Will MMA have it's own MA style one day?

***battlefields*** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 6:12am

Despite my disagreement with bdang on this point, he is actually thinking about it without resorting to straight bullshit teh deadly, so in a way our little bdang, once considered a troll with his own training thread in trollshido seems to be maturing on this site. Bdang, is this because of your visit to an mma gym? Are you going back there?

Ps, your posts in the last couple of days have shown marked improvement.

**Coach Josh** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 8:08am

Could you boil it down to the bare essentials and just teach that skill set and call your style MMA? Yes. Could your fighters be highly effective in the cage? Yes. Is this what the majority of trainers are doing with their fighters? Yes.

We teach and train fighters in a basic skill set for the cage and apply tactics and strategies that are very sport specific. Even in our gym me and Tim have different approaches to the same situation. Both are effective and work but they do not work for everyone all the time. Some guys do not have the technical background that we have to be able to execute certain moves. So they have to break it down and learn more at a faster pace.

This stagnates the growth process of many fighters. While in the cage they are doing well they are not able to perform in other sport specific areas. They are proficient in grappling and striking but not exceptional in any area. When faced with a guy who focuses more in his grappling they run into problems when it goes to the ground because the development of their game in that area is not as refined as the other guy. Sure they pop the grappler with strikes but as soon as they hit the mat it's a different match. The same could be said when facing a highly proficient striker.

I know it sounds like we are doing a style of MMA but in reality we are just adapting the technical skills we know to a rule set for fighting in a cage.

**Artis Ferox** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 11:18am

Because its a sport, its really in the hands of whomever is out there using it to win competitions, and the coaches, just the same as any sport, be it boxing, wrestling or soccer.

For non-fighters however, there is a system with a curriculum, which I incidentally train in (while cross traning Muay Thai). Here is a link: http://www.alphamma.com/
I find it a decent system because it offers people who don't plan to take up MMA as a sport an alternative to Karate, TKD or Judo for self defence (and I read somewhere that its been used to teach LEOs and the Marines at Quantico). The difference being that the MMA teaches high percentage techniques used successfully against skilled opponents at all ranges of combat (kickboxing strikes, takedowns and takedown defences, BJJ (no Gi) for the ground, fitness is also a big part of it). As far as I know, there have been MMA classes on offer in my city since 2005. They've had them at our biggest university since around 2007, and they've been going at my particular school since July 2009 (not as popular as the BJJ but the numbers aren't too bad). So for non-fighters, MMA as an MA is starting to catch on, how big will it become, who knows.

**gregaquaman** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 11:53am

Kickboxing is the best example of where this happened. Origionaly created as a sport that combined boxing,Karate and Taekwando it has now become its own creature.
Thinking of this i am suprised MMA is not its own martial art.
But to achieve this you need 2nd or 3rd generation martial artists who have learnt MMA from nothing (no other background) who are able to teach and create good fighters. MMA only experts.
And we just dont have them.

**Rene "Zendokan" Gysenbergs** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 12:09pm

You will never get a universal MMA style.
The reason is that if someone created an MMA-style that would become the standard it would create the same bullshit that we have nowadays with (T)MAs:

You're going to get a "Soke" and/or a Council that will decide who is ready to compete, who is proficient enough to get a trainer license.
He/They will be responsible for the curriculum and if their are going to be changes in that curriculum, etc...

Can you imagen what a bitchfest it's going to be when other (succesful) MMA gyms are going to join that federation/style and have to start on a lower level than earlier joined MMA gyms (who are maybe less succesful)...

Also it would be like admitting (unjustful) that what those gyms were teaching were substandard techniques...

MMA is too big and too varied to merge under one system, even if it looks like all the fighters are almost trained in the the same gym.

What you well will have are more new styles that are completly suitable to use under the MMA ruleset and more training in already existing styles that work under the MMA ruleset:
- Daido Juku
- Combat SAMBO
- Combat Submission Wrestling
- Tekken Ryu JuJutsu (don't know that style, but I trust Jim_Jude if he says that it works perfectly under the MMA rules).

and there will come more of those styles in the future (with their own curriculum, certificates and a "Grandmaster" that has earned his reputation in the Octagon) from MMA Gyms who have succesful fighters.

**omoplatypus** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 12:35pm

Originally Posted by Zendokan

You will never get a universal MMA style.
The reason is that if someone created an MMA-style that would become the standard it would create the same bullshit that we have nowadays with (T)MAs:

You're going to get a "Soke" and/or a Council that will decide who is ready to compete, who is proficient enough to get a trainer license.
He/They will be responsible for the curriculum and if their are going to be changes in that curriculum, etc...

Can you imagen what a bitchfest it's going to be when other (succesful) MMA gyms are going to join that federation/style and have to start on a lower level than earlier joined MMA gyms (who are maybe less succesful)...

Also it would be like admitting (unjustful) that what those gyms were teaching were substandard techniques...

MMA is too big and too varied to merge under one system, even if it looks like all the fighters are almost trained in the the same gym.

What you well will have are more new styles that are completly suitable to use under the MMA ruleset and more training in already existing styles that work under the MMA ruleset:
- Daido Juku
- Combat SAMBO
- Combat Submission Wrestling
- Tekken Ryu JuJutsu (don't know that style, but I trust Jim_Jude if he says that it works perfectly under the MMA rules).

and there will come more of those styles in the future (with their own curriculum, certificates and a "Grandmaster" that has earned his reputation in the Octagon) from MMA Gyms who have succesful fighters.

^^^this times a million^^^

history paints a picture for us with the USJA and USJF conflict. the KKW in south korea has turned from a TKD body into a government body. the ATA has turned from a respectable TKD organization into the laughing stock of martial arts. nobody knows who has the real karate. the same can be said about hapkido. there are also problems within the gracie camp with online ranking, and 10th planet jiu jitsu is making its own belt rankings rather worthless. do you see a pattern here?

let's leave MMA out of this system. if an mma gym wants to teach a beginners class that is a "style" of sorts in the fact that it is a meat and potatos skill set based class, then good for them. however, that is not a "style" it is a skill set. let's leave it that way.

nothing good can come from people, en mass, saying "i have a black belt in MMA (or worse, UFC)"

**bdang** · Posted On: 5/19/2010 6:49pm

I don't believe MMA will ever be an official style, unofficially, it is a style. But the style is dependent on the gym/instructor rather than some standardized curriculum by an MMA organization. There are no belts, just a large skillset that needs to be learnt and applied.