For those that train MMA, what attracted you to it and moved you away from TCMA

[Frost]

(if indeed it did move you away)

This could be a short lived thread seeing as most of the guys that probably would have replied have been banned but hey ho

What attracted you to MMA training and if you (like I did) moved towards MMA and away from TCMA why did you do this? What made you move towards an MMA way of training and made you give up your TCMA ways, and if you still train you r TCMA again what made you stay and combine the two?

For me I got bored and annoyed with all the b*ll**** in the TCMA world: the back stabbing, the looking down on other arts and ways of training, the endless weapons and form sets which seemed to have little to do with actual fighting etc

Most of the training I did seemed to be put there to make people feel like they were training to fight without actually doing the hard work, the forms, the conditioning of the arms and body, the hand conditioning, the ging training all was good BUT it seemed to be separate and distinct from the fighting aspect and way to : no one looked like they did fighting when they were doing forms, no body used all the techniques they learned, when they sparred they still fell back on the basics and looked nothing like the style was meant to look, people who did the hey gung stuff still got dropped when they actually sparred from body shots, and even the sticky hands stuff seemed half hearted, we stopped before the natural conclusion of the movements i.e. clinch and throwing

Another major factor was we always seemed to be training to beat a similar style rather than what we were most likely to face: we worked on how to defend and overcome guys who attacked like we did, who fought like we did, rather than how to beat guys we were likely to face: boxers, thai guys, judo guys etc

I also disliked the styles inability to admit it actually did not cover some aspects: we tried to find takedowns in our forms that simply were not there and defences for takedowns that simply would not work rather than admit the short comings and go and learn grappling, we trained against bad hooks and upper cuts that were not thrown properly or set up correctly because people would not admit they did not actually know this stuff


But the number one problem I had with it was the general belief that fighting SHOULD look like how we train and should conform to OUR systems believes about fighting, rather than we should train to look like and react to actually what is out there.

So I was attracted to MMA (and grappling in particular) because it makes no pretences about what fighting should look like, it simply accepts what it is and trains to overcome what is out there: it grows and learns all the time and you know where you stand in terms of how good you are at stand up clinch and ground fighting there is no guess work about how good you might be or how you might do if facing this or that opponent, you learn from direct experience. All the training is linked directly to how you perform on the mats or in the ring. Most of the class time is spent with a partner for the most part strength and conditioning is built into your practise so you are alwys growing and learning and getting in better condition.

Now it could be that I simply learned cr*p TCMA, (I tend to think not as my master was well known in the UK) and I trained at more than one place, and actually one of the schools I trained at was becoming like an MMA gym in that they were experimenting in grappling (wrestling and judo) and doing much more sparring, but when I left there was still a massive dichotomy between the number of techniques people know and the number of sets they learned, and what they can actually pull off in sparring, and this was a problem for me.

So for you that now train MMA what made you move away from the TCMA crowd?

[viper]

I do a bit of MMA but still do tcma as well for me my main tcma school is really open and doesnt tend to live to much in the we are better then them blah blah I found that attitude worse in boxing clubs looking down on other martial arts. My tcma school certainly doesn`t have a pretense of how a fight should look we are all different and fight different. We also are not involved in any associations and junk so no back stabbing. I do MMA because my tcma doesnt do alot of ground work since one of the guys that did BJJ left. I find I can get out of my comfort zone to doing stuff I didnt do at the kwoon. The sparring I find harder at boxing and MMA but I can transfer the skills I learn between all of them and the tcma boys love it. My sifu asks me to show them stuff I learned. Plus I love the harder conditioning of the boxing MMA crowd. I think ive been fairly lucky to have a traditional school that doesnt fit the normal mold and doesnt poo poo people for doing different stuff.

[goju]

Well hopefully the non Chinese Tma folks can weigh in too!

I at the time when i was able to to entertain the idea of competing in MMA and at the time grudge just so happened to move right across the street from me. I realized i had foolishly ( and regret now) that i passed up the oppurtunity to grapple years ago so that encouraged me to join even more .

Previous to that i had done abit of kung fu at Csc when i was around fifteen and i left that place after a few months with a rather bleak view of public ma schools and its practioners . Granted the shaolin do stuff reaks of fraudulent teaching and what not but in reality from reading this board and posters experiences ive come to realize what was being taught there wasnt much different than what you see at other more "legit schools"


The people were extremly petty, they handed out rank as long as you payed them and the teachers were delusional and liked to hear themselves talk. When i went in there i had some boxing under my belt and was at the time learning tkd on the side from a relative and i made an adult higher rank belt look bad because i happened to throw him as we were sparring. Immediately after that all the other higher ranked practioners looked down on me and would intentionally try to get rough during sparring to pay me back.

They didnt suceed lol but it still soured my opinion on them and the school so after about five months i left. i figured since i was able to get martial arts that worked from a relative for free why waste time trying again? So from then on to the time i was alittle over 20 i spent working on karate ,tkd and boxing with my relative.

After a period of time my relative like pretty much every member of the family fell sick and couldnt train very hard much anymore so i had to go seek people elsewhere to work out with, Grudge was memtioned so i walked on over an introduced myself.

Honestly i wasnt sure what to expect from the MMA gym , My brief experience with martial artist as csc left me with bad opinion of public ma schools and i had relatively kept to myself with my training afterwards so obviously i expected the worse as far as the character of the people and instructors went.

I was pleasantly suprised! The coaches were some of the nicest down to earth people ive met and there wasnt a single jerk, idiot, @sshole in the gym. They had a zero tolerance policy for people like that and would throw anyone out who tried to act in that manner.

They were also cool with you coming in with experience from other styles because they had backrounds in TMA themselve so were open minded.


What i liked most besides the pleasant environment was during open gym if i had a theory or idea or something like that i wanted to try one of the amatuer fighters would glove up with me and try it to see if it worked or not.

Thankfully through that i found out that my sheltered private training previously wasnt crap and largely worked. They felt my stand up was good and just need to fine tune it a bit and i was good to go.

I think the two biggest things i got from it was that i learned not all martial artists are all delusional weirdos and i was able to find out that what i had been training for years previously wasnt largely thoeoretical and unpractical.

I kept training my two tradtional arts, still do to this day. Why broke whats not fixed after all? But for the rest of my life i would prefer training at an mma gym. I feel i can just continue my karate and tkd on my own and just bring it into a gym to pressure test it since thats all thats important. on top of that i can train what they teach to round out my skill set and improve myself as martial artist.

I still do have an interest in kung fu to be honest particuarly the southern arts like hung gar or bak mei but i am still vary weary of wasting my time going through the mess i did with Csc years back and i feel that mma is a general safer and smarter route to go. Lifes to short after all to waste your time. Might as well use it wisely.

[donjitsu2]

I train both Xingyiquan and MMA.

I think they compliment each other quite well.

What I like about Xingyiquan is the "internal" mechanics (body mechanics, ect...). Now, I'm only speaking for Xingyi here but I don't think forms need to look like actual fighting. My instructor taught me that the forms of Xingyiquan are more like "encyclopedias of movement" than actual fighting techniques.

For example Splitting Fist could be be a strike, a takedown, or a block. And when actually applying Splitting Fist, it was emphasized that, it didn't have to *look* like it did in the form. What was important was the underlying principle of the movement - its spirit and intent.

Though I'll have to admit that the way I was trained seems to be very different from the way other Xingyi people were taught. We focused on the 5 "Fists" & Zhan Zhuang and did very little work with the Animals.

I like MMA because of the conditioning, the grappling (something I didn't really learn with my Xingyi teacher), and the emphasis on fighting.

So again, I feel the two compliment each other quite well.

[Frost]

Well hopefully the non Chinese Tma folks can weigh in too!

I at the time when i was able to thought to entertain the idea of competing in MMA and at the time grudge just so happened to move right across the street from me. I realized i had foolishly ( and regret now) that i passed up the oppurtunity to grapple years ago so that encouraged me to join even more .

Previous to that i had done abit of kung fu at Csc when i was around fifteen and i left that place after a few months with a rather bleak view of public ma schools and its practioners . Granted the shaolin do stuff reaks of fraudulent teaching and what not but in reality from reading this board and posters experiences ive come to realize what was being taught there wasnt much different than what you see at other more "legit schools"


The people were extremly petty, they handed out rank as long as you payed them and the teachers were delusional and liked to hear themselves talk. When i went in there i had some boxing under my belt and was at the time learning tkd on the side from a relative and i made an adult higher rank belt look bad because i happened to throw him as we were sparring. Immediately after that all the other higher ranked practioners looked down on me and woudl intentionally try to get rough during sparring to pay me back.

They didnt suceed lol but it still soured my opinion on them and the school so after about five months i left. i figured since i was able to get martial arts that worked from a relative for free why waste time trying again? So from then on to the time i was alittle over 20 i spent working on karate ,tkd and boxing with my relative.

After a period of time my relative like pretty much every member of the family fell sick and couldnt train very hard much anymore so i had to go seek people elsewhere to work out with, Grudge was memtioned so i walked on over an introduced myself.

Honestly i wasnt sure what to expect from the MMA gym , My breif experience with martial artist as csc left me with bad opinion of public ma schools and i had relatively kept to myself with my training afterwards so obviously i expected the worse as far as the character of the people and instructors went.

I was pleasantly suprised! The coaches were some of the nicest down to earth people ive met and there wasnt a single jerk, idiot, @sshole in the gym. They had a zero tolerance policy for people like that and would throw anyone out who tried to act in that manner.

They were also cool with you coming in with experience from other styles because they had backrounds in TMA themselve so were open minded.


What i liked most besides the pleasant environment was during open gym if i had a theory or idea or something like that i wanted to try one of the amatuer fighters would glove up with me and try it to see if it worked or not.

Thankfully through that i found out that my sheltered private training previously wasnt crap and largely worked. They felt my stand up was good and just need to fine tune it a bit and i was good to go.

I think the two biggest things i got from it was thati learned not all martial artists are not all delusional weirdos and i was able to as i find out that what i had been training for years previously wasnt largely thoeoretical and unpractical.

I kept training my two tradtional arts, still do to this day. Why broke whats not fixed after all? But for the rest of my life i would prefer training at an mma gym. I feel i can just continue my karate and tkd on my own and just bring it into a gym to pressure test it since thats all thats important. on top of that i can train what they teach to round out my skill set and improve myself as martial artist.

I still do have an interest in kung fu to be honest particuarly the southern arts like hung gar or bak mei but i am still vary wary of wasting my time going through the mess i did with Csc years back and i feel that mma is a general safer and smarter route to go. Lifes to short after all to waste your time. Might as well use it wisely.

Well I was going to say clear off this thread you TCMA wantabe, but seeing as you made such a good post I’ll let you off ; )

Yep more weirdo’s in the TMA world (just so you don’t feel left out ill drop the C!) than just about any other athletic sphere, and those small clubs that pride themselves on not being commercial can be even worse than the big chains believe me

And I agree with you the real MMA gyms where guys actually compete are by and large nice places to train and very open minded, that’s not to say there are not guys there with egos, but those are kept in check by being made to tap out all the time, and the real idiots cant handle this and don’t hang around

And I understand your interest in TCMA and the southern arts and your weariness of most of the schools out there, I feel lucky in that I did have several good teachers (and yet still had the problems above so god only knows what bad teachers inflict on their students)

A similar interest is why I came back to this board after years of pure grappling and MMA. I have spent a lot of time in southern and internal arts and some of them still hold an interest for me, hung gar, CLF, bak mei and southern dragon in particular all interest me (and I am lucky to have access to a good teacher in all of those, when I can find the time to get back training TCMA that is) but like you MMA (and for me grappling) will always be the thing I am pulled back to it is simply much easier to find good instruction in those arts and the people in them are by and far more open and level headed

[Iron_Eagle_76]

I would not consider myself someone who trains MMA, since most of the arts I studied have been striking arts and I have never competed in an MMA venue. Since I have trained some in grappling arts I do have knowledge but am not an expert by any means.

But what I get from cross training other styles was not so much something that was better technically, but better methodically. I started Kung Fu in 1994 and trained with the same Sifu for six years until 2000. The regiment was hard and the conditioning was great, we did a warm up, stance training, hard basics, two man drills, forms, and sparring. We did some mitt work, some bag work, kicked the shield quite often, and did various other circuit training but not as much as we should have.

Fast forward to 2003, after a three year layoff I begin training with another Sifu who was actually my original Sifu's teacher. Pretty much the same regiment but we also added in more bag and mitt work by my request which he was open to. I also begin cross training occasionally in Muay Thai and began learning many of their training methods. I say this because what we had in our Kung Fu system was nothing new I was learning in Muay Thai, but I liked many of their training methods better. I also enjoyed sparring with more equipment, such as headgear, boxing gloves, shin guards which allowd for heavier contact and overall improvement in technique due to training with much more resistance.

I also pretty much quit Kung Fu and did boxing from 2007 to 2009 for a change of pace. I went back to Pai Lum and added the training methods I had learned from Muay Thai and boxing and feel confident and greatly enjoy what I do now.

So that is kind of my journey to Kung Fu, back to Kung Fu, to more combat sport oriented arts, back to Kung Fu again but with other training methods. I am not my Sifu, even though I use and will teach many of the things I was taught in the manner I was taught. I forged together my Kung Fu and will teach it in the methods I found most productive, as I hope some day one of my students will take what I taught them and teach in a way they find more productive.

If this is MMA, so be it, maybe I have gone that way. But seeing as how Kung Fu is defined as "skill or hard work at anything", I feel what I do certainly qualifies as Kung Fu. Anything that does not evolve, adapt, and improve is dead. Kung Fu is no different. My two cents.

[MightyB]

I'm like iron-eagle in the sense that I don't consider myself MMA, but I'm currently cross training at an MMA gym.
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My Sifu showed me a video of an old wing chun man doing a demo. It was unlike any demo I've seen. It wasn't forms, and it wasn't the usual pre-worked out demo technique BS. It was simplified and looked very spontaneous. He was a little old dude kicking around a large African American. I don't know his name, he's not famous, I believe it was at the first Eagle Cup.

Anyway- he had a big smile, his movements were fast and light, and his stand up was superb. I don't do wing chun... but I want to be like this man, just in my own way. I want to be fast, spontaneous, and good at a variety of ranges.

My methodology is different. I see MA as being built on different pillars. I have goals for each pillar. I've got a good TCMA pillar, I've got a good Judo pillar, I'm building a BJJ pillar...

I want to steal the thai leg kick, and I want to steal the MMA/boxing drilling techniques I've seen at the club that I now am part of.

I see these as enhancing my version of kung fu. And it is distinctly mine.

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I have a couple of goals I'd like to ad in the future. I want to ad some more internal and have better flexibility in my legs. I'd also like to continue working on a simplified but effective version of chin na.

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So is this MMA, or TMA?

[Iron_Eagle_76]

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So is this MMA, or TMA?[/QUOTE]

I don't think it really matters. It is what you choose it to be, nothing more, nothing less. You can throw a straight punch and call it dragon seeks path to make it seem cool or more Kung Fuey, in the end it is just a punch.

Labels and generic terminology do nothing but hold a negative cloud over what you train in and believe in. Get caught up in the them and thought and theory replaces strength and fortitude. I know which traits I would rather have.

[SourceOfCombat]

Was an assistant instructor level in two different systems of kung fu. I started training at an MMA gym to see what it was like. I found that Muay Thai/MMA striking has much more progressive training methods. The sparring was light and often position-based (clinch, hands only, kicks only). This allowed them to be able to spar every day without serious risk of injury. I find that this helped for me to train with a sense of aliveness to gain superior position for me to be able to use 'the deadly' techniques i learned in wing chun, for example. Also, i found that most of the muay thai practitioners have seen these so-called deadly techniques and acquiring the position to attack them with 'the deadly' is not that easy and often they are better at it than me. Also, I found that the combat stress and the ability to stay calm under pressure is an attribute that almost all of TMA/CMA is lacking. The ability to use fine motor control techniques under pressure is not something i believe people in the TMA/CMA community trains for at all.

I was surprised at how many other TMA'ers had made the switch over to MMA. It is common at the gym I train at to find TMA'ers applying the principles that they learned but finding out how to make it work or to set them up. There are several old karate guys that have found out how to set up a spinning rear side kick to the liver which is very deceptive and not easy to defend even if you know its in their toolbox of techniques.

Largely, i think that most of us former CMA/TMA'ers are sick of the cult-like attitudes and the greed that is associated with TMA/CMA community, especially within the WC community. I think the reason for such petty attitudes in the TMA/CMA communities is that they never prove themselves in sparring or competition and are left with nothing left to say other than to say 'i know the deadly', or 'what we train for you cant do in competition'. Having been an instructor in these street self-defense system's that boasted such claims, i feel that MMA gyms better prepare you for the realism of a real self-defense encounter without all the attitude, greed, and dogma that is associated with TMA/CMA community.

[Syn7]

For those that train MMA, what attracted you to it and moved you away from TCMA

i do train mma, but never left tcma... they both affect the other.... tcma gave me a base for mma, and mma changed the way i train tcma... my first martial art that i put 100% into was wrestling... i didnt start tcma till i was about 16... started grappling again 5 or 6 years after that... then the rest just fell into place naturally... dudes poked holes in my game during training, so i worked hard to fill those gaps... and i still am...

but tcma, esspecially the philosophy, is a good portion of what made me do well in mma...

[Kansuke]

I had been wrestling for almost 20 years before I ever trained any TMA. Never seemed like such a big deal to add some new experiences.

[Syn7]

frost, goju, others...

its really nice to see that alot of the guys who pressure test thier tma and practice mma after having a tma back ground give props to bak mei... its just sort of validating, to see that im not the only one that sees its potential for realistic use in combination with other styles... hakka arts are the sh!t... its very no bullsh!t down to earth stuff if you are lucky enough to be exposed to a good sifu...

our sifu went and spent a couple grand on sparring gear because the new generation wants that pressure testing, they want to validate thier kung fu to the world... a world that is hung up on mma right now... it wasnt even a thought for him, he heard the suggestion and punced on the idea... infact, i bet he was waiting for somebody to show interest... we always had pads and did spar, but it wasnt heavy full contact sparring... so he was all over the idea of really putting his system to the test... unfortunately only a core group of hardcores were willing to do it and stick it out... and that speaks volumes to the mentality behind the casual martial artist... if i want to test my bak mei against a variety of opponents, i have to do it at the other places i train... and thats whats wrong with tma... and my school is a good school... so yeah, i agree frost, i cant imagine what the bad schools are like.... oh wait, yes i can, i went to one... its a joke, a sad sad joke...

[SoCo KungFu]

Goals and team mates. TCMA attracts old women and little kids. Neither of which groups make for very good sparring partners. Martial arts is an interactive process. You are only as good as your partners can push you. Don't matter how determined you are, if you have no one to train with, you won't be going very far.

[kungfoozer]

What I didn't like was the central idea of the our school: Throwing, grappling, strikes, footwork, power generation are all in the form so keep doing the form. Of course the teacher would say, "This stuff takes time. You have to screw around with the moves on your partner and make the chinna work." But then he'd have us all doing form again. Skill training was replaced with form training and instead we trained to pretend to be practicing these skills by doing the forms.

I talked to a guy who said his tai chi teacher's teacher was a top shuai jiao guy in his day. His teacher had done a little sc as well and because of tall this schuai jiao their form "had" sc in it. I asked him if he actually practiced throwing on his classmates and he said no.

What I also didn't like was that bridge training was trained against other people also doing bridge training. Our hands would be together like we were singing ring around the rosey. But when we sparred we had a hard time making a bridge against the classmates that threw random punches in. Our teacher would berate us saying, "Stop playing tag and use your bridges. Stick to him." What my teacher didn't realize was that we were too used to training bridges against guys who were handing us bridges. It's ok to train like this in the beginning but then you have to do it against people who aren't presenting you with bridges. Boxers, grapplers, san da, etc.

The thing I came to hate the most was the endless form training. "You need to learn the sup jee cau da choy li fut form next because there are things in there you don't see in other styles." "The mantis forms have this." This is the typical shaolin mentality. Train forms from different styles to pick up their flavors...and then do what with them?

[jesper]

Well hopefully the non Chinese Tma folks can weigh in too!

I was pleasantly suprised! The coaches were some of the nicest down to earth people ive met and there wasnt a single jerk, idiot, @sshole in the gym. They had a zero tolerance policy for people like that and would throw anyone out who tried to act in that manner.

They were also cool with you coming in with experience from other styles because they had backrounds in TMA themselve so were open minded.

To be fair I think every MA school where they put in the real fighting aspect has the same down to earth mentality.
Comes with the fact its very easy to see if you walk the walk when you actual have to put on the gear and dish it out