What is TMA?

Yep and even if ye manage to establish some kind of consensus on what ye mean when ye say traditional martial art, it will still just be between boards.ie folk. Everyone else will have their own meaning for it.

I thought we were passed the stage of "mma vs tma". I mean do people still have a go at mma and the arts that are prominently used in it because they're not "traditional"? And if so who really cares?

I use the term martial arts to describe all systems used to train hand to hand combat (including weapons with the exception of guns). This includes those that are mostly artistic and demonstration based (e.g. capoeria) and those that are sporting and contest based (e.g. boxing, wrestling). I include such things as fencing, iaido and fencing in the term martial arts as well as things like Krav Maga, RBSD, bouncer training and professional eye gouging.

I used to distinguish martial arts based on their athletic and sporting attributes, martial arts like boxing, wrestling, judo, sambo, bjj, thai boxing would be considered combat sports.

Right now, in my current frame of mind, I use the term TMA to identify martial arts I feel are not useful in the context of the MMA arena. Their usability is based on their techniques and their training method.

I think with some slight modification, the martial arts boxing, wrestling, sambo, bjj, thai (plus similar) are applicable to MMA. It is no coincidence they are also what I previously referred to as combat sports and share many training methodology similarities.

I've seen demonstrations of JuJitsu/Karate that show throws, locks, and strikes that are very similar to that used in BJJ, Judo and Kickboxing but to the best of my knowledge, their training methodology and philosophy do not encourage improvement skill development and thus application to MMA.

I've also seen demonstrations of JuJitsu/Karate in which i feel they practice techniques that would never ever be higher than tiny percentage techniques in MMA, regardless of how well drilled and skilled you were in them. This doesn't have a Jujutsu label but here is some Aikido which I feel is worthless for MMA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NmaYu2Kvc&feature=fvst

There is fuzziness to my definition. What Niall Keane does with the Tai-chi/san shou/ falls by in large into the same category as the other wrestling and kickboxing martial arts (applicable to MMA) but it appears they do the softer tai-chi, dancing stuff like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unEQxsppvp8 which I don't feel is applicable.

So in some cases, it's not just the label on the martial art but the style of the gym which defines its tradialness. Some Judo clubs do kata for about 3 hours a year and some do it about 50 hours a year. The later would not be a TMA

There is fuzziness to my definition. What Niall Keane does with the Tai-chi/san shou/ falls by in large into the same category as the other wrestling and kickboxing martial arts (applicable to MMA) but it appears they do the softer tai-chi, dancing stuff like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unEQxsppvp8 which I don't feel is applicable.

Yea, this is what’s sad about the whole TMA thing; I find that when people hear about us they dismiss it as tai chi dance, when they see us train or compete they can’t reconcile this with their notion of what Tai Chi Chuan should be.

People literally lose kilos after a two hour session with us, I’ve had actual marathon runners collapse with exhaustion and gasp that the training is like a marathon for the upper body. 9 out of 10 that join the class don’t last long, of those who stay all have become international champions, winning multiple British, Spanish, Danish, and European titles. I don’t know if this is a standard experience in Tai Chi gyms in Ireland?

From that other side I get plenty of “behind the scenes” criticism as my Sifu – Dan Docherty and his Cheng Tin Hung did. Cheng’s ability to turn out full-contact champions on a regular basis earned the style the name “Practical Tai Chi Chuan” from Hong Kong journalists. Even there they noticed a difference to the “public” Tai Chi. But when you trace the lineage back they’re all noted fighters, this is considered in China a Zhen Chuan, or True Transmission. You see a cancer can creep into traditions, for example there was a relatively modern Hong Kong tradition that precluded Tai Chi teachers from teaching Nei Gung to a student for 6 years, Cheng decided not to follow this “tradition” realizing that the skills and abilities gained from Nei Gung should be taught straight away as the older Wudang tradition had done. A procession of “masters” came to his gym and argued with him about this practice, he told them that he would relent if they took up the upkeep of his wife and family, they declined.

I understand the feeling you have about forms and soft drills, most of what I’ve seen taught in many gyms / classes is an utter waste of time, I sincerely believe that unless you are a fighter, you will not recognize the subtleties, coordination, and skills being programmed by these drills, and what has happened is that generations of wannabe masters have lost the essential material, replacing it with a superficial mimic. Odds are you are most likely to come across this, just as you are most likely to come across bad martial arts. I can only tell you what I get from “soft practice”, re. the drills, coordination of movement and ingraining of strategies, this helps make counters and set-ups effortless, well at least a lot easier, e.g. it makes the application of locks during throws and counter throws etc. natural and not something to be consciously “done”, it teaches me how to adhere and follow, staying connected if I so wish, able to transform correctly with an opponent’s actions without leaving opportunities borrowing but giving nothing to borrow as they say.

Re. the form, at first it corrected my structure as I turned from posture to posture, this fed back into my wrestling skills notably. The power delivered in my techniques improved once the correct movement of the feet and dynamic rooting became a natural occurrence, not the power I could generate, that’s down to conditioning on bags etc, but being able to position myself or know my position where this could be used to best effect, this changed my sanshou, allowing me to do more than simply roll up the tank, it allowed me to be more dynamic, moving around, in and out of range able to drop people with strikes more often despite changes of angle immediately before, and made fast throws more secure, I was able to consistently position myself and throw people without falling too. As I got better at sanshou, I met better opponents, who presented more challenges, for example, I came across a Tiger-Crane stylist who had fantastic chin-na and shuai jiao skills, he could move like lightning and set up a throw you would not expect and combine that throw with knee locks, heel locks etc. which made you disinclined to counter. The throw in Tai Chi Chuan is called “Flying Oblique Low”. At this time I had already won several international Tui shou, no jacket wrestling competitions, and had never been thrown cleanly in sanshou. So I was intrigued by this guy’s method, and pissed that he could throw me. I examined the form and studied the adjacent techniques, I got my sparring partner to work with me on these techniques, and discovered the subtleties of recovery and counter relating to the throw, this feed back into my form, so in effect I was using a form - a series of counter and recovery techniques to teach me how to deal with the situation, it worked, as the next competition I was able to entice him to try the throw and countered it successfully throwing him twice before he refrained from using it again. I won the fight by TKO, which didn’t involve the throw counter, but the act in itself of working on this aspect picked up my game. My point here is that we all have favourite techniques, and probably ignore other not so handy for us techniques. The form is like generations of fighters distilling their knowledge and bottling it in this sequence, a handy strategic reference.

So hard and soft complement one another, as the passage of the classics state, I hope I have given a glimpse into how the approached is coordinated and aids each another, they are not divorced. In my class there is not a section for this method and that method, I teach a technique, if I see a lot of people having a difficulty with some part of it, I sometimes stop them and teach them a related tui shou drill, iron out the problem, and return to the technique, where now they “get it”. This is not the only way to teach and learn these things, but it is a valid way in my experience. I feel the criticism it suffers from those unaware of its practice is understandable, but this stems from negative associations with sterile versions taught by charlatans.

So in some cases, it's not just the label on the martial art but the style of the gym which defines its tradialness. Some Judo clubs do kata for about 3 hours a year and some do it about 50 hours a year. The later would not be a TMA

I think you’re hitting the nail on the head here; the problem lies in the inherent laziness of people. It’s easier to “run through” drills and forms, it’s difficult to get up every day and train like a fighter needs to. When an art contains “soft” training methods, the danger lies that these will be promoted over the arduous and often boring endless repetition of punching, kicking and throwing, which in turn makes sparring and testing oneself less likely. So instead of the soft method being used to train automatic strategy, subtlety and skill to a fighting method, it exists outside of fighting, the Chinese have a word for this “Tofu Chuan”, Bean-curd Boxing.


But back on topic, there still seems to be even in this thread an impression that MMA is “modern” martial arts, rather than “mixed” martial arts. I had always understood, that MMA had recognized that many TMA’s had abandoned striking for wrestling, or vice versa, i.e had a number of holes, and had sought to train in a number of TMAs to cover all bases.

This is not new General Qi Jiquang (1528 – 1588) in his “Classic of Boxing” puts together 32 techniques from various styles of his day as he expressed his concern at how all existing styles he had experienced had been good but focused above to neglect below, or below to neglect above etc..

Many styles then took on board these techniques from his famous book adopting them into their system. Tai Chi Chuan has 29 of them within the form.

In other words MMA is a corrective action, just like General Qi was in the 16th century. The term may be replaced as every gym integrates, re-invents or recovers a holistic approach. Within a generation will there still be separate Muay Thai, BJJ and Wrestling coaches?