pwen arye

Beautiful Video. I personally don't train kata, but watching someone who put in the time and effort to perfect his techniques is wonderful to watch.

All in all, I think that MMA doesn't exclusively mean what we see in the UFC. If someone came in with a system that incorporate a mixture of systems (lets say a system of kung fu, a system of karate and a system for WMA) that it is MMA. Learning different martial arts and combining them does not make it MMA. It makes it a combined style. ^ This is what I have been saying. The general population recognizes MMA as a sport. It's sort of like the argument about slang words becoming part of the actual language. If enough people use it enough and agree on it's meaning it becomes an actual word and gets put into the dictionary.

If you want to add MMA to your program just bring in an outside teacher who knows what he is doing.

Now, do some TMA schools advertise themselves as MMA to get people into the door? Sure, but I don't blame them for that because they're running a business and I understand where they are coming from. TMA has survived before MMA and it will survive after it. There are plenty of dojo's/dojang's/gyms etc that don't need to to advertise something that they are not to get students. TKD and Karate is the best example of this. If a business fails it's not because the MMA gym took their students, it's because they didn't know how to run it in the first place.

The instruction he offers is awesome. I put it in with my bjj training and no-gi grappling.

If I had the choice between teaching adults and teaching kids, I would do adults. Not because I don't like children, It's just can't deal with soccer moms.

Erik Paulson's Combat Submission Wrestling

^so true. I suspect that he sensed that you have past experience and was either miffed that you weren't up front about it or perhaps he paired you with a black belt to protect his junior students? Regardless, he's the professional and handled it very very poorly. Good luck finding a school. Hope it works out for you! He could have just asked if he had previous MA experience. Sorry but that is no excuse for having a top level student try to knock the guys block off in a first encounter. Every place I went to the first thing they ask you is "Do you have any previous MA training?". Oh and what's the matter withwanting to compare styles? He wasn't going in to challenge the instructor, he was there to see if his kicks were as efficient against a style known for it's powerful kicks.

I blame hollywood. A good chunk of sociopaths/insecure/crazy people join MA for the reason of becoming the invincible kung fu master that can break feeble humans like ones in movies. I am always wary of people like that teaching techniques used for deadly force. Kinda makes me want to become a therapist and see what makes these people tick. Or maybe they just need a hug :'( Anyway just brush off the dirt and move on to a better school. TKD was the first art that I have ever taken and I have plenty off fond memories about it. Plenty of good schools, just look for the diamond in the rough.

And give up (somewhat) fresh air, green grass, and great people to live on a big red desolate rock?? No thanks.

I get what you're saying. Everything comes from everything else. But like ps1 said when a person walks in your place looking for MMA nine times out of ten they are looking for cagefighting or to train the way fighters do, and alot of TMAers are taking advantage of that. Let's have a scenerio for a bit. Say your a martial arts noob looking to start MMA. You grew up watching UFC/PRIDE/Strikeforce etc. You are a fan and obviously want to train they way your MMA heroes do. So you go online looking for a mma gym. You find a website that uses alot of MMA imagery (sp?) and buzzwords ex.(kickboxing classes,grappling etc). You see stock pictures of people doing boxing grappling etc. So You say to yourself "hey this seems cool let me try it out". So you go in for free classes, you come in and see what basically amounts to a regular karate training session, with people wearing mma gloves. Come to find out the grappling is mostly anti-grapple, the kickboxing is cardio taught by a fitness instructor, there is no sparring and they don't train for the cage because our techniques are "too deadly". Come to find out the MMA he teaches is a bunch of styles he has taken and sploshed them together. None of which can be transferred to the cage. Now tell me don't you think that is false advertising? Now I'm not saying the TMA can't be used in the Cage. It has been proven time and time again by alot of different MMA fighters, that if the TRAINING is modified it can be used in a competition.

I don't know if this has been discussed but this has been bothering me for some time. If I sound a little harsh in this post please forgive me, I am a very passionate person when it comes to martial arts, and it sorta ticks me off when I see someone hopping on the bandwagon and misleading some people. First I want to ask what is mma to you? Is it just a bunch of styles thrown together? Or has MMA become a style in it's own? Let me tell you the place I go to teaches chinese kempo. Our art lineage is traced back to Walter Godin and Adriano Emperado. Does it have some TMA techniques in it? Yes, for some of the self defense it does. But we also call it MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). Why do we call it that? Well because first it is what it is, MMA. We do have street lethal techniques, but we also teach some stuff that can be used in the cage/grappling competitions. In fact, I am entering into NAGA georgia in july. We have a black belt who has competed in the cage, and our southside affiliate has a couple of world champions. Well what the point of this post? Well it sorta ticks me off when I see some people claiming to teach MMA when reality it is just a bunch of TMA techniques thrown together. They still have forms, stances, little to no sparring and other dead training that TMAs tend to use. I remember some EPAK black belt saying that American kempo is a mixed martial art, which in my opinion it isn't. So tell me what do you guys think about this? It's kinda funny because when MMA first came around alot of TMA'ers dismissed it, now all of a sudden everybody seems to be doing what they call "MMA". To me thats kidna selling out, and in my opinion thats kinda low...

Thanks again for the kind welcome. This place is as warm as a fresh baked biscuit.

I'm not easily intimidated by someone so I'm not insecure when practicing with a higher ranking martial artist. I kinda see the senior as a mentor and a person who I am aspiring to be.