Quite often some of our areas top martial arts instructors get together for Sunday football games. There were several over at the house yesterday to witness our team get their butts kicked – again!

During breaks and even during play on the field, our conversation drifted to martial arts, the latest buzz on recent and upcoming MMA fight cards. We discussed the evolution of MMA as a sport beginning with UFC #1 up to present.

Everyone weighed in his opinion and the consensus was that MMA fighting such as the UFC, Pride and various smaller Federations that have been popping up locally, are a sport. We agreed that these fighters might well throw any of us or our students a beating but that is short-sighted. These competitors can be wrestlers that learn a bit of boxing and they’re set.  Others came from a traditional “stand up” style, like karate or Thai boxing and added several months of learning the basics of the ground game, just enough to escape common submissions, stop the take downs and get back to their feet again where they are at their best.

There are rules about eye-gouging, striking the head with a knee down, knees and elbows to the head in various scenarios – RULES!

Traditional martial arts are learned to help one fight for matters of self defense, honor and to protect those who can not and there are NO rules. It was never intended to  be learned and used to beat up other trained martial artists but rather, against bullies and criminals that we encounter in life.  MMA trains fighters with martial arts techniques and pits them against each other to see who will emerge as the victor.  This is not the Tao of martial arts.

In a real martial arts scenario, I might have a kubotan in my hand and severely injure an opponent by an eye-rake, a crushing strike with the end of the small weapon, to the temple, armpit, throat or other pressure point.  I might just reach over to my belt holster or the glove box of my car and whip out a telescopic steel baton to break bones with each strike and easily stepping it up to lethal force if needed. Those are a couple of examples of armed martial arts.

In unarmed fights, it wouldn’t matter whether an opponent was knocked to the canvas, a traditional martial artist would immediately capitalize on an opponent rising and drive a knee into their head or when on the ground with an opponent standing over him a traditional martial artist wouldn’t wait to kick upward to the head, he would kick the knees and the groin area immediately.

Are MMA fighters “bad to the bone?”  Yes, you betcha!  They are not traditional martial artists however, they are sportsmen in an extreme venue.