You stand there and look across the cage at your opponent. He stares back at you. Nothing else in the world matters except this person that you know is going to try to defeat you, hurt you, make you give up. The key word is try! You have been studying this fighter, watching his fights and training hard for this day. You know what you are going to do; your game plan is ready. The ref says “fighters, are you ready." No turning back!



Modern day mixed martial arts. It is such an exciting sport. It has been around for many years, but now is becoming more mainstream due to a certain popular reality show. What is meant buy reality fighting? Usually the term indicates that the fighting systems used by mma fighters are more applicable to real fights as opposed to traditional martial art styles. I am not going to argue this issue but merely help identify the difference.

Traditional martial arts. When I speak of this term I am referring to the arts of old such as certain styles of karate, judo, aikido, etc. These arts have been around longer than anyone really knows for sure. They have certain forms, traditions, philosophies, and a pretty particular way they are to be taught and learned (there are always exceptions.) All of these styles are great. They all make up our wonderful vast world of martial arts. Are any of these styles an absolute to fighting? Will any of these styles work in a “real" fight? Many people are aware of the martial art great Bruce Lee. His movies did not make him great to the martial arts world, but his philosophy on fighting did. He believed that you should take many styles and combine their best techniques to have a well-rounded fighting system.

Enter Mixed Martial arts. Mixed martial arts (mma) competitions have been around a long time, more recently popularized in the United States. Mma style usually combines Thai boxing, wrestling, bjj, (Brazilian jiu-jitsu), kick boxing, boxing, and other standing and ground techniques. The point of mma is to be able to have the skill to trade punches with a good stand up fighter or the skills to submit a good ground fighter. This is where mma drifts away from traditional styles. If a fighter’s opponent takes him to the ground and mounts him, he must rely on his “ground game" to escape or look for a submission opportunity. (Just because you are on your back does not mean you are losing!) If the same fighter’s opponent decides to stand and punch it out, well that’s ok to. Mma is very versatile and an outstanding sport. The one thing that has remained the same between the traditional martial artists and mma fighters is the respect. Both groups of fighters have respect for each other and the opponents they compete against. When you get down to it, it is a competition against yourself. What I mean by this is that are you going to do another set of bench presses, another set of squats, extra sprints, intense rope skipping, 15 more minutes on the heavy bag or mat…. 15 more than your opponent? You are only held back by yourself.

No matter if you want to practice traditional martial arts or get into mma, the reality of fighting is the respect. The key principal martial arts are based on.

This article is for information purposes only and is not meant to be instruction.