Traditional Martial Arts in MMA

Silva, GSP, and Mir all train with Muay Thai and boxing coaches rather than TKD or Karate, and have for most of their adult life.

Of course there is something to be said for any sport that involves hitting people; timing is timing and you get it from those sports.

There is a reason most fighters graduate from childrens Karate and TKD to Thai and Boxing though.

 

Kyokushin Karate is used with good effect in many kick boxing compitions, after some boxing training not strange for it to be effective.

Silva is a Muay Thai fighter.

Chuck is a power puncher with great TD defence I don't see many "traditional" aspects to his stand up.

Mir's striking is guff pretty much.

Machida and Le are better examples of "traditional" martial arts in mma.

After all that being said fighters cross train in styles which are effective meaning that just because a guy has a black belt in a style does not mean that he will use it for mma.

 

They do have a background in those arts but how much do they employ them. Sure they all love them and employ the odd move but generally I would say they use the standard mma arts like boxing, muay thai, judo, wrestling, bjj etc

 

I just want to reiterate that although I generally make fun of them, one area I think that Karate gets right, possibly even more right than Thai/Boxing is distance for MMA.

The distance between karate fighters is more similar to the distance MMA fights take place at than Thai or boxing. The reasoning behind this isn't because Karate has the better distance for actual striking, its just a coincidence basically.

In boxing and Thai you are generally striking from a somewhat closer distance than MMA because that is the most effective range for those types of fighting as it doesn't have a system where one landed strike gives you a win, as in Shotokan (AKA "Point Sparring" Machida is Shodokan by the way, not Kyokushin) you don't have to worry as much about takedowns and all the other MMA specific stuff.

In Karate and even somewhat TKD you stand at a further distance because the effect of getting hit even once is so magnified, either losing or almost losing.

So while the reasoning behind it is out of whack, a good part of Machida style of striking comes from his familiarity with the distance of Shotokan; combine that with his speed and overall ability and you have a guy who is naturally suited to fighting from the slighting larger distance in MMA.

All MMA fighters have to fight at that longer distance a lot of the time anyway, so practicing it in your youth in another sport, even for other reasons, is not a terrible idea.

Of course if, as Cross Trainer says (reasonably, but there is room for disagreement), as MMA evolves we will simply see MMA fighters training MMA so they will be training striking with MMA striking coaches like the future Dellagrotte's and Thompson's from that distance their whole lives for the right reasons rather than the Shotokon reasons.

 

I think it has alot to do with their guard. Muay Thai and Boxing generally use open and closed guard respectively but they are relatively tight in posture. Karate uses a normal hands up guard but with no real intention of blocking with the arms. It's all about striking at range, using the feet and pulling that head back, which establishes and looks to maintain distance.

 

I've seen a lot of Karate fighters taught to block with their arms, to intercept or deflect; the Japanese wrestler Nick Diaz beat the **** out of being the clearest example.

Machida doesn't do that though, so maybe it was just that one guys style of karate.

 

deflecting punchs is basic for any karate and is the foundation of karate. deflect an attack with your hands and counter back. sheesh. that is common knowledge to any trained in karate.

 

its make you wonder when someone trys to say karate does not involve blocking.

 

Taekwondo is extremely misunderstood in america and englad. Mostly because of the franchise ATA and the consumerist 'mcdojo' phenomena. along with the intermixing of the much smaller communist ITF version. One of these days I will make a decent thread 'in defense of taekwondo' and try to sort out a lot of the misunderstandings. but in a simpler way I can say that a lot of taekondo is used in MMA.

everytime you see a roundhouse to the body, that is tkd. The vast majority of olympic taekwondo kicking used in a match is roundhouse. probably 70-80%. And we are very good at throwing them. sure muy thai has roundhouses too, but it is extremely taekwondo. The punches are mostly straight punches (reverse punch).

One a few rare occasions I have seen one of GSP's people (forgot the name) KO someone with an attack back-kick (backward turning kick with the bottom of the foot to the mid section, dwi-chagi) to the body. Then he said he did taekwondo when he was younger. Funny, it didnt say taekwondo under the 'styles' thingy.

Ive seen kung lee hit someone (idk if it was a KO) with a decent back-hook kick (hulio-chagi)

I get tired of reading all the people who say 'tkd isnt used in mma so it doesnt work on the street its for kids lol'

1. they usually don't know much anything about taekwondo except for the lessons they took as a kid at some mcdojang doing low-blocks
2. just because it isnt in mma doesnt mean it wouldnt work 'on the street'
3. athletecism alone will win you most fights 'on the street' and taekwondo fighters are conditioned to the extreme. Dont even dream of winning an international competition if you dont train 2x a day for 3 hours at least

anyway I'm ranting, when I get a chance we can all sit down and have a big discussion about all this.

true, getting hit is definitely more significant than a boxer taking a punch as far as scoring is concerned. Another reason for the distance is the kicking speed-power of the opponent. Also, in tkd we probably stand further apart than most karate types. Evasion tends to be used more than any stationary blocking concept.

 

and taekwondo.

it is used a lot it is obviously very effective.

And we use it all the time.

therefore, taekwondo is used a lot in mma

 

Beebs and Wing Chun: It may be taught but I can't remember having seen it, whether it's Machida or some random on youtube.

 

The first statement might be the wrongest thing in the history of things being wrong. Probably the most common kick thrown in Muay Thai is a roundhouse to the body, it is one of the key elements of the sport. Given that Muay Thai is older than TKD, they are seperated by a large distance, and most Thai fighters never see TKD, you simply have an absolutely indefensible postion.

Just look at all these "TKD" roundhouses to the body.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8v9UKw-BUk[/ame]

2. But it is the best simulation possible

3. Same goes for every sport at a world class level. You think TKD fighters train harder than any other world class athletes?