the real truth is it really depends why a person is deciding to tke up anmartial art. if you are an older person who is out of shape and wants to get some excercise and would get seriously hurt if they tried real life sparring then most traditional martial arts are the way to go. I think what has happenend whith tma is they forgot why they do the katas/forms. the katas where done as a way to drill movements, what happened is they went strictly to doing the form and making it look pretty and forgot the kata was suposed to mimic the way you are to move when getting attacked. everybody is built different so what works for one may not work for anaother. take someone who has wrestled and when they drill there shots. a wrestler has a feel for the way a person comes at them and a feel for how to move that person weight thus drilling his moves in such a manner that works for him. he know when to cut based on what his body can do. he not just doing the movement to do it he has a feel for it. tma's since they dont spar have not beent able to modify there movements in that manner since everyone is doing it the way it was taught years ago and not by what would currently work. kind of rambling, i hope htat makes sense.