Should MMA be treated as a martial art of its own?

SAMURAI SPIRIT

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Normally, athletes start off in other disciplines such as BJJ, wrestling, judo, Muay Thai and Karate etc. Then they do some kind of "transitional training" for MMA. The problem I see with base martial arts is that they lack well roundedness. BJJ people do not know how to strike or even how to take the fight to the ground. Wrestlers can take the fight to the ground but do not know what comes next. Strikers do not know grappling.

MMA on the other hand has evolved into a very specific discipline of its own. It often involved unlearning what would not work (spider guard and fancy bjj guards) and sharpening what works. I am wondering if MMA can / should be treated to entry level martial arts enthusiasts just like TKD or BJJ etc. It does not need to be all out competitive from day 1 but instead of marketing it to seasoned martial artists, would it sell if it was introduced to the masses as a modern martial art of the era?

Thoughts?
 
Nah it’s way too much to learn. Nowadays kids are training ‘mma’ but it’s really just training all the martial arts and keeping it in mind it’s for mma and not doing too much sport bjj stuff.

The biggest differences that people need to learn when coming from individual martial arts is the transitions (striking to grappling, grappling to striking) And the cage work. But both those things are much easier and quicker to pick up than other full martial arts like boxing, wrestling, etc
Also the glove size but if you spar enough with them and keep it in your mind in boxing/kickboxing to not rely on the big gloves it’s easy to transition
 
Normally, athletes start off in other disciplines such as BJJ, wrestling, judo, Muay Thai and Karate etc. Then they do some kind of "transitional training" for MMA.

I don't think that this has been true for about 10 or so years. You get people who started in one or the other, but I can tell you from the gym I work at alone most people just start training MMA and then supplement with additional training in BJJ or Muay Thai
 
It will down the line, the techniques done specifically in MMA aren't addressed in others unless they themselves have students competing in it

Eg. Fence work, gnp (which itself has developed significantly since it's inception), striking while being conscious for TDD, etc

These materials and techniques aren't addressed elsewhere to the same degree and development. Plus conditioning requirements are different as well.
 
Along this line- how many current high level mma fighters or champions are the product of the typical amateur system? Guys who started with no specialty and learned everything at once, had 6-10 ammy fights and then went pro and made it to the highest level?
 
I think GSP does it best. Between fight camps he spends time with high level coaches in other sports. Sharpening his strikes with Freddy Roach and high level muay thai instructors. Wrestling with the canadian national team and grappling with the Danaher death squad. When its time for a fight it's all in on MMA.

I don't think it matters if you have a background or not when you head into MMA but you should train the other styles separetly to improve if you have the time. You will never become an knockout artist without boxing classes or a submission expert without a black belt.
 
What makes you think it wasn't already?

This has been the case for years; arguably, it has been the case from the very moment the first vale tudo organizations held tournaments.
 
Along this line- how many current high level mma fighters or champions are the product of the typical amateur system? Guys who started with no specialty and learned everything at once, had 6-10 ammy fights and then went pro and made it to the highest level?

You asked a good question. What is the answer?
 
More a concept than a defined art since the practitioner picks and pulls from others, no MMA practitioner is like another.
 
Along this line- how many current high level mma fighters or champions are the product of the typical amateur system? Guys who started with no specialty and learned everything at once, had 6-10 ammy fights and then went pro and made it to the highest level?

This is new trend to teach guy for MMA from 0. :)
Usually flowchart might be: select guys who had been trained in some combat arts since kids/ early teen years, had competed under these rules, later had added anoter 1-2 arts etc.
Then took such kind of hybrid and teach him to compete under MMA rules.
A lot of MMA champs had been created with such flowchart.

GSP initially had KK karate training, then BJJ and freestyle wrestling, had training in boxing, sparring exp vs KBers, MT guys and different kinds of karatekas.
Machida had primary base karate, still he had training in grappling and BJJ.
Fedor: sport and combat sambo & judo, had also paid to spar vs boxers, different grapplers etc alike.

These just few examples.
This trend looks that continue to be like this manner: you get some guy, who had trained combat sport, successfully competed and you teach him to compete in MMA. Ofc you add stuff what he does not have. Some are with primary striking background, some are more grapplers.

I think during next 10 years thing like training from 0 will be common thing.

Like with KB, initially this was more popular for guys who had some exp, like boxing, MT, karate, etc, maybe TKD.
Later clubs with aim to teach KB were common thing, training from 0 too.
 
Not rare cases for club is easier to pick guys with some combat sport background if their aim is to get competitive am/ pro MMA lads ASAP.
Some part from these guys still are with initial training from 0 with 0 combat sport background before mma clubs.
From these I know less than 50% amateurs are like these, others with background in some combat sport before they had turned to learn for mma.
Difference in levels and experience for mma amateur debut guys might be very impressive.

Worst stuff I had saw were: judoka former olympian with BJJ blue belt, he already was like hell for BJJ blue belt division lads, then some club attempted to get for him mma amateur debut fight.
another: continental level medalist in combat sambo with competitive exp also in judo and some KB smokers under belt.
Another end of scope: lads with only 8-12 months training in gym for mma under belt.
 
theres a few different scenarios i have seen. I used to fight for a well known MMA gym. This gym is probably the most up to date in the game the way its ran. and it is a MMA gym, and guys are there for MMA from the get go. However they would still have BJJ classes, striking classes, and then MMA classes. as well as rolling, striking sparring, and mma sparring. Many times when we would rotate in sparring, the guys would go stand up only with me while the majority were doing MMA sparring. Anyways point being, its geared for MMA for the guys from the get go. I have not seen many gyms like this though.

Most the gyms that I have seen, label themselves as MMA gyms, but are primarily BJJ gyms, with a striking class or two.

Back in the day (my generation) I dont think you could classify MMA as its own thing. Today however and what the sport has evolved into, I would say you could classify MMA as its own martial art, but it still relies on training and combining martial arts, however its taking what is applicable from those martial arts to MMA. For example, no one wants MT for the most part, they want MT for MMA, if that makes sense.

So no we see guys cross training multiple martial arts, specifically for MMA, from the get go

Im not sure if the guys that are dominating MMA are guys that started out and specialized in something and then transitioned to MMA. The sport has come a long way in what 20 years? but still hasnt reached its pinnacle IMO. We still have people competing at the top level that didnt grow up fighting MMA, they grew up fighting "wrestling" and transitioned to MMA. Give it another 20 years, were going to have a generation of young fighters that started in MMA from a young age.

one thing to keep in mind that many people seem to forget, however a few on this forum are aware of and have pointed out in prevous discussions. MMA is not "boxing". Boxing is not "mma". Many people have this misconception that because boxing is used in MMA, and because they fight MMA, they can hop into a boxing match and do well. Some might, but generally speaking that isnt the case.
 
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I think GSP does it best. Between fight camps he spends time with high level coaches in other sports. Sharpening his strikes with Freddy Roach and high level muay thai instructors. Wrestling with the canadian national team and grappling with the Danaher death squad. When its time for a fight it's all in on MMA.

Agree with this conceptually. I'm a striker only in fight training (aside from muay thai clinches) but I used to do a lot of triathlons. There's running, swimming, and biking... and there's triathlons. A full tri is different but people also need to study the individual sports to learn both what to do and what might be smart to do individually sport but NOT to do it in the context of a tri, or more importantly, to capitalize when your competitor does mistakenly do one of those things
 
I don't think that this has been true for about 10 or so years. You get people who started in one or the other, but I can tell you from the gym I work at alone most people just start training MMA and then supplement with additional training in BJJ or Muay Thai
To me it seems most serious competitors who make it big seem to have a strong base style, rather than just started training MMA.

of course those people exist but seems to me most are this style or that style based.
 
I don't think that this has been true for about 10 or so years. You get people who started in one or the other, but I can tell you from the gym I work at alone most people just start training MMA and then supplement with additional training in BJJ or Muay Thai

The gym I'm considering going to treats mma like an advanced class and you need to take classes in the individual arts first.
 
At this point yes, most things that are took from other styles are adapted to MMA
 
In my opinion until an MMA gyms treat MMA as a single unified martial art taught primarily by one instructor as a whole it shouldn’t be considered it’s own art.

if you have a boxing coach, a MT, coach, a BJJ/judo coach, and a wrestling coach that get roughly equal time with students and the ‘head instructor’ title is more just for show than anything I don’t think it should be treated as it’s own art.

I do think it should be more or less treated the way it is now, and I think that mixing martial arts should actually be a fairly advanced lesson plan.

I think having an extremely solid base in one art is better than just jumping into 2-4 arts all at once
MMA might be more well rounded than individual arts but a specialist will do one thing so much better than an ‘MMA’ fighter, while not guaranteeing that the MMA fighter will be strong enough in other areas to overcome that skill gap.
 
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Along this line- how many current high level mma fighters or champions are the product of the typical amateur system? Guys who started with no specialty and learned everything at once, had 6-10 ammy fights and then went pro and made it to the highest level?

Rory Mcdonald and Leon Edwards off the top of my head. I'm sure there must be more.
 
Rory Mcdonald and Leon Edwards off the top of my head. I'm sure there must be more.

We will probably see a lot more in the future because of IMMAF. They already have a first wave of proffesional fighters but they are quite fresh and not in the big leagues yet. However you can still notice that the big stars of IMMAF also have backgrounds in other sports, like Muhammed Mokaev who comes from a wrestling background.
 
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