New Fight Question

[BCPVP]

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And does being a Traditional Martial Artist preclude cross training?

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The way the OP stated it, I think the "traditional asian martial artist" should be one that has focused only on their particular art, other wise they became a "mixed" martial artist.

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But it seems to me that proponents of the style are someone overconfident in it's superiority to other styles.

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I agree with this to an extent. I'm not a fan of the attitude that some people who study bjj have. Helio Gracie was beaten by Masahiko Kimura. Many of the prominent Gracies have been defeated by Kazushi Sakuraba.

[Viscant]

A couple things.

Not to nitpick, but the best UFC champion is not the best mixed martial artist in the world. The best MMA fighter is unquestionably Fedor and he does not fight for the UFC and probably never will.

And also, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has already been proven inferior to traditional Japanese martial arts...if you consider Sakuraba a traditional Japanese martial artist. He has destroyed almost the whole Gracie clan. Unfortunately, the best of them (Rickson) was never beaten so...it's not conclusive, but they don't call Sakuraba the Gracie hunter for nothing.
Regardless, BJJ has been proven over and over to be greatly superior to most other martial arts. The fact that Royce Gracie, really the runt of the clan, had such a great run is a great testament to this. The reason that pure BJJ no longer rules MMA is actually proof of how effective it is. I can think of no high level MMA fighter who doesn't have at least some BJJ background, at least an elementary defensive one. Even so called strikers in MMA train BJJ now. Tim Sylvia and Chuck Liddell are very loath to go to the ground but they have purple belts in BJJ. Wanderlei Silva is a black belt in BJJ. Anderson Silva has a black belt. Rich Franklin has a brown belt. All of these guys are thought of as strikers almost exclusively but they're all trained in BJJ now.

What makes MMA such an interesting sport is the fact that it's so new. In my first post on this thread I pointed out the traditional martial arts that many MMA champions started in. That's because MMA training (as exists today) didn't exist when they began their training. Because of all these different styles coming into MMA and their most effective techniques being assimilated and dissected, the advantages an MMA fighter has over a singularly trained martial artist keeps growing and growing. Even if the traditional martial art is the most useful, such as BJJ.
For example, how many MMA fights end by foot locks or heel hooks? Not nearly as many as there used to be. In the older days of jiujitsu, many masters refused to teach their students heel hooks, looking upon them as dishonorable and beneath them. Even today at some weaker schools, you'll see this mentality. Looking at the effectiveness of these techniques in the early days, now all the top schools teach these techniques and learn their counters and you see fewer people get caught.
This is just another example of how the sport is evolving past people who train in just one discipline or just in one way.

I believe that Sklansky limited the martial artist to "asian martial artist" primarily to exclude boxing, wrestling and brazilian jiu jitsu. These are 3 of the main pillars of modern martial arts. This is how I interpreted "asian martial artist" when I read the question. Such a fighter could utilize Muay Thai and crosstrain with judo, I suppose, however this style has already proven to be inferior (see also Karo Parisyian).

[Blarg]

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And does being a Traditional Martial Artist preclude cross training?

[/ QUOTE ]
The way the OP stated it, I think the "traditional asian martial artist" should be one that has focused only on their particular art, other wise they became a "mixed" martial artist.

[ QUOTE ]
But it seems to me that proponents of the style are someone overconfident in it's superiority to other styles.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with this to an extent. I'm not a fan of the attitude that some people who study bjj have. Helio Gracie was beaten by Masahiko Kimura. Many of the prominent Gracies have been defeated by Kazushi Sakuraba.

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It's actually not all that uncommon, at least in this last century, for traditional martial artists to be trained in more than one art.

Also note though, that in traditional martial arts, there is hyperconcentration on a certain way of doing things that lasts for at LEAST ten years. Ten years is for a talented student who works at the kind of level of dedication I frankly don't believe you are going to find in the western world today, or very much in the eastern world either.

You can easily spend the first three years just on stances and basic movement and physical conditioning. On a second style, a martial artist could at least not be slowed down by lack of physical conditioning, and may well already have a lot of the stances down, since so many are similar between arts. So the second art might well be learned a lot quicker. But still, getting a mixed martial arts background might take a traditional artist 15 or 20 years or more.

That said, it wasn't all that uncommon. Not so much that we should assume a traditional martial artist has neither learned any other arts nor at least practiced defenses against their techniques.

[Blarg]

Very interesting post, but I don't buy a style or combo of styles being proved this or that because of one exponent of either or both styles. This is clearly unfair to one or both styles. By that standard, any spaz who took both styles could sink the rep of both styles at once, and forever. That's just way too much.

[John Kilduff]

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It's impossible to argue that there in an element of chance/luck in a fight.

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Two fighters of not greatly different skill levels and stats: the better fighter will almost always win? I don't think so. Usually win, yes, but not almost always.

The same holds true chess. If the gap is large enough then it can be considered a certain victory, but not so if the gap is not fairly large.

The better fighter or player will win more than he loses versus an opponent who is moderately worse. But if they play a series of games, there will still be some wins and losses on each side.

You may well argue that there is no luck in chess either. That's true in the abstract sense of the game, but not entirely true in the real world. And the slightly inferior player will still have a share of wins and draws against the slightly better opponent.

So while there may be very little luck or chance in the game or the fight itself taken abstractly, there will yet be variance in the results of any given single game if one player is not much superior to the other.

By the way, there has to be more luck in fighting than in chess, simply because it is partially a matter of luck if a blow lands squarely or slips slightly off due to the movements of the contestants. I'm not talking about deliberately dodging a blow, just the natural effect that hitting a moving object is less than certain in the quality of the impact. Sort of the way a baseball player hits the ball, even on an easy pitch. Some hits against easy fat pitches will be home runs and some will be fly balls and some will be grounders. Sometimes a punch in the face will hit squarely and other times it will glance off partially, simply due to the moving nature of fighting and the fact that humans are not perfect robots. So the "lucky punch" can happen, as can also the unlucky glancing punch that would have been a KO but now is just a bee sting.

[Viscant]

An experiment that a judo instructor once showed me might be useful in this discussion.
Find a doorframe and get in a tight clinching position next to it. From here, attempt to do as much damage as possible WITHOUT moving your hips.
The lesson was meant to teach us that from this tight clinching position, even if granted free hand/foot movement, we could not generate enough power to do significant damage without giving away hip position. This is what I mean when I say the element of lucky strikes starts to approach nil when the distance is closed like this. From this position, technique and strength take over. Any strike from this clinched position that can cause significant damage becomes a very risky technique since if you give up hip control, you will be taken down (and with the best MMA fighter against the best boxer, we can assume that this is the end of the fight).

While I acknowledge that some men and almost all upper level boxers all possess phenomenal power, once the distance is closed, their ability to use that power even in a lucky, miracle type attack becomes greatly reduced. That's what I meant by that post.


Also as for your last post, I agree that it's probably unfair to judo to have Karo be the sole representative of the sport. I used him as an example because I can think of no finer judoka to ever compete in the UFC. He still has never broken the top 3 of his weight class however. It was unfair to throw him in like that though.

[Blarg]

This is transparently true and is of the essence of fighting.

[Viscant]

By that post I meant that it's impossible to argue against luck. I realize now that it was poorly worded but context and the last paragraph of the post should point that out.

[John Kilduff]

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By that post I meant that it's impossible to argue against luck. I realize now that it was poorly worded but context and the last paragraph of the post should point that out.

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Ah, OK, thanks.

[Zim]

Speaking of heel hooks, mixed competitions, and the ultimate exponents of the various arts ...

I give you the quintessential boxer vs grappler MMA match:

Butterbean vs Genki Sudo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9p-...ed&search=

A true clash of the titans.

Best,
Z.

(and yes, Genki did come off the ropes for the, uh, takedown. But cut him some slack, he was giving up about a hundred pounds.)