Originally Posted by
Bacon
I'd say:
Don't make claims without empirical data. This includes claiming your system is good at fighting. As much as I don't like folks who automatically side with mma they and certain other arts do have empirical evidence on their side. Muay thai, boxing, kickboxing, bjj, wrestling, judo and sometimes even karate have shown that they can be used to good effect against skilled fighters. That is why they're so well respected. They don't make claims they can't back up. When TCMA systems can produce videos of themselves repeatedly winning against skilled fighters in a full contact environment then they can make those claims but they won't until they....
Admit that TCMA have flaws (in some cases large ones). Take Lyoto Machida. He has traditional karate as his base and uses some of it to great effect BUT he still had to train in groud grappling and general mma to make it work. If you act like any TCMA system is perfect you're going to get laughed at. And if you jump to the sanda thing I'd remind you that those who've switched over to mma haven't exactly done amazingly.
So in short:
Put up or shut up
Admit that TCMA isn't perfect and needs work
For example, I train wing chun but I've also trained bjj to cover the ground fighting, learned a few basic wrestling takedowns and learned how to sprawl because grappling and take down defence is one of wing chun's biggest weaknesses.