Yes, the smart practitioners and instructors will pick up a variety of useful things from MMA.
The dumb ones will continue to think they already have all the answers.
MMA’s Impact on KungFu, In my view, it has made a lot of close minded CMAist realize that forms is not what makes them a good fighter.
MMA can be an art now but unlike traditional styles where you have lineage, etc etc. This is non classical hybreed or freestyle fighting as the more appropriate term.
Advantages of TCMA/CMA
-Wide variations of striikes
-Speed Accuracy
-Better stances, distance, balance
-Training emptyhand vs bladed weapons
-More techniques vs multiple opponents
-Breathing, relaxation, econimical
-simplest of all, defense against groin kicks!!!
Advantage of MMA
-can win without hurting opponent (by submission)
-a good martial arts and a sport at the same time.
-less brutal than TCMA, more friendly to opponent
-better training format
I became more open to change after watching a lot of MMA fights. We must admit that some TCMA moves are already outdated or no longer applicable. We can throw away those but keep what is still useful. We can pickup new moves or technique from other style.
chill 
I’m not training to fight. I’m training to train.
When I was practicing kung fu full time, I wasn’t training to fight, either.
If all you want is a good workout, I would argue MMA is better. It’s extremely cardio oriented. Kung Fu keeps me flexible, but MMA keeps me in bikini shape.
Seriously, I dropped 10 lbs the first 3 weeks of MMA, and I was already in pretty good shape from my years of Northern Shaolin workouts.
Plus, all the grappling and grip fighting toned my arms up nicely.
I like Kung Fu, I practice Kung Fu, I still consider myself a Kung Fu Fighter, and I even run my own Kung Fu program now, but it makes more sense to train Kung Fu the MMA way that it does to train Kung Fu the Kuing Fu way.
MMA is like this mean biologist who keeps pointing at the fossil record of fighting as proof of evolution, and traditionalist are the Christian Scientists plugging their ears and screaming “Chinese invented fighting 2,000 years ago and it’s never ever changed.”
NO!! I think GM Wan Lai Shen was the first GM of MMA!!!
That is beautiful.
Interesting obsevations. I hope MMA continues to grow myself and it makes sense to use anything that works, regardless of its origin. Bruce Lee combined many different styles, if it works, it works.
I think somebody said it best that MMA is a venue, not a style.
A combination of training that has worked in this venue is boxing +Muy Thai+BJJ/wrestling.
Those styles were naturals for MMA because they were already geared towards and had training methods that had proven effective in their own venues.
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be a better training combo that comes along for MMA.
Who knows, maybe it will be Wing Chun + Shui Chao + BJJ?
I think that as fighters look for methods that others don’t have they will eventually “rediscover” the Chinese styles.
I guess people that consider themselves “kung fu” won’t compete in MMA because they don’t consider “ground fighting” to be authentically Chinese. So you will probably see those people more in San Da/San Shou types of venues where you can throw but not grapple.
Plus the Chinese version of grappling is all stand up and particularily nasty. I recently saw that standing armbar footage posted on here and it reminded me of the kinds of Chin Na that you see in Chinese martial arts. Good for self-defense but not particularily well suited to a competition where you expect the fighters to have a “career.”
MMA used to be only a venue. Now it is both a venue and a style. The components of MMA (standing striking, clinch, takedown and ground are all done differently when incorporated into the MMA format than when done individuaully as boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, or BJJ).
Complete BS.
Those standing techniques are not seen often, not because they are so brutal, but because they are very low percentage. When they do occur, they are almost accidental. That arm drag to the arm bar was a fluke. That is a technique that is done all the time and usually results in nothing more than getting an angle.
Believe me, if those “brutal” standing Chi Na techniques were so effective, MMA fighters would be using them all the time. MMA fighters are not concerned with shortening their opponents’ careers. They are concerned with winning.
There is a reason most submissions happen on the ground and it has nothing to do with “brutality”, or lack thereof.
That’s a good statement but it’s backwards. I think a smart MMa should take Kung Fu to improve his game.
The dumb MMA with an abtuse mind set will continue to think that the MMA way is the only way to fight.
it’s not the ONLY way to fight, but it is beyond question that it is the BEST way to fight.
Complete BS.
Those standing techniques are not seen often, not because they are so brutal, but because they are very low percentage.
What determines the “percentage” is the competitors ability to execute the technique on a consistent basis. Just because MMA competitors haven’t figured out a way to do this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Harder to pull off, yes, but if falling on the ground in battle=death then you find a way.
don’t most MMA organizations prohibit excessive small-joint manipulation? That would effectively take a LOT of Chin Na out of the picture. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good idea to take that out. I’ve been on the recieving end of quite a few of those locks, and even after putting ALL my resistance against them they’re pretty vicious. I can only imagine what would happen if the person applying them decided to forego slow, even pressure and just SNAP!
Ouch.:eek:
That’s a good statement but it’s backwards. I think a smart MMa should take Kung Fu to improve his game.
When somebody with a solid, mostly TCMA background, who doesn’t have a bunch of wrestling/boxing/muay thai titles prior to their TCMA experience manages to succeed in the ring, they will.
The dumb MMA with an abtuse mind set will continue to think that the MMA way is the only way to fight.
The MMA way is to train hard, drill hard and occasionally go full contact with appropriate safety gear.
How is that a bad way to train to fight?
Now, since I happen to think these distinctions are meaningless, except as a convenient shorthand, the conversation seems a bit moot to me…but these sorts of things are always fun.
Almost all MMA guys will take whatever works effectively from whatever source and use it.
“Works effectively” being the operant words.
Well, Fu-Pow, since you seem to be an expert on these things, you must know how to do them, right?
How about entering a few MMA competitions to pull off some of these “brutal” standing techniques against other fighters for the world to see? It wouldn’t take you too long of “brutally” beating other fighters with these “brutal” standing Chi Na techniques to make quite a rep for yourself. I guarantee you would have MMA fighters lining up at your door to pay you some pretty big bucks for seminars.
Funny how all the people who know these “brutal” techniques never venture out into a venue where the rest of the world can see them performed live against other skilled, resisting opponents. The truth of the matter is, more than likely, the people espousing these “brutal” standing grappling and locking techniques have never actually performed them against other skilled, resisting opponents.
KnifeFighter does have a very good point. We have to learn how to apply such techniques in actual “stress testing.” (To clarify, the resistance I spoke of earlier was more muscular resistance than “combat resistance” i.e. the necessary contact to APPLY the lock was already made, and I would resist the lock, rather than “resisting” via free-sparring.)
The book “Chin Na in Groundfighting” by Al Arsenault and Joe Faulise looks like a pretty good attempt at breaching the subject. I only flipped through it when I saw it at Barnes and Noble, but it looked like a HUGE book, and I don’t really have the time or money to spend on MA books as a rule. However, I’m thinking of showing it to one of the senior students at the My Jhong class I’m taking. He used to train at the Serra Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy (I can’t remember what belt he said he had) when he lived in New York, so I’m sure he’d have an enlightening perspective on it.
You are lame. Goodbye. 
I’m lame because I’ve been grappling for 20 years and I get irritated when people who have next to no grappling experience pontificate about these “brutal” standing grappling and locking techniques that no one seems to be able to demonstrate publicly?
I’m lame because when someone says they can do something that I have never seen done consistently that is in an endeavor that I have two decades of experience in, I want them to back it up with some kind of verifiable and repeatable demonstration?
I’m lame because I want some kind of proof when someone states that the professionals in the field are somehow missing the boat on how to apply these special techniques?
I’m lame because a person claims there are special techniques, techniques that could revolutionalize the practice of MMA, and I want to see some kind of demonstrable verification of this?
Hmmm…
OK…
Your lame because your on Fu-pows ignore list.
lamer
techniques are more deadly when performed in secret
:eek:
How has mma impacted kung fu? Haha, well, it’s revealed a lot of baloney. It’s going to keep getting harder and harder to find students willing to believe how deadly and dangerous thier non-fighting teacher’s kung fu is.
Seriously, now that UFC is on Spike TV, like it or not, mma is going to be brought to a much wider audience. The next few generations of martial arts wannabes is going to look to mma, and unless kung fu gets in the mix on a much larger scale than a few individuals, it’s going to continue to die its slow death.
Mma certainly does have staying power as well. Boxing is rapidly losing its audience. Kickboxing has a small following in the US, and there seems to be more crossover of fighters from sports such as muay thai and wrestling into mma…because they know that’s where the future is.
I’m saying all this as a “traditional CMA guy”. The kung fu community in general just doesn’t have the relevant experience to prepare a fighter for professional level mma. There may be a few exceptions of course, but these are few and far between.
On a positive note, I’ve heard more rumblings as of late, and noticed more interest in competitive CMA based fighting such as lei tai, sanshou, sanda, etc…Hopefully, this will snowball into bigger and better things. Otherwise, the naysayers who staunchly declare that kung fu can’t be used in a ring will drive the final nails into the kung fu coffin.