Questions and Answers on the Dominant Martial Technique

[Journeyman]

It's interesting that the champions in four out of the five UFC weight classes are succeeding with striking--Sylvia, Liddell, Silva, and just last night Georges St. Pierre. Currently it's looking like the dominant approach is excellent striking combined with excellent takedown defense.

 

[Tez3]

I can't help but think you're trying to make something deeper out of the basic fact that, if you require a winner, somebody will win, and it'll be the guy who puts out just a little bit more that day.

I agree with this! I train MMA and to be honest we never intellectulise it as much as you guys. We train to be equally good at all the elements involved in a MMA fight. Tactics will come into it a lot. If your opponent is predominantly a stiker you will aim to take him to the floor and if he's a ground fighter you try to stay standing. We don't train at one thing more than another. The way we see MMA is as a whole not induvidual arts. We are masters, if you like of MMA not jack of all trades cobbling together different MAs. MMA has a very clear mening here that perhaps you haven't got. We have many promotions runnng shows here so UFC and the Gracies aren't such an influence. There are many dedicated MMA clubs and teams too.

 

[mrhnau]

So I ask then, if this is true; that there is a dominate martial art or strategy,

Well, as I think some of folks in this thread have said, its not something about total dominance. If you pit a pure good BJJ fighter against a pure good boxer, once it gets on the ground its likely over. With the UFC, competitors realize that most fights go to the ground, so even strikers study a bit of grappling or techniques against grappling (sprawling, how to get back up). You rarely see a striker these days w/out some remedial skill in grappling/grappling defense. I think these days they are weeded out before reaching the big show.

Another aspect is "dominant martial art". Given a certain set of rules, the martial arts that can most easily be adapted to those rules will excel. Given a different set of rules a different art might excel. The strategy will likely be changing too.

Because the rules structure favors submission grappling over stand up boxing/kickboxing, and because the BJJ techniques are quickly and easily learned by someone with a different background.

Well said!

It's interesting that the champions in four out of the five UFC weight classes are succeeding with striking--Sylvia, Liddell, Silva, and just last night Georges St. Pierre. Currently it's looking like the dominant approach is excellent striking combined with excellent takedown defense.

Great points. BJJ is not the 100% victory insurance.

 

[exile]

I agree with this! I train MMA and to be honest we never intellectulise it as much as you guys. We train to be equally good at all the elements involved in a MMA fight. Tactics will come into it a lot. If your opponent is predominantly a stiker you will aim to take him to the floor and if he's a ground fighter you try to stay standing. We don't train at one thing more than another. The way we see MMA is as a whole not induvidual arts. We are masters, if you like of MMA not jack of all trades cobbling together different MAs. MMA has a very clear mening here that perhaps you haven't got. We have many promotions runnng shows here so UFC and the Gracies aren't such an influence. There are many dedicated MMA clubs and teams too.

I know I wind up sounding like a broken record on this point... but the fact is that before ring-sparring based competition and the `branding' of certain aspects of MA style, the TMAs were pretty mixed as well. Earlier forms of Korean martial arts incorporated elements that we would now look at and think, `Ah, Hapkido', others things that look like TKD or TSD; but basically they were all tools in the fighter's repertoire. Okinawan karate was similarly mixed, with strikes, locks, sweeps, throws and all kinds of other grappling elements...

I detect in a lot of these discussions a desire that MAists are beginning to express to recover the more `holistic' foundations of their arts---arts which like karate/TKD have become linked to tournament competition using scoring systems which artificially deprive these systems of some of their most effective strategic ideas and tactical resources. I see the emergence of the Abernethy/McCarthy/O'Neil/Anslow/... wing of pattern interpretation as an effort to reinject these neglected elements into the stripped-down versions which are currently taught. It's not so much a matter of intellectualizing the MAs as trying to find a way to see them and talk about them that helps connect to their earlier, more versatile and more robust fighting content...

 

[Tez3]

We just like fighting ....lol!

 

[MJS]

Mod Note

Thread moved to Grappling.

Mike Slosek
MT Supermod

 

[Rook]

I would challenge you to find any martial art that could win against itself more than 50% of the time. What is more useful is to judge how it does against OTHER martial arts.

 

[thewhitemikevick]

Many martial artists, perhaps due to the popularity of UFC, have stated quite often that the dominant martial art in the ring is Brazilian Ju Jitsu, with perhaps wrestling trailing close behind.

So I ask then, if this is true; that there is a dominate martial art or strategy, then how is it when two BJJ warriors enter the ring, one of them loses?

The idea you present is an interesting one...it's a different way of looking at it, I suppose. If BJJ is the dominant martial art, and provides the fighters with techniques that are superior, then one would have to assume that if two BJJ masters entered the ring to fight one another, they would be stalemated...they could not possibly overcome one another, because both of their technique would be "perfect".

It's an interesting idea I guess...but you have to look at the idea that BJJ is the dominant martial art in MMA in more of a realistic perspective, rather than a philisophical one. See, you are taking that statement "BJJ is superior" or whatever and examining it in something like a philisophical sense...but life isn't philisophy. Life can't be defined. And a fight, most certainly cannot be defined or predicted. One always has a strategy that they want to employ in the fight, and they'll implement it into the fight as much as they can, but it's not as though the tactics that they preconceived, even if practiced for years in advance, are guranteed to work the way they envisioned them to. In fact, it's more likely that they are guranteed NOT to work the way they envisioned them to. Fights are unpredictable. They happen the way they want to happen, and while you can factor in your fighting style to try and dictate the way the fight will happen, the fact remains that things just happen differently sometimes. It's not like a computer program...it's not: BJJ = Perfection, therefore BJJ + BJJ = draw. I do not believe that styles make fighters...I believe that fighters make styles. BJJ was developed by PEOPLE. Just as was Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, Akido, Hapkido, Karate, Ninjitsu, Boxing, Wrestling, or any of it! These martial arts were created by people. By men. By Women. A style can HELP to define a fighter...it can help to shape him into what he is, or what he will become. But it doesn't create him.

BJJ is not perfect by any means. No ONE martial art is. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. There are martial arts that are different than others...maybe some martial arts are better than others...but I've yet to see a martial art that is anything close to "perfection". If I had, then I wouldn't be cross-training. What of the Gracies? Where was this "perfect" martial art when they were all defeated by Sakuraba, a fighter who showed that a rounded fighter can beat a master of a single martial art (no offense intended there, because I'm a HUGE Gracie fan, I was just using that as an example is all)

What I'm trying to say is that Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu isn't perfect. Styles aren't perfect. Fighters aren't perfect. There's always gaps, always holes in techniques, and always weak spots. As martial artists, we are driven to go back again and again to try and perfect these hollow points in our style, but the fact remains that we will never perfect them. I know I never will. We work towards perfection. But it's just that. Work. And we will work and work for the rest of our lives to try and complete ourselves as a fighter. And you know, even if one of us could reach "perfection", it wouldn'y truly be perfection, because as figthers we just can't quit working, and so we'd keep on going to try and exceed even that. Nothing's ever perfect. Not for us.

When two fighters enter a ring, one wins, and one loses. I don't believe in draws. And even in UFC, there ARE draws. But you've got to realize, no matter how perfect your technique is in your dojo, when you step into the ring, perfection is NOTHING. Everything changes. BJJ isn't an invention of god. It's an invention of man. It's a wonderful martial art that I enjoy practicing very much, but not all fighters are the same. Don't be so quick to judge. The same two fighters can be put into the ring with one another a hundred different times, and the fight can go a hundred different ways. One will beat the other, or it will be a draw. That's the only thing that's really guranteed. The rest is up to the guys that go between the ropes (or the cage.)

 

[Carol]

There is also a mental portion to BJJ. There is so much contact with the opponent's body that it becomes a kinaesthetic chess match where each fighter thinks not 3 moves ahead.

 

[FuriousGeorge]

BJJ has such a good reputation because since its introduction to the world, people with good jujitsu have continually demonstrated themselves to be better, more well rounded fighters than those without. Its really that simple. In the beginning of MMA, the fighters who understood how to roll, Royce Gracie, etc. dominated the competition because once a fight went to the ground, most fighters just had no idea what to do. The smart fighters quickly learned that a good MMA fighter has to know what they are doing on the ground. BJJ teaches you how to fight from your back, protect yourself on the ground, get submissions, beat a stronger opponent, etc. it is just the most extensive ground system, so its a really good art to train if you want to be effective on the ground. I don't think anybody thinks its a complete system, takedowns are weak in BJJ, and there's no striking, strictly speaking, so no one is saying its the end all be all. But you pretty much have to have a good understanding of it if you want to be a decent fighter, regerdless of whether you are primarily a striker or a grappler.