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MMA/NHB
(Contributors: Rob Meyer - RobRPM2222@aol.com,
Christopher Kallini - chris@kallini.com)
Intro:
Mixed Martial Arts is both a style and not a style simultaneously.
It is both a new and old way of thinking about martial arts. It
bases the decisions about which techniques to use on their demonstrated
effectiveness by different practitioners in open, non-style-specific
sparring and/or competition that is designed to have as few rules
as possible while still ensuring safety against death or severe
permanent injury.
There are two main styles of MMA:
1. Sport MMA- Mixed Martial Arts designed for sporting competition,
such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Pride Fighting
Championship, or Vale Tudo style fighting matches. These matches
usually have two unarmed persons duking it out with the core rules
being: No biting, No eye-gouging (with fingers or chin) and No
fish-hooking (inserting body parts such as the fingers into bodily
crevices such as the mouth or nose). Groin attacks (striking or
squeezing the groin) are also often illegal.
The promoters may add more rules, or simply use what are considered
to be the core rules. More restrictive promotions of MMA include
Old Pancrase, Shootfighting, or RINGS rules. These rulesets often
ban striking on the ground, closed-fist striking, or both.
In general, boxing (kickboxing/muay thai included), wrestling
(Freestyle, Greco-Roman, and to a lesser extent Judo), and Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) are the three styles that comprise the core of
nearly all modern MMA training.
2. Street MMA- The principles of Mixed Martial Arts as applied
for non-sport situations. There seem to be fewer mixed martial
artists interested in this as compared to sport MMA, though the
number of practitioners is growing. In practice, many, though
not all, of the persons doing this come from a Jeet Kune Do background,
and sometimes call what they do Jeet Kune Do (ex. Matt Thornton,
Erik Paulson)
Their work is somewhat different from the JKD mainstream in calling
for large amounts of few-rules sparring, and they encourage their
students to do sport MMA sparring/competition. One can argue endlessly
whether what they do is or is not MMA or JKD- suffice it to say
there are similarities to both, and that JKD can be MMA and MMA
JKD.
Most Street MMAers believe that sport MMA merely needs some changes
in strategy (less emphasis on staying on the ground, more weapons
awareness) and the addition of some techniques to become highly
effective for the street. By far the most common addition to street-oriented
MMA is Filipino martial art (FMA) training, due to its emphasis
on, and practical use of weaponry, primarily the stick and knife.
Origin:
The sport developed worldwide in the current form circa 1997,
with the main centers of development being Brazil, the US, and
Japan. During the time of its development, there were many exchanges
of knowledge between the nations that developed MMA. Techniques
were taken from the martial arts and sports of Brazil, Japan,
England, America, Thailand, Holland, France, and Russia, along
with smaller amounts from other nations. Early MMA was internationally
popularized by the broadcast of the Ultimate Fighting Championship
I in November of 1993.
History:
The first documented Mixed Martial Arts style competitions, and
certainly the conceptual ancestor of todays MMA, were the Pankration
events of Classical Greece. Different styles of Greek wrestling
and boxing were utilized. However, unlike the early UFCs, there
was little emphasis on proving which style(s) worked best. Instead,
there was much more concentration on representing the city the
athletes came from, and each city's native styles were considered
to be equally good. Other forms of MMA have existed throughout
history, such as French Brancaille.
The first Ultimate Fighting Championship was the brainchild of
Art Davie and Rorian Gracie. Originally to be called War of the
Worlds, it ended up featuring a sumo wrestler, a boxer, a savateur,
two kickboxers, a kenpo man, a shootfighter, and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
fighter named Royce Gracie. Gracie swept by the other contestants
to win the tournament, and swept two of the next three tournaments
(Gracie could not continue due to heat stroke in UFC III) By the
time of UFC III, the referee was allowed to stop fights. After
UFC IV, Rorian Gracie pulled out of the UFC, and after UFC 6,
similar but smaller MMA events began popping up all over the country.
In the first few UFC tournaments, when the rules were limited
to the core three, a large variety of stylists competed. However,
few fared well. Boxers tended to dominate the striking, wrestlers
(Freestyle, Greco-Roman, and to a lesser extent Judo) dominated
the takedowns, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) dominated on the
ground. As a result, people began focusing on these three.
(Note- much of the information on the history of MMA came from
the book No Hold Barred: Evolution, by Clyde Gentry III, available
at http://www.groundfighter.com/)
Description:
Most Sport MMA fighters fall into one of three general categories-
the groundfighter, the wrestler, or the striker.
The groundfighter is the closest to a "pure" grappler one finds
in MMA nowadays. The groundfighter's strength is the ability to
force a fight to the ground, where they then seek a fight-ending
submission (joint locks or choke). While the ability to perform
takedowns is integral to groundfighting strategy, a clean, powerful
takedown is not as important to the groundfighter as it is to
the wrestler.
The wrestler is a stand-up and striking on the ground oriented
grappler, whose strength is usually the takedown. A common strategy
of the wrestler is known as "ground and pound." This refers to
the method of taking an opponent down, achieving a dominant ground
position, and finishing the fight with strikes.
The striker is also commonly known as the standup fighter, due
to their preference to stay on their feet and win with a knockout.
The strategy of the striker is called "sprawl and brawl". This
refers to their focus on nullifying takedowns (the sprawl is the
highest percentage defense to one of the more common entries to
a takedown in wrestling, the shoot) in order to stay upright and
exchange blows.
These categories should not be taken as exclusionary of other
categories - groundfighters learn at least the basics of wrestling
to be able to take down people and the basics of striking to keep
from getting KOed. Strikers learn enough wrestling to neutralize
takedown and throw attempts and enough groundfighting to get back
to their feet if they are taken down. Wrestlers learn enough groundfighting
or striking to protect themselves in one of those areas and to
be able to easily finish opponents with another.
On rare occasions, you will see fighters highly skilled (by MMA
standards) in all three areas. These types of fighters are becoming
increasingly common as the sport becomes more professional.
Training:
Training resembles boxing, wrestling, and BJJ training, but with
a much smaller selection of technique (for instance, the BJJ spider
guard is strongly de-emphasized in MMA, as are wrestling pins).
There is also a focus on 'putting it together,' using boxing to
set up a takedown, how to take someone down while maintaining
position for a submission, boxing on the ground, etc.
Street MMA may add weapon drills, awareness training, and changes
in strategy.
Sub-Styles:
Examples of Street MMA are the Dog Brothers style of martial
arts sparring (full-contact stickfighting with limited to no protective
gear and real sticks), Roy Harris' school in San Diego, CA, and
Frank Benn's school in Austin, TX. Reality Fighting and adrenal
stress/scenario training (such as that done by Model Mugging/IMPACT,
Tony Blauer, Peyton Quinn, etc. ) are also often large influences
on many of these programs.
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