What IS MMA?

[Dobbersky]

With respect to the Fad which is no longer a Fad and is here to stay, What exactly is MMA?

Now we see MMA schools popping up all over ther place, with students flocking to train there. But what does it consist of. what makes a valid MMA school.

If an Instructor did say TaeKwonDo and did a bit of J-JJ or B-JJ does this make him qualified to teach MMA, is it just not TKD with a bit of JJ thrown into the mix

Or is it a Muay Thai Teacher and BJJ Blackbelt that allows someone to "create" an MMA school

I can't work out WHAT the differences are to justify it being MMA and not just X-style with extra stuff added.

[Wastelander]

As far as I can tell, there are three schools of thought on this:

1 - If you aren't teaching some combination of Muay Thai, BJJ, boxing and wrestling you aren't teaching MMA

2 - If you are teaching both striking and grappling of any type and helping students put it together, you are teaching MMA

3 - If you have never competed in MMA, you aren't teaching MMA.

I feel that the people in group 1 can be convinced what you are teaching is okay as long as you qualify for 2 and have competed in MMA (3) with success. In a way, what my dojo teaches is MMA--in addition to our Shorin-Ryu (which includes some locks and takedowns to begin with) my instructor has some eclectic jujutsu he has trained in and teaches, and we often incorporate MMA-style sparring with full striking and grappling. With that said, we don't teach MMA, at least by most people's definitions, because we don't teach Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling or BJJ and we have never competed in MMA.

Personally, I believe if you are training in two different arts (typically a striking-focused art and a grappling-focused art) and blending them together in your training and sparring, you are doing MMA.

[Drew]

As far as I can tell, there are three schools of thought on this:

1 - If you aren't teaching some combination of Muay Thai, BJJ, boxing and wrestling you aren't teaching MMA

2 - If you are teaching both striking and grappling of any type and helping students put it together, you are teaching MMA

3 - If you have never competed in MMA, you aren't teaching MMA.

I feel that the people in group 1 can be convinced what you are teaching is okay as long as you qualify for 2 and have competed in MMA (3) with success. In a way, what my dojo teaches is MMA--in addition to our Shorin-Ryu (which includes some locks and takedowns to begin with) my instructor has some eclectic jujutsu he has trained in and teaches, and we often incorporate MMA-style sparring with full striking and grappling. With that said, we don't teach MMA, at least by most people's definitions, because we don't teach Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling or BJJ and we have never competed in MMA.

Personally, I believe if you are training in two different arts (typically a striking-focused art and a grappling-focused art) and blending them together in your training and sparring, you are doing MMA.

I don't believe it can be put better than that, well done.

[Dobbersky]

As far as I can tell, there are three schools of thought on this:

1 - If you aren't teaching some combination of Muay Thai, BJJ, boxing and wrestling you aren't teaching MMA

2 - If you are teaching both striking and grappling of any type and helping students put it together, you are teaching MMA

3 - If you have never competed in MMA, you aren't teaching MMA.

I feel that the people in group 1 can be convinced what you are teaching is okay as long as you qualify for 2 and have competed in MMA (3) with success. In a way, what my dojo teaches is MMA--in addition to our Shorin-Ryu (which includes some locks and takedowns to begin with) my instructor has some eclectic jujutsu he has trained in and teaches, and we often incorporate MMA-style sparring with full striking and grappling. With that said, we don't teach MMA, at least by most people's definitions, because we don't teach Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling or BJJ and we have never competed in MMA.

Personally, I believe if you are training in two different arts (typically a striking-focused art and a grappling-focused art) and blending them together in your training and sparring, you are doing MMA.

I don't believe it can be put better than that, well done.

Totally agree Wastelander, thank you so much for your response

[ShoriKid]

PittbullJudoka trains with a couple of amateur and pro fighters. He was speaking with one about a local instructor who is running "mma" classes (subject worthy of a whole other post). Th fighter told him that since we taught stand up, Okinawan based karat for the most part, and wrestling with bjj we were teaching an mma style. Just food for thought.

[Reaper6]

I'm a little out of my element when it comes to MMA, so I have a few questions.

Is MMA trademarked in some way, where it is assumed that Muay Thai, and BJJ are a must have style to be considered MMA? Can any combination of styles be considered MMA?

I haven't trained for competition since back in my Judo days in California, but I'll use myself as an example. Say I did wish to fight in competition, with my background in Judo, Kyokushin Karate, and JKD would I be considered an MMA fighter?

I'm just more curious to see if its become sort of a marketing catch phrase to bring in students, or is it a very specific combination of particular styles only, that can be considered MMA.

[tallgeese]

MMA is a unified set of rules for a sporting competition that one can argue is slowing growing into it's own style of sport combat.

It's different than the traditional outlook on what constitutes an "art" or "system". It is, by definition a mixing of styles. Early on, this was very true and you'd see very different styles blending from a variety of backgrounds. I was there, competing, in the very early days and saw some radically different things than are common now.

However, as the rules unified, and tactics were pressure tested, a pattern of what was effective given the goal. Slowly leaving were the longish stances of karate and the high kicks of TKD as MT proved to be a worthy tool for the rules. Poor wrestling and no ground skill was supplanted by BJJ as they were shown to be highly effective for the arena. Single, powerful karate blows morphed as people added boxing style combinations to their arsenal. Lastly, as an answer to BJJ, good wresting came to prominence to control the top game. All these things proved to be the most effective for various aspects of the game.

So, despite blending various styles from all over the world, certain ones came to the forefront due to conditions imposed by the rules. I'll leave the argument to how effective this makes it for self defense for a different threat as it's not germane to the question (for the record, I think it's a great place to start for sd).

Hence, MMA has become codified to an extent. However, it's still a MUCH looser definition than most arts have. Not to mention, it's an art (sport, combat form, you pick) that stresses evolution much more than most arts. Because of this, it's always changing to a degree. For instance, despite leaving TKD style high kicks far in the past, the sport has recently seen an upswing in their use due to the strengths of the athletes and their complete understanding of range, timing, ect. that was lost on the early pioneers.

As such, some of those tactics will be picked up and taught at major academies.

So, do you do MMA if you mix a couple of styles? In a sense, yes. However, I'd be careful of marketing as such unless you're doing the arts utilized on a whole my the sporting community.

[pittbullJudoka]

The pro fighter I was speaking with says in his opinion since we teach a blend of stand up and ground fighting he considers it MMA. He also said to him it did not matter weather we had active fighters or not. I take his opinion very highly due to working his way through an undefeated ammy career and thus far undefeated as pro. Also if I'm correct he's never lost a match in a bjj completion either.

Also he's like a second coach at my bjj gym and does everything he can to help me out on the ground. So from one pro MMA fighter if you are teaching a legitement blend of standing and ground fighting you are teaching MMA.

[Harkon72]

This is a good thread guys!

Mixed Martial arts is just that. The cliche is that it should be Muay Thai and BJJ. But any standing and ground training that will give you a chance in the cage is valid. The point that you must be a fighter to teach it is a good one. MMA has been guilty of merging and corrupting traditional styles, but each to their own.

[RW]

MMA is a strange matter, technically speaking.

It has attracted some sort of "bro culture" in some cases, where it's all "Muay thai, jiu jitsu and wrestling". Everything gets labeled like that, and somehow everything taught as "MMA" is called "boxing" (when it comes to punches), "muay thai" (when it comes to punches and kicks),"wrestling" (everything takedowns) and BJJ (everything submissions).

Turns out many MMA fighters have had karate backgrounds (http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f61/30-successful-karate-fighters-mma-1040386/), yet the MMA culture tends to supress/ignore that, unless the fighter is quite vocal about it like machida. For example, did you know that chuck lidell did karate?

(I'm breaking this post into two so it does not become a wall of text)