I agree with this posting 100% When a TMA person works on his techniques with another TMA person they get used to the old "If I do this...you do that."This is dangerous because on the street A + B doesn't always = C. There has to be some contact to replicate some of the stress and "combat attrition" that would take place on the street.
If we get too comfortable working techniques with our fellow classmates one can become mechanical in the way we approach our defense.I have to admit that the MMA guys do work on multiple types fighting at multiple ranges.This is good.I'm not crazy about MMA as a whole,but I must give credit where it's due.
I don't think that TMA need a complete overhaul, but many of our training methods need to be looked at in terms of their effectiveness.

Mark

"If I do this...you do that."

The idea of having functional skills that work at different ranges isn't something new. It's new to many modern people because of how arts have been trained for a while. The only exception is submissions on the ground, which aren't found historically very often outside of combat sport.

If you look in the past you find almost across the board people were already doing "MMA" before there was such a thing, the arts only recently became separated out like that, and the advent of "stylism" is for mass consumption.



This is true of much of the MMA training i've seen too though, not to the same degree because there is more contact and realism for sure, but MMA definitely seems to have it's own standard "system" of techniques and arts it draws from these days...it's just more well rounded that what you find in most TMA dojos. It seems to still have it's limitations, given how quickly it changes when someone does something "new" in the UFC or another competition.

Nonetheless, this idea that MMA has invented something new is totally incorrect, people only believe this because they were raised on TV. In the "old days" prior to martial arts becoming a big commodity things still worked the same (albeit with limitations like no modern safety equipment), you went where teh knowledge was and trained with a variety of folks. If you look at old Karate masters you find the did Judo, or another form of grappling... or if you look further back you find they did Jujutsu. In Chinese arts you were expected to have a well rounded skillset including striking, throwing, locking, simple positional grappling. If you look at older Western martial arts it's the same thing. People did not limit themselves to one dojo, teacher, or style..that is a new thing that has been mislabelled as "traditional"

MMA is just going back to how things were before martial arts was sold on the street corner, and what you could do meant more than the name of what you did. Of course there are new developments in training, fitness, and some of the skills are different, but the method is not new at all. In fact the method of learning what you can from whoever is qualified and personally adapting it to yourself is as old as martial arts is, and you can find everyone from the ancient Chinese to Romans writing about it.

One thing though, is that even very far back there was not really a mindset of "here's several options do what fits your body and feels comfortable for you" like in MMA now, it wasn't very flexible except perhaps boxing in the west in early tiems and maybe pankration (hard to say because no one knows much about pankration). Not to mention no real free sparring before the early 1900's. Of course they probably got in more street fights which I guess can sort of make up for that.

Not to mention no real free sparring before the early 1900's. Of course they probably got in more street fights which I guess can sort of make up for that.

Training for "street" involves much more than physical skills, and when it does involve physical skills I think they need to be moved to a very different paradigm and mindset than competition. I know there are MMA places that do this, but they do not seem to be the norm.

It is worth mentioning though that there have been incidents (both proven and anecdotal) where MMA and TMA have helped a person in a physical confrontation outside of class.