Why do TMAers hate on MMA? (stereotypes you've heard about combat sports)

[Cajun_Grappler]

The difference between TMA and modern Combat sports like BJJ is that BJJ respects the tradition without needlessly clinging to it. That is why some TMA is so bitter, they see guys like BJJ artist wearing cool and more practical gear, evolving the art and being invited to teach athletes and military/police. This use to be something TMA did. 20-30 years ago, servicemen were into learning Karate and TKD. Now its all about the BJJ and MMA.

If every TMA were honest, they would tell you there were things they wished their art included that it does not, but they are not willing to take the steps to add these improvements. You look at the old Karateka, guys like Gichin Funakoshi, they weren't scared to change their art when they found something more useful that their art didn't have. Someone along the way, everyone said "Ok, this is it, no more changing anything ever." And that is the core of the issue. These guys who spent their life learning TMA are watching were these other guys changing whatever they want, and being successful, MORE successful, at it. Being called on to teach self-defense and combat.

That being said, not all TMA are like that. Maybe of the best TMAs are the best because they explore other arts and incorporate them into their routine. Guys like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, for example. Lee studied Westerner boxing, considered much closer to a real fight than TMA, and used much of it in his training. Norris has been practicing BJJ for years, and even had the Machado Brothers on Walker: Texas Ranger. Look at bloggers like Iana Abernathy and KaratebyJesse, if you want an example of TMA who are willing to address the flaws of their art, and open to changing it. There is still some hope for TMA, give them a little time.

[Cajun_Grappler]

The difference between TMA and modern Combat sports like BJJ is that BJJ respects the tradition without needlessly clinging to it. That is why some TMA is so bitter, they see guys like BJJ artist wearing cool and more practical gear, evolving the art and being invited to teach athletes and military/police. This use to be something TMA did. 20-30 years ago, servicemen were into learning Karate and TKD. Now its all about the BJJ and MMA.

If every TMA were honest, they would tell you there were things they wished their art included that it does not, but they are not willing to take the steps to add these improvements. You look at the old Karateka, guys like Gichin Funakoshi, they weren't scared to change their art when they found something more useful that their art didn't have. Someone along the way, everyone said "Ok, this is it, no more changing anything ever." And that is the core of the issue. These guys who spent their life learning TMA are watching were these other guys changing whatever they want, and being successful, MORE successful, at it. Being called on to teach self-defense and combat.

That being said, not all TMA are like that. Maybe of the best TMAs are the best because they explore other arts and incorporate them into their routine. Guys like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, for example. Lee studied Westerner boxing, considered much closer to a real fight than TMA, and used much of it in his training. Norris has been practicing BJJ for years, and even had the Machado Brothers on Walker: Texas Ranger. Look at bloggers like Iana Abernathy and KaratebyJesse, if you want an example of TMA who are willing to address the flaws of their art, and open to changing it. There is still some hope for TMA, give them a little time.

[W. Rabbit]

The difference between TMA and modern Combat sports like BJJ is that BJJ respects the tradition without needlessly clinging to it. That is why some TMA is so bitter, they see guys like BJJ artist wearing cool and more practical gear, evolving the art and being invited to teach athletes and military/police. This use to be something TMA did. 20-30 years ago, servicemen were into learning Karate and TKD. Now its all about the BJJ and MMA.

If every TMA were honest, they would tell you there were things they wished their art included that it does not, but they are not willing to take the steps to add these improvements. You look at the old Karateka, guys like Gichin Funakoshi, they weren't scared to change their art when they found something more useful that their art didn't have. Someone along the way, everyone said "Ok, this is it, no more changing anything ever." And that is the core of the issue. These guys who spent their life learning TMA are watching were these other guys changing whatever they want, and being successful, MORE successful, at it. Being called on to teach self-defense and combat.

That being said, not all TMA are like that. Maybe of the best TMAs are the best because they explore other arts and incorporate them into their routine. Guys like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, for example. Lee studied Westerner boxing, considered much closer to a real fight than TMA, and used much of it in his training. Norris has been practicing BJJ for years, and even had the Machado Brothers on Walker: Texas Ranger. Look at bloggers like Iana Abernathy and KaratebyJesse, if you want an example of TMA who are willing to address the flaws of their art, and open to changing it. There is still some hope for TMA, give them a little time.

A lot of people get caught up with the idea of learning a TMA system and then being a figurehead who then transmits the system OR, some sort of scion who develops their own. A lot of that is probably self-serving, ego-driven behavior. Not all, but a lot. It's idolatry, and the desire to be an idol, which is even worse.

Most people don't get into MMA/BJJ to become the next Jesus Christ of MMA or BJJ (most). There is a lot of idol worship there too, BUT people don't just walk in because they want to be the next Anderson Silva. 999/1000 won't come close. Somehow, people enter MMA and BJJ with more reasonable expectations...

To get good at anything, you have to work at it. You can't JUST spend your time learning the parts of the system it has to be spent applying it as hard as possible. And you can't start creating your own style either, without putting in the work.

But that's where a lot of TMAers get lost, the work. They don't REALLY want to get hit, or suffer any of the consequences of fighting. They want to avoid all that, and so their idea of martial arts becomes all about avoidance. Then They watch pro fighting on TV and scoff with their Scotsman fallacies that "no TRUE martial artist would do that" etc.

And that's their issue right there. They don't respect the work that's been put in to what they're watching. They're dismissing people who spend thousand+ hours a year training and have taken and given more damage than "They" can even conceive.

Fuck that sort of "martial artist", they're the worst breed of all. They don't represent TMA per se, they just represent stupid.

[ksennin]

To get good at anything, you have to work at it. You can't JUST spend your time learning the parts of the system it has to be spent applying it as hard as possible. And you can't start creating your own style either, without putting in the work.
But that's where a lot of TMAers get lost, the work. They don't REALLY want to get hit, or suffer any of the consequences of fighting. They want to avoid all that, and so their idea of martial arts becomes all about avoidance. Then They watch pro fighting on TV and scoff with their Scotsman fallacies that "no TRUE martial artist would do that" etc.

Yeah, and a lot of the early martial arts propaganda emphasized precisely that negative aspect. Closely related to the myth of the unassuming, frail elderly master is the basic idea that martial arts are PRECISELY systems of purified knowledge derived from millennia-long fighting experience that you can learn in distilled, organized abstract form so that you do not have to go into the bother of all that distasteful physical rough-housing. Others did it already and you can get the resulting wisdom they accumulated without the blood and tears of empirical testing. It was, after all, ancient-battlefield-tested and all that. The too-deadly-to-test dogma plays right into it. Punching the air drilling is the perfect manifestation of this. The line air drills are perhaps partly a consequence of the standardization of training into group drills in army and government education systems, as opposed to more singular, one on one drills. But the "get the results from reading this book" salesmanship tactics are not that different from the actual dojo experiences under many TMA environs, and are all supported by that philosophy of abstract principles and ritualized reenactments being able to substitute for the dirty and uncomfortable reality that is best avoided.

A lot of the old looking down upon boxing and wrestling are related to that. The TMA with the esoteric knowledge felt like the civil engineer looking down on the "lowly" carpenter. They were the ones with the sophisticated answers while those poor others fumbled with primitive, cruder systems. While the truth was the opposite. The empiricists doing boxing, wrestling and other contact sports were polishing their systems into effectiveness, while the TMAs were holding on to distorted, overstylized, fragmented systems whose practicality was most likely suspect even in their original, "purer" forms. They were elitists hung up in sophist versions of Aristotelian logic while the cruder empiricists had moved on thru Russell, Boole, et all into actually applicable systems to sustain technology.

The old "art of fighting without fighting" nonsense became the sales pitch all these people bought into, and they still want to believe in it and worse, sell it to others.

[Omega Supreme]

What the fuck type of sense does this make? You ask which TMA'ers have had this exposure. I raise my hand, then you say I'm not a TMA because I have this exposure. Seriously?

[DCS]

I think this was said before but most of the so called TMA were really developed less than 100 years ago.

[ermghoti]

What the fuck type of sense does this make? You ask which TMA'ers have had this exposure. I raise my hand, then you say I'm not a TMA because I have this exposure. Seriously?

It's an inverse no-true-Scotsman argument.

[NeilG]

The thing is, if you are truly in a martial tradition the key word is tradition. The whole point is to train the way they used to. The guys doing Katori Shinto Ryu aren't about to drop their swords in favour of automatic rifles. Nor should the Shotokan guys start training kick-boxing style. So long as they don't misrepresent themselves I don't have a problem. There seems to be a large number of people that are completely baffled at the thought of practicing martial arts with a different set of goals than their own.

[mike321]

I think this was said before but most of the so called TMA were really developed less than 100 years ago.

To make some sense of "traditional", I think of multi-generational arts that work to preserve style, teachings, and customs of founders. Arts like wrestling and boxing are in the historical and prehistorical (think archeology) record but are not traditional in this way. Short version, 100 years make sense as a time frame for a traditional art.

[ashkelon]

What the fuck type of sense does this make? You ask which TMA'ers have had this exposure. I raise my hand, then you say I'm not a TMA because I have this exposure. Seriously?

It was a rhetorical question to begin with and I specify that I was talking about a specific kind of TMA'er, the ones that only do dead training and look down on MMA and combat sports. I've never said you're not a TMA'er because you have exposure, I say you're not this kind of TMA'er because of what I've seen of your practice.

[Omega Supreme]

It was a rhetorical question to begin with and I specify that I was talking about a specific kind of TMA'er, the ones that only do dead training and look down on MMA and combat sports. I've never said you're not a TMA'er because you have exposure, I say you're not this kind of TMA'er because of what I've seen of your practice.

Well okay, I'll let you live this time. But next time. Bam! So yeah.

[Scott Larson]

But that's where a lot of TMAers get lost, the work. They don't REALLY want to get hit, or suffer any of the consequences of fighting. They want to avoid all that, and so their idea of martial arts becomes all about avoidance. Then They watch pro fighting on TV and scoff with their Scotsman fallacies that "no TRUE martial artist would do that" etc.

And that's their issue right there. They don't respect the work that's been put in to what they're watching. They're dismissing people who spend thousand+ hours a year training and have taken and given more damage than "They" can even conceive.

Fuck that sort of "martial artist", they're the worst breed of all. They don't represent TMA per se, they just represent stupid.

I believe this is the worst problem. Especially since its right in the name, "Kung fu". Its not called "Skill gained through theorizing and postulating"

[Raycetpfl]

Well okay, I'll let you live this time. But next time. Bam! So yeah.

What's your base in omega?

[Omega Supreme]

What's your base in omega?

My base is in Gotham City.....






Kung fu is my main system, specifically Rising Phoenix which is an evolution of the 5 families.

[W. Rabbit]

I believe this is the worst problem. Especially since its right in the name, "Kung fu". Its not called "Skill gained through theorizing and postulating"

I'm with Zhuangzi, I blame Confucius.

We should follow Master Zhuang's example, and playfully troll Confucian-like thinkers. It drives them mad.