The nature of this forum

pearsquasher

Hi guys,

I wonder if I could make a suggestion to possibly split the "Self/Defence/Martial arts" section into something that could more accurately allow for a more wide-ranging user base. I don't mean by specific arts like other larger MA forums but maybe like this:


General
- for dicussions on across-the-board issues like self Defence, application, fitness, ideologies, clubs etc

(the repetitive argumetns could all go here!)

Modern Martial Sports and MMA
- for specific discussion on issues relating to BJJ, SBG, Muay Thai, Kickboxing and other competitive/sparring-based arts

Tradtional and Classical Martial Arts
- for specoific discussion on tradtional and classical Japanese, Chinese and other arts in Ireland.

I ask this because it's fairly obvious that this board dominated by MMA fans and practioners and while this is perfectly fine as its open to everyone, I can imagine how it would put off people with other interests in the heading of Mattial Arts. Me for example.

So how about making it more appealing to everyone out there who does kendo, iai, kung fu, koryu, jujutsu, karate, budo taijutsu, ninpo, aikido, wu shu, tai chi, tai ci chuan etc.

Any thoughts on this from the mods or users? I hosently feel i have to sift through counteless UFC/K1, "aliveness" or "clinch" related posts to get to something that interests me as a martial artist and I think its only fair.

Just a thought!

Roper

But then you'd have the likes of me who sees no difference in martial arts except effectiveness. Where would I post?

I also see no reason to have 'clinch' posts divided into the sports section as I don't think there's anybody who'd disagree that that is a vital part of self defence training, be that classical, RBSD or 'sport'.

Also, if you have a problem with their being no posts about so called classical MA, why not start a few?

columok

Roper has MMA'd the correct.

Pearsquasher,

You complain about the lack of threads that interest you but I dont see you starting discussions on sword fighting or such things.

This forum does not need to be divided.

K-1 is probably the pinnacle of "mixed" standup martial arts (including Taekwondo and Karate) both classical and modern and it belongs as much on a martial arts board as historical reanactment does.

RedXIV

Roper wrote:

But then you'd have the likes of me who sees no difference in martial arts except effectiveness. Where would I post?

100% agree with Roper there, my exposure to martial arts previous to boards was TKD and kickboxing, but i actually like some of the grappling tips and tricks i've just skimmed through here. if you split the forum, there's a good chance i'd probably see less of these.

You could always search for the classic martial art you want to talk about? if there's a thread about it, it'll undoubtably appear if you search

Dragan

RedXIV wrote:

You could always search for the classic martial art you want to talk about? if there's a thread about it, it'll undoubtably appear if you search

Or simply start a thread?

pearsquasher

This isn't about me not finding posts that relate to me but about opening up the board to non-MMA martial artists.. its that simple.

I can chat about all the stuff i want to with like-mionded people on dozens of other boards..and do. Its not about that.


If there was as section for TMA, Classic or whatever you want to call it then those non-MMA MAers who have some ideas, stories, thoughts, experiences would feel more comfortable joining this community. Its a simple fact that about 90% of the dicussion here is related to MMA... or if they don't start that way they get hijacked and turn into MMA. (it was worse a year ago i admit)

I don;t think that lack of posters from other diciplines is because they're not there.. ii'd say its because they see an uneven population here. How would a guy whos studied sword for 10 years possibly be attracted to the current sortie of posts. H?e he saww a section on non-MMA arts he might just chime in.

Its also a simple fact that NOT 90% of martial arts is about winning in a competition. I am just saying that this board... seeing as its called "self Defence/MArtial Art" should reflect that more accurately or else rename it "Martial Sports and the odd bit of Classical/TMA".

I do realise the irony of bringing this up with the average poster here. Its rather like asking in an AA meeting if anyone minds if I go and have a pint.

Tell me whats so wrong about the idea. If in a few months the section is empty or riddled with MMAers debating MMA stuff with themselves then I'll take my leave of it all.

Roper

pearsquasher wrote:

Its also a simple fact that NOT 90% of martial arts is about winning in a competition.

I haven't competed in about a year and a half, and I also feel that competition is far from necessary for a martial artists development. Again, where do I post?

Baggio...

Hey y'all,

I don't think there is any need to really split up the forum into categories like that. As you can simply start a new thread, and talk about whatever you want. There are a lot of MMA dudes here, and good luck to them (great skill and all). Personally I don't like the sport side of Martial Arts at all. So I tend to skim over those posts. I really like the Reality Based self Defence stuff like Combatives etc. So if I want to talk about it, I'll just make a new thread, and hope not to bore the pants off everybody. I also practice American Kenpo Karate (just as a hobby, and for fitness). But I consider A.K. Karate a TMA - although I'll probably be hung by other Kenpoists out there. If I wanted to chat about TMA I similarly start a new thread relating to whatever topic I wanted to cover. Well, that's just my two cents. Cheers, Baggio.

Musashi

I'd prefer to see the board remain as is. I've been on a lot of forums where they split the camps, but then it got more polarised with neither group talking to the other. Eventually one or other side left altogether to go to a forum where they could talk MMA or TMA all they liked with other like minded individuals.

That's all very well but how much does anyone gain from forums where the most contentious isssues are whether Arlovski is better than Crocop or if Japanese Swordsmen would defeat European?

We may not always agree on here but at least we see each others points of view, and can take as much or as little of those views onboard as we wish. I'd prefer an arguement here than everyone agreeing with me on a TKD based forum.

I'm open to new ideas and whatever else you can say about them, the sports fighters do seek out the best and most efficient training methods as they want to train to fight on a set date. They know the fight is on and they've got X weeks to prepare. I'd never heard of CrossFit until I heard Pearce mention it. Or paleo diet until the Col (u) ms spoke about it. I can then look into it and decide to try it or discard it, at least there are new ideas and methods to try.

A lot of people on here are TMA by choice or availability of training. There are even some who were TMA and decided to train and compete in MMA, or even tried MMA and moved back to older TMA styles. It's all about choice, we can choose to stay in our own training environment and never push our limits. Then again we can look at the bigger area and see how we'd fare against other styles and arts, pushing ourselves to raise our game.

I remeber when I started TKD I picked the next better guy than me, not the best guy in the class but a lad who had a bit more training and experience than me. Then I trained to be better than him, gradually moving up the ranks and picking better and better lads to compete against.
Eventually your the best in your club, so what do you do? You go to competitions and see who's the best in the area and then in the country. So now your top of the heap? What about the other stand-up stylists though, so you enter a few Kick Boxing Tournies. But what if you met a style completely foreign to you? Like Judo? And so it goes until your a MMA guy Or not, but the option is there if you want to go down that road.

I guess that's why I'd prefer we keep the forum a mixed bag of styles and personalities.

pearsquasher

Point taken.. If i think that the audience on this forum exists that would be interested in anything i have to say.. i'll squeeze it in amongst the usual stuff here. If not, I won't.

dlofnep

I think the bickering is what keeps this forum alive. If you split it up, nobody would post.

Cake Fiend

I already need to open approximately 7 million different forums on boards to cover my interests as it is, I don't see the point in splitting up one of the smallest forums on boards unless there's suddenly a huge upsurge in posts in each of the potential categories.

Colm_OReilly

I don't agree with the splitting of the boards.

For one thing, those "MMAers" out there will go onto the TMA board and start asking questions - it's what we do.

Also, if you only want people who share the same ideas and beliefs as you with regards ma to post, why are you on a discussion board? I disagree with JK and other "MMAers" at times on training methods (not the gross Aliveness ideology, but on specific points) and it's not like all the MMA guys said - "Hey, check out boards, let's get in there and hijack every thread"

As long as there is an MA discussion board you're going to have disagreements between those who believe and those who challenge. Complaining about it is akin to complaining about the Irish weather, it's not going to change.

Also, I don't want the hassle of modding three boards!

breadmonkey

AFAIK, there are only a few more forums that can be created before OVERLOAD, so I can't see this happening.

cade

i can sorta see what Pearsquasher is gettin at, I myself am a practicioner of TMA and have no knowledge of MMA or Pride or any of ther other tournaments that have been popping up off late and as such i haven't really posted in a while, though i don't really think that splitting up the board is viable, musashi hit the nail on the head with his post imo. i would however suggest that to slow the flow of neverending where can i buy such and such treads that a sticky should be made, i know how you feel on this issue Colm but the amount of pages in this forum is increasing rapidly. in that thread so as not to have everbody trying to flog their company only known regular posters should be allowed post links, eg. roper, Colm Okeefe, Dlofnep. and then it be locked, said posters keep up to date on changes to info on sites they have recommended and pm our peoples mod should ammendments need to be made. a similar thread for our own clubs that we each attend or teach ourselfs could be set up, if its believed its a viable alternative to us all jumping and typing the same info to each new poster. any way this is just my view on it, and also i don't consider myself a regular poster so i wouldn't be expectin to be on the list.

Cabelo

I dunno, I reckon Mu is right but I'm with Cade. I'm not into Pride or K-1 and my interest is pretty minimal... I'm not one for starting threads (admittedly, though I do like to chime in) so even though I do log in and read over pretty much daily I'm seeing little enough reason to post.

The only other issue I've got is that when we do see some of the interesting threads open up it devolves into, "MMA the **** out out of it," and "Well... my Karate is pretty top dollar, where's your BJJ now?"

Just my two cent. I'm not sure I had a point...

columok

Death to stickys.

I've seen very few stickys stay alive and serve their purpose. Having people re-ask questions is the hazard of an internet forum tbh.

Cabelo wrote:

I'm not into Pride or K-1

Man you should see both Jean Silva and Genki Sudo. Some lovely capoeira in MMA Saw a Jean Silva Cage Rage fight where he kicks the guy in the head, it looks like he's gonna get his foot caught and he just cartwheels away. Great capoeirista

Rev Hellfire

I think most people would agree that there is an emphasis towards MMA on this board and I can see how a TMA might feel somewhat intimidated when quite a number of the posts are ‘hijacked’ to be come MMA > TMA flames.
But the reality of the situation is that the active posters determine the nature of the board and at present these are MMA’s.
If they where removed by for example the use of sub forums; the resultant TMA sub forum would I suspect resemble the ghost town this forum was before the influx of new (MMA) posters arrived.

Anyway like Sico said the last thing boards needs is more forums.

Roper

I think, to be fair, whenever there's say a topic on weapons training and someone chimes in with an "mma" type comment, there are a fair few people here who take the other side. I think that's a positive thing.

I don't think it's so easy to classify people. I for example am TKD+BJJ, so I've an interest in both. I'm thinking back to other topics (wars!) and Dave Joyce's comments, he's obviously interested in both the sport side (Muay Thai) and FMA and weapons. Occasionally these two cross over so I think splitting the forum is untennable.

Also, there's a good reason for there being so many MMA threads. There's so much going on globally in MMA. Not so much in TMA I think we can all agree.

Anyway, long live diversity of thought and opinion, and with that in mind, I'll put up the Mohammad cartoons in my next post

Dave Joyce

Anyway, long live diversity of thought and opinion, and with that in mind, I'll put up the Mohammad cartoons in my next post

Nice one:) . Was gonna say something smart but thought the mods might declare Jihad on me, so I better leave it:eek: .

Personally, I think debate is good and certainly makes one explain their position better which can only be a good thing. And to be honest the more people post on the topics they want to air the more discussion there is about the subject. I actually find it a pain in the ass when there are too many different sections to some forums and won't bother my ass reading through them. The way this one is set up is fine IMHO.

pma-ire

i've moved house and don't have internet there as yet so i've missed out on loads i'm sure

but i also like the mixed forum because debate can be alot healthier with active resistance!!