Originally Posted by
taai gihk yahn
this, the relative of all other arguments aside of TMA v MMA, is something that the TMA seem to conveniently forget when they argue that MMA is "just" for the ring, which implies that MMA guys would be hard pressed (at least relative to a TMA guy) to adapt their training for "t3h str33t"; I mean, this is pretty disingenuous...
my argument is that it doesn't matter what you do, it's how you do it - the more relatively high-pressure, "live" environment u train in, the better u will do when confronted for realz; if the bulk of my training is against resisting opponents, I will do better then someone who doesn't; the fact is that whereas TCMA practice is pretty uneven (from form fairies to more "hardcore"), MMA typically involves getting hit and trying to hit people who on't want to get hit; if a TCMA guy trains "deadly" techniques in a relatively compliant context, he has to markedly change context to deal w a real attacker; OTOH, an MMA guy who is used to hitting someone in the face who is trying not to get hit, will have an easier time turning that punch into an eye jab and being successful with it;
TCMA has a lot of great stuff to offer, but it's often weighed down by a cultural context that actually hampers developing effective fighting skills in our current context; the fact is that MMA training methods are not encumbered by the need to maintain a "traditional" context, and so are judged solely on empirical effectiveness, not adherence to maintaining centuries worth of temporal continuity;
also, training static stances only makes muscles isometrically strong with a range of 20˚ in either direction; it has no bearing on dynamic functional strength, because the firing patterns are completely different; if you want to get good at not getting knocked over, u have to have someone try to knock you over; holding a stance could be an ok way to begin if someone is very deconditioned, but otherwise it has limited benefit except training you to stand statically for increasing periods of time...