MMA Curriculum

[ZEB]

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
ZEB wrote:

I remember that era quite well and of course the opposite happened. Bruce Lee while he spoke out against traditional martial arts on occasion in articles and books that was less important than what people saw on the movie screen. This made them want to take up the Asian martial arts and join Dojo’s. Lee flying through the air and kicking two people at the same time. Taking on small groups of people only proliferated the myth of the indestructible black belt. Lee’s influence caused an increase of traditional Dojo’s across the country. Perhaps nothing did more for these schools than Bruce Lee. There is absolutely no comparison to what Bruce Lee brought to the world as to what MMA has brought–None.

Lee spoke out against traditional arts on numerous occasions, publicly. He also had no formal ranks in his system of JKD, and even went so far as to shut down all of his financially successful schools because he believed so strongly in “the individual over the system” and was afraid that the same dogmatic thinking and traditionalism that he saw in other arts would eventually infect his own system (which is ironic as this has indeed happened after his untimely death).[/quote]

All true, but as I said the typical Bruce Lee fan was infatuated with what he saw on the silver screen. In other words, actions spoke louder than words. And as I have also said that is the reason that Karate school proliferated because of Lee’s movies. There was a gigantic influx of new students all very happy to be promoted through the system and wear various colored belts on the way up. None of that of course is occurring because of the huge success of the UFC and other lesser organizations. Therefore, we have two exact opposite occurrences which are in fact creating exact opposite outcomes.

If you take into consideration what Chinese Opera/Kung Fu movies looked like prior to Lee’s entrance on the screen you can see a stark difference in the relative realism in Lee’s films.

Agree.

It’s also worth noting that as Lee gained stardom and thus more and more control over his films and their fight choreography, that the realism continued to grow (look at the fight scenes between Fists Of Fury/The Big Boss and Way Of The Dragon/Return Of The Dragon for instance). But it should also be noted that no matter how much control he had, movie/screen Martial Arts will never be the same as real combat, as it’s purpose is to entertain the audience or tell a story, not to accurately display combat which is messy, ugly, and unpredictable.

I totally agree, and that is the main reason that the myth of the unconquerable black belt was not busted as it was with MMA.

You are right though that most Westerners are familiar only with Enter The Dragon, which was less realistic than Way Of The Dragon, or Game Of Death was scheduled to be and that film brought a whole generation of people into the Martial Arts (many of whom were duped into believing the same mystical nonsense that Lee had so passionately spoken out against). It also didn’t help that Lee died prior to the International release of ETD and since he had already closed down all his schools, his beliefs on the subject were not readily available.

Glad we agree on this.

[quote]
Once again there is no comparison to full contact Karate and today’s mma. Guys like Joe Lewis, Bill Wallace and many others still stood and fought each other in very traditional ways. For example, there were no take downs, no ground fighting etc. As for Catch Wrestling, that was probably the worlds biggest martial arts secret (along with Jiu-Jitsu) back in the day. It had zero influence on the Karataka of the time. Not even boxing which was immensely popular, I dare say more so than today, had much of an influence on Karate practitioners. The thought at the time was this: “boxers can only use their hands karataka can use hands and feet therefore Karate is superior.” One more falsehood, but believed by just about every member of every Dojo.

Once again, you need to take things in their historical context. Lewis fought the first full contact Kickboxing/Karate match in the Western Hemisphere (which Bruce Lee helped to organize and trained Lewis for).[/quote]

You are spot on with that information.

Prior to that time many Karateka believed that their strikes were too deadly to be used on another human being (after all they could break all those bricks/boards).

LOL…so true. I can recall my Sensei telling our class how easy it would be for him or anyone who knows these “lethal techniques” to kill a man with one blow. At the time I was on the High School wrestling team and was even then pondering how my master would handle a double leg takedown. Don’t get me wrong I was not being prolific. I knew he would win I just didn’t know which lethal blow he would use --LOL

Lewis, Lee, Stone, and other real Martial Artists knew otherwise (since they had already been engaging in full contact sparring/training and were big fans of boxing) so they wanted to prove this fact to the rest of the Martial Arts/sporting world on a National stage.

Agreed.

No, they did not allow ground fighting (though, Lewis started out as a wrestler and Wallace was both a talented wrestler and accomplished Judoka prior to starting their Karate or Kickboxing careers, so believe me they knew and could have very easily hung on the ground if it had been allowed), but there were absolutely no combat sports that allowed for both striking and grappling at the time, so faulting them for that is a bit unfair and misses my point.

I never faulted them for this. My point was that most of the impressionable members of the many Dojo’s did not get to see any realistic fight scenario’s played out. Therefore, they will still mesmerized by the lone stand-up martial artist. Certainly not the fault of Wallace and the others. But nonetheless it did not urge any of the Karateka to throw their belts off and think “no need for these belts there are many forms of fighting that seem just as good as what we’re doing.” As I said that didn’t even begin to happen until MMA came into popularity. And even now as we both know belts are still quite popular. But as I also said many of the successful Dojo’s are bringing in grapplers, boxers etc.

Lewis did fight a couple exhibition rounds with Muhammad Ali (prior to Ali’s exhibition match with Inoki) though in which he double legged Ali to show him what Inoki was likely going to do to him.

Yes, I recall that very well. This caused me to look forward to the Antonio Inoki Muhammed Ali match with great anticipation. Unfortunately, the match (as you know) turned out to be a large disappointment as neither man really wanted to engage the other and used the rules to avoid such engagement.

Anyway, even though Lewis was aware of takedowns and could when pushed perform them does not mean that the general Karate/martial arts population at the time was aware, or even cared.

And that’s not even mentioning Gene Lebell’s fight with Milo Savage.

Saw it and loved it! But again, simply because it was one semi-legitimate MMA match at the time does not mean that the many practitioners of the Asian martial arts were seeing it, believing it, or even caring that it took place. It was looked at as an oddity. And as you know some things have to literally be pounded into the heads of people before they actually believe it. In fact, believe it or not, there are still some TMA who claim that the UFC and the many other organizations are offering up fake fights. I know…I know…incredible but people being who they are do not admit to the truth so readily especially if it may cause them to lose face (so they think), or lose money. Certainly, one 1963 MMA match was not to turn the tide regarding belt rankings and how the TMA looked at a real fight.

The only thing that the UFC proved that had not already been proven was the effectiveness of the Guard for ground fighting.

True, but let’s not miss the main point which is the many, many MMA fights from the year 1993 to today certainly has made a huge impression the typical TMA. 22 straight years of blended MMA is far more persuasive than one or two events over a period of years back in the day. The impression has now been made and really there can’t be any argument about that aspect. The only question that remains is how this will ultimately effect the belt system. There are many schools already that have dropped the belt system and included grappling as you know. The only question that remains is will there be any sort of belt system 20 years from now.

No one can argue there are simply less strictly stand up fighters in martial arts than there were back in 1992.

MMA has also exposed that myth as well. the primary striking component of each MMA fighter is almost always boxing as it is a superior striking skill to traditional karate punches. Which moreover takes away from traditional Karate methodology and belt ranks etc. For certain Karate has not been shut out of MMA. GSP and Machida (and others) have proven that. But in order for each man to gain their championship belt what did they do? GSP trained with the Canadian Wrestling team and became as good as any Wrestler, regarding takedowns at least. And Machida is also a BB in BJJ. Proving once again that Karate alone will not help you defeat other well rounded world class fighters. This also may cause long term damage to the belt system.

What do you think the primary striking skills of full contact karate/kickboxing was? Lewis trained personally with Sugar Ray Robinson, and extensively with Eddie Futch during his years on the full contact circuit. He and Lee used to watch countless hours of boxing film on Ali, Louis, and other great boxers. According to Lewis, Lee had already come to the conclusion that Boxing hand strikes were superior to Karate’s in the mid-late 60’s while they were training together and had switched almost completely away from Kung Fu/Karate striking methods.Wallace’s hand skills were also strictly boxing in nature, as were pretty much all of the full contact fighters.[/quote]

I certainly agree, but let’s not get off the track the topic is not “were the best Karteka at the time aware that boxing strikes were superior to karate strikes.” The topic is how much impact did any of that have on changing the operation of the typical Asian martial arts studio…to the point where belts would be dropped. Of course the answer, as you know, to that question is pretty easy. The top guys training with and using boxing strikes in their stand-up full contact karate matches had zero impact on the overwhelming majority of Dojo’s across the country. And certainly no comparison as to the impact that the current MMA craze has had on those same Dojo’s.

[quote]And even if they were not, Oyama sent 3 of his best fighters to Thailand to take on the best the Thai champions and they won 2 out of 3 of those fights by KO. So unless you are saying that Muay Thai is an ineffective art, then you have to also acknowledge that Karate can be as well if trained realistically.

Once again, you are veering off the main topic. As a side note I have great respect for both Thai boxing as well as Karate. But as we both know each is limited by the confines of the art. In other words, it is not complete without grapping etc. Back to the topic at hand…

[quote]I certainly agree with you. But, once again traditional martial arts was exposed as not quite being the ultimate fighting art that it was cracked up to through MMA. The myth of the black belt twirling through the air and defeating multiple opponents simultaneously, is literally dead. And as I have said previously Bruce Lee proliferated this myth he did not kill it. However, MMA not only killed that myth but buried it solidly so it will never rise again.

The question is this, will any of that destroy the belt system 20 years from now as I have suggested? I believe it will. But once again no one knows the future. If I could predict with accuracy the future 20 years out I would be a billionaire many times over, be running for President and insulting everyone…But seriously, the reality of what a good martial art can and cannot do is now in the face of anyone who wants to open their eyes and look. This may mean that there will be less participation in traditional Dojo’s (with belt rankings etc.) unless they come to the realization that adding some ground fighting and also boxing. By doing such they will indeed help build their programs and also help their students be more effective for street self defense regardless of their interest in actually getting into a cage to fight professionally. If this does occur and I think it will, where does the belt ranking system fit in? I don’t think it does.

No argument about the “Ultimate” fighting system thing. If there is one thing that MMA has unequivocally proven it is the need to be a well rounded fighter, and that it is the individual fighter and what they bring to the table that matters, not the system itself.[/quote]

We agree again.

Regarding belts and the cage/reality, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu still utilizes them,

Yes, but again that is a Jiu-Jitsu system passed on to the Gracie’s by one particular Japanese fighter who travelled to Brazil. Of course they still have the belt system. In other words they are actually traditional as well…Interesting, while they popped the bubble on the typical Asian martial arts school it was more of an attitude that grappling was better than standing. But as it developed the realization has occurred. “Hey…we need both to actually be good.” So much so that Royce took up kickboxing to try to remain relevant. It didn’t work for him but that’s another topic.

John Hackleman still uses them, Joe Lewis and Bill Wallace still utilize them, we still utilize them in Sento, and the Military (Marines at least) still utilize them. All of those systems have enviable success records in real combat and sport competition, so it’s not like the use of belts is on some way mutually exclusive with realistic application. It’s all in how you implement them.

I totally agree, the effectiveness of any art is not related to the fact that one does or does not wear a belt. You have given good examples. However, once again I remind you that I was speculating about the future 20 years from now. It took a good deal of time for the TMA to stand up (pun intended) and actually take notice that their lethal techniques were not so lethal in an MMA match. How much longer will it take them to realize that a belt, while certainly not a bad idea, and one that has only been around for 120 years or so, is really not necessary to one’s advancement in any given martial art be it traditional, from Asia, or those rooted in the US like boxing and wrestling.

The answer is I have no idea and neither do you. But it is fun to speculate. And I do enjoy the debate that we have had. There are not many people (perhaps you and maybe three, or four others on this site) that I can have such an exchange with whose opinion I respect.

I thank you for the discussion.