoes true MARTIAL training for the sake of SURVIVING any conflict, it doesn't matter what you do to them, they're not going to stop trying to kill, or survive, until either they are dead, or their enemy is. Submitting or tapping out isn't an option. That's the difference between MARTIAL and SPORT. That doesn't mean someone won't get killed quickly by someone who is better trained, however.

Someone is going to have a hard time convincing me that a soldier, or even an untrained civilian for that matter, who is fighting for their life so that they can go home to their family, is inferior in mindset, pain tolerance, commitment, and survival instinct to someone who plays for trophies professionally. They're not going to care what you do to them and they're not going to stop trying to kill their attacker until they are able to get to go home to their family. Once again, big difference between real fighting and trophy playing.

And I suppose this is why the much of the world's militaries have sports-based combative systems?

Tough is "I'm going home, you're not", not "HA HA HA!!! I whoopped your *** GOOD!!!". Like I said before, MMA who could care less about trophy playing have the first mindset, not the second. The only way you're going to pressure test that is to constantly endanger people's loved ones. Fortunately, there are laws against that type of nonsense. There are plenty of TMA, not to mention untrained civilians, who have the first mindset also. So what if some diseased, animalistic sociopath can overcome someone in that mindset? At that point they have just committed pre-meditated murder, not to mention stalking, and they will spend the rest of their life in a cage, where they belong, until they are treated to the death penalty.

This is just more RBSD nonsense. If "killer mindset" solved all our problems, we wouldn't need martial arts or weapons, just screaming hysteria. It just doesn't work like that.

If what you're saying is that there is a high degree of likelihood that any criminal I might encounter is going to be a highly trained MMA ring fighter, then something needs to be done to address that situation from within the MMA community. My understanding of criminal attacks is that

1. They don't pre-arrange the attack with you at a certain place, on a certain date, and at a certain time
2. They don't attack until they know they can kill you without being harmed themselves
3. They don't show you their weapon so that it's easier to use it on you
4. They oftentimes use diversionary tactics
5. They have friends
6. If you aren't thinking about these types of things, and addressing them in your training, you might be their next victim

So if you know your opponent in advance, have time to prepare for him, and are only faced with a single opponent you will lose, yet you can face down multiple armed attackers that you aren't prepared for? If you can't even face one unarmed man that you are ready for, what in the world makes you think you think you can fight multiple armed opponents who take you by suprise?

That's where MARTIAL techniques, strategies, and concepts come into play. Bye bye sport, hello reality. The criminal utilizes battlefield strategy, information gathering, pre-attack planning, and post-attack escape. How often is this stressed in training for ring fighting? If you want to say that the MMA crowd have proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that TMA is fully combat functional, then I agree since TMA is what MMAists train in anyway.

See above.

Some of the taijutsu that I've either seen, or heard of, involves snapping the guys neck when they rush in for the tackle,

This is exactly the sort of BS that allowed MMA its swift rise. Have you every tried to actually do this on any half-way quasi-competent wrestler shooting in?

drawing your weapon, taking out their friend, then them, then any other friends that they might have nearby. Shinai drills aren't for nothing. Neither is sensitivity training. It's not a matter of getting attacked, then trying to find your weapon while you're being pounded. It's a matter of situational awareness, danger avoidance, and pre-emptive action. Just like with Dale Seago's post. He dissuaded his potential aggressor by informing the knuckle-dragger that their death may be on the horizon if they could not help but to behave as a diseased, animalistic sociopath. It worked.

Is that a "ninja trick"? No, but it is martial. The sportist wanted to engage in their masturbatory fantasies with him and, when given the choice to engage in real MARTIAL arts outside of the ring, the sportist quickly made excuses as to why they didn't want to engage in real martial arts. Upping the training intensity of TMA, making it into a sport, and calling it "martial", while discarding everything martial for the sake of the sport, doesn't make it martial. It just makes it a very demanding TMA-based sport which plays for trophies.

I have no problems respecting MMAists who are actually warriors, who protect life, instead of attacking it, and who have chosen the MMA approach because it suits them best. I just wish that they would be the ones making the biggest impressions on internet forums and in showing the public that their art isn't made up of a bunch of trophy playing, antagonistic, fight seeking brawlers, but instead, of people who train it as a MARTIAL art instead of a self-gratifying sport. Threatening other styles' students doesn't suddenly transform a sport into a martial art, it just shows the sociopathic nature of those who have to prove something through violently forcing their will upon another human being. To me, that just makes them criminals in training.

SPORT is :

"Let's find out who has the biggest weiner afterall!!!"

MARTIAL is:

"That's fine. I'll do the comparison once * BAM * BAM * BAM * BAM * BAM * I've killed you...... Wow. I guess you really DID have a big weiner. Too bad you won't be using it anymore."

Uh huh...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Absolutely. Fu Bag tries to make it sound as though the only people who carry weapons and are skilled in there use are traditional martial artists. In point of fact, I doubt very much there is any association between the carrying or use of weapons and any martial style.

And I think what Fu Bag is referring to is the fact that many TMA train for weapons defense and some even train the use of weapons. Although I do not believe the training for weapons in most TMA today is much more than form (most NOT all) where the majority of those that train the sports version do not train for weapons defense such as Sanhou which is actually a very good example of the difference between sport MA and non-sport MA, see below post.

A modern sports style.

Well not exactly, the military version, or the first version of sanda/sanshou aka Qinna Gedou (whihc is still taught) is not a modern sports style. It is for hand-to-hand combat style and it is very much involved with weapons defense and killing to be honest. The modern sports style you are referring to is not the same and came later.

I have done a brief explanation of the differences here
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38089

 

[Cryozombie]

Take scenario based adrenal stress training for example: most of us aren't used to having someone in our face yelling at us about how much they want to kill us. We can simulate these kinds of behaviours in the dojo because of the way our brains work. It's very easy to piss someone off or scare them in a controlled environment even if they know what you're doing.

Hmm, I guess I take that for granted because its how we train... it seems the "norm" for me, but thinking back to other schools I attended, it wasnt, so yeah...

 

[Rook]

And I think what Fu Bag is referring to is the fact that many TMA train for weapons defense and some even train the use of weapons. Although I do not believe the training for weapons in most TMA today is much more than form (most NOT all) where the majority of those that train the sports version do not train for weapons defense such as Sanhou which is actually a very good example of the difference between sport MA and non-sport MA, see below post.

I think we've touched on this before, but many sports martial arts DO have extensive weapons defense training. It is a huge part of the SAMBO curriculum, and not exactly a small part of BJJ either. I would say the majority of MMA gyms that I am aware of train weapons defense in some form, whether based on BJJ, Bas Rutten's rather popular system, or other weapons defenses available through law enforcement or the like. The equation of TMA= has weapons defenses and MMA/sport = no weapons defense is just plain wrong. I am aware of TMA schools that do not run weapons defenses, and most MMA schools DO have weapons defenses.

 

[Colin_Linz]

Can you give a ruleset that doesn't?

Basically we base what we do around fighting one on one with no rules, or as few rules as possible. In a sense, allowing everything from all rulesets. Which was the initial idea, let everyone in, let them all do everything there rules normally allow and see who comes out on top.

I really don't see what else could be included and still have a fair and safe sporting event...?

No I can’t, that was my point. You can’t judge effectiveness in an uncontrolled situation by measuring it against a controlled situation. All you can say is that in a particular environment one system may work better than another.

As for the necessity of rules I agree. We used to practice randori with no protective gear at full contact and no banned targets. We did this until around the early eighties, as it was a good alternative to practicing with protection as people behave differently when fighting if they know they are protected. Unfortunately it also proved too dangerous, we suffered a number of deaths at some of the more enthusiastic University shibu’s. This caused WSKO (World Shorinji Kempo Organisation) to bring in randori guidelines and produce a policy of using protective gear. These days we have a number of different forms of randori designed to concentrate on the different skills needed when fighting.

The best way I know of training is to break down skill sets, find ways to tie them together and simulate a range of scenarios that address realistic concerns. If breaking down training into specific skill sets works for elite athletes and simulated scenarios work for the military I think that they can work for martial artists.

I think that any measure of superiority of one martial art over another is more related to training methodology and commitment to training by the individual not style as such.

It is a bit ironic that people practice a martial art for self-defence, then allow the very act of training to injure or incapacitate them.

 

[Colin_Linz]

Have you considered no-rules challenge matches as a comparison tool?

I have done so in the past. These days I am more considerate of risks as I have had too many injuries and I’m getting too old and decrepit. The number of injuries I have received, how they affected my life and the work I needed to do to get back to training have forced me to look for other effective training methods. After all what is the benefit of studying self-defence if the very act causes injury or death.

 

[zDom]

It is a bit ironic that people practice a martial art for self-defence, then allow the very act of training to injure or incapacitate them.

Exactly. There comes a point when training becomes more likely to cause you injury than a self-defense situation.

 

[MJS]

What makes you think that martial sportists follow the rules when they're in a self-defense situation?



How many traditional martial artists do you think are training appropriately for the kind threat that would benefit from their art's military lineage? How often will a modern soldier engage in unarmed combat?



I think it's a mistake to conclude that traditional martial artists are better prepared for the the realities of combat than mixed martial artists.



Yes, and they confront that reality with modern weapons and technology.

Looking at these replies, I think you missed my post a few pages back, talking about some of these very issues.

Mike