Is anyone else tired of the MMA

Question

I myself am an assistant instructor at a small school where My best friend and I teach Tae Kwon Do / Hapkido / and Kempo Karate for the Little dragons club. And I tell you its like all we here now is " I want to learn MMA fighting" but no one wants to join a real class and learn the basics and forms. Do you people not understand that its MIXED martial arts that means that its a MIXTURE of SEVERAL martial art forms and techniques that you need to know before you can put them all together. It seem that all the MMA is now is alot of Ground and Pound and there is no backbone or technique it has no style anymore. When Hoyce Gracie was in it he put his style of ground grappling into it and you could see the jujitsu and there was also more stand up teechnique back then with a combinaation of kicks and punches that looked more like martial arts than just this bear knuckle brawls of today. All Im asking is to any other qualified instructors are you as tired of hearing MMA as I am

Answer 1

No, I am not tired of it.  In fact, I love it.  Like you, I am also an assistant instructor at a TKD/Hapkido school.  In my past, I've taken Kenpo karate and Goju-Ryu karate.  I did stand up martial arts for 22 years, and even in the early UFC days, I really didnt like groundfighting and the stuff Royce was doing, I thought it was boring.  In fact, alot of BJJ guys are very tough, and they take a beating for 3 rounds and then stick a submission in the end an win.  But hey, it's really all about winning.

I'm 36 yrs old now, and over the winter I had to find out if it was true that BJJ guys that had been training for 1 or 2 years would be able to submit me.  It turns out that they couldnt, none of them could really even take me down.  But they were young kids and I had a big weight advantage over most of them.  But I started learning BJJ and Pancrase groundfighting, and although I still prefer stand up, it was eye opening.

This summer I've been training (without my master's knowledge) at an MMA school in addition to my regular TKD training.  It's been great.  You have no idea how good it is to punch to the face, and have to worry about guarding your face, as well as worrying about throwing a high kick and getting taken down.  For the most part, I've been really dominant on the "standup" days, and mediocre on the "ground days".  The stamina for grappling is much greater than the stamina required for stand up.  I've learned alot of submission, and "sport level" escapes.  The workout itself is also much tougher, but I needed it. MMA is now being taught as a separate style.  There is a class called "No Gi" Jiu-jitsu, but that is different than "MMA Jiu-Jitsu", because of the ability to strike.  MMA is not really mastering one thing, and then moving on to another, it's being taught as "this is effective in most situations, this is not effective".  I do agree somewhat that there is not that much technique to ground and pound.  I also think the striking ability of some mid-tier pro's is a really low level.  I also enjoy doing forms and learning traditional ways, and the MMA school I train at is a little too informal and unstructured, lacking some discipline, which is a concern for me with all the young minds in their.  But overall, I think getting out some aggression in a controlled environment is a good thing.  

We have students in our TKD school that joined because of the MMA craze.  I also host a "watch party" monthly with some buddies for the UFC PPV events.

I think Bruce Lee's vision was that martial arts are always evolving.  Don't get stuck in the past, and don't stay stagnant.  Embrace the change and benefit from the popularity of MMA.  Watch a few PPV's or event the free repeats on Spike TV.  

That's my 2 cents worth.

James

Answer 2

i am very tired of the hype associated with M.M.A. in its own right the fighters deserve respect,there training regime,there guts and skill but i am of the old school ,real martial artists,cross training since the early1970,s.it was very hard to make an impression in those days and difficult to break down barriers,political and ethical. i was speaking to a friend of mine, started in ju-jitsu loved it ,saw some systema and liked it but his Sensei disagreed with his training regime and said choose,me or systema,big shock he chose systems and is now the head of the org in the U.K

Answer 3

h**l the fu*k NO. MMA as it were is probably older than most "traditional" styles as it were an event in the 3rd ever Olympics. Maybe you don't like the term and some idiots that have been mades stars thus far. What I don't like is the random sh*t-for-brains that just has a bloodlust due to the fact they have never been in a fight.

Answer 4

Yes I'm fed up and tired also of continuity reading ,mma,Bjj,various ufc and also about Krav maga the current in vogue style which suddenly is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I agree every martial art and mma started somewhere,Yahoo please give ufc,mma,Bjj, Krav maga their own category and they can rant on all they want because sadly its always the same old questions posted even though they are worded slightly different.

Good question and best wishes :)***

Answer 5

I'm Tired of it. I was tired of it after I watched the first televised ground and pound. It is not even like the old international open martial arts tournament where the only rules were to stay on the platform and not get disabled or KO ed

The way the rules are designed in MMA fights they almost always end up as a bloody ground and pound.  

Answer 6

lol yeah i know tkd, hapkido, and kempo karate is good i mean i really have a ton of respect for those styles, but mostly people today are obsessed about MMA. i mean like mma is also good but some people have their likes and dislikes and u cant really change anything about it

Answer 7

i agree with leons, and like him, forgive me, im not a qualified instructor either, but i train a very good amount (though i have no interest in fighting or competing)...to tell you a funny story, some random kid came into our class for a trial and kind of stated he wanted to do MMA, right there he was taken less seriously, even though our gym does offer a limited amount of what would be called MMA training, we offer BJJ and boxing primarily, so to just say he was trying BJJ classes so he can do MMA right there makes it less credible...so in a sense i agree with you...because the best fighters in MMA more than likely learned and became proficient in a martial art before jumping into different styles...

its a sport though, and it is progressing i believe...in actuality, it was much more brutal in Royce's day...

All in all, i agree with you that it has brainwashed some in the never back down kind of way, but i dont think we can frown upon the sport for getting big, and certainly not the fighters today either(with how much they train and how they get paid)

also, it was hiromitsu muira, fighting carlos condit, he was winning the fight before getting tko'd, and his judo throws throughout the fight were freaking devastating...he had great patience and showed some real heart...

Answer 8

mma is alot more than just mixing arts together these days. even kempo, hapkido and karate are "mixed" there are no pure styles.

gone are the days of striker vs grappler.

todays mma fighter is more well rounded. mma from day one. not bjj with a bit of boxing...or kickboxing with a bit of jujutsu for good measure.

mma is being a competent fighter in 3 ranges of combat. standup, clinch, and ground.

it is using a common "delivery system" to deliver the many arts one studies. (you dont need a different fighting stance for karate...and another for kempo ..then another for hapkido..they can all be delivered from the same stance)

it is learning by taking short cuts...forms are great, useful and all that...but unnecessary. most people today dont have the desire or time to study a traditional style to the point of effectiveness...which most of the time takes a long time.

but the training is much harder! (try it sometime, traditional training is nothing most of the time) ....the fighting is real.

there are no girls who are afraid to get hit. no instructors who tell them its' ok. because it isn't ok. there are no friends who insult you by not throwing the punch AT you. if you dont move or block...you get hit!

if you want to learn how to fight in the shortest possible time....mma is hard to beat... and thats a fact.

i agree it is a far cry from a street fight...but its more realistic (training wise) than most traditional arts are. so mma is more than the sport you see on tv. it is an idea. an idea that can be applied to any "art" or any "system" or combination thereof

there are no cooperative uke's who will just stand there and let you throw them. no...you learn how to throw someone who is fighting back, who is resisting you...who is punching and kicking at you.

mma is training "alive"

and we'd do well to learn from their example because to tell you the truth...none of us would stand a snowballs chance in H8LL if we got in the ring with a mma fighter.

sure there are alot of things mma won't teach you. standing joint locks, small joint locks (fingers for example)..and rules for safety. but it's still better than the tip tap point sparring most taekwondo/karate schools employ.

you need to know what it's like to have fists and feet flying at you HARD. you need to know what its like to really get hit. and what its really like to hit someone else (it hurts!)

the sheer intensity of a real head on full contact fight would be a shocking discovery to most martial arts practitioners.

mma is about going beyong the realm of theory (which is what tma's do most of the time)...and into the realm of application and pressure testing.

so you could use a mma approach to your kempo, and hapkido.

im not saying one is inherantly better than the other (mma vs tma)...but the training method and pressure testing is.

people seem to think they can go to class for 1 hour twice a week and do their kata and will be able to fight...then wonder why they get beat up.

do you even know what your taekwondo forms were designed for? do you know the applications of the movements? most tkd people i've seen have no idea. but it isnt just testing material for your next belt.

it's like swimming. to learn to swim you have to get in the water and do it. until you do...it's all theory and guesswork. mma is about moving beyond that.

Answer 9

well mma is the future of martial arts. look at bruce lee, even he said that alot of the traditional arts put you through useless training. he cut out all that c**p and just stuck with the fundamental basics and created the first form of mma, jkd.

and its not all ground n pound, there are lot of fighters who use excellent technique such as gsp, anderson, machida. and so on.

so it's not all about some dude pounding the **** of some other dudes' face.

Answer 10

Actually, what I'm REALLY tired of is idiots. "lololol ground n pound = no technique hurr hurr hurr."

Oh god, and you said that there was better standup technique back in the days of Royce Gracie. That was bare knuckle and the level of technique displayed was practically brawling.

I don't know what you're "qualified" to instruct, but if I were school hunting, I'm sure I wouldn't end up at yours.

Not everyone will like MMA; I can respect that. To each their own. But when somebody disparages the sport with such unintelligent claims, it's hard not to call them on it. Case and point.  

Answer 11

I'm not a qualified instructor so please forgive me for answering. I used to take Taekwondo many years ago and I've began taking Brazilian Jujitsu. I love the idea of MMA in a setting other than the ring also. I also think you are correct that people should learn a base art. When things fall out of favor it is easy for them to die out. Japanese jujitsu was in danger of dying late in the last century because with no samurai no one thought they had a need for it.

As it relates to MMA though now I'm starting to see a couple of fighters that use martial styles. Like Lyoto Machida, I saw a fight yesterday on WEC that had a Japanese fighter that was well versed in Judo. He used his throws to great effect (although he ended up losing) in the fight. These fighters tend to "throw off" the other fighters as they aren't used to fighting someone in other martial arts stances or don't really expect all those throws in a fight. MMA is still evolving so keep your eyes open and keep doing what you are doing in your teaching. When those kids grow a little older they will understand better about mma and base arts. Again, sorry to fall outside of the criteria of the question.