MMA(many styles) or one at a time?

[DJmma]

The MMA school I am thinking of joining teaches many styles. Originally i just wanted muay thai, or maybe BJJ. But you can also take a class called "MMA" and its a mix of many styles. I could either take 2 separate classes of muay thai and BJJ, or i could take MMA...Here is the dicription of "MMA" class dirrectly from their site:

"Our Mixed Martial Arts class or (MMA) is designed for practical self defense. It is comprised

 

of many different styles of martial arts including Gracie or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submission

 

Wrestling, Judo, Boxing, Jun Fan Gung Fu (Bruce Lee's martial art) and Muay Thai. You will

 

learn to flow between all the ranges of combat. Kicking and punching range, trapping, clinching,

 

pummeling, take downs, and ground submissions. We do not do (kata) and we do not break

 

boards! This is a no nonsense approach to defending yourself and many of the techniques you

 

will learn are used by law enforcement and military special forces."

I want your opinions on if you think its better to study styles one at a time or should I take the general MMA class? I primarily want muay thai and BJJ, but maybe taking a MMA class could be good...what do you think?

thanks

[patusai]

Personally, would do the MMA if that is what I wanted.

[Blackbeltblonde]

My system is a mixture of 6 different styles.. and I firmly believe that it makes it more street effective. Most of the time when styles are combined like that they have taken out what they believe is not as effective and replaced it with what they believe is better from another style.

My vote is to go with that.

~BBB

[NothingsShadow]

I guess you need to workout what you're really after.

The description you have for the MMA seems to state there is a strong self defence theme, personally if your really after serious self defence (not how to win a pub brawl but actually defending yourself from an attacker) you should have a look a doing some no nonsense self defence.

On the other hand if you want to get a feel for many of the different aspects of different martial arts this MMA sound good.

That said IMHO (and experience) the tradition of the martial arts tend to get lost when you do something like a MMA, but it depends on what is important to you.

[DJmma]

ok thanks. So i guess there could be advantages and disadvantages to the MMA class. It could be good if it takes aspents of all the styles to make it more effective, and maybe i could be a more all around fighter. BUT since its a mix of many styles I wont be focusing on one style, and may not get as good at a certain one. I guess the best way to find out is to go and take an introductory class to find out. thanks for the impute.

[Sohan]

...they have taken out what they believe is not as effective and replaced it with what they believe is better from another style...

~BBB

BBB,

The only danger in this philosophy is that many martial artists discard techniques believing that they are ineffective when the reality is that they simply don't understand or haven't been properly taught the coorrect utilization of the technique. We all know that Bruce Lee popularized this way of thinking with JKD, but he always maintained the importance of mastering a system and its techniques as much as possible before discarding what one considered useless. Many martial artists, even many black belts, simply don't understand their art enough to do this competently.

Please understand, I am no way making any judgement on your school, blackbeltblonde. I, of course, don't know you nor your school. This is only a general observation.

Respectfully,

Sohan

[elbows_and_knees]

The difference here is what you define as MMA. In my eyes, that is not mma. That is a JKD type environment. MMA is striking and grappling, period. It's not a mixture of a dozen different styles. By training in true mma, you are learning strictly striking and grappling and how they flow together - something that is left out if you take them seperately.

The class you are mentioning is more jkd oriented. The problem there is that you really won't learn much about any one style - that's not necessarily a bad thing though, it's all a matter perspective. When I trained jun fan/jkd, I learned muay thai, judo, wing chun, savatte, several styles of kali, silat and TKD. It was great for all around knowledge, but these days, I NEVER trap in fights, nor have I ever used trapping. I never use any of the savatte kicks, I rarely use kali even though I still train with some kali guys at my current school on occasion, I only use some of the silat and some of the tkd - which I also learned much of in muay thai and karate.

Consequently, I learned a lot of stuff, which, to me (and only me - I'm not speaking for anyone else) was absolutely useless, other than allowing me to talk intelligently about many styles. I focused on the judo and the muay thai, which are what I currently train. I coulda saved all that time and started solely in those two arts way back then.