TCMA in MMA

[RonH]

Have any of you guys talking about how simple MMA is ever trained in BJJ, catch, sambo, or any other good system of submission grappling? The ground game is incredibly intricate. The stand up may be simpler, but even in China the sport sanda guys tend to out perform TCMA guys when it comes to fighting. And linking the different ranges together fluidly is hardly simple.

I've trained in lots of styles, but only to the point where I can get a feel for what's involved with the style for how to move and such. After that, it's been training with people of other styles, including grapplers and wrestlers, to learn how far and how much I can adapt my taijiquan against the other style, which is my primary focus. My secondary focus is learning what someone of another style might do.

Just because a training method produces skill more quickly than the traditional way doesn't necessarily mean it is simpler, dumbed down, or otherwise inadequate. Rather, they might be focusing on what has been shown to produce fighting skill, as some people do get into martial arts to learn how to fight.

Brian

My concern is the development of an 'us v them' mind set and an oversimplification of training. I view martial arts as a 'living thing', figuratively speaking, that can be used, as any other tool.

Edit: What do you mean by 'catch'? I know BJJ and sambo, but I've never heard of that style.

[brianK]

Ron: Catch = Catch wrestling or catch as catch can wrestling. Old school western submission grappling. Check out Josh Barnett for a good example.

I'm not looking to get in an us vs. them thing. I train bagua and xingyi every day, and my IMA is much better than my BJJ. Really, I don't see why CMAs along the lines of xingyi or baji can't function as the stand up part of an MMA man's arsenal, but there probably have to be some modifications in the approach to training. More pad work, bag work, and hard sparring; less forms, weapons, overly cooperative apps training and such. The problem is that western boxing, muay thai, san da, and similar striking arts already have a realistic sport fighting curriculum in place, and so guys who want to fight at the highest level will tend to seek out those arts. So the first "CMA" guys to make a splash in MMA will be san da/san shou guys like Cung Le. Hopefully some of us TCMA guys who are getting our grapple on can change this somewhat.

Brian

[RonH]

Ron: Catch = Catch wrestling or catch as catch can wrestling. Old school western submission grappling. Check out Josh Barnett for a good example.

I'll check it out.

[1bad65]

Some take the idea of 'simplify how you fight; take what works and discard what doesn't' without understanding that to truly be able to simplify something, a thorough understanding of an entire thing needs to happen before actually simplifying it. Without the thorough understanding, the simplification made is not much more than really a guess at what the simplification 'could' be.

You don't actually believe that do you?

So someone should learn and understand anything and everything first and then, and only then, will they know what to discard? I guess if you start training at say 16, you should be ready for your mma debut at the young age of 50 huh?

Have you ever seen the early UFCs by chance?

[1bad65]

MMA people only train against others usually doing MMA type of fighting. The traditional arts offer techniques and perspectives not commonly encountered by MMA folks and this can be a shock.

Yeah those BJJ guys, wrestlers, and Sambo guys who consistantly won the early UFCs were clueless as to how to defeat ninjas, KF masters, WC guys, Karate guys, and other TMA practitioners.

[Lucas]

sorry just checked back in on this thread i started.

IMO:

your standard MMA practitioner would fair better thrust into a fight with a TCMA person with no rules than a TCMA person would being thrust into a fight with an MMA guy and his rule set.

of all the TCMA schools you have been to/trained at. How many of these schools consistantly and realistically train their guys to deal with the ground on a serious level.

how many TCMA guys will have the motor skills drilled to an extent that will create automatic muscle response for things like a standard shoot, single, double etc.

how many TCMA guys will be able to handle being mounted? side? rear?

how many TCMA guys have trained long hours in.....say escaping the RNC?

i have heard from many different CMA guys that "oh its there" or "well at my school we do that all the time"

well i can say: I am a jedi master and i practice my vulcan mind melding on a regular basis and can eat broken glass.

doesnt make it true.

so aside from people CLAIMING to have these element in their TCMA schools and furthermore, to actually TRAIN these things to an extent of familiarity and comfortability to create confidence and trust that you can rely on this training to deal with a seriously trained grappler. can anyone prove that their TCMA school is propegating this type of training?

whether your school deals with heavy grappling training or not doesnt matter.

its not really a bad thing if you dont.

every school will have its focus, if your school is on strictly stand up, thats fine.

but this is the point we need to realize that crosstraining is critical. as professional fighters anyway.

Personally I dont think serious grappling training is needed to survive in todays world.

But in the arena of modern sport combat, its imperative that we can handle the ground element.

personally, i am not an MMA fighter. doubtfull i ever will be. I'm just not interested.

BUT at the same time I am a martial artist, these are things i think about when i train or watch fights. Someday I might train someone to fight, and you can bet your ass if at that point i am not a strong grappler, that i WILL send them to one.

[Lucas]

in addition, IMO:

a traditional chinese martial art does not necessarily have to have an element of ground/submission grappling.

Most dont.

the Tradition of said art just may not include grappling to the extent that we see in your standard MMA arena.

I still dont understand why someone should get offended or upset when the aspect of not having a system in place that can even touch arts such as BJJ is brought up.

if someone asks you how well you can handle a bjj purple or above, and your answer is "not very well"

then, i hate to tell you, you have not been trained well enough in grappling as you might have previously thought.

where i currently train, we do not do grappling like this. At least not that i have seen. But see im fine with that.

Its a Taiji school. I am not there to learn submission grappling. I am there to learn Taiji.

If i want to eat a hamburger i dont go to a mexican resturaunt....

if i want to learn submission grappling, ill learn an art that FOCUS's on that.

if you take a pure BJJ guy, how would his striking compare to a pure CMA striker? or a Boxer? if he wanted to box, would he not get a boxing coach? or would he ask his purely BJJ instuctor to teach him to box?

[Becca]

They can probably compete on some level, but not at a high level. Certainly not professionally.

Agreed. Not without at least some serious sparring, even if they don't actually "cross train." But since there would still be a transfr of skill and/or information, this could still be cross training of a sort.

[RonH]

You don't actually believe that do you?

So someone should learn and understand anything and everything first and then, and only then, will they know what to discard?

I'll give you an illustrative example. Say you're into robotics and you want to build a miniature version of something you see in a movie. It may not have all the bells and wistles, as the one in the movie, but you still want a good approximation at the smaller size. If you're gonna build a mini version of something you saw on TV, you can't do that, unless you know what went into the TV version. At the very least, you need to understand the underlying principles of robotics first.

If one does not have a robotics background, the best this person can do is have a skill where they can repair and tinker a little with electronics, which they can gain by repeatedly trying to come up with the mini-robot. But, that doesn't mean they have the skill and background of someone that went through and got the robotics background before working on the miniature.

There are little tricks and nuiances that are not covered in many MMA schools. Many instructors will have a variety of experiences, but not all teach the subtlties they learned from other styles. They sometimes give a watered down version. When taught to the student that hasn't had any other experience in MA, some of the details are lost, even if the instructor has this and that belt in whatever style. To be able to truly understand it, like the teacher does, the student would have to go through the same expereinces, as the teacher. There is only so much that you can put ito words, even if you have a natural tendency to be detailed and verbose. Something will still get lost when trying to convey it in words and images.

Now, it is a guess when you don't have the traditional background. And that can be right at times. But, that's irrelevent. The fact remains is that without the background beforehand, it is still a guess, whether it ends up being right or not.

I guess if you start training at say 16, you should be ready for your mma debut at the young age of 50 huh?

Many follow Bruce Lee's teachings, which while good, he only came up with them after years of nonMMA style training. To understand his principles the same way Bruce Lee did, you must go through the same training he did. Otherwise, what you take away from his training is only what you get out of it, not what Bruce Lee got out of the simplification method. He already had the background framework when he came up with the ideas he started teaching before he died.

You don't have to wait for 50, given the requirements that MMA competitions state. One of the things I see that's bad that's amongst pretty much every MMA fighter I can remember is a lot of twitching when they're in the ring, especially at the beginning of the fight. Part of that comes from adrenaline, some of it comes from excitment, but almost any reason that can be used to explain it comes down to improper mental discipline, causing needlessly wasted energy resources. Explosive and long lasting strength is always subservient to stamina, which depends on energy resources. And you use up lots of energy from just twitching.

Have you ever seen the early UFCs by chance?

I've seen the UFC and other related sports when they were less 'sport' and more bloody and the more modern version where they are less bloody and more 'sport'. The more rules that were added made the broadcasts less and less interesting. The more rules and restrictions placed on fighters makes them feel more like robots to me and not fighters.

You can't be called 'the most dangerous man in the world' in a sport. Even the early years of the UFC had too many rules to make that title anywhere near accurate. The reason for the rules is the safety of the fighters, so they can come back and fight again.

[WinterPalm]

Yeah those BJJ guys, wrestlers, and Sambo guys who consistantly won the early UFCs were clueless as to how to defeat ninjas, KF masters, WC guys, Karate guys, and other TMA practitioners.

A lot of traditional guys did well in the early UFCs, including the various grappling based systems.

They weren't clueless, but they did what they did better, that is all. If you train something you should be able to do it as best as possible.

My problem, and the only one I have, is that people constantly rag on TCMA, which I do, when there are so many different systems. And as many have pointed out, there are absolute monsters in TCMA that have no desire to compete.

WIthout a doubt, in MMA, one needs a grounding in very specific skills that carry over to the format...but once one's basic abilities are built, the area of expertise of many traditional arts can offer a lot the practitioner.

Again, the mindset is still there...in competition nobody will kill you...except maybe Sobral will try! Sport competition for atheletes and regular people training in techniques and methods to protect themselves with bring diffferent claims to truth and different methods.

[1bad65]

One of the things I see that's bad that's amongst pretty much every MMA fighter I can remember is a lot of twitching when they're in the ring, especially at the beginning of the fight. Part of that comes from adrenaline, some of it comes from excitment, but almost any reason that can be used to explain it comes down to improper mental discipline, causing needlessly wasted energy resources. Explosive and long lasting strength is always subservient to stamina, which depends on energy resources. And you use up lots of energy from just twitching.

I look at it this way, why train to learn dozens(or even more) of kicks, blocks, punches, stances, etc? If you get into a fight, the human mind just cannot process that much info that quickly. It's why BJJ is so effective; they have just a few basic positions, and the first goal is to attain the best one possible. Then you either go for a sub or improve position. Once you get a dominant position and establish a base, you go for the sub or the ground and pound. It's the same thing everytime! That's the beauty of it, it's simple. Your mind does not have to process through a multitude of blocks, punches, etc. It just has to think of a few positions, and then submissions.
Boxing and Muay Thai are similar, but they are stand up arts. Both just have a few strikes to learn, you just get better at knowing which one is the best at the given time. You don't have dozens of strikes from dozens of stances to process through in a fight.

As for your quote above, I guess you must have a pretty good MMA record huh? Or you must have trained some good MMA fighters. hmmm...

[Becca]

I look at it this way, why train to learn dozens(or even more) of kicks, blocks, punches, stances, etc?

Why limit the tools in your tool box? You do ralize that if you only know th same moves your oponant knows, sooner or later you are going to come up against someone who is bettr than you at everything he knows. Which is everything you know. What's wrong with haveing a few extra tools available, even if they aren't your favorites?

If you get into a fight, the human mind just cannot process that much info that quickly. It's why BJJ is so effective; they have just a few basic positions, and the first goal is to attain the best one possible. Then you either go for a sub or improve position. Once you get a dominant position and establish a base, you go for the sub or the ground and pound. It's the same thing everytime! That's the beauty of it, it's simple. Your mind does not have to process through a multitude of blocks, punches, etc. It just has to think of a few positions, and then submissions.

Um... So does any other art. You gain controll of the situation first then solve the problem that caused it. They method you use to do that is dictated by style. The problem is not the style, but how realisticly the fighter prepared him/her self...

Seriously, you don't think the gracies were the first family to succesfully fight do you?

[Lucas]

Agreed. Not without at least some serious sparring, even if they don't actually "cross train." But since there would still be a transfr of skill and/or information, this could still be cross training of a sort.

interesting concept here. i never looked at it like that.

thanks

[1bad65]

Why limit the tools in your tool box? You do ralize that if you only know th same moves your oponant knows, sooner or later you are going to come up against someone who is bettr than you at everything he knows. Which is everything you know. What's wrong with haveing a few extra tools available, even if they aren't your favorites?

I never said to limit, but you can really learn so much that you can't process it in the stress of an actual fight. Flying knees and the 'Superman punch' are some 'extra tools' that have been used some in MMA, for example. As for the toolbox example: keep in mind, you can put so many tools in there that it becomes impossible to carry it around

Um... So does any other art. You gain controll of the situation first then solve the problem that caused it. They method you use to do that is dictated by style. The problem is not the style, but how realisticly the fighter prepared him/her self...

Seriously, you don't think the gracies were the first family to succesfully fight do you?

You do know that the early UFCs had some legit TMA guys right? Ichihara was a top Karate player in Japan, alot of Japanese press even followed him over for UFC 2. Pat Smith was a Sabaki Challenge champion. Gerard Gordeau was a successful Savate fighter, the list goes on and on. And they all lost to a BJJ guy quite easily, and looked pretty clueless doing so. And keep in mind, Royce Gracie was nowhere near a top BJJ competitor either. And those TMA guys competed, so you know they had realistic training methods.

The Gracies were not the first family to fight, but I dare say they were the most successful.

[Lucas]

I never said to limit, but you can really learn so much that you can't process it in the stress of an actual fight. Flying knees and the 'Superman punch' are some 'extra tools' that have been used some in MMA, for example. As for the toolbox example: keep in mind, you can put so many tools in there that it becomes impossible to carry it around



You do know that the early UFCs had some legit TMA guys right? Ichihara was a top Karate player in Japan, alot of Japanese press even followed him over for UFC 2. Pat Smith was a Sabaki Challenge champion. Gerard Gordeau was a successful Savate fighter, the list goes on and on. And they all lost to a BJJ guy quite easily, and looked pretty clueless doing so. And keep in mind, Royce Gracie was nowhere near a top BJJ competitor either. And those TMA guys competed, so you know they had realistic training methods.

The Gracies were not the first family to fight, but I dare say they were the most successful.

I think the statment regarding the gracies being the first family to fight was directed towards all of history, no the last 15 years of MMA.....

we cannot gauge who the best fighters of all time are, as circumstances change through out history. could gracie BJJ defeat alexander the greats broadsword? doubtful.

as for the TMA guys thing. fully. had you taken a few of those TMA guys and given them 3 years in BJJ before they competed, some of them likely would have done much better. not saying win, just better.

it would be interesting to see how many TMA guys started crosstraining seriously on the ground after a BJJ proponent handed them their asses. im betting most if not all.