Fantasy Martial Arts

[anerlich]

UFC gyms are mainly fitness gyms using the UFC brand for brand recognition. They have deep pockets and the facilities and equipment are very good. A friend of mine is a BJJ black belt and tertiary qualified S&C coach who ran the BJJ program at the UFC gym in my city for a while. They offer martial arts classes but at the time were all new students. At least where I live, the UFC gym is not even close to the cutting edge of MMA or even training fighters. That is not its market.

 

[Juany118]

Just from what I've seen, mma is very pragmatic. The gyms tend to focus on what they know works. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. When a formula works, there isn't a lot of need to innovate. As soon as a weakness is exposed, it is addressed.

Another facet of this pragmatism, is that there isn't any thought at all given to styles that may or may not work. Wing chun, for example, just isn't thought about. If someone were to demonstrate how well it works, it would get some attention.

A third facet of this pragmatism is the acknowledgment that different and better are not necessarily the same thing. Machida is often pointed to as proof that karate works. Cool. But does it work better than western boxing? Or Thai boxing? Jury's out. So, great, we know that at least one karateka, who embraced cross training in other styles and the pressure testing required to make it work, did very well. A mma coach with an extensive background in western boxing might not abandon what he knows works in order to teach some bastardized version of what machida had studied since childhood. I don't fault them for that.

All said, I think you're seeing pragmatism and mischaracterizing is as rigidity.

Well I think we are, ultimately, speaking to the same thing. In my response to Drop I said. We have a tendency to say "if it's not broke don't fix it". That is a good axiom but it can occasionally have negative consequences. Not always, heck perhaps not often, but sometimes it can result in you missing something pretty nice.

 

[anerlich]

We also have a tendency to be distracted by bright shiny objects that can drag us away from our original goals if not kept in check. Both settling for "good enough" and always looking over the fence at the other guy's grass and how green it is are human proclivities that need to be managed if we are to achieve our full potential.

 

[frank raud]

You mean the modern combat sport of judo?

Old judo had forms at high level.

Judo still has forms(Kata). In fact, kata is a requirement for most belt promotions in most countries.