What Is A TMA?

[Chris Parker]

(I'm going to come back to this thread properly later, hopefully tomorrow, to give it the attention some of these answers deserve, but for now…)

I'm not sure that many Americans learn British history. But then I can't talk ... I barrack for Collingwood. irate4:

Uh… no… I'm not referencing British history… think literature instead…

 

[Tony Dismukes]

(I'm going to come back to this thread properly later, hopefully tomorrow, to give it the attention some of these answers deserve, but for now&#8230



Uh… no… I'm not referencing British history… think literature instead…

"There are more things in heaven and earth ..."

 

[Cirdan]

Somebody here is a fellow of infinite jest....

 

[K-man]

Uh… no… I'm not referencing British history… think literature instead…

Goodness, I'm flummoxed. I would have sworn it would have been a one eyed character. However, thinking back to the original avatar of the little prince I suppose it could link to Hamlet. :hmm: Then again from all the noise it certainly could be Horatio Hornblower.
OK! OK! I'll settle for Hamlet.

 

[Hanzou]

I have said time after time that I have a sufficient level of ground fighting skill, most of which is designed to get back off the ground.

Your particular skill in ground fighting wasn't what I was talking about in that quote.

So what has that to do with me, my training or what I teach? Where is the obvious hole? I have undertaken what I believe is sufficient training for my needs. If I was wanting to climb into an MMA ring tomorrow I admit, there is a hole in my training. Seeing I am never going to be in an MMA ring, why is there an obvious hole? How do you know what I can do on the ground? Your impressions come from your original fallacious proposition that if a style was not represented in the MMA ring it is ineffective.

As has been addressed before, being able to fight on the ground is a skill that goes far beyond just fighting in the cage or competition. There's numerous examples of altercations ending up on the ground, and often times ending there in a decisive manner.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

With regards to the tangent about "holes" in training.

Every single one of us who trains for real-world violence has holes in our training. The world of violence is too big and varied for any person to be fully prepared for every contingency even if we trained full time every day of our entire lives.

On the other hand, even trying to be prepared for every contingency is overkill and probably not the best investment for the limited number of hours we have in our lives. Unless your profession requires that you regularly deal with violence (soldier, LEO, bouncer, prison guard, etc) or you live in an exceptionally dangerous area or you are making consistently bad decisions in life, you should not be having violent encounters on any sort of regular basis.

If you do live in that exceptionally dangerous area, instead of devoting thousands of hours training for every sort of possible violence, you'll get more bang for your buck using that time and effort figuring out how to move some place safer.

If you are making bad decisions leading to violence, you'll get more bang for your buck learning how to make better decisions.

If you are a professional dealing with violence, your job only requires you to become proficient in handling certain types of violent encounters, which leaves great unexplored areas which could be regarded as "holes" in your knowledge.

As martial artists, we have to decide how much knowledge and skill in a given area is "enough" for our likely needs while accepting that there will always be potential circumstances that we have not trained sufficiently for.

 

[Steve]

As I was the one that brought up holes in training, I want to point out that it really wasn't a tangent, although that's what it became. It was an example. I'd like to take one more stab at explaining what I meant, because the very true observation that everyone has a hole in their training wasn't the point.

Rather, it's about one's priorities in training. We all have holes. Some martial artists and some styles encourage experimentation in a desire to fill these holes. You could argue that they all do, but I'm not sure whether that's true or not. But, we know that at least some do. Right? If push comes to shove, a choice must be made. Is it more important to you or your style that you adapt, or is it more important to preserve the integrity of the style?

If you're training in Kyudo, you wouldn't modernize your bow. A compound bow propels the arrow faster and with more power per pound of draw weight than a traditional Yumi bow. But that's not the point. Is it? Can you make the bow more efficient by modernizing it? Sure, but efficacy isn't the primary goal. And really, you could say, "I don't ever expect to need my bow in self defense." And you may be right. But that in no way makes the fact that you are choosing tradition over an acknowledged deficit. You're saying, this is more important to me than that... "I could make the bow more efficient, but by doing so, I would no longer be doing 'kyudo.'"

This isn't just "holes." It's about any other potential factors of training. Tradition is the act of transmitting a system from generation to generation. It's the function of passing things as unchanged as possible from one person to another to another. If other factors, whether it's evolution or modernization, rule sets within competition, filling holes, or anything else, is more important than the passing of the system in its entirety, you are likely not in a "traditional" martial art.

Bottom line, the word "tradition" already has a meaning. I'm simply suggesting that if we want to know what a "traditional" martial art style is, we look at what "tradition" actually means.