The Urban Samurai Blog

"I have written a few articles that are very critical of MMA, not for it’s technique but for its very commercial nature, its thuggish attitude and dare I say it, lack of depth."
I just agree with that, the point isn't that the MMA doesn't work, but the one who studies an art to its essencials, could it be martial arts, music, any kind of knowledge or ability, can "understand" and even develop it more than someone who just had an overview. An example is to compare an engineer course to a technical course, a pianno player to the keyboard one, so on.
Great blog, I'm subscribing!
Greeting from Brazil!

Hi Guilherme. Nicely put and I'm glad someone got my point. Thanks for subscribing too!

Nope, still missing the point.
I agree with what you say "What works, works." the rub is how you KNOW it works or not. The traditional arts you espouse lack aliveness, they lack pressure testing, and their students do not KNOW if they can perform the techniques, nor do they KNOW the technique will work of they do.
The training methods are faulty. Embrace it, change the way you train, be a better Martial Artist for it.

i am also a traditionalist who has mixed other traditional martial arts together. starting off with Karate, then TKD, then Karateagain, and finally Kung Fu. this is where i stayed. there are so many different styles of Kung Fu/Karate. some styles are styles that are truly traditional while others are some made up styles where people may have found a different way of doing things. i have been in the martial arts game for 30 years. i have seen some phony instructors who couldnt fight there way out of a paper bag to some outright scary. thats why i stuck with traditional Kung Fu (not Wushu) . they comprised of the true elements of real fighting with spoeed , power and technique. Kung Fu has a bad rap due to Chinese who taught watered down Kung Fu to Americans , who got their but kicks by hardcore Karate practitioners and othr styles. I was lucky to be taught by someone who didnt hold back and have seen things and done things that outright want to make you scared to fight an opponent due to how serious you can hurt them.

The point is MMA, and traditional are the same but different approaches. What i dont like about MMA is the cockiness of their fighters and the disrespect to traditional fighters. i have seen traditionalist both Karate and old school Kung Fu take down a MMA fighter before he even got started. these are the martial artist in the deep backwoods unseen. i walked in to a well known MMA school in Madison and was disrespected by the instructor once i told him i trained in Kung Fu. i further listened to him, and his contrast to traditional and mixed, the more ignorant he looked. he lacked true joint locks techniques that were in Chin Na , but claimed he knew them. he automaticaly assumed i kicked and stood a certain way when i faught. no true fighter should be in a stance period, they are to be transitions, constantly moving. He assumed i punched with the old school lock and load punch from the hip, which i dont. infact , my style is always moving and changeing, , including my hands and use only open hand techniques, and very rarely closed fist . . What MMA has over many traditional styles is the agressive mentality to destroy. the old traditional mindset was that of self defense and wait for the opponent to come to you. i always knew that was bull. attack first , enjoy, then run!! be different , suprising and explosively changeing personalities and moods, positions instantaneously. as i mentioned earlier i have trainined in many styles, but have favored Kung Fu ( northern style, Bagua, plum flower ) and Monkey... Yes Monkey.. a very deceptive, fast and confusing art.. only laughed at due to a lack of understanding of how evil this style of fighting it is. the Traditionalist that were in the original MMA fights were not versatile in there foot works and had a sport mentality that clearly doesnt work as we have all seen. this is due to bad instruction form instructors.

One last important point to this: Many Matial artist, espaecially those from TKD and Karate, with a 2 to 3 year black belt training program is outright pitiful. i later researched this stupidity from instructors and came with a conclusion, thats all they know. a lot of students especially first degree and second degree blackbelts feel they have learned everything and leave the system to early due to the repeated repetions of routines. i can understand this, doing drills all day long spending your money monthly doing the same thing. but this type of instruction is valuable. one chinese secret is 10,000 times means you are on your way to perfection. but it also can be the opposite where the instructor just wnat you to keep paying because he left the school to early and know nothing else. why is this important, well, as each generation doe this, tradiional martial arts starts to get watered down , more and more and losing its effectivelness over the years. so when you step in the ring (MMA) you get your Azz handed to you. If you are a traditionalist and have any remote feeling of being able to beat your instructor after a few years, you probabaly could. i suggest you leave and goes else where. i have done that myself , because later on you find out he was a watered down instructor after you learn the Katas . When i met my Kung Fu Instructor who whopped me like i was a white belt ( and i was third degree black belt in Karate and First degree in TKD), then i knew i found a good instructor. if they werent from the streets and fought in the streets, then they cant fight .. period.

if MMA is your thing, i encourage you to do that, but make sure some respect is there. some control is there. if not.. you will find yourself in prison making stupid mistakes. any Martial arts is dangerous due to the power, speed, and the use of legs and hand combinations that many boxers , wrestlers and street fighters lack. Look at wing Chun. see what i mean and how deadly the combinations are. you cant win unless you know how to defend against it. MMA cannot, and many other true Kung Fu styles and Okinawan styles of fighting that use open hand techniques can dominate most fighters. do both traditional and MMA if yu can afford it. if not, get a basis first of traditional then add something else the art may not truly have. i have used some point in Karate to win a fight and as well My Kung Fu. whatever you do , be prepared and ready when you have to use it. MMA is growing so big that you may actually have to fight someone with that knowledge. if you are a traditionalist, stick to your roots first and expound onit to make it better. if it cant , then go take something else. If MMA completes yu then do that.

Hi Monkey. Very excellent comments there! I agree with what you have to say. Both MMA and traditional have their pluses and minuses but MMA practicioners need to start respecting the more traditional arts and stop writing them of as being useless when they are far from it, as you have pointed out. Thanks for commenting.

Some clubs may not pressure test their techniques but you can't say that about all traditional clubs. Speaking for my own club, we regularly pressure test our techniques through various methods in the dojo. Outside the dojo some of us are bouncers and often get the chance to use the techniques for real.

So our training methods are certainly not faulty.