what is MMA missing?

[yusuf]

Hi

Recently some people seem to be on the trip of sucking the last drops out of the MMA shlong and spitting it in the direction of any IMA ... I have trained, albeit sporadically, at an MMA gym so I wanted to open up the subject of what is missing from MMA.

1) No awareness of any pre fight trickery, rituals, deception, that get attackers to within sucker punch range. (not really covered most IMA either)
2) No training on the adrenal dumps that results in going from being peacful to beign in the middle of a full blown rumble. (definitely covered in the good IMA i have seen)
3) Complete lack of awareness re multiple attackers. (TMA should have this as a base component)
4) Inability to deal with bladed weapons, but much better with blunt instruments curiously enough.
5) Falling into patterns of regularly going to positions which will leave you exposed to all sorts of malicious counters (things which are banned in MMA fighting).
6) No understanding of fingers, eyes, nuts, throat and other vulnerable areas.
7) Volume of power is much lower than a lot of IMA, but timing in the strikes is better.


On the plus side the conditioning is amazing, they apply hitting to as close to real as one can get without the training partner being taken away in easy to carry pieces. The MMA guys have to train hard or they get the shit beaten out of them in sparring. IMA misses this impetus which leaves a lot of practitioners lazy and ignorant of their true level.

had to get that off my chest..

yusuf

[GrahamB]

Good post - it's all tradeoffs. Find what you love and stick to it.

[DeusTrismegistus]

For some reason a lot of people think that it is just flat impossible to do well in a multiple opponent scenario. Usually there people are really into MMA or BJJ. I mean yea running is the best option but its not always available, you may have to fight your way out. Its almost an attitude of "i don't think it can be done so no one else can do it and its not worth training in at all."

[cloudz]

Hey Yusef, out of curiousity, which mma place did you get to in our fair city?

[yusuf]

hiya

i viisted the London Shootfighters a few times, tough tough guys and they are beginning to produce fighters that will get into the mainstream UFC. Again my only problem is as listed above, plus the fact that they work you as hard as the only prostitute in a mining town. The teachers are superb ring fighters themselves and I would recommend anyone t do some sessions with these guys.

Went to Gymbox as well, a bit more commercial. I am going to pop along to the London Fight Factory in the next couple of weeks, mainly because there stand up is supposed to be very good.

cheers

yusuf

[RobP2]

Yep, that list is all true. I think that the big advantage of MMA is that their delivery system is very straightforward, ie punch or grapple. Nothing overly fancy or that takes years to develop, on top of which, as you say, add good conditioning and you have someone who is a handful - certainly if you play his game

I wonder how much is down to the people involved too - are "natural fighters" more inclined to boxing and MMA than IMA? Do they attract diffrerent types of people? Worst thing, whatever you do, is to blinker yourself with your style's ideology and not even look at anything else - and of coruse MMA is/will be just as commercialised as the worse McDojo soon

cheers

Rob

[chicagoTaiJi]

how is the 'volume of power' 'less' in 'ima'? internal martial arts is a training method not a fighting method. you can't fight internally! and slow moves against a fast opponent seems pointless

[Josealb]

huh? he said the volume of power is higher in IMA, not lower.

[Chris McKinley]

Most of yusuf's indictments are pretty much true about MMA, but IMO that indictment is wildly inaccurate without putting things into a little perspective regarding IMA and almost all other TMA.

1) As yusuf mentioned, almost no treatment of scenarios is covered in any IMA training whatsoever. This is something that good RBSD programs cover that both MMA/TMA do not.

2) RE: adrenal dumps. Zero realistic coverage/training in IMA. Sorry yusuf, but either your standards are way lower than mine on this, or you've been fantastically lucky to find the one IMA school in the world that actually covers this topic on a realistic and professional level. Again, this is something that is more the domain of the better RBSD programs than either of the other two general formats.

3) RE: multiple attackers. Very true about MMA, and also true that TMA should have this as an important part of training, but they don't. At least not in any realistic way.

4) RE: bladed weapons. Well over 99% of all TMA are absolutely worthless against real bladed weapons. At least the MMA guys don't even pretend to cover that topic in their training. That makes them all the more honest, frankly.

5) RE: exposed positions. Wow...this is one of those "if I had a nickel..." moments. TMA's general reliance on fighting 'stances' makes this indictment hollow at best. IMA's tendency to teach fighting applications from the goofy-as-hell santi mannequin pose makes this particular indictment a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

6) RE: "No understanding of fingers, eyes, nuts, throat and other vulnerable areas.". It's taking the point too far to say that MMA has no understanding of these things. They are frankly quite primal and simple to understand. It's more accurate to say that they don't include such targets in their regular daily training. Then again, neither do most TMA. Further, by that standard, nearly all IMA would have to be said to be completely ignorant of such topics, as they generally do not even trade real blows of any kind in training.

7) Volume of power in context can only be determined by fighting. It can never be determined by what someone is capable of doing in solo practice in the nice safe, user-friendly environment of the training hall the way IMA practitioners develop it. The very same can be said for timing. Both require actual application to be able to claim honest ability in a real fight.

The bigger picture here is that, for each truthful indictment made against the MMA approach to training, the same can be said to be true, and often exponentially moreso, of many if not most TMA programs, and of almost every IMA program. While the truth hurts no matter which way it cuts, if the objective is to expose weaknesses in training so that those weaknesses can be addressed and shored up, then it would be woefully dishonest to present such a stark critique of MMA without also pointing that microscope at what TMA, and much more especially IMA, are doing that is also glaringly lacking.

[Formosa Neijia]

What's missing? Any hint of a restorative/health/recovery element. It's tear-the-body-down all the time and nothing else.

Thankfully there's more to CMA than punching people in the face or I wouldn't still be able to do it.

Dave C.

[JAB]

VERY general statements that will differ school to school, and more importantly teacher to teacher.
You guys would be better off taking some time and training with someone in MMA/BJJ for a period of time. Not this "I visited a couple times" shit (whatever that means anyways)! Many of you are the first to say that a newbie in "IMA" has to put in the time to understand your art. Yet you turn around a visit a MMA gym a couple of times and think you have all the answers, and really.... you don't.

I am not going to waste the time arguing any of these points since it will head down the same road it always does here. Instead I beg you guys to actually spend some time (6+months uninterrupted training with a talented teacher) and THEN come back and offer some of your thoughts in this arena.

Cheers
Jake

[Ian]

how is the 'volume of power' 'less' in 'ima'? internal martial arts is a training method not a fighting method. you can't fight internally! and slow moves against a fast opponent seems pointless

Ah... this is opening up a whole 'nother can of worms.

For example - what is "internal"?

p.s. "Volume of power is much lower THAN a lot of IMA"

edit: FWIW I don't understand my nuts either. I'll spare you the details.

Yusuf: yes on all points.

[Chris McKinley]

Dave and Jake,

You both make some excellent points. MMA, like boxing, is straightforward in being about learning how to fight. It doesn't claim to be a 'holistic' anything. Because the training is far more intense combat-wise then TMA/IMA, generally speaking, injuries do occasionally happen. However, honesty requires us to note that the same would be true of IMA, for instance, if they actually practiced combat and actually exchanged blows, even occasionally. The body doesn't know or care if it's being injured by a punch from an MMA stylist or a Taiji practitioner; it's either injured or it's not. When injuries do happen, IMA has it hands-down over MMA for treatment, but then that also assumes that the MMA practitioner isn't supplementing his recovery with other methods, including possibly the very same treatments from IMA.

It's also both true and head-shakingly frustrating that people from the TMA side of the old MMA/TMA feud will find it perfectly acceptable to consider themselves qualified to give definitive critique of the efficacy, depth, etc. of MMA sometimes without having set foot in an MMA gym or at most trying one or two lessons. Granted, it's just as intellectually dishonest when MMA types make the same pronouncements about TMA schools without having tried them, but IMA folks, of all people, should know better than to think you can garner the depth of something from just an initial sampling at most. To be fair, I don't know if that situation holds true for yusuf in particular, since I don't know what his familiarity with MMA is, but it's still such a common occurrence that it's worth mentioning.

[DeusTrismegistus]

VERY general statements that will differ school to school, and more importantly teacher to teacher.
You guys would be better off taking some time and training with someone in MMA/BJJ for a period of time. Not this "I visited a couple times" shit (whatever that means anyways)! Many of you are the first to say that a newbie in "IMA" has to put in the time to understand your art. Yet you turn around a visit a MMA gym a couple of times and think you have all the answers, and really.... you don't.

I am not going to waste the time arguing any of these points since it will head down the same road it always does here. Instead I beg you guys to actually spend some time (6+months uninterrupted training with a talented teacher) and THEN come back and offer some of your thoughts in this arena.

Cheers
Jake

JAB, I pretty much agree but some of this stuff boils down simply to the training goals. MMA does not claim self defense as a primary training goal, it does not claim weapon use or defense a primary training goal. Which makes it pretty obvious that these areas will not be covered. My only gripe comes from the general attitude of people I have conversed with when it comes to MMA and self defense training. Many people are under the assumption that MMA will be effective self defense training as it is trained for ring competition. Of course many of the things they do will be extremelly helpful but there is also a lot missing. The whole concept of your goals dictate your training and that a person with a goal of practical self defense will not train the exact same as a person whose goal is ring competition is lost on several people I have spoken to on the subject.

[Kurt Robbins]

I'm with Jake,
Big general statements based on one gym.
I disagree with everything but the bladed weopons statement (in the gym I train in (AMC Pankration)), but I know for a fact the Gracie camp does train against bladed weopons and multiple attackers.
For fighters about to fight Matt (our coach) has the fighter go against three attckers and keeps rotating in fresh guys each time.
I like that you are opened minded and looking at different perspectives and evaluating what you are doing (Kudos for that), but I would offer to dig a little deeper -
Just my opinion.