how many of you guys that do mma.....

fatal

have martial arts backgrounds?and if you do which martial arts are they?
Im asking because I am really considering doing mma and have no martial arts background whatsoever.Wrestling is the only thing that I would have under my belt at this stage.

Drummo

I started out with Karate when I was a kid. I started Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu when I was 20.

Neither of these contribute anything to my training in MMA these days. I would trade my left one to have just took up boxing or Thai Boxing all those years ago.

If you've got some wrestling under you belt, well thats one third of the way already. AND you've got something that all too many people in MMA here don't have!!!

Dragan

fatal wrote:

Im asking because I am really considering doing mma and have no martial arts background whatsoever.Wrestling is the only thing that I would have under my belt at this stage.

The first day that anyone starts anything they have no background in it!!! I wouldn't let that worry you.

And as Drummo said, decent wrestling would be thin on the ground over here, so not only do you have something to be a core strenght of you game, you have something to offer any club that you may join.

ShaneT

In all honesty, I would imagine that most people would agree that "no experience of striking styles" is the best place to start in MMA (unless your background comes from full contact styles, eg: kyokushin, muay thai, boxing etc).

As Drummo has already pointed out, his prior experience in non/semi-contact has proven of little if any use.

So, my suggestion: reglardless of your experience, if your interested get yourself down do a decent MMA Club. No amount of chatting will help you understand if it's for you. Only doing a few sessions will answer that question for you.

All the best!
Shane.

mark.leonard

tesn years of TKD for me before I got into this MMA thing. Not at all useful. It did make it easier to learn effective ring stand up though, so it at least helped my learning curve.

Millionaire

see you lads you do alot of MMA these days...say drummo and mark.

in time, when your fight career finishes, when you get a bit older and slower...will you ever go back to practice your original MMA style like Kung fu or tKD?

Drummo

Millionaire wrote:

see you lads you do alot of MMA these days...say drummo and mark.

in time, when your fight career finishes, when you get a bit older and slower...will you ever go back to practice your original MMA style like Kung fu or tKD?

No, I'll never go back to Kung Fu. I enjoyed it at the time, but I don't see any point in it.

When I'm older and slower as you put it, I'll still train as I do now, but just not for competition. Either that or pack it in altogether. I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Clive

Taekwondo, kung fu, kickboxing, t'ai chi for a while, trained with loads of kenpo and karate people, then onto BJJ, then a little Muay Thai, then finally to MMA.

Tim_Murphy

Did TKD and some Kickboxing.
Unlike Mark, I have to say TKD was a big help to me, not so much by the actual techniques and skills I learned but more by the fact that from it I knew how to train hard for competition and all that goes with that as well as giving me a lot of competitive experience

columok

Trained in Aikido and a bit of Karate for a few years. Would have much preferred a few months wrestling or boxing. It'd have been much more useful.

Millionaire

This is all I have done....

Back starting in 84, Mugendo Karate, which was based on Wado Ryu karate, but boxing punches and boxing guard/stance replaced the karate stance/punches. sparring was full on, continous, and heavy to full contact, which was quite a new idea back in those days!(and very rough) this evolved into kickboxing which was very influenced by eastern bloc boxing from what is now croatia.

did this for a good few years, as a teen, became a black belt. local club closed down.... politics had started. so spent a year doing Pai Lum Kung Fu in Firedragon. this closed...more MA Politics.

Did not train for a few years. went to canada, did WTF TKD for a few years, good hard training this was, heavy sparring. did competitions, won some medals etc etc. moved to Ottawa , did kickboxing for 1 year in Jean Yves Theriault gym...he was a Professional Kickboxing Champ, has fought Deeker, Rick Rofous, Bill Wallace , Don Wilson..etc was a big name , a great champ. did some jujitsu here too.

back to ireland, back to kickboxing, a good few years in Kickboxing in Zan Chin , Joe Cannings school down in Sygn Street (called Gan Teo now to something), another good tough club where you put up or shut up. then went to his brother George Canning, for a few years kickboxing. did a few fights along the way...even fought a Traveller in England in an International bout! ( a bit like Lock and Stock...and yes I took a good hammering!!!!)

Got bored with kickboxing, so stopped for a while, started KM, and got interested in SD for a few years. did that for 3 years, but no sparring, so got very rusty at fighting.

went to Paddy Clint to learn thai in early 2005, as I was going to a thai camp for a few weeks. had to ditch my kickboxing and learn from scratch. got interested in Thai , and been doing it since!

have done stints in a few styles of karate, a little boxing, along the way.

next milestone will be at some stage to learn the basic of ground or bJJ.

so thats my CV to date, been pretty much a kickboxer! MA training is a life long journey, and thank God I have may years to go, and loads more to learn!

Right now I do an hour or more of Thai most days(as I live in Thailand)...sometimes 2 hours. I was getting into it a bit too much , wanted to prove myself and wanted to fight, show the young bulls I could be reckoned with too... sort of have relaxed off that idea now , got nothing to prove, so happy just to train, overcome myself, learn, enjoy it and get better! its great to train with guys daily who do muay Thai for a living, if fighting is their job!

Valmont

I did seishin kai karate, ultimate kickboxing and Sin moo hapkido all for just over two years. One of the NextGeneration guys at the time came out and did some free BJJ classes for a while, and then I was dormant for about 8months and then started up MMA. I did some iaido for a while as well and i took one kung fu class last summer.

I found the only advantage it gave me was I knew how to throw roundhouse kicks, thats it!