Can anyone teach MMA??

Chewabacca

Martin Walker wrote: »

This has been bugging me for a while now and ive mentioned it before.
The main problem i have with these McDojos starting up is that the standard of fighters they are producing is poor. No two ways about it.
Every one has to start somewhere and most of the gyms in this country including the one i represent have come from very humble beginings. We started out in a garage learning a bit of kickboxing. Now roughly around 8 years later we have a big well kitted out MMA gym with some established pro fighters in the UK circuit.
The problem is that the McDojos popping up now bypass the learning stage and just open a gym and start pushing fighters into shows. Some even putting on shows themselves. It took me years to get to know the people in the sport enough to ask them for fighters.
I think its fine for people to open gyms if they have a good base discipline behind them. For example. We have Kickboxing, SBG have Jitz , EFR have sub Grappling, Chum Sut have Wrestling ect ect...
So in turn there "style" of MMA is derived from that. However many McDojos dont have a core. They just "do MMA" and they do it badly and most importantly it can be dangerous.
The subject of NGB is a sad one. Its been tried. Never works. In a ideal world there would be some sort of org there, and i would support such a thing but in my opinion it wont happen anytime soon.
But as long as the "senior" players in the sport keep communicating we can all rest assured that things will be fine. MMA in ireland is being looked after by a passionate group of people who want nothing but the sport to grow. Money is not the goal to these people unlike the McDojo down the street.

Thanks for your time
Marty

Well put Marty and I completely agree with everything you said. I was lucky enough to begin my training with a new gym that quicly became established and provided quality training but at the time I was so eager to join a gym that I would have joined any gym without knowing anything about it.

yomchi

Maybe a governing body isn't needed, I would imagine an alliance or council of recognised MMA clubs and coaches would be a good idea. However for this to work, it would need to be done before MMA explodes all over the place and money and ego become an obstacle block to any progress. This is what happened to Taekwon-Do which has now has a club in every parish, with some instrucors not knowing their arse from their elbow, and even within governing bodies, they still don't know their arse from their elbow.

Having said that, MMA has the upper hand in having a very real and non abstract method of training and competing where it can be very hard to hide in a comfort zone as a coach.

Roper

FUNKY LOVER wrote: »

would that be referring to him earning 50,000 for crumlin hospital over the years:rolleyes:

Sorry fella don't know what you're on about. That was a general comment about standards, honesty, ethics etc. That's what this topic is about. I don't have any dealings with the gym you're talking about nor have I ever, so I can't say how honest or ethical anyone in there is.

McArmalite

Bambi wrote: »

Well if you follow the logic of a governing body for regulation, then the government recognised body for martial arts is IMAC and IMAC affiliation is the standard that joe public should look for. Does anyone here actually believe that?

Take a look at all the different councils/associations in TKD, they're all meant to exist to maintain standards, truth is that they mostly exist due to power struggles, money and personalities. Martial arts governing bodies are like the Judean Peoples Front.

" Martial arts governing bodies are like the Judean Peoples Front. " Nice one Bambi . Unfortunately too true.

McArmalite

In my experience these McDojo MMA clubs actually are doing damage to potential MMAers by teaching them bad habits and bad technique and the wrong attitude i.e. just go at it with all the strength and ignorance you can possibly muster and hope that you get your way. It's like teaching a guy boxing and telling him to swing relentlessly with everything he's got until he makes his mark :rolleyes:

For example with BJJ probably the biggest mistake a newbie makes is he's unnecesarrily too tense and using pure strength and ignorance instead of developing technique. Most of the time he's just gassing himself out expending energy totally unneccesarily. Point is, if a guy starts doing this from the beginning and over a few months it becomes his instinct -and it takes twice as long or longer to untrain him from these bad habits.

columok

The regulation for MMA is simply success in competition. Governing bodies only serve to protect and encourage the political in martial arts who as many of us know are often the worst amongst us. Competition=darwinism. It gives the simplest indicator of how good and legit the MMA training is in a given gym. Combine that with how enjoyable the training atmosphere is and you can quickly gauge the quality of a gym.

Why people have a constant desire to be governed is beyond me...

Kevin Moran

FUNKY LOVER wrote: »

your a coward so,cause you know exactly who were talking about cause someone mentioned his name in the post before your post.

if your not man enough to admit what you meant then that says it all.

You're looking to troll and if you're not troll enough to admit that then that says it all!
I think there may be a legal issue in naming and shaming a certain gym, I agree with your previous posts however. Someone who has a few fights may be not the most ideal candidate for coaching, just like some people who have coaching qualifications may still not be a good individual for coaching a group, its down to the individual concerned, if theres hidden training costs and a deluge of in-house seminars at an extra cost, common sense and a swift exit should prevail.
MMA was born out of competition, not the otherway round as in most other sports, therefore the leveller is competition. Not everyone wants to step onto a mat or into a cage but the very 'alive' nature of MMA training will show up con-men very quickly. A good coach might not necessarily school all their students but should still be able to crituque them, even when they've surpassed the coach's own ability.

FUNKY LOVER

apologies to roper for earlier posts i mistook what he was saying..anyway back on topic;)

Roper

FUNKY LOVER wrote: »

apologies to roper for earlier posts i mistook what he was saying..anyway back on topic;)

Thanks for that.

Roper

On topic, I think the "quality" question is easily answered.

If you are looking for a competitive gym, and plan to compete and win at MMA, then look for a gym that competes regularly.

If you are looking for a place to hang out and train in and have fun regardless of whether you learn how to fight or not, then look for somewhere you can enjoy. It might well be one of the fight gyms.

If I was a bloke who just wanted to keep the belly off, quality wouldn't be an issue for me I suppose. I think I'd just sooner go to the gym I enjoy training at the most, which is why sham MMA gyms can still floorish. I suppose there's no harm in that really. To be honest I've really stopped caring about this stuff. I'm happy