There is no Best Martial Art

[TJS]

If a certain stlye of combat does the same thing for the last 100 years without change, I say that they are doing it wrong. Everything changes and should get better. Cars get better, people get bettter, tennis players get better techniques, and soccer players get better techniques......most things in life are evolving all the time, do not stick with old tradition blindly. Dare to change when it feels right. Im not saying stop your respect of old tradition. No, DO respect tradition and keep doing it, but if you are training for fighting you must change and/or improve....dont stand still or the world may pass you by....

 

-Bas Rutten-The Greatest MMA'ist in the world, 2nd deg black belt in TKD, 2nd Deg in Kyokushin, Muay Thai fighter, Submission wrestler.

 

Just thought i would add some random comments in..

dont think training in knife defence matters. Do you honestly think that practicing knife defence for 20 minutes every class or 2 a couple of times a week is really going to help against an oponant who has the intension of killing you?

 

Yea why learn how to defend against bigger or stronger people? why not just lay down and die when someone asks you...you dont always have a choice..peopel dont ask you if you want to fight or run...what if you have to protect a loved one?

 

I think i agree with both parties somewhat I belive an integrated and well rounded stytem has some advatages to it but I also think You can always learn some aswome stuff from a specific stlye like Muay Thai or BJJ since they are the best at what they do.

[Treebranch]

Bas Rutten has some good points and I agree with most of them except the soccer one. Pele is and will always be the greatest player the world has ever seen. I think he's talking about Dogmatic Styles of Martial Arts, which not all of them are. I'm studying Budo Taijutsu and the training methods are sound, and change is welcome. If you don't change you become extinct. Instinct is stressed very highly in this Style, not Kata collecting.

 

I also agree with TJS he said you can learn awesome stuff from a specific style like Muay Thai or BJJ since they are the best at what they do. I think every style has awesome stuff we can learn from, it's up to what appeals to you. I'm learning some awesome stuff right now. The character of a person is a huge factor in choosing a Martial Art, more so than their physical attributes. If your passive their are MA's that fit you. If you are aggressive etc. I don't think theirs necessarily a wrong way or right way to train, it really depends on the character of the person at hand.

[King of Fighters]

We did knife defence in judo when i took it and it was really gay, maybe how you did it is different but our way would never work.

[AndrewGreen]

Forget soccer, it is impossible to compare players of the past to players of the present.

 

Take a sport which can be measured and compare scores now to scores 20, 50 or 100 years ago.

 

Race times, jump distances, jump heights, etc. Do a little research and you will find a big difference in the abilities then compared to the abilities now.

 

Why?

 

Sports advance, just like every thing else in the world. Martial arts are no different. Now we have a lot more people training, a lot more people teaching, a lot more information available, research from sports science, etc. Even if we only had half the talent, we should be able to do better.

 

TMA are effective to a degree for some things, but if effectiveness is the only concern they are not the best option.

 

No "style" is, you need to create your own style.

 

Ok, back to the soccer.

 

Take Pele, you say he was the greatest so we'll assume he was.

 

So lets have all soccer players immitate him, his training methods, his moves, his strategy. Will that turn out better soccer players?

 

No, its silly

 

But if you want to play ninja and do what you believe secret ninja clans did, go for it.

[Treebranch]

Andrew Green the Modern MMA Master said:Take a sport which can be measured and compare scores now to scores 20, 50 or 100 years ago.

 

Race times, jump distances, jump heights, etc. Do a little research and you will find a big difference in the abilities then compared to the abilities now.

 

Why?

 

Sports advance, just like every thing else in the world. Martial arts are no different. Now we have a lot more people training, a lot more people teaching, a lot more information available, research from sports science, etc. Even if we only had half the talent, we should be able to do better.

 

TMA are effective to a degree for some things, but if effectiveness is the only concern they are not the best option.

 

No "style" is, you need to create your own style.

 

Ok, back to the soccer.

 

Take Pele, you say he was the greatest so we'll assume he was.

 

So lets have all soccer players immitate him, his training methods, his moves, his strategy. Will that turn out better soccer players?

 

No, its silly

 

But if you want to play ninja and do what you believe secret ninja clans did, go for it.

 

Do research on sports and check the hall of famers and see what you come up with. Some records have never been broken. In sports where the equipment gets better because of technology, well that's a factor we can't really measure accurately. Suppose car racers from the past had the cars we have, the outcome might be different. I don't think car racing is a good analogy. Asking Boxing historians who the greatest boxer of all time was? People have less time to train now than they did in the past. Compare the literacy rate in the U.S. as opposed to 20 years ago, see what you find? Check the obesity rate, the crime rate, the need for psycho-therapy, do people really get better? Not as a whole. Martial Artists trained directly under Masters, they often lived with them. They lived and breathed MA's. They trained in Martial Arts for survival, not for show or competition. You have the typical modern view of traditional things because your sense of teenage rebellion won't let you see the value of some Traditional and very valid forms of Martial Arts. You pretend you are a top contender in MMA competition fighting and I learn something you can't comprehend. Oh yeah, I agree one thing has advanced the Marketing of MMA's.

Edited May 21, 2003 by Treebranch

[WC-Strayder]

Questions to AndrewGreen:

 

If, or maybe when, the style/art you are training in becomes "traditional", do you quit and start with something new??.

 

What style/art IS the best option?.

 

When you say : " TMA are effective to a degree for some things, but if effectiveness is the only concern they are not the best option.

 

No "style" is, you need to create your own style. ", I must ask:

 

Isn't all TMA just that, someones "own" style?. Have it not been for that there would be only "one" karate, "one" kung-fu, "one" of whatever, but there is many "evolving" styles out there, still evolving today.

 

You talk like your "style", whatever that is, is the only future in MA, the only effective style/art, but you can bet your right arm that we still gonna discuss this ten years from now!. You wanne bet against??.

[AndrewGreen]

Andrew Green the Modern MMA Master said:

 

I don't get it, you can't argue with me so you try to attack me on a personal level, do you think that will work? I can do it too if that is the case:

 

Ninja-boy, The last of the ancient clan of super-inivincible-ninja-masters said:

 

Do research on sports and check the hall of famers and see what you come up with. Some records have never been broken. In sports where the equipment gets better because of technology, well that's a factor we can't really measure accurately. Suppose car racers from the past had the cars we have, the outcome might be different. I don't think car racing is a good analogy. Asking Boxing historians who the greatest boxer of all time was? People have less time to train now than they did in the past. Compare the literacy rate in the U.S. as opposed to 20 years ago, see what you find? Check the obesity rate, the crime rate, the need for psycho-therapy, do people really get better? Not as a whole. Martial Artists trained directly under Masters, they often lived with them. They lived and breathed MA's. They trained in Martial Arts for survival, not for show or competition. You have the typical modern view of traditional things because your sense of teenage rebellion won't let you see the value of some Traditional and very valid forms of Martial Arts. You pretend you are a top contender in MMA competition fighting and I learn something you can't comprehend.

 

Things change, you got that.

 

We go t better equipment, more people and more information. If your styles master had all that we have today he could have done a lot better too. But he didn't, we do and we can do better.

 

I do see value in tradtional arts, I still practice and teach them, but I also practice and teach through MMA as well. I am not a competitior, have no desire to be one right now (Why are you back to trying to attack me and not what I say? Are you a member of a secret ninja clan? No? Then why must I be a top contender?)

 

All records will get broken, and they all do as training methods and technology gets better. The only ones that might not are based on performance against others.

[AndrewGreen]

Questions to AndrewGreen:

 

If, or maybe when, the style/art you are training in becomes "traditional", do you quit and start with something new??.

 

Depending on what you are doing and how you are doing it could never become traditional, does any other sport become traditional? Do all of a sudden a sports team decide to name their style and stick to it? No, they have goals and objectives and pursue the best path to those goals and objectives based on what is available to them.

What style/art IS the best option?.

 

None, all, your own. No styles, just people

Isn't all TMA just that, someones "own" style?.

 

Yes, but it is SOMEONE ELSES style, someone very different from me in a different time and a different place with different abilities, different equipment and different information available to them.

 

 

Have it not been for that there would be only "one" karate, "one" kung-fu, "one" of whatever, but there is many "evolving" styles out there, still evolving today.

 

Sure, in combat sports.

 

If it is evolving it is no longer a "Style" in the traditional sense, at least not if it evolving on an individual level. If there is a style head who makes changes thats fine for him, but he is not me, and he is not you.

 

 

You talk like your "style", whatever that is, is the only future in MA, the only effective style/art, but you can bet your right arm that we still gonna discuss this ten years from now!. You wanne bet against??.

 

Read above.

 

Traditional styles DO have a place, I do both. I have also studied history, I enjoyed it, but I'm not going to rely on Aristotles version of science for anything now.

 

Aristotle was brilliant, he made huge advances, where he alive today he would have very different views and opinions then he did then.

 

Can you do stuff with Aristotles science? Yes, of course. It does work, to an extent. But we have better things available to us now, if it is for practical application Aristotles version of science is not the best option.

[WC-Strayder]

OK, thanks for answering my questions Andrew Green.

 

The reason I asked was because it seem to me that a lot of people think TMA is somehow outdated when it comes to combat and self-defence, but people do still have 2 arm, 2 legs and 1 head, have they not?. I can still defend myself with so called "traditional Wing Chun", can't I?.

 

I think that MA always has had its "hype". Right now this "hype" is the MMA and simular, 20 years ago this "hype" was Bruse Lee and tomorrow, when the "hype" thing has rubbed off MMA, (it has allready started to do that), there gonna be a some new "hype" to throw our self at, but you will allways have the traditional to learn from. The building blocks of MA, if you see my point.

 

I'm a big fan of just about any MA there is and love to see a good fight on the TV, but to more I see too more I believe that it is room for everything, and not just one thing.

[AndrewGreen]

I think that the hype of MMA is sort of old, but done in a new way.

 

It is sparring, that is what is at the core of it. Using sparring as a testing ground to learn from and improve in.

 

What MMA does differently then what has been done in Martial arts schools is incorporate more elements. It alows wrestling, it alows striking, it alows submissions. Where as Martial arts, in the western world, where not doing that.

 

This is not new, the Greeks where doing it long before the UFC came into place. But it is only recently that it has become "mainstream".

 

There will be more developments, there have been a few since the early UFC's. But the idea of sparring as a testing ground is not new and probably will not go away.

 

What will change is the techniques znd drills that are used.

 

This is why I consider MMA a training method, not a style. The idea is to use sparring to test out things and develop new things no matter what those things are, but to avoid restricting which things are allowed.

 

Weapons can be trained this way, multiple attackers can be trained this way, eye gouges and other foul tactics can be trained this way (with proper equipment)

 

The other principle is to use a variety of different sparring methods and objectives that interlink for best benefits. So I can train boxing skills, kickboxing skills, wrestling skills, submission skills, etc. Using proper equipment, and I can do this by isolating one area or integrating any number of them.

 

Wearing boxing equipment Submission work is hard, wearing no gloves boxing is too dangerous. I can do both seperate, and I can do both together using MMA gloves and headgear with a mask.

 

And yes you can defend yourself using wing chun, but not against everyone, same with MMA. But training MMA will allow you to do so against more then Wing Chun.

 

TMA are best for when everything goes right. But when things start going wrong MMA has a better chance of getting you out of that hole.

 

I don't train for self-defence anymore, don't see the point. But if I ever needed to defend myself my first choice would be a rather aikidoish type of redirect and pin outcome. But if that opportunity doesn't come up I'd probably be very glad I got some MMA type skills as well.

 

That is my opinion. TMA is a better option, but MMA is higher percentage. MMA type techniques will work more often against more people. But if I get the opportunity to apply a standing wrist lock and end it I'll take it.