MMA and the weakness of competition

MMA has become very popular over the last few years and has definitely blown up in the media. I have myself done minimal training in MMA so by no means regard myself an expert or experienced practitioner, but I find myself wondering how it would work in a real situation with someone who does not care whether you live or die.

When training for competition, MMA fighters are confined to a set of rules (no eye gauging, not elbowing the back of the head or spine etc.) But what happens when you are in a situation that doesn't conform to the rules? I doubt your average mugger would have any second thoughts about going for your eyes in a scrap or kicking you in the balls!

So my question is this: as MMA practitioners, do you feel the rules of the sport leave gaps and weaknesses in your style?

First off the 90s is calling and wants its thread back :)
secondly how often do you train with someone trying to blind you or kick you in the balls? I don’t mean drill so you know what your opponent is going to do and they don’t make real contact but I mean actually spar with contact where they are allowed to hit your groin, throat strike with power or strike your eyes with actual contact? If the answer is not very often or never than you too are training to an agreed set of rules just like the MMA fighter
All training is a trade-off between rules and reality, the question is what best prepares you for a street confrontation training within an agreed set of rules which limits what you can do but allows you to train with contact and unpredictability, or train deadly stuff in a cooperative environment?
Now personally having done both sorts of training for a number of years I believe the MMA way better prepares you, and I would rather have your average MMA trained fighter backing me up because I know they are used to making what they know work under real pressure and in situations where they can really get hurt, im not so sure about your average TCMA guy to be honest
having said all that most MMA guys I know probably wouldn’t even think about how they train and if it leaves holes for the streets, most people see it as a sport first and foremost, and I can count the number of MMA guys I know who worry about the street on one hand, it just seems a more heathly enviroment to me, but those that do think about it would probably say yes it leaves some gaps, but if you have the ability to punch the jaw or eye on a moving target that is trying to take your head off with 4 oz gloves, if you have the ability to kick the inside knee of an opponent trying to beat the cr*p out of you then hitting them in the nuts isn’t that hard, if you are not used to hitting an opponent under real pressure then good luck trying to blind them in a street fight where the adreline is up, your fine motor control is out the window and you are busy trying to deal with someone trying to really hit you hard for the first time
I also think MMA way of training (which is really how TCMAs used to be trained minus the weapons stuff) id also way more healthy for you because lets be honest when was the last time any of us was attacked by someone willing to kill us??
And as an aside I trained tcma exclusively for 10 years under a very well known master here in the UK, I became a senior student and instructor under him, did all the deadly training, but it was in MMA training and wrestling I learned what it actually felt like to have an opponent’s finger deep in my eye, to be hit hard in the neck, and to be hit really hard in the groin (in my tcma days id only experienced the groin hit and that was a slapping kick, much different from a 15 stone man throwing you on the floor and landing full weight on your meat and too veg lol)

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Originally Posted by Benjy

MMA has become very popular over the last few years and has definitely blown up in the media. I have myself done minimal training in MMA so by no means regard myself an expert or experienced practitioner, but I find myself wondering how it would work in a real situation with someone who does not care whether you live or die.

When training for competition, MMA fighters are confined to a set of rules (no eye gauging, not elbowing the back of the head or spine etc.) But what happens when you are in a situation that doesn't conform to the rules? I doubt your average mugger would have any second thoughts about going for your eyes in a scrap or kicking you in the balls!

So my question is this: as MMA practitioners, do you feel the rules of the sport leave gaps and weaknesses in your style?

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The problem with the old martial arts is that you are not able to practice them in real situations. So you will be limited to training the techniques with a cooperating partner. This way you might not develop many "bad sport habits" but you won't be able to develop much realistic habits either. On the other hand in MMA you will develop a lot of realistic habits and some bad habits. For example at least 60% good and 40% bad. I believe 60% good habits is still much better than nothing. My own solution is to train both kungfu and MMA and in them I see many parallels.

Frost - Firstly, I agree with your point about other arts not training with dirty fighting, however (in my school at least) it is covered. Whenever we train grappling and ground work, most of us try not to wear box, so that we learn to avoid crotch shots. Eye gauges are the same, my master has a friend who has no martial arts experience but has been in a lot of scraps. He told this us guys only objective is to thumb his opponent in the eye! And so we learn to avoid it, or do it back.
Secondly, I would also agree that an MMA fighter probably handles pressure a lot better, due to their normal environment. Having never been in a confrontational situation since starting my training, I can't really comment on this further.

Xinyidizi - I partly agree and disagree with your point about cooperating with a training partner. I agree that the usual people you train with will be trying to help you, however, in my own experience, when I go to another styles school, they seem to want to show off and try to beat me down. When this happens, it usually gets to the point where I need to start using finger locks, or threatening the eye jabs to get strikes in.
Like you, I primarily train kungfu, but with influences from tai chi, MMA, BJJ and other arts like judo and aikido.

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Originally Posted by Benjy

I have myself done minimal training in MMA so by no means regard myself an expert or experienced practitioner, but ......

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meet the new troll, same as the old troll..... but we won't get fooled again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just for fun

read this http://nysanda.wordpress.com/2014/04...l-arts-part-3/

I believe it is vital to have some type of contact in your training. MMA and BJJ gave me this. From the rough and tumble, the chaos and proximity of free form sparring you learn a lot about yourself, what you would use in said street situation and what you would not. The theory behind many traditional techniques in an application sense do make sense, however throw in the unpredictability of fighting and most do not work.

Another gem from MMA is fighting with a much bigger and skilled person whilst being very tired. You should know what this feels like and how you would react All martial arts should have some type of developmental and incremental sparring, put the theory into practise with your training partners. Humans learn from experiences so go and have some!!!