A positive side of the of "new passion" for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is that the training methods have been improved. Also, the uselfulness of wrestling and ground fighting has been stressed and "re-discoveried", in contrast with the view of many "traditional" martial artists who typically ignored grappling methods for hand-to-hand combat.
But the emergence of contemporary MMA has a negative side too, and in this post I'm going to discuss some of these problems:
1-In the simplistic, over-enthusiast and superficial mentality of some people (specially in USA), MMA is the ultimate form of street self-defense.
This is false. MMA is a SPORT, and as such the mean, dirty realities of the streets (multiple opponents, weapons, etc.) are not covered by the typical training methods of MMA.
The defenders of MMA argue that all the tecniques of MMA (thai kicks, elbows, ground grappling, etc.) are useful to self-defense.
True, they're useful to self-defense, but it doesn't mean that MMA is the ultimate form of self-defense, let a alone a self-defense art. (A baseball bat could be useful to self-defense too, but it doesn't make baseball a self-defense sport or art).
2-In contrast with the early no-holds-barred tournaments (e.g. The early UFCs, the early World Vale Tudo championship, the early International Vale Tudo Championship) which allowed virtually every possible empty hand technique (in the early UFCs, groin strikes or eye gouge were the only restrictions... but a violation of such restrictions wouldn't disqualify the figther, so in a sense they were "allowed"... in fact in the UFC 1, Gerard Gordeau bite Royce Gracie's ear and he wasn't disqualified), contemporary MMA tournaments don't allow every possible technique, incluidng "dirty techniques", but only the safest of them.
MMA is now like boxing, only that a wider repertory of techniques is allowed.
But for "old school" followers of real Vale Tudo fights like me, contemporary MMA is fun, but not serious fighting at all. Just a nice sport to watch and train.
3-But even the "old school" Vale Tudo fighting was not wholly equivalent to street self-defense. They were real fighting, the more close you can get to a real street fight between seasoned figthers of different styles, but not properly a self-defense situation like most cases of street attacks.
4-Another negative effect of contemporary MMA is the misleading impression that traditional martial arts styles are worhtless.
This is simply false, as anyone who knows the history of martial arts could attest. Styles such as traditional jiu-jitsu, or some styles of Kung Fu (including the Chin Na arsenal) are BATTLE-TESTED. They were used in WARS, against opponents who tried to kill you, not in rings or octagons with a referee.
The defenders of MMA tend to pose the following objection: Such supposedly "battle-tested" styles were beaten when they were faced with modern mixed martial artists.
The objection is unconvincing: Even if it were the case, how exactly that objection refute the claim that such styles were battle-tested and proven effective? Suppose that a master of Chin Na is faced with Mike Tyson in a Vale Tudo tournament, and Tyson gives him a pounding. How exactly such evidence refutes the claim that Chin Na is battle-tested and effective in streetfighting situations? At most, it proves that in certain contexts (or against certain kinds of opponents, like a powerful boxer like Tyson), such style is hard to apply. But it doesn't refute the efficacy of Chin Na in other contexts (e.g. for disarming a guy with a knife, or escaping a strangle hold, or submitting a violent but untrained street attacker).
The believer in MMA conflates the lack of efficacy in a certain contexts with the lack of efficacy in ALL contexts.
Using the same logic, take a leading champion of MMA and make him to face (using swords) a traditional Samurai in a life or death combat. In all probability, the Samurai would kill him. Does it make MMA non-efficacious? Obviously not, it only shows that in certain contexts (e.g. in a fight with weapons) MMA is limited and other styles are superior.
However, it is true that some traditional martial arts use forms of training which are not very realistic (and hence the techniques are not trained in a way which could be used against a non-resisting opponent, specially a trained one), and MMA has helped to realized that.
All the above problems and misunderstandins have been caused, in my opinion, by a lack of theoretical reflection and sytematization of the THEORY OF HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT. In the martial arts community, at least in America and with some exceptions, there are not philosophers or theoreticians of martial arts or combat.
We need to develop a sophisticated theory of hand-to-hand combat, clearifying key concepts, drawing subtle and intelligent distinctions, and (obviously) testing such concepts and theories with empirical evidence (e.g. police reports of street fighting, careful observation and analysis of early Vale Tudo matches, etc.)
This research is worth pursuing for any person interested in martial arts and the science of hand-to-hand combat.
In future posts, I'll discuss some of these things in more detail.
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