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Arts of MMA and Self Defense

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Arts of MMA and Self Defense

The most prominent arts in mixed martial arts (MMA) are Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Thai boxing, Boxing, Wrestling, and Shooto. All these arts on their own are popular and competitive sports. Wrestling and boxing have been popular in the world and United States for centuries. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,from Brazil, has taken the world by storm. Muay thai or Thai boxing has been a sport in Thailand for centuries and is another art that has recently taken the world by storm. Shooto is a national sport from Japan that many consider the precursor to the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC). Most of these arts have been around forever and because of the rise in the UFC they have taken off world wide. It is easy to see where these arts and sports work in a cage fight, but what I want to focus on is the self defense aspect of them and their association in the martial side of martial arts.

Early in my career with the SEAL teams (early 80's) we learned things such as sentry stalking, prisoner snatches and handling. This was very basic and not exactly what you would consider a martial art. The arts actually came into play when one of the team members got involved on their own or we would get different instructors to come in and teach a one week course or come during a lunch break to teach an hour or so class. This never really drew the interest that you would think. I believe this was due to the lack of knowledge of what existed out there or how to get involved in it.

Having boxed and wrestled in school and in my youth, things like karate and tae kwon do did not interest me very much. I felt the wrestling, boxing prior to joining the Navy and the high level of fitness that I had to maintain in the teams was good enough. The other thing that made training in the martial arts difficult back then was the teams expected you to maintain a high level of proficiency in all aspects of your job. Combat diving, jump operations, shooting, tactics, patrolling, the list goes on and on, so there was not a heavy emphasis put on martial arts. Aggression was considered the key, and in many cases it still is. After a couple deployments I transferred to a group that focused on Counter Terrorism and our training focused on Close Quarter Battle (CQB). This is when martial arts or hand to hand combat began to become more of a factor in our training.

The team I was stationed with had a large budget, so we began the process of seeking martial artists to teach hand to hand combat. Then an epiphany occurred to me. [ACL1] We were forced to participate in a week of training from Paul Vunak an instructor in Jeet Kune Do, something none of us had ever heard of. It was an enlightening experience for me and I had found my niche. I trained as much as possible and eventually became an instructor under Paul Vunak and developed a craving for more. This is where the arts I mentioned earlier came into play. Like all good frogmen I wanted to go to the source and train with the best. That's when I had the honor of training with Sifu Dan Inosanto, because I was teaching mornings at the command they funded me to go out and train with Sifu.

At this point I did not think there was anything more practical than Jeet Kune Do and the Filipino Martial Arts, and I still don't. However, Sifu introduced me to the world of Muay Thai and grappling. Making a long story short, because of Sifu my eyes were opened to these other arts to include Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Shooto. I also started training in Thai boxing under Ajarn Sirachi Sirasute (the president of the Thai boxing Association of the United States), JKD grappling under Sifu Larry Hartsell, BJJ under Rigan Machado, and Wing Chun under Sifu Francis Fong when I could. As time progressed I started training in Combat Submission Wrestling under Erik Paulson. To train in all these arts and with all these different instructors seems to be common place in this day and age due to the popularity of the UFC and the effectiveness of these arts in the cage.

It is easy to see how effective these arts are in cage fights, but what I want to focus on is their effectiveness in self defense scenarios. The only reason I trained in any martial art was because I saw its effectiveness outside the ring and its adaptability to my job. Unfortunately it seems like that gets lost between the ring and the street. When I started training in these arts the UFC did not exist and cage fights were more legend than anything. So, my desire to learn more and progress in these arts was driven by their practicality in self defense (or offense for that matter), not their practicality in the ring. It seems that people want to train in these arts more for sport now than for self defense.

You can not beat the training methods of BJJ or Thai boxing; however, it seems to focus more on training for sport than for self defense. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you take the time to see where techniques are adaptable to the street. For instance, imagine the person you're boxing or wrestling with has a knife and how that would change what you do. What you will find is there are techniques that are better for that situation and some that are better for sport. Another situation to look at would be multiple attackers. This also changes things dramatically. I'm not saying that BJJ or Thai boxing would not work in these situations, but one technique may be more practical than the next. If these arts did not have a practical side I would have never chosen to train in them, but I do take the time to separate sport technique from self defense technique. The root of all these arts are martial in the true essence of the word; therefore, let us not let sport take that away from it.

Now that you are saying to yourself, "this guy is just another anti-UFC fanatic". Nothing could be further from the truth. Because of the popularity of the UFC, these arts that I think so highly of are becoming more and more popular. However, it is more than sport. They come with some of the most practical techniques and a training method that far exceeds martial arts of the past. Do they have deficiencies? Absolutely, but there are ways around that. One is adapting technique to fit those situations where these arts may be deficient. For example, trying to sweep your opponent while they're in your guard. The majority of these techniques are unarmed and rarely take in to consideration the opponent being armed. This changes everything, now you have to focus on controlling the weapon while sweeping your opponent. The other is to also get involved in arts with a priority in the world of self defense, such as JKD or Filipino Martial Arts. This is still considered Mixed Martial Arts.

In closing I will say lets not forget the "Martial" in Mixed Martial Arts. All the arts in Mixed Martial Arts roots run deep in combat.

Tags :: mma fma bjj jkd muay thai

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