Are competitive Sport Martial Artists superior?

[Oily Dragon]

So, who is going to fund my study?

There's not enough Dogecoin in the world.

I do think group 3 would end up full of horribly mangled people and thus be unable to walk let alone defend themselves.

CrossFit is lethal. Parkour is a Widowmaker.

I'll take competition Kung Fu any day.

 

[Steve]

There's not enough Dogecoin in the world.

I do think group 3 would end up full of horribly mangled people and thus be unable to walk let alone defend themselves.

CrossFit is lethal. Parkour is a Widowmaker.

I'll take competition Kung Fu any day.

Ha. Maybe in lieu of Crossfit or Parkour, we should focus on Tae Bo or Cardio Kickboxing.

If by competition kung fu you have something like san shou in mind, I think that's squarely in group 1.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Ha. Maybe in lieu of Crossfit or Parkour, we should focus on Tae Bo or Cardio Kickboxing.

If by competition kung fu you have something like san shou in mind, I think that's squarely in group 1.

Yes, but we should throw Wing Chun students into group 3, they might actually learn to crosstrain.

That shouldn't be taken as a jab at Wing Chun by the way. More like a loving suggestion.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

So, who is going to fund my study?

I got 5 on it.

 

[Steve]

Yes, but we should throw Wing Chun students into group 3, they might actually learn to crosstrain.

That shouldn't be taken as a jab at Wing Chun by the way. More like a loving suggestion.

See, if I made that joke, I'd get in trouble.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

See, if I made that joke, I'd get in trouble.

They haven’t read it yet, by tomorrow they will have mob after you.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

See, if I made that joke, I'd get in trouble.

Bar the castle door!

 

[Oily Dragon]

See, if I made that joke, I'd get in trouble.

I understand.

Laughter is the best medicine everywhere except martial arts forums.

There, it is beaten beyond death, every day.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I understand.

Laughter is the best medicine everywhere except martial arts forums.

There, it is beaten beyond death, every day.

It gets pretty serious in here pretty fast. I wonder if we were all in a room together if we would be more polite and friendly?

 

[Steve]

It gets pretty serious in here pretty fast. I wonder if we were all in a room together if we would be more polite and friendly?

I'd say it's 50/50 whether it would be more polite, or a lot more violent.

 

[Oily Dragon]

It gets pretty serious in here pretty fast. I wonder if we were all in a room together if we would be more polite and friendly

I think MT is kind of tame.

You should see Twitter. Everyone there is a psycho clown, medical expert, or has a unnerving fascination with Frank Castle.

Or Facebook. Sorry, Meta. Which is already getting poked as "Beta".

None of that here on MT. Nothing but honest folks.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I'd say it's 50/50 whether it would be more polite, or a lot more violent.

Is it too much to hope for both?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I'd say it's 50/50 whether it would be more polite, or a lot more violent.

Fair enough. At least a couple fights when the beer runs out.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Is it too much to hope for both?

Do I have to answer that? I would shed a tear.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I think MT is kind of tame.

You should see Twitter. Everyone there is a psycho clown, medical expert, or has a unnerving fascination with Frank Castle.

Or Facebook. Sorry, Meta. Which is already getting poked as "Beta".

None of that here on MT. Nothing but honest folks.

To be honest I never went on any forum other than this. I don’t have any other social media whatsoever, and I just got this last month.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I think MT is kind of tame.

You should see Twitter. Everyone there is a psycho clown, medical expert, or has a unnerving fascination with Frank Castle.

Or Facebook. Sorry, Meta. Which is already getting poked as "Beta".

None of that here on MT. Nothing but honest folks.

I think it’s funny that people use movies as a reference point in here. The other day it was cobra Kai they were using. I can’t take it seriously.

 

[drop bear]

It gets pretty serious in here pretty fast. I wonder if we were all in a room together if we would be more polite and friendly?

Not me.

 

[dvcochran]

It gets pretty serious in here pretty fast. I wonder if we were all in a room together if we would be more polite and friendly?

For a few minutes anyway.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Not me.

I will save the whiskey for you then.

 

[Ivan]

This was a question asked in my other thread and I thought it warranted its own thread. There is a slight disdain for sports and competition among traditionalists within the martial arts. It even pops up in my style Brazilian Jiujitsu, despite the fact that what brought Bjj to prominence was sport and competition. There is a group of people within Bjj who dislike what competition has done to the art, and like to hammer in the idea that sport dilutes the self defense aspect of the art.

While there is some merit to that point, there is another inescapable fact; Competition and sport (particularly MMA) have kept Bjj "honest" in that it forces the style to never drift too far into having its own head up its ****. For example, after Bjj exploded on the scene via the early UFCs, numerous other grappling systems emerged to try to supplant it as the main grappling art of the emerging sport. At first, Bjj exponents (mainly the Gracies) pushed a sort of purity message and refused to embrace other grappling styles, saying that their system of grappling was superior to all others. However, after the Gracies got beat by grapplers who had cross-trained in Bjj, other Bjj schools embraced other grappling forms. Over two decades later, it would be hard to argue that Bjj isn't an overall better martial art than it was when it first exploded on the scene in the 1990s.

Beyond general MA improvement, it would be a bit silly to believe that your average MA hobbyist is a better martial artist than a professional fighter. Again, when I look into my own martial art, I look at guys like Ryan Gordon, Keenan Cornelius, JT Torres, Marcelo Garcia, Ryan Hall, etc. and recognize that they would absolutely destroy me. There are videos of competitive Bjj players who roll against entire schools and submit students in that school within a matter of minutes if not seconds. Even the black belt instructors are easily dealt with, and considering that I would struggle with the average Bjj black belt, the fact that these people are several magnitudes better than them is something to think about.

Which brings us back to the general question; Are competitive sport martial artists superior to non competitive martial artists? I simply can't see how they aren't. Beyond grappling, look at the various showcases of traditional Chinese martial artists going up against MMA and sport fighters. Universally, the traditional martial artists lose, and many of the people they lose to aren't even professional fighters. Pushing this up a notch, if Jon Jones or Khabib walked into your dojo, could your instructor beat them in a fight? Bringing this down a notch would your traditional karate instructor be able to stand toe to toe against an amateur boxer? These are questions to consider because we continue to run across people who say that since their style includes wrist locks, throws, kicks, and kata, they have an advantage over a boxer because "the boxer only has punches".

I would argue that the boxer has more than punches. They have conditioning, durability, endurance, and fighting experience.

Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts.

Superior in what way? I think this is an excellent question. One of my favourite topics to think about is, what makes a martial artist and what makes a fighter? Is there a difference between the two, and if so what is it? Can one be a martial artist and a fighter simultaneously?

When it comes to traditional martial arts, this term is used loosely. What constitutes as traditional varies from style to style, and person to person. In my eyes, traditional martial arts training involves hardcore conditioning, such as bone conditioning and hardcore stretching. Wouldn't that make the physical fitness of the TMA practitioners, by these standards, superior for fighting? Furthermore, the end goal of TMA practitioners and athletes in combat sports is different. Athletes competing in fights, whether it be professional MMA or Amateur Boxing, in reality, are just athletes. Their goal is to win, whether by points or by knockout, not to kill or injure. The athletes are just athletes, and of these few athletes, only a few of them would classify as real fighters.

These boxing bouts and MMA matches are just rehearsals for the reality of the dangers in the world; where there are no rules or referees. TMA practitioners, again by my standards, take this into account. They understand that there is a difference between a fight and sparring. By all these standards, TMA practitioners seem superior, don't they?

But the quality of TMA has dropped. It's maddening to see. We have these so-called martial artists and fighters with insane superiority complexes, bullying anyone who dares to touch weight training. For some reason, physical strength is despised and made fun of in the martial arts community nowadays, even though it should go hand in hand. They don't practice sparring and preach inner peace, even though they don't have the strength for battle.

The reason combat sports athletes are kicking *** right now is that TMAs have dropped. They are an embarrassment to their history, and I have seen very few schools that teach what needs to be taught. Martial arts were created so that the weak could become strong and defend themselves; now weakness is encouraged with participation trophies, "no contact sparring" and other crap. However, there is no doubt in mind, that real TMA practitioners, the ones that came before us and our ancestors over a century ago would floor almost any modern athlete except for the fact that MMA is a thing now that makes the athlete "fighters" of this generation more flexible than any other fighters in history.