Thoughts on TCMA in MMA

[sanjuro_ronin]

we've stepped in a time machine and gone back to 1993

please go to a BJJ school, challenge them, tell them you want to be able to bite and eye gouge, they will agree (I assure you), then report back the results....

Anyone that has the belief that certain moves will work VS a BJJ player can indeed do this, almost every school is open to it.
Heck, go to a boxing gym and they will oblige you too, same thing for MT.
Even in kyokushin we had a few walk ins in my time

[Rojcewicz]

Anyone that has the belief that certain moves will work VS a BJJ player can indeed do this, almost every school is open to it.
Heck, go to a boxing gym and they will oblige you too, same thing for MT.
Even in kyokushin we had a few walk ins in my time

Yes, everyone understands that both people can do it, the point is that when such moves are allowed, even the BJJ player will stop trying to put you in an arm bar in exchange for groin smashing.

which is to say that anyone can streetfight, you dont need to learn a martial art for it. The question is does your martial training take you above chaotic brawling, does it give you control?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Yes, everyone understands that both people can do it, the point is that when such moves are allowed, even the BJJ player will stop trying to put you in an arm bar in exchange for groin smashing.

which is to say that anyone can streetfight, you dont need to learn a martial art for it. The question is does your martial training take you above chaotic brawling, does it give you control?

I don't hold much stock in any system that advocates "the deadly" as the answer to all of lifes mysteries, I find them to be impractical and more often than not, low caliber.
Eye gouges, groin strikes, fish hooking and things of that ilk I knew before I even dedicated my self to MA, so what is the big deal?
Do they work?
Heck spitting chewing tabaco in the eyes works, chair across the face works very well, your point?

The control issue is a good one, but at the same time we have to realize that control is fluid and not static, which is where I think many "ant-grapplers" get confused, they see the fact that a grappler is close enough that they can do dirty move A, B or C, and forget that, not only can the grappler do those, but they he is never just "there" for you to do them on him.

[monji112000]

The question is does your martial training take you above chaotic brawling, does it give you control?

Most often no. That goes for allot of Martial Arts training. We as a culture don't really have what it takes to engulf ourselves in the level of training each art requires. Often time health, school, work ect.. gets in the way.

How does that have to do with the sport of BJJ or fighting a grappler (who may be wearing a cup so groin shots are out.)

If we are talking anything goes just shoot the guy. Or carry a knife. Pepper spray ect..

[SoCo KungFu]

.)If we are talking anything goes just shoot the guy. Or carry a knife. Pepper spray ect..

And in this one sentence you can summarize the fall of martial arts. Ever since the invention of impact weaponry, martial arts (as a hand to hand method) declined into becoming obsolete. Its no coincedence that the samurai fell in Japan, likelise the kung fu masters of China, the Native Americans, the European Knight... And in one or two generations after a culture encountered guns, and had means to procure them themselves, their previous means of fighting are thrown out. Yeah the traditions of Karate, Kung Fu, Native American MA, etc. are carried on....but the martial aspect is no longer necessary to human existance....so the methods which made them into viable methods are no longer continued by the everyday citizen. After all, its just easier to get a tazer gun...and they come in those nice cute colors now that can match a purse or a "man-bag" or whatever...

(Of course I'm speaking in generalizations...everyone knows that one guy, that whatever MA he did, you would rather have your nuts straped to a car battery than to end up on the wrong side in a bar fight)

On the contrary, the so called "sport" MA (ie. MT, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, BJJ) still maintain the concept of "training to fight." And not only maintained, but improved upon through various means to their specific venue...thus improving the development of their skillset. Why, because they are there to do just that. That is why those systems achieve greater results.

The problem is that we have things like law, civility and ethics...and we as decent human beings just can't go around shanking every douche bag thats gives us the finger. So now all these MA are struggling to get back what they gave up. The problem is that the majority don't want to change.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Well said.

[1bad65]

I didn't say anything about dirty techniques, although nearly all of Brazilian jujitsu is useless if someone is targeting your eyes and balls and his buddies mite stomp your head, its true that anyone can do that.

You seem to have forgotten the JFS/Osiris fight. Osiris' BJJ sure didn't look useless!

JFS went for an eye gouge, and got bitten by the BJJ player for his efforts. JFS also had Omar there, yet Omar did not stomp Osiris.

That fight looked EXACTLY like the challenge matches in the Gracie tapes, and that fight really was in the street and not in a gym on a mat.

[DragonzRage]

"On the contrary, the so called "sport" MA (ie. MT, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, BJJ) still maintain the concept of "training to fight." And not only maintained, but improved upon through various means to their specific venue...thus improving the development of their skillset. Why, because they are there to do just that. That is why those systems achieve greater results. "

-Exactly right.

I think that the idea that ancient kung fu masters were such deadlier and sophisticated fist fighters than their counterparts today is one of the biggest fallacies of martial arts culture. The truth of the matter is that people in Ming dynasty China or feudal Japan didn't depend on hand to hand combat for survival anymore than people do today. Even if guns weren't invented yet, villains and criminals still had blades, bows, clubs, horses, etc. The poor Chinese village peasant wasn't oppressed by white-eyebrowed kung fu villains who strolled into town killing all the local kung fu masters with shadowless sidekicks and dim mak punches. The poor peasant was oppressed by large gangs of marauders who rode lightning fast into the village on horseback, hacking, slashing, bashing, and shooting arrows. Now if you think any form of h2h skill in and of itself, (whether it be wing chun, muay thai or anything else) would've been much use in situations like that... then you really need more common sense.

So I seriously doubt that the baddest mofos around back then were sifus teaching animal forms to local tea merchants and noodle makers behind closed doors in town training halls. Nope, the baddest mofos were probably Royal bodyguards, elite shock troop units, high end private security groups, etc. While people like them definitely had some degree of training in unarmed combat, do you really think they would've spent a great amount of time perfecting h2h as opposed to various weapons skills, small unit military tactics, etc?

I really don't think the science of unarmed fighting became truly refined UNTIL it became a sport. Because sport has and always will be the only arena where its practical to spend a lot of effort training and perfecting those kinds of skills. For example, Muay Thai was developed into a streamlined and functional brawling style by generations of Thai fighters competing in the ring, not by Thai soldiers kicking people in the battlefield.

For this reason, I think martial arts such as Muay Thai, submission wrestling, etc that were refined through generations of competition between practitioners will always be much more functional than styles such as kung fu, which are supposedly meant for no-rules combat rather than sport, but nevertheless stem mostly from a tradition of practicing secretly behind closed doors and theorizing in a static environment without enough actual testing. Thats not to say that training in sport arts in and of itself is the end all be all. Obviously there are real world circumstances that sport training do not address. If you want your skills to translate well to real world scenarios, you should still do some degree of street oriented training (such as you might find in methods like JKD and Krav Maga). But still, you need to develop the basic skills and physical attributes essential to a functional foundation through the so-called 'sport' styles before you depend solely on 'dirty fighting' and theoretical street self defense.

[Lucas]

That fight looked EXACTLY like the challenge matches in the Gracie tapes

not even close

[Rojcewicz]

"On the contrary, the so called "sport" MA (ie. MT, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, BJJ) still maintain the concept of "training to fight." And not only maintained, but improved upon through various means to their specific venue...thus improving the development of their skillset. Why, because they are there to do just that. That is why those systems achieve greater results. "

-Exactly right.

I think that the idea that ancient kung fu masters were such deadlier and sophisticated fist fighters than their counterparts today is one of the biggest fallacies of martial arts culture. The truth of the matter is that people in Ming dynasty China or feudal Japan didn't depend on hand to hand combat for survival anymore than people do today. Even if guns weren't invented yet, villains and criminals still had blades, bows, clubs, horses, etc. The poor Chinese village peasant wasn't oppressed by white-eyebrowed kung fu villains who strolled into town killing all the local kung fu masters with shadowless sidekicks and dim mak punches. The poor peasant was oppressed by large gangs of marauders who rode lightning fast into the village on horseback, hacking, slashing, bashing, and shooting arrows. Now if you think any form of h2h skill in and of itself, (whether it be wing chun, muay thai or anything else) would've been much use in situations like that... then you really need more common sense.

So I seriously doubt that the baddest mofos around back then were sifus teaching animal forms to local tea merchants and noodle makers behind closed doors in town training halls. Nope, the baddest mofos were probably Royal bodyguards, elite shock troop units, high end private security groups, etc. While people like them definitely had some degree of training in unarmed combat, do you really think they would've spent a great amount of time perfecting h2h as opposed to various weapons skills, small unit military tactics, etc?

I really don't think the science of unarmed fighting became truly refined UNTIL it became a sport. Because sport has and always will be the only arena where its practical to spend a lot of effort training and perfecting those kinds of skills. For example, Muay Thai was developed into a streamlined and functional brawling style by generations of Thai fighters competing in the ring, not by Thai soldiers kicking people in the battlefield.

For this reason, I think martial arts such as Muay Thai, submission wrestling, etc that were refined through generations of competition between practitioners will always be much more functional than styles such as kung fu, which are supposedly meant for no-rules combat rather than sport, but nevertheless stem mostly from a tradition of practicing secretly behind closed doors and theorizing in a static environment without enough actual testing. Thats not to say that training in sport arts in and of itself is the end all be all. Obviously there are real world circumstances that sport training do not address. If you want your skills to translate well to real world scenarios, you should still do some degree of street oriented training (such as you might find in methods like JKD and Krav Maga). But still, you need to develop the basic skills and physical attributes essential to a functional foundation through the so-called 'sport' styles before you depend solely on 'dirty fighting' and theoretical street self defense.

I agree, but their is nothing inherit in kung fu which tells one not to do practical combat training, all that is inherit is the use of drills, stances, and forms to construct a solid foundation from which all other skills will be born from.
Its my personal experience that many sport arts do not offer such a focus on foundation and focus to much on a single arena, thus creating an effective but ultimately limited fighter as age or injury strip him of his capacity to fight in the ring and your left with little besides memories.

[1bad65]

not even close

It followed the same 'takedown, mount, punch, fight over' recipe those fights did.

Had JFS rolled over instead of verbally quitting, he would have been choked out.

[1bad65]

The bottom line is that Osiris was a relative beginner (Blue Belt) in a 'sport' Martial Art. He got into a no rules streetfight with an opponent around 80 punds bigger and he forced the other guy to quit with no injury to himself.

Isn't that how a Martial Art is supposed to work in a self-defense situation?

[Lucas]

It followed the same 'takedown, mount, punch, fight over' recipe those fights did.

Had JFS rolled over instead of verbally quitting, he would have been choked out.

That I can agree to

[Lucas]

"On the contrary, the so called "sport" MA (ie. MT, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, BJJ) still maintain the concept of "training to fight." And not only maintained, but improved upon through various means to their specific venue...thus improving the development of their skillset. Why, because they are there to do just that. That is why those systems achieve greater results. "

-Exactly right.

I think that the idea that ancient kung fu masters were such deadlier and sophisticated fist fighters than their counterparts today is one of the biggest fallacies of martial arts culture. The truth of the matter is that people in Ming dynasty China or feudal Japan didn't depend on hand to hand combat for survival anymore than people do today. Even if guns weren't invented yet, villains and criminals still had blades, bows, clubs, horses, etc. The poor Chinese village peasant wasn't oppressed by white-eyebrowed kung fu villains who strolled into town killing all the local kung fu masters with shadowless sidekicks and dim mak punches. The poor peasant was oppressed by large gangs of marauders who rode lightning fast into the village on horseback, hacking, slashing, bashing, and shooting arrows. Now if you think any form of h2h skill in and of itself, (whether it be wing chun, muay thai or anything else) would've been much use in situations like that... then you really need more common sense.

So I seriously doubt that the baddest mofos around back then were sifus teaching animal forms to local tea merchants and noodle makers behind closed doors in town training halls. Nope, the baddest mofos were probably Royal bodyguards, elite shock troop units, high end private security groups, etc. While people like them definitely had some degree of training in unarmed combat, do you really think they would've spent a great amount of time perfecting h2h as opposed to various weapons skills, small unit military tactics, etc?

I really don't think the science of unarmed fighting became truly refined UNTIL it became a sport. Because sport has and always will be the only arena where its practical to spend a lot of effort training and perfecting those kinds of skills. For example, Muay Thai was developed into a streamlined and functional brawling style by generations of Thai fighters competing in the ring, not by Thai soldiers kicking people in the battlefield.

For this reason, I think martial arts such as Muay Thai, submission wrestling, etc that were refined through generations of competition between practitioners will always be much more functional than styles such as kung fu, which are supposedly meant for no-rules combat rather than sport, but nevertheless stem mostly from a tradition of practicing secretly behind closed doors and theorizing in a static environment without enough actual testing. Thats not to say that training in sport arts in and of itself is the end all be all. Obviously there are real world circumstances that sport training do not address. If you want your skills to translate well to real world scenarios, you should still do some degree of street oriented training (such as you might find in methods like JKD and Krav Maga). But still, you need to develop the basic skills and physical attributes essential to a functional foundation through the so-called 'sport' styles before you depend solely on 'dirty fighting' and theoretical street self defense.

This post has some good points to it.

The only aspect that seems forgotten however is the fact that many styles of chinese martial arts went through many, many years of competative training. As well as actual fighting. This is actually pretty well documented. This ranges from actual battle field combat with weapons, to lei tai style matches.

In regards to Chinese historical relevance to the martial arts themselves, there have been numerous contributing factors to the non implimentation of competative fighting. However even today, sanshou/sanda has a strong tradition that produces excellent fighters, arguably on par with muay thai fighters.

[SifuAbel]

Oh lord........... not his tired old hag of a subject AGAIN............

here, beat this one.......
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/.../deadhorse.jpg