Episode 671 - How Has MMA Helped Traditional Martial Arts?
In this episode, listen or watch as Jeremy and Andrew talk about how has MMA helped Traditional Martial Arts?
How Has MMA Helped Traditional Martial Arts?- Episode 671
A lot has been said against Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in the Traditional Martial Arts world but there’s a question that begs to be answered. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew try to answer the burning question: how has MMA helped Traditional Martial Arts? This episode is a follow-up to Episode 655 - Is MMA Ruining Traditional Martial Arts.
Listen to this episode and join the conversation! We would appreciate you sharing your thoughts in the comments section below.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's happening everybody, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, we're doing a follow up to past episode but this one we're kind of flipping it on its head. How has MMA helped traditional martial arts? There's a question people don't talk about in a kind, respectful, non agenda-ish way. But we're going to try. Who's we? Well if you are watching, you may not know that I'm joined today, as I often now by good friend, Andrew Adams, Andrew. Hi.
Andrew Adams:
Hey, how's it going, man?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good. How are you?
Andrew Adams:
Great. It's a good day.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is a good day. I'm Jeremy Lesniak founder of whistlekick. And we've been doing what we do here on this show for six and a half years. Because we love traditional martial arts doesn't matter what you train where you're training, how you train, why you train, if you train, we're all in with you. If you want to check out what we do, because we do a lot more than this show go to whistlekick.com, you'll find all the stuff that we do over there. And one of the things that we've got well it's a store where they constantly updating rotating set of products, from protective equipment to fun apparel, and all kinds of stuff in between. You find something there that you like, use the code PODCAST15 helps support the show. Put something cool on your back. Hey, everybody wins. You want to go deeper on this or another episode of the show. They're all available at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Every episode we've ever done is available for free. And over there for interview episodes for example, you're gonna find links to get social media and photos, videos, things that we talk about books. It's all over there. If you like what we do, it's our mission to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world means something to you, well consider supporting us. Whether it's by making a purchase or telling friends about what we do or we have a Patreon PATREON.com/whistlekick. Andrew, that was your cue.
Andrew Adams:
I don't want to do it every episode.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But you are you're sitting there you're sitting there like this like kinda shifty eyeballs back and forth. Like I'm not gonna do it this time. Folks, can you tell that we have a good time and that the more time we spend together, the better the better friends we get? What do we do at Patreon we give you some behind the scenes, we tell you who's coming up on the show, we send you exclusive merch, apparel, mugs, stickers. We give you bonus content, audio video book drafts, there's a ton of stuff. And how do I know we're doing a good job with Patreon? People don't stop contributing at Patreon.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And all it takes us $2 a month you get to know who's on the show coming up. For example, if you were in the $2 Patreon, you would know that next week's guest is bleeep I mean, that's gonna be so cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's amazing. It's gonna be 74 hours long. Because it's just that great of an episode. We just, we had to record for days, like we took naps. Yeah, we're getting a little silly. But the point is, Patreon is the number one way that we build value. On top of the show, we give you the show for free. If you like what we do, and you want more of what we do, check out the Patreon because you give us a little bit of money. We're going to give you a whole bunch of stuff. Everybody wins. So Andrew, we did an episode a few weeks ago. Yeah. By the time this comes out it'll be a couple months ago Episode 655 is MMA ruining traditional martial arts? And we got some good feedback. Honestly, we got less angry feedback than I'd expected. Maybe it's because the people who get angry don't pay attention to us anymore. That's totally fine. Yeah, but we did get some feedback that MMA has actually helped traditional arts in a number of ways. And I thought it only fair that we have a conversation about that.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah, I thought so too. Listener of the show we'll shout him out here by name, because he's a friend of mine and I know he'd be okay with that. But Josh Hodges sent an email to us and gave us his thoughts on that episode. And, and wanted us to discuss how MMA has helped traditional martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The other side of that coin. Yeah, yeah, things rarely occur in a in a vacuum. We rarely have stuff where it's completely one side.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, things are rarely one directional.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But just as my main argument, if one style of martial arts was so overwhelmingly better in every way, people wouldn't do other things.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I tell students that all the time. If, for example, I teach drumming, if drumming was is easy. Everybody would do it. You know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly, exactly. So just a recap, in case somebody didn't check out that episode, what we did is we went through a whole bunch of elements that are common in mixed martial arts culture. And we acknowledge that there are some dramatic differences between, let's say, your run of the mill, MMA gym that may even have some traditional martial arts taught in the same physical facility, versus let's say, the UFC and internationally exposed professional mixed martial arts carrying out there's a lot going on in between there, and most of our conversation focused on the negative elements that are common in the pro level, high level MMA. And we pointed much things out, you can go back and check out that episode if you want. So let's flip it on its head. If I were to ask you, because I think this is probably the easiest way to start this conversation. If I were to ask you, what going on right now in traditional martial arts would not be there without MMA's exposure? What would you think of first?
Andrew Adams:
My first answer would be the, I don't want to say acceptance, because that implies that it was unacceptable before, but the awareness of utilizing the ground and how to defend yourself while on the ground, prior to the UFC of the schools that I knew of did very little training at all on the ground. And I think that that was potentially could be considered a deficit in their training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would agree to say it a little differently. Striking based martial arts recognize that they were many of them were doing their students a disservice by not giving them at least some fundamentals to be used in case the fight ends up on the ground. The argument, I just won't go to the ground is, while that may be a goal, we all know that goals are not 100% achieved thus they're not goals, right? People trip, they fall, there's momentum, there's weight shift. There's all kinds of reasons why you might end up on the ground and the recognition that yep, we need to do something. I think is a very good thing because it broadened the conversation. We now hear a lot of martial arts schools talking about the different ranges, right? Yep. Kicking range and punching range and wrestling range and grappling range, right, like different schools will break it down differently. You know, sometimes it's three, sometimes it's four or five different ranges. Great. You can't solve a problem. Unless you acknowledge a problem. You can't unpack a situation unless you have awareness over it. And if nothing else, there has been more awareness brought to the circumstances of how a fight happens. From MMA.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely. I think just the explosion of BJJ specifically, but in general, you know, ground fighting has immensely improved. Since the UFC came out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I completely agree. Ready for the next one? I got one. The recognition that some of the things that we were always taught worked, or would work in a fight, but we're just too dangerous. Not all of that was true.
Andrew Adams:
Correct? Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hitting someone in the head and knocking them out is way harder than we were ever told.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's just it's not. All you have to do is kick the guy right here and he's going down. Well, maybe, but clearly, not always. Because you don't have to spend much time watching MMA to see some really incredible shots and people don't go down. Yeah, I didn't even say often it happens often. Now, of course, you could make a counter argument these people trained for that they're used to getting hit their central nervous system is conditioned against such things. Yeah, absolutely. All of those things are true. But So could the person that you're involved in an altercation with on the street, right? And I think that for a lot of traditional schools, that's been difficult to wrap their heads around. Because you get this epiphany, you know, maybe you're 30-40-60 years into your training and you were brought up believing a thing. And now you still believe that thing, and you teach the thing, and your students believe that thing. And now there are a bunch of counter examples against that thing. Yep. Not everyone handled that. Well, some people got even more, they turtled up even more with their beliefs, while others said, okay, maybe I have to take at least some of what I'm doing back to the drawing board and acknowledge, okay, maybe it's not going to be one kick here. Maybe it's going to be two. Maybe I need to follow that up with this, or maybe this needs to lead into it.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, exactly. And I think the next one, which is related to yours, is finding out the things we do that do work. You know, one of the things that I have often heard when talking with people who participate in MMA is, well, I don't use traditional martial arts or, you know, I don't use my stances, or whatever. And then you take a snapshot of them in the middle of a fight in the middle of a technique and like, that's exactly the stance that we would use, they're transitioning out of it. And you know, they're transitioning into it, and then on to something else, which is something that was talked about, oh, gosh, I'm not going to remember who it was. But one of the Okinawan karate masters had a saying that cannot be used as many stances, and yet, it has none. And the concept of as a beginner, we use lots of stances, to learn how our body moves. But as you get in the upper ranks, you're not staying in those stances. They aren't static, they are moving. So there really are no stances. They're just transitional, right. And seeing that, that works. And looking at and maybe this is, you know, maybe has more to do with the fact that YouTube exists, and we can go and look at fights now a little more in depth, and seeing MMA practitioners, doing moves that we then can take extrapolate out and show, oh, well, they were essentially doing this move from this form. Being able to make those connections of things that did work, and that do work, I think, is really interesting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I completely agree. We could very well take a tangent here about what you said, you know, MMA practitioners saying, you know, I don't do traditional arts, but we've gone there quite a few times, I don't really want to go there.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But that criticism does have some value, because it forces us as traditional practitioners, to understand why we do what we do. If someone watches a karate class, where students are walking or stepping forward, from back stance to back stance, anybody who's ever done that in a deep back stance, you're never going to fight in that way. It's a terrible thing to do from that perspective. But it helps build a ton of stuff. If you can move forward in a back stance, you can move backwards in a back stance way easier, right? There's some benefits to understanding etc. It helps us understand that our training protocols are not necessarily one to one correlations with what goes on in a fight or a competition. But that does not mean they are devoid of value
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I would agree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Pre MMA, it was easy to point to a lot of things and say, Well, you would just do this, or you would use it in this way. Okay. Sure. But now, I don't see anybody doing anything with that. And in fact, when I see people who have ended up in that position accidentally, it hasn't gone well for them. Okay, well, maybe we're not using this in a one to one maybe we're using this to supplement something else. We're building strength. We're building proprioception, Flexibility, whatever. I don't think cross training would be as big as it is without MMA.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The willingness to Look outside one's own school at what other people are doing even in the same style. You know if I'm a taekwondo person, and I love Taekwondo, I'm all in on taekwondo. That doesn't mean I'm not going to look at, oh, how does that Muay Thai person throw that kick? How does that person throw that cake? You know, maybe I'm looking at one specific technique, or maybe I'm just looking at, you know, I feel like I'd love some better X. I don't know, elbows. Maybe in that example, you know, I Yeah, the idea of using my elbows really resonates for me. And, you know, my taekwondo upbringing hasn't given me a lot in the way elbows, maybe I'll go down the street and do some Muay Thai for six months. And build up my elbow get throwin bows. Right. I'm kind of swimming if you're watching. Yeah, now we're dancing. I think that's been really advantageous. We're seeing so many blurry lines in not necessarily what is style to style, but the implementations. You know, when we ran our session at free training day. Right, we saw people who were throwing techniques that really "did not make sense for them in what they traditionally practiced" because they were able to move slowly enough that they saw different things in different ways. And I think that's awesome. I love watching that, because that leads to epiphanies. What's the best technique to throw the one that makes the most sense at that time, given those circumstances? The more techniques that you have to draw on? The better it is, the better you are rather.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly. You know, just the thought of looking outside of your own school at what other schools or styles or the way other schools do things is a great thing. And I don't think it would have the exposure it has today if it wasn't for the UFC?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are we missing any? I said, there has to be something else. I don't feel like we've covered it all.
Andrew Adams:
So the only other one I'm thinking of is when I enter the dojo now, I make sure to have a boombox playing my theme song.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You have entrance music.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. And that would not be as big as it was. If it wasn't for the UFC.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We just got demonetized on YouTube.
Andrew Adams:
No, I played us short enough clip that we're good. Okay, thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm at risk of piling on, I make sure to put on a poorly constructed truckers hat immediately after stepping off the training floor. Every Oh, that's fair. Yep. For to thank my sponsors. Now. I will say that even though we're being playful at that. Nobody's paying to watch traditional martial arts on pay per view. The closest thing we have is the karate combat folks, and they're doing great stuff. But those numbers are just dwarfed.
Andrew Adams:
They're a abysmal.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great contraction of dismal and abysmal, A brand new word. It's like chillaxing. Yeah, there you go. Andrew made a new word. I hope everyone uses it. Entertainment value is important. We've talked about it ad nauseum on this show over the years more so are in the early years. If things are fun, people stick around. If people enjoy watching a thing or doing a thing, they stick around. And we see that in MMA culture you and I just recorded an episode on culture. MMA culture tends to be, tends to have entertainment instilled at a more fundamental level than being you know, the salt sprinkled on top as the reason most traditional martial arts schools. People that train in MMA gyms in my experience tend to hang out with each other more. They tend to go to events together more, they tend to be more open to cross training and doing other things more. And I think those are all really good things. We talk about the martial arts lifestyle. MMA practitioners tend to embody a lifestyle of what they do more so than traditional practitioners.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah, I could see that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not everyone. Certainly not. But if we were to find somebody to score the average,
Andrew Adams:
yeah, yeah, yeah, I can See that?
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. Did we miss anything if you're watching or listening, thank you. But if there's an element here that we missed, we want to hear from you best thing to do, check out the Facebook group whistlekick martial arts radio behind the scenes and post your feedback there. Why do we like it there rather than emailed? Well, because then people can respond. If you've got something that's horribly critical, and you really want to tear us apart. Yeah, please email us privately, Jeremy@whistlekick.com Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. But most of the time, I think people know we're being fair, and we're doing the best we can. So if you have something to add, if you do it publicly, it gives everybody the opportunity to learn and have some conversation about it. And I think that's really important, because we're all trying to learn from each other. We're trying to build this community. If you want to share this episode, please do. If you want to check out all the episodes, please do in your podcast feed or whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you want to support us, you can tell people what we're doing. You can leave reviews by books on Amazon by some using the code, PODCAST15, like one of our training programs, or even support the Patreon PATREON.com/whistlekick as little as two bucks a month you can get in on there. And I think that's it for today. So thanks, everybody. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.