*Machida vindicates TMA (Karate)*

[Nicslagan]

Machida also landed 5 FUCKING strikes over 3 minutes which is beyond horrific. And if Machida had fought 3 fights more fights that night he would have lost 2 split decisions. As his recent record shows.

By your responses it seems like you might have been hit in the head a lot. Sounds like you should learn some evasiveness. Maybe you should take some Karate...lol. I notice that you didn't say that he couldn't fight 3 fights in 1 night. Go ride Diego Sanchez. Start a hype train. I'll watch Machida's methodical ways and take notes at his expertise. He is the least hit fighter out there. Sorry you find that boring maybe you would like to watch dog fights and **** fights more but I like skill. He won those split decisions and every fight can't be a crazy dog fight.

 

[GodZirra]

Nice to learn that Karate is the only discipline that has a head kick and a front kick lulz

Because kickboxing and muay thai have no such thing as a head kick or a front kick :/

 

[jimmyw404]

That's why it is called a "martial art" not a fighting art. Discipline is important to any military. They are teaching the class for the purpose they want to teach. They include effective techniques with life lessons. Their point is not to just teach fighting. They want to teach someone to have self control and use diplomacy as well as defend themselves.

They teach anyone from kids, nerds, athletes, rich, and poor.

Most regular people aren't going to want to hurt and get hurt a lot by heavy training.

Teaching fighting, discipline, self control, respect, courtesy, etc. in an extremely safe way is their goal. That is why most people don't understand them.

Teaching fighting only with lots of hard sparring to prove your technique works isn't as safe and leaves out the most important things in life.

You can do TMA for 10 years, have hardly any injuries due to their safe style of training, and then go into fighting with more brutal arts that focus on fighting more if you want to be a professional fighter. You will do very well and your fight career will last longer.

The problem with this line of thinking is that too many practitioners of TMA act as if their TMA experience translates to fighting.

 

[Nicslagan]

Machida shows that when karate is trained with the intention of full contact competition, rather than point fighting tournaments, it is a very effective martial art for striking.

All of these comments about cross training seem like sour grapes or something. No one wins fights with just BJJ but that doesn't mean BJJ isn't a valid art. The same with boxing and MT. All of those arts get cross trained. They're still valid arts individually.

The point fighting is a safe way to learn and practice. Doing this gives you a chance at a more healthy career and you can almost never do this too much. I recommend this at the beginning in training martial arts because it is a good way to learn and perfect all the strikes, timing, spacing, and movement for a real fight without a big risk of injury. Sure later once you are a bad ass in point fighting you can decide to be a professional fighter or not. A professional fighter definitely needs full contact sparring but it needs to be supplemented by point fighting, shadow boxing, no touch sparring, and drilling of techniques.

I'm a hundred percent with you about learning or practicing different arts and ranges. Some of the people on here that say that karate is stupid because bjj beats it are missing a chromosome. Some karate styles teach enough grappling to make it rough on a bjj guy to get a takedown and keep it there. Some styles practice ground fighting with submissions too. BJJ is great though and is detailed in matwork or rolling. TMA are mostly taught separately or individually. The student can always take another art.

 

[GodZirra]

You never know how you're gonna react until someone hits you in the face. Its as simple as that. If a fighter has trained for years without getting hit in the face, then he is gonna be in deep water when he finally gets hit square. TMA teaches a lot of fun stuff, like timing, reflex, strike discipline, etc.. but most do not teach you how to react and deal with real blows.

 

[Nicslagan]

The problem with this line of thinking is that too many practitioners of TMA act as if their TMA experience translates to fighting.

If they are beginners then it doesn't. If they are experts then it does. A person who is an expert at point fighting will destroy a person who is ok at it or has no training at all in a real fight. How couldn't learning all the strikes and defenses not translate into fighting if the TMA student became proficient with all the strikes and defenses? The majority of what you need in a fight to win has already been learned. Only a few things need to be added to become proficient at real fighting.

A TKD black belt will overcome you in the kicking range but can lose a real fight because they know 0 grappling. A TKD black belt should know this. Most do. TMA is a safe way to practice martial arts. How many UFC bouts are changed due to injury? Sure fighting helps you learn to fight but it is dangerous.

TMA is a great way to learn how to fight without getting injured as much. You could take a Muay Thai class and spar with the safer TKD rules and stay away from injury for a few years then spar and fight with Muay Thai rules and be better. That would be the equivalent of what I'm getting at.

 

[Thrawn33]

Judo is not a TMA.

Kano developed judo to be able to be trained at full speed on resusting opponents, and it still is to this day.

Judo beget BJJ and so on.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Even the name is stupid, TMA...as if muay thai, wrestling, boxing aren't as ancient and traditional.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, most of these asian martials arts work but they're badly taught in the West or are too filled with mysticism.
You can't compare being taught karate by Lyoto's father and learning it at the mall dojo.
McDojos don't even teach discipline, they are just blackbelts factories where 13 years old are blackbelts. I would think real discipline is very hard to teach in this kind of setting without some physical pain, just like in the army, they will make you do tons of pushups, pull ups, and other demanding tasks if you screw up, do you think a McDojo does that? It would scare away all the lazy people.
I think training wrestling at school/college involves much more discipline than Mcdojos, and yes REAL TMA schools also give you tons of discipline.

Also is judo even a TMA, it's moderately recent and it's the same as bjj, just different training methodology and point system. So it's obvious it works.

By the way, you can also train "modern" martial arts in a less aggressive way, TONS of old women train boxing nowadays, they just hit the bag more than each other faces.

 

[Nicslagan]

You never know how you're gonna react until someone hits you in the face. Its as simple as that. If a fighter has trained for years without getting hit in the face, then he is gonna be in deep water when he finally gets hit square. TMA teaches a lot of fun stuff, like timing, reflex, strike discipline, etc.. but most do not teach you how to react and deal with real blows.

In TMA you are offered chances to spar with different rules if you want but not at a tournament. I sparred with MMA rules except for punching and kicking to the face in my Hapkido class more than a few times. This was after I got my black belt though. Most schools will let you do this. It is generally frowned upon because they don't want anybody to get injured. We would even bend the rules to allow friendly versions of groin attacks and fish hooks that we learned in the class. If the groin attack or fish attack was landed in a way that we could tell the attack was successful we would comply with it and continue or start over. The instructors know that most guys want to see what they are made of and can't hold back. You are better off not doing this too much because of it being frowned upon and the increased chance of injury.

 

[Nicslagan]

Judo is not a TMA.

Kano developed judo to be able to be trained at full speed on resusting opponents, and it still is to this day.

Judo beget BJJ and so on.

just lol at Judo is not a TMA. Judo even has katas homie.

You're right the safe techniques taught in Judo can be trained on resisting opponents but they still have a lot of rules that are followed. The unsafe techniques are not ever trained on resisting opponents. It's just a better idea not to throw somebody on their head to find out if it works in a real fight. You use common sense to fill in the blanks.

 

[Thrawn33]

just lol at Judo is not a TMA. Judo even has katas homie.

You're right the safe techniques taught in Judo can be trained on resisting opponents but they still have a lot of rules that are followed. The unsafe techniques are not ever trained on resisting opponents. It's just a better idea not to throw somebody on their head to find out if it works in a real fight. You use common sense to fill in the blanks.

Safe techniques like armbars, chokes and throws that either end fights (in MMA or 'da street') or put someone in a position to end a fight? Because I'm pretty sure I've been on the giving and receiving end of both, at full speed and I have the concussions, bruises surgeries to prove how effective these safe techniques are at fucking someone up.

Katas are a very very small part of Judo.

 

[Nicslagan]

Even the name is stupid, TMA...as if muay thai, wrestling, boxing aren't as ancient and traditional.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, most of these asian martials arts work but they're badly taught in the West or are too filled with mysticism.
You can't compare being taught karate by Lyoto's father and learning it at the mall dojo.
McDojos don't even teach discipline, they are just blackbelts factories where 13 years old are blackbelts. I would think real discipline is very hard to teach in this kind of setting without some physical pain, just like in the army, they will make you do tons of pushups, pull ups, and other demanding tasks if you screw up, do you think a McDojo does that? It would scare away all the lazy people.
I think training wrestling at school/college involves much more discipline than Mcdojos, and yes REAL TMA schools also give you tons of discipline.

Also is judo even a TMA, it's moderately recent and it's the same as bjj, just different training methodology and point system. So it's obvious it works.

By the way, you can also train "modern" martial arts in a less aggressive way, TONS of old women train boxing nowadays, they just hit the bag more than each other faces.

Wrestling and boxing are classified as sports but do have their own traditions. Their traditions change a little more than TMA. TMA are called traditional because that is part of their focus and a lot of the traditions stay more similar or the same than others.

The majority of 13 year olds with black belts have learned and memorized all the curriculum to get their black belt. They also learned and demonstrated through "tests" that they are good citizens and understand the tenets taught. They might not be the best fighter in the world.

Take 2 twins that are small and weak but equal and put 1 in TMA and put the other in soccer for instance. The 1 twin who takes TMA will beat the other kid in the range of the art learned the majority of the time. This same twin that took TMA might not be able to beat anyone else up but he is better than he was before.

TMA scare a lot of people away and lose business because the parents feel it is too strict. The TMA I've come across are like a very strict Catholic school. They actually do treat you like you are in the army. They make kids do squats and pushups. They also teach them discipline in a subtle way that is not obvious to even their parents sometimes. You could pay the TMA I was at tons of money and they wouldn't give you a black belt. Many people quit because they pay money and don't get their black belt. Many are run out of the school because the instructors think they are a bad example.

McDojo could be any martial art, TMA or not.

The classes for adults is very strict just like wrestling in college but that depends on the level of the student. They treat long time students with harsher rules than they do somebody who walks in the door. They teach you gradually.

Most of you with answers like this aren't familiar with TMA and I don't blame you. It involves more purposes than just learning how to fight and is taught in a very methodical slow process.

If you take a TMA for a short amount of time you won't be able to fight much better than you could when you walked in the door. If you stay longer you will definitely be able to defend yourself.

katas in Judo.

 

[k831]

I certainly don't have the time nor inclination to read this whole thread, but what Machida, Pettis et al prove is that TMA appropriately trained and practiced can vindicate TMA.

I've studied the typical "MMA arts" for years (Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ) and I've also studied Kenpo Karate, Filipino Eskrima and other TMA or "combative" arts for years. Validity in all of these, and each has things the other does not. What really makes them valid for competition, self defense or an all-out melee is the quality of the instructor, the quality of the student, how lively and pressure tested the training is and so on.

I learned techniques in Kenpo/Karate that are foreign to my kick boxing group, and I use that to set those guys up and catch them sometimes, but I would say Muay Thai is the better art for one on one competition setting and mixed martial arts. I'll tell you one thing, we trained weapons and multi-attacker scenarios in Kenpo and Eskrima and we trained them hard and we trained them live.

It's all about your training goals, what you are training for and how you train it.

 

[Nicslagan]

Safe techniques like armbars, chokes and throws that either end fights (in MMA or 'da street') or put someone in a position to end a fight? Because I'm pretty sure I've been on the giving and receiving end of both, at full speed and I have the concussions, bruises surgeries to prove how effective these safe techniques are at fucking someone up.

Katas are a very very small part of Judo.

lol. Do you think that you should've been more conservative while practicing the safer techniques? I do. Imagine if you added the illegal stuff in. You're right I should have put "SaFeR".

Judo is traditional and they do katas...end of story...maybe too many concussions. Maybe you should just practice katas from now on.

 

[Nicslagan]

I certainly don't have the time nor inclination to read this whole thread, but what Machida, Pettis et al prove is that TMA appropriately trained and practiced can vindicate TMA.

I've studied the typical "MMA arts" for years (Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ) and I've also studied Kenpo Karate, Filipino Eskrima and other TMA or "combative" arts for years. Validity in all of these, and each has things the other does not. What really makes them valid for competition, self defense or an all-out melee is the quality of the instructor, the quality of the student, how lively and pressure tested the training is and so on.

I learned techniques in Kenpo/Karate that are foreign to my kick boxing group, and I use that to set those guys up and catch them sometimes, but I would say Muay Thai is the better art for one on one competition setting and mixed martial arts. I'll tell you one thing, we trained weapons and multi-attacker scenarios in Kenpo and Eskrima and we trained them hard and we trained them live.

It's all about your training goals, what you are training for and how you train it.

Good post. With higher risk of injury come greater fighting reward for sure. The trick is you want longevity and that includes staying away from hard sparring or less safe rules as much as your ego will let you. I think if you are going to be a professional fighter you need to end up sparring Thai rules or training in it. I would always suggest TMA first then Muay Thai later especially if you start young.

Yeah, they have a lot of equipment now that allows you to train harder. I love chest guards, the headgear that covers the face, shock knives, and all that stuff. Unfortunately for most, that stuff is very expensive. I bet the Kenpo technique you use is the lunging punch to the abdomen. Sounds like you went to a JKD class really. I have been to a few of those before.

 

[Nicslagan]

They're a great component of an MMA fighter, but they are nearly useless by themselves.

Kind of stumbled onto this in the mid 1990s. I was a black belt in TKD and got up to a brown belt in karate & judo. Then the UFC happened and I got into Relson Gracie's class in Honolulu.

Six months and one blue belt later in BJJ I felt like most of my TMA time had been largely wasted. Just sparring with TKD and Karate friends I felt like I got a chance to personally validate the Gracie Hype Machine videos. I could beat any of those guys with ease because they had no ground game. MT guys were much harder as they deal with clinches and hit like mack trucks. Wrestlers were very competitive unless you caught them early in the striking and tended to be stronger than !#@$.

Modern MMA fighters lack the specialization of TMA black belts, but they are so functional in a full contact, almost anything goes fight that they would handily mop the floor with most TMA guys.

Tangental note - The UFC is probably the best thing that has happened for TMAs in the last couple of hundred years. So much b.s. and legend had worked into the TMAs over the years and there was nobody to call them on it.

You do know that they keep their techniques to themselves and only show you techniques from your level. You haven't seen all of the techniques in TKD until you've reached 3rd degree black belt. They save the simplest most effective stuff for last. Part of the tradition is withholding techniques until you are at that level. I never really was shown any black belt techniques until I got my black belt. They keep the good stuff behind closed doors. You are only permitted to learn these techniques if you are "in" with the instructor. Due to tradition, mysticism, and religion in TMA it can make them seem like they don't know what they are doing and are full of bs. It used to be very hard for me not to laugh at the beginning students who believed these white, yellow, green, blue, red belt movements to be an exact technique that you would use. This is in Hapkido by the way. There are a lot of cults out there among the TMA. The higher belts can fight but the lower ones have almost no clue.

Watching your guys get beaten over and over and over in full contact fighting is an amazing reality check. Next thing I knew everyone was starting to cross-train a little or explain how their art would deal with takedown attempts and other things.

There were plenty of guys that took both striking and grappling arts. The Traditional Martial Artists separate the areas and ranges needed for full self defense. They have been explaining the question of takedown attempts way before the UFC (ask Judo Gene LeBell or the Gracie family) but they avoid the question or bs you if that is not your level. They know that a striking art deals 95% with striking.

If nothing else the modern evolution of martial arts owes itself to the Gracies in a very large way. They've become somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but they were able to get it into the US and draw enough attention that it eventually lead to the UFC we know today.

Yes, they did bring it to the attention of non-experts in martial arts and general public. They introduced the public to grappling. Most people are familiar with boxing and striking arts...even wrestling. Bruce Lee did this before them. Every generation from now on will grow up with the UFC and mixed martial arts. It's great that this was put together.

Without the UFC the American version of the TMAs would have continued to degenerate into fantasy land. Yes, Shaolin kung fu class with no sparring ever, I'm talking to you.

I see that you aren't familiar with Shaolin Kung Fu. It is also a religion where your body is considered a "holy temple". The sparring progresses as you go in a slow methodical way. It goes from San Da rules to San Shou rules. I bet you didn't know that they also teach grappling and ground fighting. Chin Na and other arts. Kung Fu is the general term and the arts that compose it are like a buffet. Shaolin Masters and Grandmasters can mop the floor with lots of people in a grappling match. A BJJ guy will beat them in a grappling match but that isn't because they don't know those techniques. The techniques are in the art. It is only because the pure BJJ guy studies only grappling while the Shaolin Kung Fu Chin Na practitioner is spending time with ancient weapons and striking arts. They teach you Shaolin Long Fist first. They start everybody there. Only if you are approved to do so by the Master will you be allowed to attend Chin Na classes.

Again, the techniques are there. They do spar less especially at the beginning of training however, the tradition teaches the Shaolin Master to keep his techniques to himself. The student must earn them through tradition. You can even find proof that Chin Na has ground fighting in Wikipedia. I was familiar with this before but sherdoggers always make me show them text or video to prove stuff.

 

[Thrawn33]

lol. Do you think that you should've been more conservative while practicing the safer techniques? I do. Imagine if you added the illegal stuff in. You're right I should have put "SaFeR".

Judo is traditional and they do katas...end of story...maybe too many concussions. Maybe you should just practice katas from now on.

Have you ever done judo competitively?

Randori with a teammate gearing up for nationals?

 

[Nicslagan]

I think people are starting to finally get that it's not about being great at only one art, it's about putting it all together.


Much like how boxing, MT, BJJ, Wrestling, etc. won't really work by themselves, TMA like TKD won't work by themselves either.

But as we're starting to see with guys like Pettis, Machida, Kikuno, Nakahara, Cung Le, etc. who do the TMA stuff alongwith everything else, it works.



People need to realize we're kinda past the style vs style stage in MMA. Now it's guys playing the fights to their advantages.

Yes, I agree with you completely. We should be way past saying that TMA striking arts don't work. They work on the feet. They have very little to offer on the ground especially with the no kicking downed opponent rule (see Anderson Silva vs Okami disqualification, excellent TKD technique). BJJ doesn't do much for striking either. Get a black belt in striking art and BJJ. You're able to defend yourself vs almost any chump.

 

[Nicslagan]

i remember when pettis and Cerrone fought that alot of people were saying that TKD is worthless against MT and after the fight, the first thing they say is that Pettis doesnt rlly use TKD since he also trains muay thai.

People think the rules of TKD sports matches are how a TKD practitioner fights in the street. They look similar to Muay Thai. In TKD they teach kicks below the waist all the way down to the ankle in the self defense section. The sparring for higher belts allows kicking the thigh, knees, etc., but no punching the face. This kind of sparring is generally done among sister schools or with students from your own school. They only spar like this with people that are extremely coordinated and skilled in light touch and no touch sparring (black belts and above). They also only spar with people they trust to avoid Paul Harris type situations. You could say that Pettis is really good at Muay Thai because he is a 3rd degree black belt in TKD. It's a very easy transition. If you are a 3rd degree black belt you know almost all of the moves. You definitely are awesome at all the kicks.

These are fans not real martial artists saying this stuff.

 

[TatesBeauty**]

Everything about Machida screams Karate. Its sometimes a good thing. Sometimes a bad thing. But always respected.