 Mixed martial arts versus traditional martial arts, the most inflammatory and controversial topic in martial arts today. We have put out over 100 episodes over the past two years and from day one up to now, this subject still shows up in the comments and in the community, so it's our turn to talk about it. Today, we have three objectives. First, we do drop some major truth bombs and make this the definitive analysis of the subject. Second, is to have all of you finishing this episode with a different perspective than when you started. And third, I want to close the gap between the two sides and find common ground. Can this be done? Let's find out. Now we've touched on the topic of mixed martial arts versus traditional martial arts and pieces before and in recent episodes, specifically in our recent Shotokan episode a few weeks ago and well MMA work in self-defense. But let's put the whole discussion together in one big video so that way the whole conversation is here in one piece. Now before we get started, here is my official stance on the martial arts in general. First, I love learning all sorts of different things. The best thing about this channel is all the research and talking to all of you out there and learning things about arts I had no idea about going in. So I love learning all about all different martial arts from different countries and different histories. It's all great. Second, I believe that all arts serve a purpose and will weigh another. It might not always be the way you want to learn or what you want to learn but it works for somebody somewhere. So I do believe there's good to be found in all martial arts. And finally, I believe that we can all learn from each other. So when it comes to the martial arts, there's so many ways to do things and everyone has a different background and different experience that regardless of what the art is or rank or age or experience, I truly believe that we can all learn different things and new things from other martial artists and different experiences even though we don't practice what they practice. So there's a lot to be learned when researching the martial arts. So we're going to do something a little bit different today and I'm going to challenge all of you with a task. So before we get started, the first part of this challenge is I want you to write down your three favorite things about your art and I want you to be specific, three specific attributes about your art that you love the best. So I'll start off, I'll give you an example. My background is American Kempo. One of my favorite things about American Kempo is I love the huge array of basics that they offer us and then they expose us to, I mean the teachers of all sorts, different combinations, different stances, different strikes. I love the wide array of information and that we learn how to use the contacts and then we break it down on our own. Two, I love how Kempo utilizes the body checks and contouring along the opponent's body. I find that it's kind of like a form of state of grappling and I love that. I also love learning Kempo's reactionary flow and learning the concept of point of origin. So if I were to choose my three favorite lessons from Kempo, those are my favorite three. So right now I'm asking all of you, go ahead, hit pause real quick. We'll wait for, you know, a second. Just go hit pause and write down your three favorite things and then hit play again. So let's first set some guidelines for this discussion. One, let's clarify that MMA is not an art, but rather it's a recipe. It just means a mixture and it's just a mixture of different arts the person chooses. But for the purpose of this video and this discussion, when we refer to MMA, we're going to refer specifically to the sport fighting slash UFC cage fighting that we see and it's usually used as a point of comparison anyway. So hardcore fighting discipline for competition. That's the context we're going with. Now, traditional martial arts. What defines traditional martial art does get fuzzy. There's no concrete lines of definition here. The term traditional often has adopted a negative connotation and a lot of people will put the line between TMA and MMA in terms of competitive versus non-competitive, you know, cage or not cage. Sometimes it's defined as an art that uses cotton philosophy versus arts that don't. Now, in the broader sense of the word and in the interest of this video, we're going to refer to traditional martial arts as individual disciplines that have historical roots or significance. Teach more than just fighting, often philosophy or spirituality, is generally broken down into the three, kihon, kata and kumite, or follow traditions such as wearing standard geese, belts, ranks, titles, et cetera. So art set incorporate these aspects or at least most of these aspects, we're going to consider traditional martial arts in this video. Okay, so now that we've defined our broad sense of the words, let's ask the question, which one's the best? Well, best at what? Let's answer that. In the context of today's video, we're going to stick with fighting slash self-defense because that's usually where most of the debates always land anyway. So with that being said, the first problem with comparing mixed martial arts with traditional martial arts is that MMA is mostly made up of traditional martial arts. Now, each fighter has their own unique blend of arts and very commonly, it's a mixture of judo, jiu-jitsu, kyokushin, taekwondo, some form of karate, moitai, boxing, you know, lots of different arts. And sometimes you get some other odd ones thrown in. But the thing though is mixed martial arts are a mix of martial arts. So right there, it kind of makes it hard to compare mixed versus traditional because it's usually a mix of traditional. Now, most of these arts are traditional arts. And even to the extent you've got boxing and moitai in there, which is more debatable, but when it comes to moitai, a lot of people do consider it traditional martial art, as I do to some extent, mainly because it does have traditions it teaches. It also infuses spirituality. There's a historical significance to the art and there's also rituals performed. So in its own right, as its own self-discipline, I do consider it in a way a traditional martial art. When it comes down to it, each fighter is a product of their own mix. But most of the time that mix has a significant amount of traditional martial arts blended into it. So already the lines between the two sides get blurred. Now some of you traditional artists out there might have been like, aha, see, my art is in there. But let's go back to see what makes MMA the sport that it is. Regardless of the arts that each fighter chooses, it is the training of that practitioner that makes them successful. Not the arts necessarily that they choose, it's how they train it. The amount of conditioning and sparring that these fighters go through is the landmark of why cage fighters are the formidable and hardened athletes that they are. They are exactly that. Professional athletes that perfect a fighting regimen. So what does that mean in this context? It means you have to spar. You have to spar. If we are comparing MMA and TMA in terms of fighting and self defense, then there's no argument if there is no pressure test at sparring on either side. If you study karate and you spend only 15 minutes twice a week sparring at the end of class and you expect to step into the cage and hold your own, you're in for a bad time. But just because you study Muay Thai or BJJ doesn't automatically mean you win in the cage either. You still need the conditioning and the hardcore resistance fighting because the art of MMA is being able to outmatch an opponent who is just as hard as you are while they're trying to knock your head off. It's not the individual art that matters specifically. It is the fight training regimen that's put into it that makes a difference. And to bounce off of that note, an individual art in general isn't likely to do well in the ring period. If somebody who only does Kempo goes into the ring, they are at a major disadvantage. Now you put someone in the ring who only does BJJ, they too are at a disadvantage. In the cage, the Kempo only guy, he's gonna be susceptible and vulnerable to take downs and submissions, but the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy, if they don't get to take down quick and they don't have a good stand-up fighting discipline are likely to get knocked around pretty hard. But if you get that Kempo guy and you also give him BJJ and maybe some boxing or other art and then you put him through the same stress test of hard sparring resistance training, well now you have something there. So I don't care what art you train in or what mix you have. If you wanna be good at fighting and be able to defend yourself effectively, you have to spar, you have to test it, you have to go through it. Otherwise, you have no idea what you're actually capable of and that's when we often hear the reference of false sense of security. Don't theorize what you'd be able to do, practice applying it so that you know that you can do it. Okay, now let's address the number one remark that we always see whenever discussing a traditional martial art. It won't work in real life or it won't work in the cage. I love this comment because there's just so much to chew on here. So first, let's separate these into the two. Real life and the cage are not the same. What works in the cage doesn't always work in real life. What works in real life doesn't always work in the cage. Even though MMA fighters are conditioned athletes, let's not forget that the UFC and cage fighting is a sport first before anything else. And there are some major key differences to taking into account here. In MMA, in a cage fight, it's a one-on-one fight, usually with matched weight classes. There are rules. So things like biting, eye pokes, dirty fighting is not allowed. There's a referee to enforce those rules. You're on an even flat ground. There's no elements of outdoors or weather or obstacles to contend with. There's no weapons. Clothing is not a hindrance in MMA fighting. You're not gonna wear anything baggier that's gonna get caught or torn or pulled or used against you. In MMA, in the cage, you get to study your opponent ahead of time considerably and plan your strategy for that. You don't get that luxury out in the street. And when it comes to real life fighting, there's more than one type of fight. You've got your stand-up street fight, their boxing style. You've got grab attacks. You've got ground findings. There's weapons to play. There's multiple attackers. So there's a lot of aspects to real life self-defense that are not even addressed in MMA fighting because they don't apply to the sport aspect of it. So while these are significant factors, however, I often hear traditional guys discount MMA fighters because it's just a sport and they don't train for the real world. Don't subscribe to that at all. Even though that they've trained for a sport, they are still experienced and well-conditioned fighters who are good on their feet, fast, and are very likely to adapt easily to a fight. Plus, these are people who know how to take hit and they've conditioned for it. So in a one-on-one street fight with the average person, the odds are definitely in their favor. But it's not fair to discount other arts in real life situations either. Just because somebody doesn't train for the cage doesn't mean they won't be able to defend themselves or that they can't fight. Now in my 27 years of personal experience, I have a lot of colleagues and classmates who have used their variety of different traditional arts to defend themselves. I've used Kempo with small skirmishes. I have known police officers that have used Kempo and Judo to defend themselves. I've had instructors that grew up fighting, worked as a bouncer or trained MMA fighters or just grew up fighting on the street. Far more than enough examples know that a traditional martial art can work just fine in a real-life self-defense situation. I want to break the thinking of it not being a specific art that makes or breaks it. It's about the person finding the right art for them and fits their goals and then the conditioning and training that goes into it to make it effective. So if we made a dollar for every time someone said, karate is crap, it would never work, then we wouldn't need YouTube to put ads in our videos. A good example of this is karate combat. This is a new fighting league that showcases karate practitioners in full contact, knock-down competition. Now we would love to do a full future episode just on this, but definitely go check it out, karate combat. It's completely traditional karate disciplines fought in the pit. If you watch it, you can see some pretty tough fighters in there with some pretty effective karate techniques. Now, of course, I would still recommend that they would add grappling and other disciplines into the mix before entering the cage in the UFC, but don't take a look at them and then tell me that they don't have a good chance to defend themselves in the real fight. Now I think by now most of us can agree that we can see the difference in training and environment and the importance of conditioning and sparring experience play into the actual fighting skill of a person. So how do we go forward from here? How do we look at this topic differently? So the first thing is I asked traditional martial artists to step outside their comfort zone and realize there's no such thing as a single perfect art. There is no art that is great at all aspects. If you want to become a well-rounded effective fighter in all aspects, you need to mix things up. Now I'm not saying that you need to stop what you're doing and switch to a different art and switch gears all together. As we discussed in the previous episode, the cross training pros and cons, we talked about that you should first find an art that you love and meets the goals that you want to accomplish. That is your home or your root art. And as you become more experienced, you learn the strengths, but you also need to be aware of the weaknesses of that art or where that art has vulnerabilities. Every art has a hole somewhere. And that is where cross training becomes beneficial. Finding complementary arts and systems that can fill in those holes or fill in the vulnerabilities or add what you want to learn to balance out your skill set. So step outside that comfort zone, question yourself often and ask yourself if what you're learning is effective and then test it. Spar, you must spar. We've talked about this already many times so we're booing the face. You have to pressure test it if you want it to work in a real situation. And if possible, try to spar with people outside of your art. So if you practice taekwondo and the only people you ever spar against are also in taekwondo, well then you're not gonna be prepared for that double leg takedown when it comes at you. A good friend, Mr. Alex of Ultimate Kemple Warriors who has a great Kemple school often holds open sparring sessions and we get a good mixture of styles that participate. And my previous instructor also trained MMA fighters. So we would do sessions of Kemple sparring and then MMA sparring with BJJ thrown in. So I've been fortunate enough to get a taste of a pretty wide mix of sparring. At least enough to know that the more you experiment and the more that you add to your experience and then you pressure test it, the better chances you'll have at defending yourself. If you want to defeat another art, you have to understand that other art. And those of you who are primary MMA fighters or practitioners, I would like to change the perspective of immediately disregarding an art and saying, well, I've never seen it in the cage. Sometimes you do and you just don't realize it. Many MMA fighters have traditional backgrounds. For example, Lioto Machida has a heavy Shodokan background and we just recently broke that down and showed in our episode of Shodokan history how he uses a Shodokan in his cage fights. And you can find that link in the description below. Anderson Silva has quite the mix of arts including Wing Chung and Steve Wonder Boy Thompson has a mix of karate including Kemple. George St. Pierre has Keokushin and there are many, many, many more examples. The mistake is assuming those arts don't work because you don't see them break out into a kata or one step sequence or resort exclusively to that one art. They have a mix. The key word there is mix. They put together their own regimen of basics from each of those base arts and they made their own mix work. And if you look really, really closely, you can often see those traditional techniques come out and being pulled off in an MMA fight. The difference is that these fighters are pressure tested and they've picked their own streamlined basics that work for them but they learn those basics from their traditional background and to discount those arts on the basis that you don't think they would work well on the ring really isn't fair. So I'm hoping at this point we can at least start to understand other side's perspectives and maybe even let go of a little bit of bias and prejudice and appreciate that people choose disciplines that work for their own personal goals. Now, if we want to try a different perspective we can honestly look at MMA as an art in itself from a certain point of view. So let's go back to one of the aspects of traditional martial arts. It's broken down into kihon, kata and kumite or your basics, your forms and your sparring. Let's treat it like a language. If you look at your basics as the vocabulary these are your basic tools, your very rudimentary moves, your punches, your kicks, your stances. These are your basics. Katas are your forms you can look at as the grammar of the language. It's the rules and how you apply those rules to your basics. Then kumite when you spar you're now putting your vocabulary and your grammar together into sample sentences to understand how they work together. And if you look at that that's how arts are often broken down. Your basics, your rules and you put them together to your sparring. Okay, so in that perspective you can apply the same concept to MMA. You've got your basics, you've got your jazz, you've got your crossings, you've got your kicks, you've got your stances, your steps. Those are your basics, your vocabulary. Now MMA does not have kata but you do have shadow boxing, you do have sequences. You've got practice drills, compliant practice drills that kind of fulfill the same purpose. They teach you the grammar, the rules of the art so that you're taking your grammar and your vocabulary you're putting together into your kumite, your sample sentences, your sparring. So when you look at it that way is MMA really all that different? I think that if we can all appreciate the fact that every art and every discipline has a specific purpose and that if a martial artist identifies with an art that fulfills that purpose and can objectively be open-minded about the strengths and weaknesses then I think we can all agree that the most important thing about the martial arts is that we're all having the same goal to become better versions of ourselves. And honestly, that's why I really love doing this channel. I love the mix of viewers that we have and over the past two years you guys have all blown my mind so many times with your insights and your perspectives and you all by far helped make this channel the most diverse martial arts channel on YouTube. And that's why I'm closing this video out by asking you all to do one specific thing. Remember I had asked you at the beginning of the video to write down your favorite three aspects of your art? Okay, what I'm asking you to do now is leave a comment below and list the art that you train in and include your three favorite aspects. But now also on that list I want you to add one thing about your art that you wish you could change or something you think could be proved on or maybe something that you wanna learn that your art doesn't offer. Now I'm also gonna add my own and I'm gonna be participating as well. Now once you do that, please, please go read everyone else's comments and see if they have a question that maybe you can answer or maybe you can recommend an art or a solution to what they're looking for. Did you perhaps find one of their favorite aspects of their art interesting? Ask them to elaborate. You never know what kind of rabbit holes you can go down if you open your mind and take everyone's perspectives into account. So thank you for watching this video. I cannot wait to see what you guys have to say. Like I said, you're the most wholesome and insightful martial artist I know and I really think if we get some good discussions going we have some potential video topics to talk about here later. So please like, subscribe, join us on Patreon and if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna see what you guys are all saying. I'm gonna get in on this action.