Constant experimentation vs. tradition

[Treebranch]

... 'Everyone knows that Taiji and Aikido is the best fighting combo in the world..'

If I can just jump in on this,

JusticeZero (perhaps unintentionally) brings up an interesting point.

At the moment the only real arena where fighters are tested is MMA. So you only get experimentation with striking/grappling styles that will fair well under those rules. No Taiji practitioner or Aikido practitioner is going to do particular well in that environment as the styles aren't based around pain compliance and striking. So anyway, my point is because you're not getting that experimentation for competition purposes and apart from a few ambitious individuals, nobody is really trying to mix these styles up and cross-train them with other styles. Does this mean that styles like Taiji and Aikido are a lot more "traditional" because nobody has tried to develop them in a way that would work for a neo-MMAist? I think it would be quite an interesting experiment to take something like Taiji and try to work it into a fighting style.

Excellent point! Very well put.

[tallgeese]

I think where you'll see this is in sd based systems that can operate outside the established rules for mma comps and whose concern is slightly different.

For instance, small joint manips are often forbidden, and quite frankly not always very useful, under amature and often professional rules. However, in sd systems they can be a viable tool.

The evolutionalry jump that I've found helpful in utilizing them is the decision on "when" to employ them and not "how". These are rarely as useful from an extended striking range as practitioners would believe. However, when utlized from clinch situations and arm drag type manuvers, they become much more useful for sd. Additionally, they are still highly valuable in weapons work, where control of the appendage weilding that weapon (say a knife) becomes a paramount concern.

Now, the trick become training in such a way with these integrations that you are reasonably certain that they will work under fighting conditions. This is done by using training methodoligies learned from mma and other combat sports proponats and working under more realistic circumstances. For the sd'er, this would mean that after learning the movment (or better a handful of related or chained movements) then it should be trained under increasinly resistive circumstances.

I think it's that area where you more likely to see the modification of more traditional movments to more useful fits for combat. For the rules established for the last 10 yrs or so of mma, I think that they've found the best tools for the guidelines established.

[joesteph]

What's called "traditional" has always been with us, just as those who have experimented, or simply had a different perspective and formed their own martial arts, have been with us as well. The latter has us consider how widespread experimentation and different perspectives are.

The unexpected in this, to me, has been MMA. I believe that the traditionals will always be with us, but they will reach (have already?) a capping off of adherents. There can also be a regression in numbers. Those martial arts that periodically assess and reassess, experiment with regularity and make periodic modifications, will thrive in the climate of our times. It's feasible that an art viewed as traditional might have a schism of those who do teach/study it in such a manner, considering themselves "orthodox" to the art, and those who search to make it more relative to combat, incorporating from other arts and giving birth to something new.

It's possible to have a great number of new but lesser-followed martial arts, like a piece of wood that has cast off shavings and splinters, but the core of the wood is still there. These entities will likely be very much related, and each reflect a particular founder who had unique ideas. They would likely last only so long as the founder's lifetime, but may contribute quite beneficially to the greater whole.

Perhaps we're simply living in, and understand that we're living in, transitional times.

Edited February 13, 2009 by joesteph

[Treebranch]

Exactly! Very well put.

[bushido_man96]

... 'Everyone knows that Taiji and Aikido is the best fighting combo in the world..'

If I can just jump in on this,

JusticeZero (perhaps unintentionally) brings up an interesting point.

At the moment the only real arena where fighters are tested is MMA. So you only get experimentation with striking/grappling styles that will fair well under those rules. No Taiji practitioner or Aikido practitioner is going to do particular well in that environment as the styles aren't based around pain compliance and striking. So anyway, my point is because you're not getting that experimentation for competition purposes and apart from a few ambitious individuals, nobody is really trying to mix these styles up and cross-train them with other styles. Does this mean that styles like Taiji and Aikido are a lot more "traditional" because nobody has tried to develop them in a way that would work for a neo-MMAist? I think it would be quite an interesting experiment to take something like Taiji and try to work it into a fighting style.

I think that the main issue in MMA competitions is not in trying to experiment with mixing and matching styles to see what we get; the interest is in winning, and naturally, competitors are going to gravitate to that which has been pressure-tested to work with the highest levels of success. In the early days of the UFCs, we saw more of this mix and match idea, and the "style vs. style" set-up. What we see now is what has been born out of that experimentation.

I do know that there are some guys who have put different styles together to great effect; Lyota Machida has used his speacial type of Shotokan training mixed with some BJJ to good effect. He likes to fight by maintaining his distance, and assuming total control of distance in the fight. And he is good at it. We have also seen Georges St. Pierre, who I believe is a Kyokushin stylist that has also been doing a lot of Wrestling (he was going to try out for the Canadian Olympic Wrestling team). GSP is less likely to play the distance game, because he is big and strong, and good at ground-and-pound. So, he'll close, bang, and then pummell them. Its just about what you've been exposed to in your training.

I have also seen that there is a guy who has done JKD for a long time, and is using it as his fighting style in MMA competitions. He hasn't made it to the level of UFC yet that I know of, but he could be on his way. So that's another perspective.

Cung Le, with his extensive San Shou record, and his use of throws, slams, and his kicking repertoire has also shown a different fighting style. Its too bad that he may not continue his MMA career, because I'd really like to see what more he can bring, as far as entertainment value.

In closing, you can see that there is plenty of variety in the MMA competitions, you just have to look for it.

[DWx]

I do agree with you that there is variety in MMA but again this is limited to the same sort of styles over and over again. I know this a rather blunt way to put it but MMA is only really striking and grappling. Its all Karate and Kickboxing, wrestling and BJJ etc. There are lots of different styles employed but again it is limited within that striking and grappling field. It is very unlikely that anyone will be experimenting to see if they can get elements of "single-whip" or "brush knee" (from Taiji) into their MMA repetoire because it would be pointless given the objective of the fights. Its very unlikely that fighters will be working on redirecting an attack, or as tallgeese said, working on tranisitions to small joint manipulations.

I'm not saying that experimentation with other styles out of an MMA context is not happening, its just that it appears to happen a lot less or at least you don't get anywhere near the same pace of idea exchange. Because MMA is out there and public, people can see how someone has made the transition from roundhouse to takedown to armbar. If its a good idea they can copy it or think "hey it would work a little better this way" or "maybe if I did this I could counter that attack". MMA also provides the motivation to work at experimenting because if you've got an upcoming fight against someone who has beaten you before, you're going to work on things to make yourself and your own personal style better, this may include taking elements from another martial art and making them your own.

Anyway what I'm getting at is that a lot of these styles that don't work so well for things like MMA may get stuck in tradition because there are far fewer people experimenting with them. Weapons styles are probably a good example of this because obviously they can't be employed in MMA and rarely will they get tested in a live situation (outside of SD). IMO there is a huge scope for MA development, its just we're not seeing it yet because they only thing that really is being experimented with on a large scale is combat for MMA style events.

[Treebranch]

I wonder what would happen if you trained a Kung Fu Sansoo Black Belt to fight in the cage? Teaching him BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai so he knows what he's up against. I think it would be really interesting.

[joesteph]

A Black Belt magazine article made reference to a September 1971 article, "Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate" by Bruce Lee, p.24, claiming it was his most important one. I found it at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=rtcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&dq=Black+Belt&lr=&source=gbs_toc_pages&cad=0_1#PPA24,M1

Lee makes a number of observations, but the one that struck me in particular was his reference to how someone in the past would likely have been intuitive (and therefore to us experimental), breaking from what was established then and starting his own style. Those who follow him after his death take what the founder maintained as law, not to be changed (or questioned, like dogma). It's ironic in this observation by Lee, because the founder of a style may have done anything from borrow from different other styles to outright "break the laws" of his original one, and then became an unquestionable demi-god, which he never sought to be.

It's a good article; an insight into Lee's own thoughts, and I applicable to this topic.

[JusticeZero]

I do see a lot of, in any given art, practitioners who take the "dull, classical" material that they are taught without any particular real combat emphasis, and work on bringing it back to life through more intense training methods. I personally would consider myself one, and i've certainly met a few people who do things like - train their taiji in boxing rings against resisting opponents in red man suits, or whatever.

I'm sure you can also find boxing and kickboxing coaches who allow their methodology to get watered down and stale.

My view is that the proportion of each seems to be important, likely moreso than the art itself. If Taiji attracted a *lot* of pragmatic, 'real combat' people, and Boxing let itself get bogged down in ritual, then soon, the newest "real combat" sports would be loosely based on push hands, with takedowns, throws, and strikes and the rest built around rules that allow the movements in Taiji to best be expressed; everyone would say "Everyone knows that if you really want to fight, you'd take Tai Chi, that boxing stuff is useless in the street!"

[bushido_man96]

It is very unlikely that anyone will be experimenting to see if they can get elements of "single-whip" or "brush knee" (from Taiji) into their MMA repetoire because it would be pointless given the objective of the fights. Its very unlikely that fighters will be working on redirecting an attack, or as tallgeese said, working on tranisitions to small joint manipulations.

I think that the main concern is if training these things will be as beneficial and applicable for the desired outcomes as compared to what might be considered more efficient delivery systems.

Like tallgeese mentioned, small joint manipulation can be a uselful tool, when applied in the right context. But, if you try to start from the outside and work your way in with small joint, you end up trying to grab a tiger by the tail, and the rodeo is on. However, if you can begin closer, like from a clinch, you can increase your level of success.