A TMA revival? Is there a trend growing?

[punchingdummy]

A few months back I noticed a new MA school, "Rising Sun Dojo", not too far from my house. It looks like a small, but very traditional school. I really didn't think too much of it.

Tonight, I'm driving to a meeting a few miles from my house and I see two more NEW TMA schools have sprouted up very recently. Both the "Okinowan Karate" amd "Traditional Karate" schools look like they were recently built out, with bright new signage and modest classes.

...got me thinking. Three new traditional schools on close proximity in as many months. Is this just a coincidence, or is there a growing trend back toward traditional karate???

[Judah Maccabee]

Maybe they finished their mountaintop training and came to America to bring us true arts.

"Herro? Hai, this ish Takada-sensei. What? What is eh-moo, eh-moo, ey? You-ef-sheee? Pu-rai-do? I teach KARATE.

Jiujitsu from Bu-ra-zeeeeerooo? JIUJITSU WA NIHON MADE DESU! IT FROM JAPAN! (phone slam!)"

"Iyaaaa, now watch TNT movie. Nani? Ultimate Fighter? Nan da yo!?"

[Camus]

Posting on bullshido and actively participating in an MMA community can make you forget just how few people actaully know about it.

I generally consider myself fairly informed and I didn't really understand much, if anything about MMA, and had only heard passing reference of UFC or BJJ until the last year or so.

I was at a job interview recently and for some reason a question about sports came into play and I mentioned that I did MA and the guy got all excited because he was apparently a 'Martial Arts Nerd', in his own words. When he asked the style and I said Brazilian Jui Jitsu, his face went blank and he looked me over like I was making it up. I asked if he knew about UFC, Pride? Nothing.

I never got a call about that job. Loser. I was over-qualified anyway.

When most people think of martial arts, I think they still generally think of the 'ol fashioned karate dojo.

[Ronin]

TMA is basically any system with "historical roots".
Wrestling, BJJ, Judo, Kyokushin, Muay Thai, they are ALL TMA.

Many people think TMA and think kata and no-contact, this is wrong, but very common.

No art is more "traditional" than wrestling.

Still, I can see the appeal of a "exotic" fighting system as opposed to one were you where shorts and just "punch, kick and rassal".

[wingchunnewbie]

To my mind what is commonly termed 'Traditional' means "We teach it the way it was taught some time after WWII up until the point at which people stopped wearing Gisgot into Kickboxing and westerners started making up their own styles'.

So Shotokan might be widley termed as 'traditional', but it didn't exist 150 years ago, and the training methods are quite different from it's predecessors. Likewise Judo.

In otherwords, I think 'traditional' actually refers to a asian MA taught in the same manner, with the same terminology as they were in the post WWII era when first encoutered and made available to westerners. This isn't a statement on the quality of those arts, as I think Kyokushin and Judo would be widely accepted as 'traditional', just as Shotokan and Aikido are. As you pointed out, training methods and types of techniques now becoming popular due to MMA are in many cases _much_ older than arts like Shotokan and Aikido, but aren't perceived as such when they don't come packaged with forms, asian costumes and terminology.

[_Mick_]

TMA is basically any system with "historical roots".
Wrestling, BJJ, Judo, Kyokushin, Muay Thai, they are ALL TMA.

very true. most people think traditional martial arts are kung fu, tai chi, and karate. this just isn't true. roman greco wrestling is much much older than (and hence more traditional) than almost any other martial art.

in the real world, if you tell someone you train in bjj, mma, tkd, or any other martial art they think of it as "karate." kicking and screaming, bruce lee style. your average joe just isn't going to know the difference between shaolin kung fu and capoeira.