Hi all, first post here (ahhh a little fresh-faced newbie, how cute!!)
Just wanted to ask a question about traditional martial arts and in particular how they are percieved by internet forums generally. I’ve just had a quick rattle around this site and much like a number of other martial arts forums it seems to rattle out the mantra “You either train in Muay Thai coupled with BJJ or Judo…otherwise f*ck off and play tennis or something”.
I can see why the McDojos and the late 20th Century corruption of TMA’s would be derided by all serious martial artists but the blanket dismissal of every striking art beyond MT/Kickboxing never ceases to leave me open mouthed.
So my question is this, do you think that TMA’s taught correctly can be effective (and therefore were historically) or do you think that those systems were highly flawed from the beginning and were just waiting to become obsolete and replaced.
Welcome to Bullshido, the best Martial Arts forum on the entire Internet, JT -. Seriously, you won’t regret your choice to join us. We’re a great bunch of folks, except for Hannibal. And Sirc. And TaiGip. And MMA Kid. And… well, you get the point.
The answer to this, like most questions in life, is “Judo.” It retains a TMA flavor while being highly effective. And it renders most, if not all traditional jujutsu styles obsolete.
The general rule of thumb for a good MA, traditional or modern, is sparring as the pressure test. And that comes down to a school by school basis, regardless of the system. Yet the styles that stick out as usually/always having an aliveness factor are: Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai, Kyokushin, San Da, SAMBO, Wrestling and Boxing.
I asked a similar question for my first post, and it took me six months of posting and another six of lurking to get close to comprehension of the answer.
“Do Judo” and “Only kyokushin” and “BJJ + MT = better than anything” is a result of getting crapped on by everything else, usually. Those of us who do karate or tai chi or five animal kung fu or WHATEVER (me, Vieux Normand, maofas, Omega, CUllion, to name just a few) yet do it hard and with aliveness and sparring and without the mystical BS often get irked that people write our styles off. But the unfortunate fact is that most TMA (as defined by…well, karate and kung fu and TKD in this case, although “TMA” is a total misnomer and misleading blah blah blah) sucks.
Uhh…where was I. Right! TMA doesn’t have to suck, it just usually does. Good martial arts is good martial arts, practiced hard and alive and all that. TMA vs modern MA is a false dichotomy.
In my humble opinion the mistake that people make is in believing that the snow-capped summit of martial arts training is to compete. Almost a (and I’m not saying this is your opinion) “If it doesn’t work in UFC, it doesn’t work”.
Sparring is great and sharpens up your timing and ability to apply yourself to a certain type of fighting…but I’m just not convinced that it’s the final judgement on a TMA. The majority of TMAs that I have either trained in or read about seem to use ‘illegal’ sports techniques as their bread and butter.
I guess it’s a cliche but how do you spar groin strikes, eye gouges, joint braking techniques etc etc??
With all due respect, you’re hitting several misconceptions–straw man arguments, really.
I don’t want to compete in UFC, and I understand that there are techniques that are banned there. It’s just that relying on banned techniques doesn’t work, and training them produces people that are out of shape and can’t fight. Training for standup, clinch and ground (whether in an MMA school, or karate & judo, or MT and BJJ, or just a good kung fu school like Omega’s), including sparring at all ranges, is fundamentally necessary to be proficient at fighting. That’s just the truth. Take as long as you want to get there.
Also, it’s possible to train a heck of a lot more techniques than most TMAs do. Lots of people who say that modern MA is all about competition, and that sparring isn’t so great a barometer, spar under a more restrictive ruleset than the MMAers! See the problem?
I’m sure there are some balanced opinions about TMA on the forums…but damn they are hard to find…and I’m not just referring to this forum.
If someone was to say something like “90% of karate dojos in the US are sh*t” then they’d have no argument from me. If they were to also say MT and BJJ are great systems and have been applied brilliantly within MMA I’d gladly agree…but the dismissal of everything else and the arrogance directed towards TMAs as a whole is frustratingly short-sighted and naive, yet ever present.
To be fair your styles are written off here due more to the style representatives. If you can’t acquit your style well, you get shit.
For every reasonable post or poster you just mentioned, there are at least 100 non-trolling kool-aide drinkers that make them look like shit.
What’s even funnier is RBSD in a few short years has fallen into the TMA barrel when, it was held up as a shinning beacon.
What it boils down to is policing of your art. MT, BJJ, Judo, Kyokushin, and Sanda (Kung FU) has competitions to test their practitioners.
From when I started here, to now, I’ve seen a health respect grow for CMA Sanda even in the biggest BJJ/MMA nutriders.
Now, to the OP, you need to define TMA.
Personally, I hate the word because of the stigma on this board and in my eyes that hides mysticism. As was pointed out by cuatro76 Judo is a TMA. Heck I could argue that Boxing is a TMA based on your definition if, it falls in with what I was wrongly taught is a TMA.
I think that a lot of people find that competing is the closest they get to testing their training. That’s why it is held in high regard.
Sure, it’s done in a safer environment and there are many rules to protect the participants, along with protective equipment, but ultimately it’s human vs human in a contest of guile and physical prowess.
Where the hell do you get that nowadays?
If you have to, you can train groin strike using groin protectors. You can train eye strike wearing stuff like the daido juko helmets. We did it with welding goggles to show how difficult it was to actually gouge a resisting person’s eyes.
I say “if you have to” because I’m a firm believer in not trusting gimmicky techniques like eye-gouges and groin shots. Very low-percentage moves.
Judo & BJJ have joint breaking techniques… and generally the idea is to get people into the position where they tap because if they didn’t, something would break. Or they’d get choked out.
Also, you missed out the love for boxing on here.
Boxing is a competitive TMA (if we’re using age as a definition of a TMA).
Boxing is awesome.
Punches. In. Bunches.
Firstly thanks for the considered response. Secondly my point wasn’t to infer that you want to compete in the UFC or to say that the stereo-type I highlighted applies to you. Of course not…I don’t know you. Yet…:happy:
It also wasn’t my point to imply that anyone could train simply in ‘illegal’ non-sports techniques (can’t think of a better term, hope you know what i mean). It’s all to do with having a number of tools at your disposal for a variety of circumstances, opponents, conditions etc.
I guess what I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that the good TMAs that I’ve seen have a lot more tuition to offer on techniques that will never be permissable within the cage/the ring. If you are learning a fighting system for non sports reasons then those techniques are valid but cannot feature in standard sparring. And it’s those techniques that can also feature in fighting outside of a sparring/competition environment.
I think I came off as a Judo nut rider (which I am, but…) so I should elaborate on my response. Judo is an excellent model for how to train any MA. Introduce a technique(s), drill it with a partner over and over, then attempt to use the technique(s) in randori against a fully resistant opponent who is trying to do the same to you. There’s really no better way of learning any physical skill than to learn it, drill it into muscle memory and do it in a live situation.
There are dudes here that do TMAs with full contact sparring. I think they’d agree they are usually the exception and not the norm. That makes them that much better than their stylistic contemporaries who don’t train with “aliveness.”
So OP, since you don’t list an MA in your style field, if you are looking at schools, look for aliveness and simplicity in their training. Find out if the spar. how hard they do it. Avoid if they concentrate too much on forms and 1-steps and formulaic “if A then B” self-defense techniques. Ultimately you want a school that gives you some basic tools and a game plan to use the tools when put into a live situation.
I’ll use Judo as an example. Whether it’s a tournament or self defense situation, a Judoka wouldn’t think about what throw he’s going to do depending on what the opponent is doing to him. He already has a handful of throws programmed into his muscle memory and all he needs to do is grab his opponent and will automatically feel what to throw. A boxer would throw jabs to set up a cross to set up an upper cut or whatever combo they drill the most. A wrestler would shoot in for his preferred takedown(s). I don’t know what a Tai Chi guy would do, but if they trained with aliveness, it would probably be pretty cool.
This site advocates Alive training in Martial Arts, not’ MT+BJJ or nothing’.
If a Martial Art that is generally known for not having much contact, TKD/Aikido/Tai Chi etc is represented here by posters who do practice with aliveness then that person would not get shit for their choice of MA.
The problem is, the same old tiring arguements are constantly raised and the same cliches espoused that people become cynical.
Your arguements regarding using illegal techniques for example are like taking the beaten horse and dragging it behind your car on a tour of America.
I would much rather have you coming at me trying to stick your fingers in my eyes than a proficient striker trying to punch me in the face.
Why is this? Because the striker has trained against resisting opponents and will have enough experience to adapt his attack if were to move/cover/duck etc. You on the other hand, with your deadly eye pokes will have never actually practiced this against someone opposing you because it’s T0O IlL4g4L!!!1111ELEVEN! and once I move out of range or come at you, you won’t know what to do.
The key is alive training and MT, BJJ and Judo are all good examples of this training methodology - which is why you feel they get nut-ridden.
I guess what I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that the good TMAs that I’ve seen have a lot more tuition to offer on techniques that will never be permissable within the cage/the ring. If you are learning a fighting system for non sports reasons then those techniques are valid but cannot feature in standard sparring. And it’s those techniques that can also feature in fighting outside of a sparring/competition environment.
TMAers used to compete in the ring you know that right? See, one thing you will eventually learn here is, argue from an informed position.
So, no, your statement is a fallacy. If the Masters of old, that created these arts, could and did compete what does that say about current TMA belief and competition?
Wait a minute…since when was a groin strike a gimmicky, very low percentage move!!!
It doesn’t matter who you are, how hard you train and how hot your technique is when someone racks a full shot straight into your ‘best friends’ you’re going down and probably not getting back up in the short term. You’re not a practicioner of the ‘Iron Scrotum Technique’ are you?
But moving on from that obvious strike, the rules applied to most sparring and competitions explicitly prohibits a vast number of potential techniques with good reason. What good is taking a man into your guard if his first attack is an easily reachable eye gouge. Try conditioning against that.
