MMA Impact on Martial Arts

Real Conflict

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The closest approximation to real conflict is warfare - or people from different styles and training methods getting together and actually trying to kill each other. This is the foundation upon which traditional martial arts were born. The lessons learned in these conflicts brought about profound realizations - fortunately one of which was to do as little as possible of what they were trained to do. These lessons were carried forth from teacher to student over generations and formed a lineage to maintain quality. MMA has never been tested in this manner, and the question is open as the extent to which the practitioners have embraced profound principles that lead to nonviolence.

What did MMA revolutionize?

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The real revolution was in the use of television, Youtube and media to promote the competitions and turn it into a Western cultural phenomena. The focus is to create an illusion of realism with images of blood and injuries (which are real but not life threatening), and filming traditional martial artists failing on Youtube with click-bait titles. Every athlete knows that when you change sports, you must start all over as a beginner and take years to mastery. The same is true when you change rule sets in martial arts, which is exactly why a traditional martial artist is at a severe disadvantage when competing under MMA rules. Similarly, when MMA practitioners try defense against multiple attackers, they perform unusually poorly. Just imagine a professional football player defending himself in a hockey game against a stick. Arguments that MMA competition is the arbiter of who are the best martial artists is merely media hype, not in any way true.

But if you sever the roots of the traditional martial arts that reach back to the use of profound principles, does it lose its comprehensive effectiveness and value in life? All martial arts require training in both the physical technique and principle for comprehensive effectiveness. If the purpose of MMA is to redirect training to be purely technical, essentially about fighting alone and the principles are lost, the majority of benefits will be lost along with them. If, on the other hand, a different philosophy of similar efficiency has been substituted into the martial training, then the training has merely changed costumes. The only question remaining is what that philosophy is.

MMA Classes in Westchester, NY: Availability

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As they say, they have more MMA classes in Westchester than Seven Eleven's. Inspection for quality and particularly for injury rates will be important. If one plans to train for lifetime benefits, evolutionary changes with age should be considered. But MMA classes may be found in BJJ, Gracie Jiu Jitsu and other martial arts gyms throughout White Plain, Yonkers and New Rochelle.