I have spent almost my entire martial arts career in Karate, first in the traditional Uechi Ryu style, then later in the sport-centered Kyokushinkai. This question often came up when we would hang out after class and would be answered with a confident “Yes, if…”, then someone would change the topic. The ugly truth that everyone wanted to avoid is obvious…
Whether it’s in the ring or on the streets, a man using martial arts is likely to lose to even a mediocre MMA fighter. This is due to most traditional styles relying on striking alone, whereas MMA trains more holistically (stand-up, grappling, etc), But even on his feet, MMA still holds the advantage because most traditional arts have poor sparring practices.
Don’t count the traditional arts out yet, though. In fact, before the end of this article, I’ll tell you why every successful MMA fighter trains in traditional arts if he wants to be a top fighter.
Too Rigid
I like to listen to audio books while I run and one of my favorite authors to listen to is retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink. There’s just something about having a total badass like him in my ears that helps me reach that last mile.
Anyway, in his book, “The Dichotomy of Leadership“, he tells a training story about one of his men that was holding too dogmatically to the S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) he was taught and it was making him do silly things (like point his rifle at a wall) when he was moving in formation. Jocko pointed this out to the young SEAL and he quickly fixed his mistake. Now you and I might find the above image amusing, but this SEAL is just doing what millions of traditional martial artists do everyday: hold too rigidly to our S.O.P.
In Karate, we are taught to fight like Karateka. We fight a certain way, with certain rules and certain expectations, and if something happens outside that S.O.P, we usually stop the fight and go back to our starting lines. Same for Judo, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, etc. In fact, so rigid are most traditional martial arts (TMA) styles that if you surprise your opponent by fighting with other styles or techniques you may get accused of cheating or “fighting dirty”!
If you are a martial artist you need to train in your style, and train hard. But you also need to treat your style’s S.O.P. as a framework, not a Holy writ, and adapt it for the situation in front of you. This also means learning other realms of fighting like grappling and ground game, or striking if you already are a grappler.
Poor Sparring Traditions
Another reason that traditional martial artists often lose to MMA fighters, even when those fighters don’t bring the fight to the ground, is that TMA often has very poor sparring practices. Specifically, they spar too seldom and too softly, and they only spar with each other.
Not enough sparring
This is so obvious that it’s a shock that it’s still a problem. In the famous words of Mike Tyson, “Everybody has got a plan until they get punched in the mouth“. Unless you are accustomed to getting hit, and getting hit with full power, then the psychological shock of actual combat is going to override your training and you’re going to be helpless. There are countless examples of such martial artists striking a confident pose like they’re in a Kung Fu flick only to crumble and turtle up after they take their first shot in the face. This is a fatal flaw in TMA and it must be rectified.
Inbred Sparring
If a specific type of fruit is easy to grow and easy to sell, then farmers are going to plant only that variety (which is why you have only ever eaten Cavendish bananas, by the way). The problem is that if you have only one genetic variety then you are necessarily going to be inbreeding when you propagate the species. Everyone knows that inbreeding engenders weakness, and this is equally true among animals and plants as it is among the martial arts.
Most TMA schools, if they seriously spar at all, will only spar amongst each other or, in the best case, a closely related style. The students learn how to fight people who fight in their style. This gives the TMA. student the illusion of fighting prowess and is the martial arts equivalent of “inbreeding”.
The reason that MMA fighters hold their advantage against TMA students here is that there is no central fighting doctrine of MMA. Two MMA fighters in the ring might have entirely different fighting traditions they bring with them. One might be Karate based while the other came from a Muay Thai gym. One might have a collegiate wrestling background while the other trained in classical Jiu Jitsu. This constant cross-pollination breeds out the weakness that TMA sparring often suffers from.
MMA’s Biggest Weakness
As a side note, it should be said that MMA isn’t uniquely immune in the previous matter. For example, after UFC 1 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was all the rage and the sport became very dogmatic about ground game. So much so that ground game specialists began to lose against strikers once those strikers integrated ground game.
And because MMA is so sport-oriented, MMA’s overall effectiveness is also at the mercy of the rules handed down by the UFC. If, for example, a rule was introduced that reduced the need for ground fighting, then most of your new MMA fighters would more closely resemble Karate fighters or kick-boxers.
Tradition Strikes Back
So if, as it seems, MMA can beat TMA then why study traditional martial arts at all? Well, just ask any top MMA fighter. He’ll tell you that he basically only uses a handful of techniques. For example his most common strikes will be jab, cross, uppercut, roundhouse kick, and knee. And this is essentially true for every MMA fighter. Every fighter fighting the same way. It’s starting to sound like the problem discussed with TMA sparring above.
So how do the best MMA fighters stand out? They train with skilled TMA instructors to improve their own game. They will spend months with boxing coaches just to improve their jab, with Muay Thai experts to sharpen their elbows, with Karate sensei in order to strengthen their conditioning, etc.
The hidden strength of TMA that top MMA fighters recognize is that the traditional arts often have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years of history to draw on. That is an impossibly deep repertoire of techniques and skills to explore, learn, and adapt to the octagon. And by cross-pollinating their modern skills with traditional techniques, they become more powerful than other MMA practitioners who snub the traditional arts.
Final Round
Can traditional martial arts beat MMA? The truth is that MMA holds a strong advantage because it merges many different fighting styles, and allows it’s students to get accustomed to full contact sparring, and sparring with different traditions. If TMA styles want to keep up, they’re going to need to get out of the dojo and, ironically, go back to embracing tradition.
Photo Attributions:
- Photo by Thao Le Hoang on Unsplash
- Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
- Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
- Eduardo Merille, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels