For some reason people involved in MMA training have the need to talk derogatory about traditional martial arts, kung fu in particular. All kind of things are said about kung fu and of course there are no boundaries when these people brag about their fighting skills and abilities. There is even a guy who suppose to be MMA coach who dedicated his Youtube channel to talk all kinds of bad things about traditional martial arts. I watched several videos and I noticed few important things, first he is talking in a way that suggest serious head injury and I hope that he keeps his health under control and he is not damaged beyond help. Second he completely doesn't understand traditional martial arts so he is completely missing a point. Third, underlining values that he is spreading through his videos are completely negative and insulting for a human being and he is not the only one doing that, vast majority of MMA practitioners share similar moral values. So,let's analyze those claims and see is there any truth in them.
First we have to know what kung fu and traditional martial arts in general actually are. Kung fu stopped to be exclusively fighting art (arts) more than a century ago and became much, much more than that. Majority of the people do not practice kung fu because they want to fight or they feel they are in danger. In Asia vast majority of people practice martial arts because they are part of their culture and everyday life for centuries. Kung fu is involved in Chinese culture on so many levels and it has significant part in religious ceremonies, folklore, all kinds of celebrations festivities ect. Many Asian people who live all around the world practice their traditional martial arts for same reasons, to keep their culture and historical heritage alive, they do not care nor they even think about fighting. Many westerners drawn by the beauty and depth of far eastern cultures and religions practice traditional martial arts for the same reasons, they want to experience and participate in those cultures.
On the other hand, MMA is not a part of any traditional culture, it is simply a sport, an approach in training for combat sports without any cultural,historical or social value. Talking how ineffective traditional martial arts for these groups of people is completely missing the point, they do not care about fighting and they do not practice for fighting. Saying to someone who is keeping some kung fu style in the family for centuries how his martial art is useless is utterly stupid, it is just like saying someones marriage ceremony or holidays are useless.
Second reason why so many people practice kung fu is to maintain health. Literary millions of people practice Tai Chi, Ba Gua or other traditional arts for the health reasons. Heath benefits of traditional martial arts, physical as well as psychological are scientifically proven facts. Even more, a lot of people in fairly old age actively exercise on daily basis.
Here are links to several research papers on different health benefits of traditional martial arts.
wikipedia article underlines importance of traditional martial arts practiced in purely medical context which is opposite to modern combat sports approach which cannot me used in martial arts therapy
These are randomly picked 10 research papers that cover different benefits form traditional martial arts.
On the other hand medical science has totally opposite view on MMA type of training and competitions. For example American Academy of Pediatricians in its research paper from 1997 strongly opposes to participation of children under the age of 16 in Boxing and similar sports : “… there is no place in contemporary society for a youth sport which has, as its primary goal, the infliction of acute brain damage on an opponent”
American Medical Association proposed total ban of MMA because it is dangerous and lethal in nature. Here are few research papers on the dangers of injury involved in MMA.
These are just first few research papers that appeared in internet search , there hundreds of other relevant researches and they all point to one thing, MMA is the most dangerous sports activity today with extremely high risk of injuries, in fact so high that they cannot be avoided. As we can see, from purely medical point of view MMA is completely opposite from traditional martial arts. While medical science not only recommend but actively uses traditional martial arts as proven therapeutic method , on the other hand it strongly opposes to MMA as an extremely risky and dangerous activity. Again , telling people who use traditional martial arts as a form of therapy, exercise and health preservation method that thir martial arts are useless is completely stupid, especially if we have in mind that there are literary hundreds of thousands practitioners of kung fu and other traditional styles that are over 80 years of age and there is not even one in MMA. In fact , in Asia majority of TMA practitioners are over 50 years of age , while in MMA if there are any practitioners over 50 they are only few in entire world. Training approach in TMA enables practitioners to practice their chosen arts their entire life with all the benefits that practice brings ,while MMA training approach is only suitable for people fairly young and strong and MMA can be practiced until training takes its toll and damages the body to the pointy where further training is impossible.
Let's examine TMA and MMA from psychological and sociological point of view. Traditional martial arts were and still are a subject of various research studies which cover vast of array of topics. One of the things shown in those studies is a positive effect of traditional martial arts on decrease of aggressiveness, violence prevention and overall positive effect on other forms of antisocial behavior. Even more, traditional martial arts are used as a therapeutic method to improve overall social and cognitive skill of kids with different kinds of social and cognitive developmental problems.
On the other hand many studies clearly show negative influence of MMA , especially in children and young adults. Participating in MMA whether as an active practitioner or just a spectator leads to increase in aggressiveness, violence and various forms of antisocial behavior.
Research 1 Research 2 Research 3 Research 4 Link 5
Exposure to MMA leads to increased levels of violence in children and adults and professional MMA fighters are involved in crime that involves violence on significantly higher raters than the rest of the population. Personal opinions in this matter are not important , medical , psychological, sociological and police reports are completely clear and they all point to same thing, MMA is dangerous and violent activity with bad influence on the individuals and society on many levels.
Now let's have a closer look at MMA , what it is and what it does. While roughly defined as a sport there are strong opinion among sports professionals and connected disciplines that MMA cannot qualify as sport. What it is in its core is a spectacle with great financial potential. This spectacle is built on violence, aggression and lowest, primal urges of competitors and spectators. The goal of the competition its self is to inflict as much pain and injury on the opponent in order to win, if possible to completely incapacitate him. Let's stop for a moment and think what kind of person would enjoy watching the pain of other human being and even more , what kind of person would hurt other human being for pure pleasure of excitement and financial gain? These people fight in a literal cage, before MMA only animals fought in cages (illegally), what is strange , competitors take pride in this. For an average person it is extremely derogatory to be locked in the cage and fight like an animal giving your best to hurt other human being for the sake of money. Of course, like every subculture , MMA has its own rules,beliefs and values which are quite different from general cultural values. If we look closely how these people behave, not only professional fighter who are just giving the public what they expect but if we check also the amateur practitioners they all promote and justify violence in its purest form. It is only important to be physically and mentally prepared to hurt others , everything else is not important, The more violent and aggressive someone is, the more pain and injuries he inflicted to others , more respect and higher status he gains. Everything these people talk about is how effectively they can hurt others. Some sociologists and psychologists argue that MMA is a pure sign of human deevolution on personal as well as on the level of the society as whole.
At the end,let's analyze is there any truth in the believe that MMA is only true or at least the best martial approach rooted in reality? MMA is simply a training approach developed for certain type of competition and it trains people exactly for that. MMA fighters, even champions die and get seriously hurt in street fights, they got stabbed, shot, hit with different objects ect. Realistic training would involve knife fighting and cold weapons fighting as well as fire arms fighting. In reality, MMA fighter has same chances of being hurt in violent no rules fight as any other person. If nothing else ,MMA training may give a person false sense of security that may and did cost life some people. The only truth that MMA people say, although they understand it wrongly it that :'you are what train". If you train for MMA , you are just an MMA fighter , nothing else. If their training is really "reality based" why weight divisions? On the street there is no choice who will you fight. How about one against multiple opponents? There are fights like that in MMA, neither they prepare for that. In all honesty average MMA practitioner is in better physical shape and better prepared for violence but we have to be aware that competition, no matter how brutal brings totally different mind set from a criminal violence. I am not saying that traditional martial arts are better in this area, they are probably little worse, but there is no significant difference , no style can be effective against weapons that is why people carry weapons at the first place. Untrained person with a knife can always kill traind martial artist , as they do regularly if we check the news and no style have advantage over other in this matter, that is a simple truth and reality of things.
In conclusion, MMA people completely misunderstand traditional martial arts and to the some degree the society in general. Only people with specific mind set are drawn to this activity. It is of course never good to generalize things but overall impression is that MMA attract people with violent and antisocial tendencies and medical and social studies support that impression. Personally I do not socialize with people involved in MMA, just as I do not socialize with people involved in fundamentalist religious or political organizations or criminals.
Exposure to MMA leads to increased levels of violence in children and adults and professional MMA fighters are involved in crime that involves violence on significantly higher raters than the rest of the population. Personal opinions in this matter are not important , medical , psychological, sociological and police reports are completely clear and they all point to same thing, MMA is dangerous and violent activity with bad influence on the individuals and society on many levels.
Now let's have a closer look at MMA , what it is and what it does. While roughly defined as a sport there are strong opinion among sports professionals and connected disciplines that MMA cannot qualify as sport. What it is in its core is a spectacle with great financial potential. This spectacle is built on violence, aggression and lowest, primal urges of competitors and spectators. The goal of the competition its self is to inflict as much pain and injury on the opponent in order to win, if possible to completely incapacitate him. Let's stop for a moment and think what kind of person would enjoy watching the pain of other human being and even more , what kind of person would hurt other human being for pure pleasure of excitement and financial gain? These people fight in a literal cage, before MMA only animals fought in cages (illegally), what is strange , competitors take pride in this. For an average person it is extremely derogatory to be locked in the cage and fight like an animal giving your best to hurt other human being for the sake of money. Of course, like every subculture , MMA has its own rules,beliefs and values which are quite different from general cultural values. If we look closely how these people behave, not only professional fighter who are just giving the public what they expect but if we check also the amateur practitioners they all promote and justify violence in its purest form. It is only important to be physically and mentally prepared to hurt others , everything else is not important, The more violent and aggressive someone is, the more pain and injuries he inflicted to others , more respect and higher status he gains. Everything these people talk about is how effectively they can hurt others. Some sociologists and psychologists argue that MMA is a pure sign of human deevolution on personal as well as on the level of the society as whole.
At the end,let's analyze is there any truth in the believe that MMA is only true or at least the best martial approach rooted in reality? MMA is simply a training approach developed for certain type of competition and it trains people exactly for that. MMA fighters, even champions die and get seriously hurt in street fights, they got stabbed, shot, hit with different objects ect. Realistic training would involve knife fighting and cold weapons fighting as well as fire arms fighting. In reality, MMA fighter has same chances of being hurt in violent no rules fight as any other person. If nothing else ,MMA training may give a person false sense of security that may and did cost life some people. The only truth that MMA people say, although they understand it wrongly it that :'you are what train". If you train for MMA , you are just an MMA fighter , nothing else. If their training is really "reality based" why weight divisions? On the street there is no choice who will you fight. How about one against multiple opponents? There are fights like that in MMA, neither they prepare for that. In all honesty average MMA practitioner is in better physical shape and better prepared for violence but we have to be aware that competition, no matter how brutal brings totally different mind set from a criminal violence. I am not saying that traditional martial arts are better in this area, they are probably little worse, but there is no significant difference , no style can be effective against weapons that is why people carry weapons at the first place. Untrained person with a knife can always kill traind martial artist , as they do regularly if we check the news and no style have advantage over other in this matter, that is a simple truth and reality of things.
In conclusion, MMA people completely misunderstand traditional martial arts and to the some degree the society in general. Only people with specific mind set are drawn to this activity. It is of course never good to generalize things but overall impression is that MMA attract people with violent and antisocial tendencies and medical and social studies support that impression. Personally I do not socialize with people involved in MMA, just as I do not socialize with people involved in fundamentalist religious or political organizations or criminals.
Only small part of MMA people attack TMA. Many of MMA fighters derived from TMA, many TMA adepts fight in MMA match. Most of them shares the same values and learn from each other.
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