*Machida vindicates TMA (Karate)*

[Lightfoot]

I remember arguing for months with Silverwolf waay back in 02/03 about "TMAs" in kickboxing and MMA before he got banned. It's awesome to see people finally recognizing the fact that arts besides MT, boxing and BJJ have value. When it comes to combat effectiveness, it's always been the artist, not the art.

Way to be progressive Sherdog.

 

[Wayweary]

I think the criticism was that TMA as taught were flawed in terms of applicability to real fighting and that was certainly true.

 

[Wayweary]

Also, a broken clock is right twice a day. Every TMA has something of use but not every TMA is very useful in and of itself. Nor is ki winning anyone any fights...

 

[MaTaLa]

Just keeping it real

 

[mawashi geri**]

TMA is just as relevant as the other disciplines in MMA.

This

 

[Dragonseeker]

This

Especially since Muay Thai IS traditional martial arts.

 

[Spidermine]

Especially since Muay Thai IS traditional martial arts.

So is wrestling and boxing. probaly even older than muay thai. BJJ has its roots in judo, so even that has a long history.

 

[gillygilly**]

I think it was/is more about the way those TMAs are brought to the masses, rather than writing TMAs off entirely. The number of practitioners who never properly spar, let alone fight..

this is basically what it comes down to. I've done karate since I was 10, so it's been 12 years now. But my first time doing continuous sparring was an eye opener and really illustrated the differences between karate point competitions and a fight (and that's without trying to ko each other lol)

 

[MarcoW]

Just keeping it real

so because Machida couldn't beat a man a weight class above him who has never been beaten his style is bad?

 

[A Muse of Fire]

does anyone in this thread use weapons in their kata? I train with a bokken when i do kata so i think it is fun and worthwhile.

 

[Wayweary]

Especially since Muay Thai IS traditional martial arts.

Yeah, it is a good one. There are some not so good ones. Many TMAs moved away from practicality as weaponry advanced throughout history and they became more about ritual and philosophy. Muay Thai was trained to be practical because of sport fighting, I imagine. MMA now has begun to show what sorts of techniques are applicable in a more realistic fighting scenario, at least within reason. Of course people would be intentionally poking each other in the eyes and throwing soccer kicks to the head if it was real "street fighting."

One of the main problems many TMAs exhibited was the idea that stand up fighting is the default type of fighting. In reality, real fighting, the sort with the intention to do injury, incapacitate, or even kill the opponent, usually involves trying to get your opponent off of their feet to make them the most vulnerable. I don't know if TMAs have a term for soccer kicks and stomps, but TMAs seemed to ignore them and operated on a sort of gentlemen's agreement that if someone falls, you reset and continue to strike at distance or the idea that a skilled TMA practitioner simply would finish the fight before ever going down, lol. Another idea is that a trained person could be relatively certain of connecting with one devastating punch. Real combat is so much more chaotic and even if you train in TMAs for years, there is no substitute for real life experience that teaches you that counting on that perfect shot is just silly. If someone wants to clinch you, chances are they will. If your only defense is to hit them with the perfect punch or kick as they come in, you are setting yourself up for failure.

 

[HIMBOB]

I have often thought that grappling would less effective if people could train striking arts as hard and as often as you train grappling without becoming brain dead.

I hard sparr grappling upto 2 hours a week, and I am not overly serious. I don't think anyone could hard sparr with striking near that amount and not suffer serious repercussions.

 

[Lanshire]

So is wrestling and boxing. probaly even older than muay thai. BJJ has its roots in judo, so even that has a long history.

Ya but it really depends how you look at it. Wrestling has many forms and what was done in ancient Greece isn't exactly the same as what's done in what we commonly think of as wrestling today (freestyle/folkstyle). They used to allow choking for crying out loud. Greco-Roman wrestling is based on old forms of wrestling but is really only a couple hundred years old. Then you have forms of wrestling like Glima and Pelhwani and definitions just get weird.

Boxing as we know it today wasn't always been "boxing". There used to be Broughton rules and then the London rules. The same sort of thing goes for TKD. Are we talking about TKD as it was practiced like 100 years ago or Olympic TKD? I think a TKD expert as it was practiced 100 years ago would have more success with it in MMA or a fight than the sport TKD we see in the Olympics today. Same goes for point karate, sport judo, etc.

What we come to think of as TMA's often aren't actually the TMA's so much as their modern watered down sport counterparts that are less effective in a martial sense. It's precisely why I'm such a critic of modern MMA rules and the artificiality they create with things like giving so much weight to takedowns and control over damage and finishig- it's emphasizing the lowest factor of what truly defines fighting at the expense of the highest factor. Some rules are always necessary for sport versions but we've seen in other martial arts what happens with too many rules and poor rules/judging systems and then made the same mistakes to a lesser extent with modern MMA.

 

[aaron_mag]

The problem is most TMA practitioners do not have a training regime like prize fighters. They train like recreational hobbyists...because that is what they are. Nothing wrong with that (I am one myself).

The techniques can work. But it takes someone to train like a prize fighter (IE Machida, Pettis, etc). Obviously if that isn't your profession you're going to balance your training with the rest of your life. Early TMAists in MMA were hobbyists who got in way over their head against guys who were in better shape and frankly better prepared.

Now there are guys who are actually the complete package and can make the techniques work for them. But they put a ton of training in that is far more than we hobbyists put in (which is fine...just the reality of balancing out your life)

 

[XenonRadon]

The problem is most TMA practitioners do not have a training regime like prize fighters. They train like recreational hobbyists...because that is what they are. Nothing wrong with that (I am one myself).

The techniques can work. But it takes someone to train like a prize fighter (IE Machida, Pettis, etc). Obviously if that isn't your profession you're going to balance your training with the rest of your life. Early TMAists in MMA were hobbyists who got in way over their head against guys who were in better shape and frankly better prepared.

Now there are guys who are actually the complete package and can make the techniques work for them. But they put a ton of training in that is far more than we hobbyists put in (which is fine...just the reality of balancing out your life)

Good points all around, gives me something to think about.

 

[Wayweary]

For high level martial artists, TMAs have a lot to offer MMA, though I think it makes sense to study individual techniques rather than an art as a whole, especially with all the katas and such. No need to go for belts or anything like that. Most of TMA is probably a waste of time if your goal is to become a fighter but it can still offer some great tools that could be quite useful if they were incorporated into your style and set up well (unlike the Nick Diaz BS kicks he sometimes puts out there, for instance) .

I would say, however, that if you wanted to learn self defense, your time would be best spent improving cardio, learning to wrestle/grapple a little bit and maybe taking boxing or some other striking art last. To go the route of showing up at a TMA gym and think that you will be effective at self defense based on three classes a week or something like that is just misguided. In a real fight, the number one thing you are going to want is decent cardio. Most people are going to gas quickly in a full out fight. You don't want to gas first. Second would be avoiding the other person putting you on your back and getting a dominant position. Finally, assuming you can avoid the other person taking you down, you could either try to take them down yourself, or utilize some simple but effective striking, and probably not kicks since that runs the risk of either losing balance or being taken down. Getting taken down in a real fight is way worse than it is in the UFC in terms of potentially getting fucked up. For a one on one fight, BJJ is probably the best. After that, and especially for multiple attackers, maybe one of the survival-oriented combat systems like Krav Maga or something. Taking TKD, Aikido or Karate without training in MMA or at least a strong grappling style will most likely get you your ass kicked by a decent, aggressive brawler should you even decide to fight one.

 

[Konighter]

Not really fast, but it is more balanced and less telegraphed.

Sports Science is an awful show, and using a guy who is an MMA fighter to show the difference refreshing like te kick and Thai kick is awful:


This is an example of a Muay Thai kick. Obviously, there are several variants, but they all keep the leg very loose and the power comes from pivoting the hips completely through the target.

This is an example of a Shotokan Karate kick. There are also several slight variants, but they all have a slight chamber and a good chunk of the power comes from the quads when snap the kick out of the chamber. It should come back and bring you into a stable stance.

Obviously Machida does a slight combo of the two, but it's much more Karate, and I'm not sure if he's really throwing a hybrid or if it's just not a picture perfect Karate kick and he's throwing it with power.

And people throw Karate kicks with shin all the time; the overall goal is to use the ball or instep, but if you're too close, you don't just withdraw the kick, you kick through with the shin.





Edit: and contrary to what one trolling hapkido artist will tell you, there is nothing like a Thai kick in any traditional japanese karate system.

Good to see someone refreshinglike you, with a lot of knowledge to discuss.

 

[Codpiece]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

the machida kick is completely karate. I train it every week.
And why are that 4 more efective? I can think of Karate/BJJ like Lyoto. Boxing does not include feet and kickboxing is very poor on defending. Wrestling won't tkae you much far than controling your oponent's on the floor. And BTW that movies you talk about, that has almost nothing to do with some TMA like Karatem judo and stuff. They're MOVIES.

I trained trad Karate and after about 5 years earned my shodan. I did mawashi-geri training every week. Machida's kick was straight Karate, I don't care if 'it looked more MT to me.', garbage. That kick is basic Karate.

Most martial arts have good points, but like everything must be taught properly. Mich of my training was limited in terms of practical application, opwhich is why I ended up leaving that school. There are some very good Karatekas around besides Machida. But like MT fighters and BJJ fighters Karate fighters need to practice in a combat setting and have proper coaching in terms of footwork, movement, countering, timing etc in order to be effective fighters, and that aspect of training is sorely lacking in many TMA schools.

Thant's a knock on the school, not the style.

 

[Thai Otoshi]

I've understood the terminology of "traditional" martial arts. Muay thai, boxing and wrestling are ancient. Even BJJ is just a derivative of an ancient style. The only things that seems modern are the nutrition and training.

Boom.

It also amazes me how many people don't know that the entire concept of gis and belt ranks started with judo.... a whopping century ago.

 

[THECYNDlCATE]

lol, Karate,.. just lol.