Traditional Martial Arts ARE Too Deadly

9/19/17

Traditional Martial Arts are too deadly, and you know it. OK, let's replace "deadly" with "effective". That is more to my tastes. Critics of so-called traditional martial arts (TMA) often say that TMA practitioners don't compete in mixed martial arts (MMA) because they say their TMA are "too deadly". Yes, that is often true, but it is also something that I believe MMA practitioners believe, even if they are hesitant to admit it.

A common MMA practitioner rebuttal is "but the MMA practitioner could eye gouge (or whatever deadly TMA technique) too in the street". Yes, but you can't have your logic both ways. If how you practice is how it would likely manifest in real life, then the MMA person could be ill-prepared for the street because they are full of somewhat silly sports notions.

But don't take my word for it. Let's look at the rules for various combat sports. I'm going to copy and paste some rules that I found for various combat sports. You'll see that there are dozens of prohibited strikes and other movements, as well as many artificial conditions imposed (obviously for safety, control, and entertainment) on competitors.

Judo

Brazillian Jiujitsu / Submission Grappling MMA Amateur MMA Vale Tudo Boxing Muay Thai Wrestling

Miscellaneous questions

Add to that a completely artificial and controlled environment designed for your relative safety, the fact that a lot of it is on TV ("tell a vision"), with BIG money at stake, marketing ("no holds barred" when many are, "full contact" when not all strikes are allowed), add in steroid and other performance enhancer usage, fixed fights, and you don't even know what you're really seeing. Even freakin' Pankration had some rules, judges, age classes, and prize money on the line. I, personally, am not that naive to believe just because high levels of force are used, that therefore a given martial art demonstrated is more real or more effective than others.

Do you know the long-term effects of being choked out? The long-term effects of concussions (dementia pugilistica), something sports would have loved to keep secret, are now coming to light such as in football.

So in the end, in real life, it is all about the practitioner, the training they do, and mindset. Sports, even combat sports, are just a game. Sports have their place, but sports people, please, do some randomized (ie. you don't know who has it) knife practice with a marker or a fake knife that squirts "blood" for your enlightenment moment as to why we practice traditional martial arts and why people have for thousands of years.

Thanks for reading...and thinking.

And P.S., we train with our "hands down" because that is how unexpected fights tend to start and we are not provoking a fight. Once the fight starts it is, obviously, "hands up".

Please anonymously VOTE on the content you have just read:

Like:
Dislike: