Traditional Martial Arts versus Mixed Martial Arts: Old School and New SchoolFiled Under: Rantings
It pretty common that somebody asks me which martial art is best. The next most common thing is somebody essentially telling me which martial art is best, usually by attempting to illuminate me about a particular system’s shortcomings (“Your eastern tiger style is nothing compared to my crane form!”). Yes, I do know that kickboxing doesn’t teach about ground and pound, and trouble will ensue once a double leg occurs.
In particular, I’ve been musing over the debate between Mixed Martial Arts and Traditional Martial Arts. Old vs New, in all its arguable glory.
A lot of movies play off this riff; an old grizzled veteran gets paired up with a new spunky greenhorn. The new kid on the block is bothered by the old-school methods, the senior complains about novice’s know it all attitude. Humor ensues. Above, Will Smith from Men In Black II explains it:
Agent J: No, what you remember is that you used to drive that old busted jaunt. See, I drive the new hotness.
[Points at K]
Agent J: Old and busted.
[Points at himself]
Agent J: New hotness.
This is the party line, of sorts, of MMA: Traditional martial arts are old and busted, and mixed martial arts is the new king. The reality is that both sides of the TMA vs MMA debate have valid arguments. Debate club was never my thing, so I’ll do a play by play with something I do understand … pictures. In my head, I see two followers of their respective path, duking it out with words.
Imaginary Argument
TMA: We’ve got thousands of years of experience and heritage; developed training methods and systems beyond the purview of the cult of the current.
MMA: Pretty awesome vocab, old man. There isn’t a reason to cling to the past. We’re on the cutting edge of training.
TMA: You know that a lot of your stuff comes right from our stuff right?
MMA: Anything you can do we can do better.
TMA: MMA does not teach the realities of street self defense.
MMA: Neither do you.
MMA: Besides, think of your “live” training methods. Too many rules, doesn’t actually simulate combat. Up over here, no rules, no holds barred.
TMA: No rules? No respect either.
TMA: We cultivate respect, honor and discipline.
MMA: We cultivate fist to face.
TMA: We develop ourselves mentally and spiritually.
MMA: We have a different form of spirituality.
MMA: Plus, we don’t wear skirts.
TMA: *cough* … *cough*
TMA: Plus, we use swords.
MMA: We have bling.
TMA: We have Chuck Norris.
MMA: You have Jean Claude Van Damme
TMA: Our senior citizens are hardcore.
MMA: We’re getting there.
MMA: We have epic stare-downs.
TMA: Touché.
The Real Deal
I’ve said this before about Aikido – we should be careful to attribute things to a system that it may not even claim about itself. People choose different hobbies for specific reasons. If I wanted a hobby that helped me age gracefully, boxing and MMA would probably not make it to my short list. If I wanted something for my kids to help them with confidence, respect, and socialization free from competition, then I’d pick accordingly. It’s not like people can’t figure it out when they really think about it.
My beef is that the “Who’s top dog?!” game can turn ultra-juvenile. MMA is marketed with its heavy metal, we can kick anybodies ass, Tapout bikini babes themes – which can bring out the utter douche bag in us all. (When I wear my ONE Tapout shirt I increase my submissions percentage and elite jerk skillz by at least 10%. ) On the other side of the coin, a number of TMAs are insulating themselves into a fantasy world, becoming so insecure that they take moralist high-roads and choose not to evolve.
When a particular camp, school, or niche disparages another, it tells you something about that group. Their complaint may be 100% valid, but the way people bring issues up is very illustrative. Take a moment and ask yourself why the critic needs to say what they’re saying. Chances are, their communication is all about validating themselves and nothing about adding value to your life.
One other thing: MMA is a sport. When you define the rules of a game, you set its limits. In many respects, a lot of traditional martial arts are now sports too, with their own peculiar rules. When it comes the elusive “realities of the street”, I can tell you that one martial discipline is top dog. It’s called gun play.
I came from a traditional martial art background, and I think there is a lot of value to it. In my training now, I focus on no-gi jujitsu and MMA, because that’s what I like, what appeals to me. This isn’t a time-life made for TV movie, but I think that there is a lot for each camp to learn from each other.
I’ve jokingly laid out some points of discussion, but what’s your take? I’d love to know about your experience and opinions.
Other posts you may enjoy:
Tags: aikido, debate, karate, karate vs mma, tkd vs mma, tma vs mma, traditional
- Permalink
- BartB
- 31 Jul 2010 4:19 PM
- Comments (16)
July 31st, 2010 at 4:20 pm
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August 2nd, 2010 at 9:25 am
TMA vs MMA I think MMA is top dog second to a horde of them, knives, guns, rocks, and the occasional car battery, in that scenario its all about the jet-li kung fu magic (you can’t beat it). I like it all but tend to go MMA mostly for the work out and practicality of being a well rounded fighter. I have a TKD background and its good stuff and will serve me extremely well in a street fight as long as I can incorporate it with more applicable street style called “been in a fight or two and brought my club”. For me the traditional stuff has a very important place, a lot of that goes into the name itself, “the foot fist way”, “the Gentle art” or “the way of yielding” all of these indicate this is not done for fighting but done as a way of life, I enjoy doing patterns it becomes a spiritual experience for me, my pattern is going to kick anybodies ass but that’s not what it’s for. Similar to yoga practice its a way of going about the world through meditation exertion and release. TMA vs MMA bring a gun, but if you are lucky enough to find yourself one on one no weapons involved, the TKD in me knows I’m slow and screwed if I hit the ground, the Jits in me is a little quicker on my feet but knows my stand up sucks, but working together with a little boxing background and some wrestling put it all together and there is a little something for everyone which is hopefully enough to come out on top.
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:28 am
that should say my pattern is *not going to kick anybodies ass.
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:43 am
Thanks for giving your two cents.
Yeah, I think its cool when people come from a TMA background into a more mixed martial arts setting. Not only do they bring a different vibe, but I think they quickly figure out what skills are needed in different areas. For me, the first time I got tapped by a 110 lb blue belt at my Karate dojo I began to realize the weakness and holes in my game. On the flip side, I did start to figure out how punching and kicking really are supposed to work in an integrated fight.
August 5th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Enjoyable read, great post! The TMA vs. MMA argument is one I’m afraid will never die, but I see it as a battle of pride. I touched on this in a recent post about martial arts forums. In my view, they are not mutually exclusive, but people who come to an MMA background from a TMA background are almost always surprised at the difference “aliveness” makes in training. MMA hasn’t relegated TMA’s meaningless, people just need to know the reasons they are studying an art and have an open mind before they do so. I train BJJ but love Kung Fu because frankly, it looks a helluva lot cooler than BJJ. Even though the modern media portrayal kung-fu is about as far as it gets from reality, I can respect the tradition and altheticism behind it.
November 11th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I think you made a great point, it depends on the style of martial arts in my opinion, there are a couple of traditional martial arts where the whole purpose of the classes is to teach the individual to neutralize the opponent as fast as possible and crippling the opponent and if lucky get a knockout but in all reality fights are not like in the movies since you don’t know what your partner will do, so MMA has the winning ticket there, but if you were to put one to one TMA and MMA with no rules I would have to say the TRUE TMA fighter has the winning ticket since that is what he trains for, a double leg takedown looks nice but if you tried that in the street you may get your ass knocked out.
February 10th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Love this blog! The views are great – and I agree (with most!) but also very entertaining. So many ‘old school’ martial arts are up their own backsides and convinced theirs is the only way. About 7 years ago I trained in a traditional style of aikido and when I left to something more progressive it caused a real storm with threats and challenges… shocking!
March 13th, 2011 at 4:59 am
well said – too many people argue over this just to justify why they do it. Everyone has their own reason to do TMA or MMA, everyone is fighting something of some kind.
March 15th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
from personal experiance TMA beats MMA any day of the week, besides MMAs for pussies
April 12th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
traditional martial arts vs mixed martial arts isnt a proper contest. mixed martial arts arent desighned to fight, they are desighned for a sport, and because of this, they are less practical for defence. traditional martial arts are simply more extensive, in depth, and deadly than any sport could safely be. karate for example, many of the techniques would be unsafe for competition, and aren’t used in the ring. for real defence traditional martial arts are the way to go
May 16th, 2011 at 1:11 am
The fact that the ancient martial arts masters have admired boxing and other martial arts of these places and I think that any martial art or martial arts industry is flawed and everything is in the amount of tools at the time to practice.
September 12th, 2011 at 4:41 am
Don’t under estimate TMA. Imagine, they don’t have the Modern Equipment that we used today.
September 15th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Krav maga has been used in war constantly in the past and constantly used to today in real combat situaitons. Plus iraelis commandos are considered the best or one the best soldiers on the planet to date. And you used mcdojos which are watered down, very inefficient and impratical versions of TMA and this is b/c there has been no need for real MA in combat in years. And comparing them to movies and kung fu(roughly translate to”skills achieved through hard work”, thus basketball MMA and anyother SPORT can be considered kung fu) is not a true representation of TMA. MMA is better than mcdojos and kung fu b/c they actually eliminated the useless and kept the useful which only pertains to ringed combat. nothing is practical about fighting one man for 5 min or rolling on the concrete trapping your limbs under a tapped out or unconscious opponent as his friends will stomp you.
September 22nd, 2011 at 10:31 am
Tatsu – I love Krav Maga! I highly respect it, and think its probably the best bang for your buck when i comes to reality self defense.
As for the practicality of ground fighting – I think most people get the idea that fighting off your back is dangerous on the street. The thing is, if you get put on your back, your going to have to fight off your back – if only to get up. BTW – who is the best at getting up after being put on their backs? Wrestlers/BJJ/grapplers.
As for the practicality of MMA, I’m actually writing a whole post about it. I think it’s WAY more practical than most systems. While the moves may have rules, their training methods are ALIVE. A lot of TMA training doesn’t model real fighting at all – even though the techniques seem more lethal.
November 10th, 2011 at 3:23 am
It is interesting indeed to listen to so many differing opinions TMA vs MMA, which style is better, etc,etc. It goes to show just how ignorant most people in both camps, TMA and MMA really are. There is a lot of lack of knowledge out there. Both TMA and I mean “real TMA” and MMA have something to offer in the negative as well as positive. I come from an old school TMA that taught me how to fight, how to seriously hurt somebody whos’ intent is to hurt me. There is no rules here as we know and anything goes, and I mean anything. Sucker punches, deception, weapons to include guns. Bottom line here is defeating and utterly dominating your enemy, “by any means possible” and preventing him from doing the same to you. Speed, Surprise and Violence of Action. Speed = Hit’em first
Surprise = Hit’em fast
Violence of Action = Hit’em hard.
Survival and winning are one and the same. The things you can do in “real TMA” you can not do in MMA, in the Octagon of course. The key to fighting to kill or seriously hurt with malicious intent is simple, “Be as mean and nasty as you can possibly be and look like you meant to do it”. MMA has many things to offer as well and definitely has my respect. I love to train MMA for fitness and being in fighting shape. I feel that MMA style of training is superior in this regard. I have also learned that MMA can be lethal as well depending on what the practitioner is willing to do. MMA is not to be underestimated. There is absolutely no such thing as a superior style over another. It all comes down to the fighter. I lived in Hawaii for 5 years and remember an incident on the news, a 33 year old drug dealer with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do got into an argument with an 18 year old kid. The drug dealer delivered a vicious side kick with serious malicious intent to the kids chest, stopping his heart and killing him. There was a man-hunt on the island for this guy and the cops did catch him, however the kid was dead. The guy was only a 3rd degree black belt in TKD, an art that typically gets very little respect as a fighting art outside of the sport tournament scene. MMA is just as dangerous if the MMA fighter chooses malicious intent when fighting in or outside the ring. It’s a mind set. I know something about this. I’ve practiced martial arts beginning in “real TMA” when I was 15. I’ve also trained in boxing, and MMA too. I am a 47 year old Green Beret with a passion for fighting and fighting arts. I’ve been to war and fought for real to kill in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know what the difference is when I’m fighting for sport or to prove a point or to survive and live. There is a difference. I know what killing means in the modern sense and I can tell you that I don’t care what your background is if you are an MMA guy or a TMA guy, if you are fighting for life, for keeps, you better have your game face on and your mind set right, there is no tap out here. Now in the the ring if I had to choose to fight lets say a Gracie or Mike Tyson, I’d choose the Gracie. Why because he is gonna either choke me out or submit me by some joint lock and I’m gonna tap out and live. Mike Tyson on the other hand is gonna punch me with the malicious intent of punching my septum into my brain, and should I survive I’ll probably be in a wheel chair drooling all over myself for the rest of my life. But if I had to face either one of them in the arena of life vs death, they had better come prepared and even that’s no guarantee for me. I only get one chance, there usually isn’t a second chance when it comes to fighting for life and death. Two totally different trains of thought. I was lucky in that I had a great TMA instructor that taught me how to fight, how to survive, how to think. Finding one now days is extremely difficult but not impossible. MMA also has much to offer even on the battle field, you just have to change the mind set. The arguments on MMA vs TMA, style superiority over another is not effective and only shows peoples lack of understanding when it comes to fighting for competion vs your life.
November 16th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Vinnie,
Good points all the way around.
One thing – your story about the side kick jives with my experience. During my brown belt exam (Kenpo Karate) I kicked a dude below the ribs with a side kick; he later went to the hospital. Although he turned out fine (eventually) the docs told him his spleen was dangerously swollen and could have died.
Scary stuff.