Trinity Martial Arts Blog

The recent legalization of MMA in Ontario got me thinking about my views on the Mixed Martial Arts revolution. There was a time when I was very excited about the UFC and the MMA movement, ordered Pay per View showings (or VHS copies) of the events, and went out to various sports bars with my friends hoping to see a BJJ fighter knocked out. I’m talking the early 90′s when the UFC first came on the scene. But these days I find I’ve little to no interest in the events, and I suddenly wondered why my interest had wained.

When the first few UFC events were held it was a wake-up call for many martial artists. At first the lesson to be learned appeared for many to be that BJJ was the only worthwhile system, or at least that groundwork was more important than many of us had thought (BJJ’ers and wrestlers of course already knew this). A lot of instructors went back to their systems in search of the lost ground work techniques – and many found that the groundwork was there, just not practiced that often (some found there was no groundwork, but adapted by incorporating technique from Judo, Jujitsu, Catch Wrestling, Sambo etc.)

As the UFC continued (and other events started getting more notice) we saw that striking was not useless and that sometimes guys just got “Knocked the F Out”. So, it wasn’t that BJJ and groundwork were the secret keys to martial mastery. Systems other than BJJ showed their worth – Thai Boxing of course, but other striking systems as well (Karate even in at least a few cases) led to success.

Finally it became apparent it was not the style so much as the training methodology that mattered. Those who trained against active resistance tended to succeed under the pressure of the Octagon, where those who trained without active resistance tended to end up on the mat tapping or snoring.

That was the message that made the MMA movement worthwhile to the greater martial arts community. Rethink your approach to training, and make sure you add “alive” and “active resistance” into the mix. Test the techniques you practice and if they don’t work find out why (or get rid of them – which fits very nicely with Bruce Lee’s “Absorb what is useful” JKD approach).

The first decade or so of the MMA revolution was really an evolution, and I enjoyed watching it evolve. Seeing how techniques thought worthless started to re-appear as people trained them with resistance and found that they did work (if properly applied) – the spinning backfist and spin kicks started to show up and do some damage. Striking technique from systems other than Thai Boxing served people like Chuck Liddel and Machida.

So the lesson was learned and I found my interest in watching thugs rant like WWE wrestlers and beat each other up starting to fade. George St. Pierre was a breath of fresh air for awhile, bringing back the image of the honorable warrior, but a few good fighters are not enough to keep my interest.

And really the MMA evolution is now complete. Its become its own style, with a very specific approach to training for the sport and the ring that doesn’t offer much more. At the start it was about what worked from different styles and how they dealt with one another, but those days are long gone. Now it is about individual fighters, who all pretty much follow the same training approach and who train specifically in MMA. The rules have also become limiting as far as “proving” what works.

There are other things that have pushed me away – the sheer number of events now has taken away from the excitement of a once a year, or twice a year, or three times a year, or even quarterly event. Events come so quickly it feels saturated just on a sporting level. If they were less often I’d likely still make an effort to watch from time to time. There is also a fallout of dis-respect to those who choose to continue to train in more traditional arts, and without that back ground of tradition and respect those who train in MMA as its own system often seem to come out as bruisers who add little to their community (the vast number of people training in MMA don’t make it past the local smoker events and are not the disciplined atheletes we see at the big events – I’ve seen MMA instructors who brag about the fact that they have ex-cons and serial rapists as students…and lets not get into things like Thug Fight DVDs).

Now, this is not to say that I hate MMA and UFC and believe they should be outlawed, or anything like that. Obviously a lot of people still really enjoy the fights, and if they are as regulated (as safe) as boxing matches I don’t see any reason they shouldn’t be held in Ontario…or anywhere else. I’m not a fan of the “Tap Out” wearing fanboy – but then fanboys of any type are rarely a good example of the best a sport or hobby has to offer.

So, if you have a good highlight reel…a great fight or just perfectly executed technique, sure I’m up to see it. I still appreciate a great fight or great fighter, but really I’ve seen enough UFC/MMA for the time being and am unlikely to attend any of the live events – unless of course someone I know is competing.

One of our students posted the following on Facebook in response to a discussion about the pain of being a “demo dummy” in class.  I thought it worth sharing here.

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We joke, but in the end, I learn more about the technique when you demo it on me once, painfully, than doing it twenty times with someone who doesn’t believe in it. It’s something that students should look forward to.

Seriously though, the pain is good. We aren’t there to dance after all.

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