TMA gets defensive

I took Karate once. I believe the style was called Okinowan Goju Ryu or some shit like that. I went into this place and while it wasn't as shitty as some of the other schools I've heard about, I knew right away that it wasn't fighting.

They had us hitting what they call the "makiwara" (wooden post) to condition our hands, and kicking bamboo to condition our shins. They would walk around and while you were summoning chi (breathing hard) and smack you on the shoulders and in the gut. It was really funny.

When we finally did get to some actual "techniques" we would do all these ridiculous reverse punches combined with blocks. All predetermined shit. The blocking system was ludicrous at best, as my arms were flailing to my side, and pushing upward to fend of a single punch, leaving my entire face and body open for a counter. The whole time I'm wondering how the fuck I would manage to time this so perfectly if someone really threw a single punch at me, let a lone a feint with a combo of punches to the head and body, and shit, what if the first punch I throw doesn't KO him, or if he grabbed me.

I paid for 3 months (the only way you could signup), but I only stayed for 1. I didn't even care about the money; I just could not go into that dojo and "train" (listen to all the fake nonsense bullshit) anymore.

I had this one guy (a bit older) who when I mentioned MMA in passing with another student there got VERY defensive.

This is the guy you see in the TMA dojos who is EXTREMELY into the art he does. He talks of deathouches and pressure points, and screams "kiiiiya" in the loudest voice you could imagine; like he's Ryu or something, summoning all of his chi and blasting a fireball out of his ass. I'll admit though, his katas where flawless.

He started spouting all sorts of nonsense about how grappling and the striking in MMA and boxing wouldn't work. I'm not a very confrontational person by nature, so I kind of let him spew his bullshit while defending my points. That night I left thinking to myself, yeah what those FIGHTERS do doesn't work; keep doing your dancing katas dumbass. I never went back.

Been boxing and doing Jiu Jitsu ever since.
 
I have been working on a theory why TMA's don't work:

Certain combat sports/martial arts put emphasis on competition. These arts, such as boxing, muay thai, wrestling, BJJ, Judo, Sambo, etc., know that, since they are going to be actually throwing down with one another, they gotta cut the crap to win.

Since TMA's only competition is basically a board bashing dance off, there is no need to cut the crapolla out of the program. In fact, they USE the crapolla to attract the uninformed (i.e. super chi blast ninja instant death fireball teleportation ultimate combo invisible one finger eye gouge heart attack special fatalities <--- which always work in the street even against 10 guys who just broke out of jail and will do anything to get their next crack fix).
 
tinker_190 said:
I have been working on a theory why TMA's don't work:

Certain combat sports/martial arts put emphasis on competition. These arts, such as boxing, muay thai, wrestling, BJJ, Judo, Sambo, etc., know that, since they are going to be actually throwing down with one another, they gotta cut the crap to win.

Since TMA's only competition is basically a board bashing dance off, there is no need to cut the crapolla out of the program. In fact, they USE the crapolla to attract the uninformed (i.e. super chi blast ninja instant death fireball teleportation ultimate combo invisible one finger eye gouge heart attack special fatalities <--- which always work in the street even against 10 guys who just broke out of jail and will do anything to get their next crack fix).
Click to expand...


u didnt get the memo?
 
triso said:
I'll admit though, his katas where flawless.
Click to expand...

My "Cabbage Patches" are flawless. I pull that off sometimes when I'm dancing. Works great....haven't tried it fighting though........

I'm good with the "Running Man" too......That shit'll blast you back to the early 90's......
 
I just ask, "Does anyone at your club have cauliflower ears?" When they ask what that is, I just laugh and walk away...
 
i technically train in a TMA school by definition
but its actually a mixed style to the core.
we do a lot of stand-up, grappling, judo, and kata

i live in a small area and can't really find a BJJ gym.
we do some grappling in my dojo as stated above but its not near enough to keep me interested.

i know what u mean by those crazy TMA people though that spurt crap about BJJ
I mean half of those TMA styles only have bogus kicking and punching techniques that willl get them nowhere in a fight exept a speedy trip to the hospital.

i originally went to a bogus TKD gym(didn't know better back then) and all we did was kata and crap sparring as well as learn 50 crazy different kicks that are totally ineffective

it wasn't until i got involved with the judo and juijitsu aspect of my new style that i really felt comfortable in a fight

i now know that if i go to the ground i will win(unless the guy is another grappler, lol)
 
tinker_190 said:
I have been working on a theory why TMA's don't work:

Certain combat sports/martial arts put emphasis on competition. These arts, such as boxing, muay thai, wrestling, BJJ, Judo, Sambo, etc., know that, since they are going to be actually throwing down with one another, they gotta cut the crap to win.

Since TMA's only competition is basically a board bashing dance off, there is no need to cut the crapolla out of the program. In fact, they USE the crapolla to attract the uninformed (i.e. super chi blast ninja instant death fireball teleportation ultimate combo invisible one finger eye gouge heart attack special fatalities <--- which always work in the street even against 10 guys who just broke out of jail and will do anything to get their next crack fix).
Click to expand...

My theory on effectiveness fo an art is more social/anthropological. Meaning I believe that one of the key factors on how effective a MA will be depends on where and when it originated. Example: traditional Kung-Fu styles can be divided into many categories. One of them is whether it originated on the north or south of China. Why is this important? The landscape. The north had more mountains and valleys, and a lot of horse riding, which made practitioners emphathize a narrower, higher fighting stance for kicking. The south landscape had more rivers and there was a lot sailing. They had to emphathize more punching and a lower wider stance so they would not loose balance in boats.

Now if you use also a culture, tradition, politics, religion and other aspects of a society, when an art was founded, it can give you a clearer picture of why an art teaches somethig. This can be applied for both TMA and modern styles.
 
In general I don't like to bag on others -- live and let live.. but I can't resist telling one funny story.
A friend of mine and I work together and take bjj. We are hanging out at his desk talking about class.
A new hire is seated one desk over from him -- after apparently hearing us talk the guy says,
"You guys take bjj?"
"Yeah, its a lot of fun..."
"Is that the one where you roll around on the ground."
"Uhm, sure..." (not wanting to engage...)
"Well, I take Combat Aikido, its meant for practical, street defense..."

Then, he gets up, walks over, stands in front of us, kinda takes a wide spread stance, feet paralelll,
holds up his arm, palm facing him, and declares in a steely voice:

"Show me something."

Guy weighs, maybe 165.... I weight 270... and we are at work... So I am like

"Well, it doesn't work that way, we are at work, there are no mats, I can't very well take you down
on carpet over concrete... in the office. Maybe you should come by the school and give it a try."

He went back to his desk acting like he had proved something. I had a good chuckle to myself
thinking about taking a high double, driving my head through his chest and planting him.
But I woulda gotten fired, sued, etc. Was funny. I wish people in class would stand perfectly still, feet paralell and offer me their arm....
 
bammann45 said:
In general I don't like to bag on others -- live and let live.. but I can't resist telling one funny story.
A friend of mine and I work together and take bjj. We are hanging out at his desk talking about class.
A new hire is seated one desk over from him -- after apparently hearing us talk the guy says,
"You guys take bjj?"
"Yeah, its a lot of fun..."
"Is that the one where you roll around on the ground."
"Uhm, sure..." (not wanting to engage...)
"Well, I take Combat Aikido, its meant for practical, street defense..."

Then, he gets up, walks over, stands in front of us, kinda takes a wide spread stance, feet paralelll,
holds up his arm, palm facing him, and declares in a steely voice:

"Show me something."

Guy weighs, maybe 165.... I weight 270... and we are at work... So I am like

"Well, it doesn't work that way, we are at work, there are no mats, I can't very well take you down
on carpet over concrete... in the office. Maybe you should come by the school and give it a try."

He went back to his desk acting like he had proved something. I had a good chuckle to myself
thinking about taking a high double, driving my head through his chest and planting him.
But I woulda gotten fired, sued, etc. Was funny. I wish people in class would stand perfectly still, feet paralell and offer me their arm....
Click to expand...

I don't think you would have need much to take him down. I don't even think you would have needed to take him down, just pick him up and slap his behind.
 
bammann45 said:
In general I don't like to bag on others -- live and let live.. but I can't resist telling one funny story.
A friend of mine and I work together and take bjj. We are hanging out at his desk talking about class.
A new hire is seated one desk over from him -- after apparently hearing us talk the guy says,
"You guys take bjj?"
"Yeah, its a lot of fun..."
"Is that the one where you roll around on the ground."
"Uhm, sure..." (not wanting to engage...)
"Well, I take Combat Aikido, its meant for practical, street defense..."

Then, he gets up, walks over, stands in front of us, kinda takes a wide spread stance, feet paralelll,
holds up his arm, palm facing him, and declares in a steely voice:

"Show me something."

Guy weighs, maybe 165.... I weight 270... and we are at work... So I am like

"Well, it doesn't work that way, we are at work, there are no mats, I can't very well take you down
on carpet over concrete... in the office. Maybe you should come by the school and give it a try."

He went back to his desk acting like he had proved something. I had a good chuckle to myself
thinking about taking a high double, driving my head through his chest and planting him.
But I woulda gotten fired, sued, etc. Was funny. I wish people in class would stand perfectly still, feet paralell and offer me their arm....
Click to expand...

I would x-guard him. Then heel hook.
 
I don't even pretend interest or try to convert them, open thier eyes, etc. I just have to laugh in thier face and walk off. It's like talking about physics to a 3 year old. They aren't going to get it. They still think people can fly and shoot lasers out of thier eyes.
 
oh yeah my friend is a kemp karate enthusiast who also loves grappling,
so we went to a kemp school after lunch, and talked to the instructor,
my friend was like, what do you think of the UFC? and the guy was like,
well in Kempo we have eye gouging and biting techniques for a grappler,
and my friend was like, you don't think that learning grappling would be
beneficial? my friend is soft spoken, and the instructor was like, if your into
sport then do grappling, but in the street, kempo is the answer.

but on the reverse note, I know guys who trained in BJJ, went to a
TMA school, challenged the instructor infront of his students and choked
the guy out. how nice is that?
 
why is that when people criticize TMA they pick the worst of the worst, the Mcdojos from hell?

and when they compare it to MMA, it's always a decent normal school,
why not pick some messed up MMA school where people get injured real bad,
and beginners are just used as fresh meat for the better guys to experiment on them
like Nazi soldiers did to Jews?
 
The clubs at our gym are mostly TMA nonsense.

On one side of us there's a TKD group. They line up beside us and take turns kicking a pad. The line is about 6 people long and most of them miss the pad.

On the other side is another TMA class. Mostly women, some hot. They run at each other across the gym with their arms held high and one of them turns around about 3 times and twists the other to the ground in a completely unrealistic way.

I saw another instructor moving all his students with his chi or whatever.

How can they see the 30 odd BJJers choking and locking each other not 5 feet away from them and carry on doing that sh*t?
 
What I find hilarious is that many of you are in here bashing TMA'ers for bashing your selected styles. Two wrongs don't make a right you know.

Basically speaking, any system of fighting Art has unfortunately a whole class of practitioners who only train these Arts to mask their insecurities. It's unfortunate that most of you have come across these types, but it happens...especially in today's Society where everything is about money, including most Martial Arts. The good thing about the emergence of MMA is that it puts the direct questionability of Martial Art legitimacy in the light for people to see. But just because it hasn't happened yet that people have showed up to give proper credit to certain Traditional Arts does not mean it CANNOT be done. You'd do well to keep an open-mind about this subject and judge the people you meet individually as opposed to saying shit like "TKD sucks, Karate sucks"...etc. At that point you sound like just as much of a jackass as they do.
 
King Kabuki said:
What I find hilarious is that many of you are in here bashing TMA'ers for bashing your selected styles. Two wrongs don't make a right you know.

Basically speaking, any system of fighting Art has unfortunately a whole class of practitioners who only train these Arts to mask their insecurities. It's unfortunate that most of you have come across these types, but it happens...especially in today's Society where everything is about money, including most Martial Arts. The good thing about the emergence of MMA is that it puts the direct questionability of Martial Art legitimacy in the light for people to see. But just because it hasn't happened yet that people have showed up to give proper credit to certain Traditional Arts does not mean it CANNOT be done. You'd do well to keep an open-mind about this subject and judge the people you meet individually as opposed to saying shit like "TKD sucks, Karate sucks"...etc. At that point you sound like just as much of a jackass as they do.
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I guess what I hate isn't really TMA as much as the McDojo attitude. I think you hit the button with the whole money aspect.

I like BJJ because I pay next to nothing to train. I roll on raggedy mats. I wear the shittiest looking clothes. I'm getting the best wrokout and I'm learning one of the bset martial arts in the world. No belt tests. No bowing. No kiai. No choregraphed dance moves. You respect people because they can kick your ass not because they wear a different color belt than you.

I have a buddy who's a BB in TKD and he is very good and he doesn't brag about how BJJ sucks and how TKD is real fighting. He knows the limitations of his art....he's actually training BJJ now. Same as how I know my BJJ training is incomplete. I don't pretend to know eveything about fighting and I don't brag about how BJJ is THE SYSTEM for martial arts. I have a lot of respect for him. In a street fight...he can hold his own.

What I hate, I guess, is when ANY Martial artist says that their system is the most amazing system in the world and how much better it is than anyone else's. I have a lot of respect for Helio for revolutionizing fighting but I disagree with his assumption that BJJ rules the world of martial arts. But at least BJJ has some ground to stand on because they have taken on all comers. Same as wrestling, MT, Sambo, shootfighting, and boxing.
 
Waxwingslain said:
On the other side is another TMA class. Mostly women, some hot. They run at each other across the gym with their arms held high and one of them turns around about 3 times and twists the other to the ground in a completely unrealistic way.
Click to expand...

Yeah...that's my beef with BJJ.....the women that usually do it are beasts!!!!!!!!!!
TKD....they got some cute looking girls
 
Horses for courses. Some people get too involved with martial arts. Sometimes it is kind of cute, almost as if they are defending their art or their instructors honour (almost enough to adapt their story into an 80's martial art movie). As someone said, if they are defensive & a bit aggressive, it is to prove themselves worthy (like short people).
 
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