5 Things Missing in MMA for Self Defense • Martial Arts Journey
Many MMA practitioners believe that MMA is a complete form of self defense. While MMA fighters would do much better in a self defense situation than an untrained fighter, there are still some crucial things missing from MMA that if not addressed may raise great danger to an MMA practitioner in a self defense situation.
5 Things Missing In MMA for Self Defense
MMA is probably one of the greatest and toughest sports of this day. While many sports have to encompass one particular set of skills, MMA fighters have to encompass a wide range of different skills, such as striking, kicking and grappling. For this wide spectrum of skills, and intensity of the fights, MMA fighters are often considered as some of the toughest competitors of all sports. Yet while they are amazing at their set of skills, and the ability to fight in a consensual duel, sometimes MMA practitioner believe, that it covers the whole range of skills necessary for a self defense situation. Personally, I think that MMA fighters will have a huge advantage in self defense, over an untrained attacker, yet it is still highly important to recognize both the strengths and shortcomings of any practice. For this reason, in this Martial Arts Journey video we will take a look at 5 things missing in MMA for self defense.
Number 1: Dealing with Weapons
While an MMA fighter is very adept in dealing against a bare handed opponent, the use of weapons – both striking weapons and also guns, changes the situation dramatically. While an MMA fight will normally never lead to the use of weapons, thus most training do not include teaching the skills to deal with them, a self defense situation has no limitations in this realm. Dealing with a weapon may include additional skills such as keeping extra distance and using objects in between, finding an improvised weapon, blocking the hand which holds the weapon and more. These are not just trained physical skills, but also specific knowledge which needs to be addressed, and does not come as general knowledge. While dealing with weapons is not taught in most MMA gyms, if an MMA fighter ever gets into a situation where he has to deal with one, without special preparation, it may lead to disaster.
Number 2: Dealing with Multiple Attackers
Because of the rules, an MMA fight always happens between two fighters. This, of course, is not the case in many self defense situations. Fighting against more than one person, same way as including weapons, adds a very whole new dimension to the situation. If a fighter is used to train, and fight with just one person, he may spend too much time focusing on one attacker, while others are attacking from different directions, which makes it almost impossible to defend from. Also, going to the ground is not an option in such a situation, and if not considered before, may very well happen as a habit of an experienced MMA fighter. Additional skills are also required such as using objects, or even an attacker, to prevent others from attacking at the same time, and these skills need to be trained upon themselves. If the situation of multiple attackers is unaddressed and specifically untrained, it may cause very much danger even to the best fighter.
Number 3: Dealing with an ambush
While MMA is the king of dealing with a consensual fight, most self defense situations will not include a consent between both participants, and will start with an ambush, which adds a different dimension. While the mastered reaction time of an MMA fighter may definitely help in such a situation, it is usually trained against specific attacks, from a prepared fighting stance, against a visible and known opponent. Having a random attack coming from any direction, when the defending person is in no means in a fighting stance, may require a more primal response which at best circumstances, needs to be also given time to be trained. Such a situation may also require additional skills such as using hands as a fence, if the potential attacker is visible, maintaining distance from potential danger, and observative skills which lead to the next point.
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In your experience, do many MMA practitioners see MMA as a complete form of self defense or do you believe that it is a myth upon itself? Let me know, I'm curious to hear about your experience.
1. Weapons Sure a lot of MMA and BJJ people may have inadequate skills to deal with a weapon. However the schools that claim to teach how to defend weapons only teach compliant drills that wouldn't be effective against a resisting opponent. The same problems that stop these styles from being effective unarmed also stop them from being effective against a weapon.
At a BJJ school a couple of years ago, we were inspired to do full resistance training with weapons. Obviously prop weapons so no one got hurt, but still we tried alive sparring with weapons. We tried asymmetrical sparring where only one person has weapons and sparring where both have weapons.
We found the truth is someone with a weapon has a HUGE advantage against someone who does not. There's a reason people use weapons. They work. Sure it's possible to SOMETIMES disarm and retrain and attacker, but in most case the person with the weapon wins.
And for anyone who says we didn't have proper training, our instructor was a guy who had a background in Kali and Krav Maga. He had been down the "street" self defense road before.
1. Multiple Attackers
I'll admit intentionally going to the ground is bad with multiple people, BUT grappling training is essential to stop a take down, so wrestling and BJJ would be a huge aid if used correctly.
Also, like I said with weapons, the people that claim to train against multiple attackers usually do compliant drills that wouldn't realistically provide any advantage. The best performance I've seen in multiple attacker scenarios is when someone has a background in a good striking style like boxing.
That said, 1 vs Many is typically a losing situation no matter who is fighting.
3. Deescalation/Avoidance
In my opinion the best bet in theses situations. I don't walk around with my dick in my hand acting like and idiot. Therefore I don't get into fights. The only time I've ever been in self defense situations is when I was separating two other people fighting, or one or two time where someone else just attacked me.
I've been in three confrontations that turned violent in my life. I can say I BJJ helped me in all three indecent, and the Aikdo and Krav Maga I've done accomplished nothing. 2 out of three resulted in no one getting hurt and one landed my attacked in jail after the hospital.
These are 5 points/reasons why MMA ( not the Mexican version) is sh*t for martial arts. Any martial art that cannot deal with multiple attackers, weapons nor basic self defense concepts cannot be referred to as the KING of ANYTHING.
These are 5 points/reasons why MMA ( not the Mexican version) is sh*t for martial arts. Any martial art that cannot deal with multiple attackers, weapons nor basic self defense concepts cannot be referred to as the KING of ANYTHING.
Too many martial arts students and teachers don’t know the difference between combat sports and martial arts. Ones fighting for prizes and the other is fighting for you life. In case of assailants the more the betters. One assailants knows he has the advantage because he’s armed. A gang of youth just want to pound you out most times. A well train judo expert will do better against multiple assailants than a BJJ expert because you can’t hump more than one at a time without involving liquor. An expert boxer will do better than the judoist because of the quickness he dispatches the fist contact. The smoothness and relax nature of his punches will back off most his assailants. The karate guy has the potential of doing the best out of the other martial artist depending on what he’s wearing and provide he doesn’t strike up any stupid poses and keep techniques simple low leg kicks ,sweeps and punches.
thankfully I have no experience when it comes to defending myself on the street or in a public place. But I'm one of those weirdos training in boxing (with the forethought of defense against other martial arts types and incorporating some old school boxing techniques), but I have more of a traditional martial arts mindset. So many boxers and MMA practitioners just want to fight, and it's kind of irritating, honestly. I bare with it for the sake of learning, though.
An mma fighter is going to be the best with dealing with someone attacking them at. I'm sure they would do better than the average person taking a self defense course. Nothing's perfect but knowing your ranges and how to do/avoid punches, kicks, take downs, submissions gives you the best chance you can have realistically
Thank you for making this video. One of the issuse that I had well on the Martial Arts subreddit (which I know that you post on) is when MMA guys get on there wanting to point out all the problems with traditional Martial Arts and wont admit the flaws and lacks in MMA.
The only part is missing is about weapons and street tactis. Fma and self defence sytems along street philosophy can help with that and a lot mma gyms also have systems like krav maga ,systema,defendu etc that they teach and can crosstraining. Mma in the mos complete unarmed sport amd form of unarmed batlle, trust an mma can use dirty way better than some other artist necause he understand distance, positions,strikes, holds. Also that miss more jn mma is street philosophy than the weapon part but there is gjj that have vale tudo and combat sambo that have self defence curriculum. An mma is way more possible live a live astreet fight than aikidoka. Also mma belong to reality based self defence category unlike bullshido
MMA fighters do truly believe that the sport is complete and the best method for self defense. A lot of fighters train one gym for multiple martial arts which I always thought was a little weird
I think the premise is too trivial. Most people don't think mma is perfect self defense. Yet it does help in all these situations, most of which you can hardly train for realistically, but comes from experience. But most people with mma knowledge never get to situations like these as they alreday have sense of aggression and fight instinct. Those that do are the less smart ones, or met someone really stupid.
There is one issue with training for self defence. I don't know about other countrys but here in the UK, as I understand it, 'Self-Defense' allows only for proportional force. So you must also include restraint in your training and self-control. If someone starts hitting you and you injure them, break or dislocate a limb say – you could find yourself on the wrong side of the law. The law will take into account that you have trained to fight against you.
I was in an MMA School I went to self defense orientated school just for the reasons you mentioned I didn't feel it covered those aspects so I didn't feel it was enough to keep me safe so I left.
Wow my friend Rokad one thousand views until now for a video released just few hours ago. Hurray for you! I started to train and feell the taste of mma classes on.a academy 2 weeks ago. Also i keep my teaching ma classes not in dojos and academy right now. I talked with peoples on the gym/academy mma,and they do think training only mma gives them superiority and fullfill their skills to street fight and self defense. I will show your videos to my senseis and talk with them about your oppinnions. It will be great for me. You pointed crucial facts about mma on this video. Your videos always help me. Danke mein freund. Gambate.
Also could have added that mma fighters usually fight people around their size. In a real fight a 150lb man might be froce to fight a 250lb muscle bond man.
1: what martial art is good for defending against weapons? If you can teach me a martial art that can teach you genuine good weapon defenses i'd be impressed
2: same as number 1, in fact most arts that do teach you how to fight multiple men they'd do worse than an MMA fighter
3: same as the last one. MMA fighters will be better at reafting to an ambush than most other martial artists. The ambush is only useful for the instant it occurs, if the fighter recovers then the ambush no longer has an advantage
4: most MMA fughters wouldn't try to get into a fight because you don't fight unless you're getting payed. They're slso not likely to be attacked in this way because they're built like tanks
5: gtfo
There is not much of a gap to translate between MMA and self defense. These guys fit professional badasses for money, and yet you seem to think to a punch to the face by Dave from down the road is going to be fatal for them. If you tried to ambush these people using any kind of eye poke or groin shot you still wouldn't win. Because MMA fighters are just as tough as a normal person, except they're a thousand times tougher. Tougher means it takes more damage to hurt them, the kind of power you'd need to hurt them is enough to break your wrist. The kind of power they could hit you with is enougb to break your skull. Not to mention they have striking and grappling. Of course they don't do groin strokes etc but that"/ not a criticism. If i have let's say some instant no touch knockout (letms assume i really do) and i can teach it, and it's real and it works 100% of the time as long as you do the technique right, saying 'yeah but you don't do grappling) isn't a valid criticism. Similarly, an MMA fighter is tougher than nails, experienced, fast, conditioned, fit, monstrously strong, massive, has pin point striking, instant takedowns and demonic grappling skills. Saying 'yeah but they don't kick to the groin' is not a valid criticism. Also putting completrly unreasonable feats infront of them like 'yeah but can you fight 5 guys' or 'yeah but can you beat a gun', things that no martial art can do, is not valid criticism. And saying things like 'nobody explicitly told them to run away from knoves' is not valid criticism either.
The kinds of critiques here are the kind i give in school exams when i can't think of actual criticisms but know i need to to get the marks. The criticisms are completely unnecessary. It's like having a car that is 100% efficient then sahing 'yeah but i can't eat it' it doesn't add anything. I think MMA is probably the best self defense martial art, and the only criticism i can really think of is that the athletes are so aggressive and hardcore and used to beating guys who have balls of steel that if they seriously fought an average hoodie they'd beat them to near death without realising it. I do judo, and i didn't realise until recently how far back you can bend an average person's arm before they wince in pain. Usually i bend my opponent's arm a little before they tap, and that's only when the pain starts. Then i found out most average guys' elbows only go straight, and any pressure no amtter how small beyond thatcauses intense pain. MMA isn't perfect by any means. If you just start straight with MMA you become a generalist: a person who's shit at everything but because you can do them all at once you get away with it. So i think specialising is probably better. A grappling martial art is ideal for self defense, rather than a striking one, for many reasons. But if your life's at risk, then a striking art really shines through. And being able to do blth is ideal.
This is probably the worst video i've seen of yours, by a long shot too. And it's a combination of finding criticisms that aren't relevant, and underestimating the kinds of physical training these people go through. Even McGregor would beat Maywheather if there're no rules. And it's because McGregor is tough as nails and knows all the niches of fighting, and it's because of MMA.
If you want to be a more complete fighter combine MMA moves with self defense mind set & proven tactics. But if you want to be the most complete fighter join the U.S. military, and take advantage of all that they can offer you which is gun & knife training(both offense, and defense), wrestling & boxing, MMA, self defense against multiple attackers, military type Aikido(better than regular Aikido), and a lot of other means of survival. But all of the above in the military isn't guaranteed training. Some of it you got to request.
MMA is a complete art for unarmed fighting, it'll cover striking, grappling, takedowns, etc. Self defense, on the other hand, is not always about fighting, most of the time a conflict can be avoided with awareness of situations and submission, if a guy stomps on your foot, just apologise and move on, he probably is not worth the energy of a punch.
I basically agree with you but I don't like the sports VS reality comparison. Though MMA is a sport it's still real fighting. It's still standing in front of someone who tries to hurt you. I'd call it the difference between self defense and fighting, because yes, SD has a lot of characteristics that a fight doesn't have, but that's because of the nature of fighting and not because of the nature of sports.
An ambush is element of surprise I don't think anyone could prepare for that especially if having weapon. Regardless of traditional or modern arts. I dont think MMA would add self defense training to there cirrculum, because it's not what they do. Meaning it would take away from the MMA whole objective as a sport. But I think fighters should seek courses , dojo, classes on real world scenario. It would show reality from sport. This gose for traditional martial artist as well. But great video sensei.
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In your experience, do many MMA practitioners see MMA as a complete form of self defense or do you believe that it is a myth upon itself? Let me know, I'm curious to hear about your experience.
Many good points. Good Video. Thank you
Just take up Krav Maga!
Just a few thoughts on this subject.
1. Weapons
Sure a lot of MMA and BJJ people may have inadequate skills to deal with a weapon. However the schools that claim to teach how to defend weapons only teach compliant drills that wouldn't be effective against a resisting opponent. The same problems that stop these styles from being effective unarmed also stop them from being effective against a weapon.
At a BJJ school a couple of years ago, we were inspired to do full resistance training with weapons. Obviously prop weapons so no one got hurt, but still we tried alive sparring with weapons. We tried asymmetrical sparring where only one person has weapons and sparring where both have weapons.
We found the truth is someone with a weapon has a HUGE advantage against someone who does not. There's a reason people use weapons. They work. Sure it's possible to SOMETIMES disarm and retrain and attacker, but in most case the person with the weapon wins.
And for anyone who says we didn't have proper training, our instructor was a guy who had a background in Kali and Krav Maga. He had been down the "street" self defense road before.
1. Multiple Attackers
I'll admit intentionally going to the ground is bad with multiple people, BUT grappling training is essential to stop a take down, so wrestling and BJJ would be a huge aid if used correctly.
Also, like I said with weapons, the people that claim to train against multiple attackers usually do compliant drills that wouldn't realistically provide any advantage. The best performance I've seen in multiple attacker scenarios is when someone has a background in a good striking style like boxing.
That said, 1 vs Many is typically a losing situation no matter who is fighting.
3. Deescalation/Avoidance
In my opinion the best bet in theses situations. I don't walk around with my dick in my hand acting like and idiot. Therefore I don't get into fights. The only time I've ever been in self defense situations is when I was separating two other people fighting, or one or two time where someone else just attacked me.
I've been in three confrontations that turned violent in my life. I can say I BJJ helped me in all three indecent, and the Aikdo and Krav Maga I've done accomplished nothing. 2 out of three resulted in no one getting hurt and one landed my attacked in jail after the hospital.
These are 5 points/reasons why MMA ( not the Mexican version) is sh*t for martial arts.
Any martial art that cannot deal with multiple attackers, weapons nor basic self defense concepts cannot be referred to as the KING of ANYTHING.
These are 5 points/reasons why MMA ( not the Mexican version) is sh*t for martial arts.
Any martial art that cannot deal with multiple attackers, weapons nor basic self defense concepts cannot be referred to as the KING of ANYTHING.
Too many martial arts students and teachers don’t know the difference between combat sports and martial arts. Ones fighting for prizes and the other is fighting for you life. In case of assailants the more the betters. One assailants knows he has the advantage because he’s armed. A gang of youth just want to pound you out most times. A well train judo expert will do better against multiple assailants than a BJJ expert because you can’t hump more than one at a time without involving liquor. An expert boxer will do better than the judoist because of the quickness he dispatches the fist contact. The smoothness and relax nature of his punches will back off most his assailants. The karate guy has the potential of doing the best out of the other martial artist depending on what he’s wearing and provide he doesn’t strike up any stupid poses and keep techniques simple low leg kicks ,sweeps and punches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYYX-8xFfDE
this is a excellent take (even if you don't like this guy just listen to what he says) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxTdnUI9DxM
thankfully I have no experience when it comes to defending myself on the street or in a public place. But I'm one of those weirdos training in boxing (with the forethought of defense against other martial arts types and incorporating some old school boxing techniques), but I have more of a traditional martial arts mindset. So many boxers and MMA practitioners just want to fight, and it's kind of irritating, honestly. I bare with it for the sake of learning, though.
An mma fighter is going to be the best with dealing with someone attacking them at. I'm sure they would do better than the average person taking a self defense course. Nothing's perfect but knowing your ranges and how to do/avoid punches, kicks, take downs, submissions gives you the best chance you can have realistically
Thank you for making this video. One of the issuse that I had well on the Martial Arts subreddit (which I know that you post on) is when MMA guys get on there wanting to point out all the problems with traditional Martial Arts and wont admit the flaws and lacks in MMA.
Great video
The only part is missing is about weapons and street tactis. Fma and self defence sytems along street philosophy can help with that and a lot mma gyms also have systems like krav maga ,systema,defendu etc that they teach and can crosstraining. Mma in the mos complete unarmed sport amd form of unarmed batlle, trust an mma can use dirty way better than some other artist necause he understand distance, positions,strikes, holds. Also that miss more jn mma is street philosophy than the weapon part but there is gjj that have vale tudo and combat sambo that have self defence curriculum. An mma is way more possible live a live astreet fight than aikidoka. Also mma belong to reality based self defence category unlike bullshido
MMA fighters do truly believe that the sport is complete and the best method for self defense. A lot of fighters train one gym for multiple martial arts which I always thought was a little weird
I definitely agree with this
I think the premise is too trivial. Most people don't think mma is perfect self defense. Yet it does help in all these situations, most of which you can hardly train for realistically, but comes from experience. But most people with mma knowledge never get to situations like these as they alreday have sense of aggression and fight instinct. Those that do are the less smart ones, or met someone really stupid.
There is one issue with training for self defence. I don't know about other countrys but here in the UK, as I understand it, 'Self-Defense' allows only for proportional force. So you must also include restraint in your training and self-control. If someone starts hitting you and you injure them, break or dislocate a limb say – you could find yourself on the wrong side of the law. The law will take into account that you have trained to fight against you.
I was in an MMA School I went to self defense orientated school just for the reasons you mentioned I didn't feel it covered those aspects so I didn't feel it was enough to keep me safe so I left.
Ever watched any of Bas Rutten's fight stories? If so, what did you think?
Wow my friend Rokad one thousand views until now for a video released just few hours ago. Hurray for you! I started to train and feell the taste of mma classes on.a academy 2 weeks ago. Also i keep my teaching ma classes not in dojos and academy right now. I talked with peoples on the gym/academy mma,and they do think training only mma gives them superiority and fullfill their skills to street fight and self defense. I will show your videos to my senseis and talk with them about your oppinnions. It will be great for me. You pointed crucial facts about mma on this video. Your videos always help me. Danke mein freund. Gambate.
Also could have added that mma fighters usually fight people around their size. In a real fight a 150lb man might be froce to fight a 250lb muscle bond man.
1: what martial art is good for defending against weapons? If you can teach me a martial art that can teach you genuine good weapon defenses i'd be impressed
2: same as number 1, in fact most arts that do teach you how to fight multiple men they'd do worse than an MMA fighter
3: same as the last one. MMA fighters will be better at reafting to an ambush than most other martial artists. The ambush is only useful for the instant it occurs, if the fighter recovers then the ambush no longer has an advantage
4: most MMA fughters wouldn't try to get into a fight because you don't fight unless you're getting payed. They're slso not likely to be attacked in this way because they're built like tanks
5: gtfo
There is not much of a gap to translate between MMA and self defense. These guys fit professional badasses for money, and yet you seem to think to a punch to the face by Dave from down the road is going to be fatal for them. If you tried to ambush these people using any kind of eye poke or groin shot you still wouldn't win. Because MMA fighters are just as tough as a normal person, except they're a thousand times tougher. Tougher means it takes more damage to hurt them, the kind of power you'd need to hurt them is enough to break your wrist. The kind of power they could hit you with is enougb to break your skull. Not to mention they have striking and grappling.
Of course they don't do groin strokes etc but that"/ not a criticism. If i have let's say some instant no touch knockout (letms assume i really do) and i can teach it, and it's real and it works 100% of the time as long as you do the technique right, saying 'yeah but you don't do grappling) isn't a valid criticism.
Similarly, an MMA fighter is tougher than nails, experienced, fast, conditioned, fit, monstrously strong, massive, has pin point striking, instant takedowns and demonic grappling skills. Saying 'yeah but they don't kick to the groin' is not a valid criticism. Also putting completrly unreasonable feats infront of them like 'yeah but can you fight 5 guys' or 'yeah but can you beat a gun', things that no martial art can do, is not valid criticism. And saying things like 'nobody explicitly told them to run away from knoves' is not valid criticism either.
The kinds of critiques here are the kind i give in school exams when i can't think of actual criticisms but know i need to to get the marks.
The criticisms are completely unnecessary. It's like having a car that is 100% efficient then sahing 'yeah but i can't eat it' it doesn't add anything.
I think MMA is probably the best self defense martial art, and the only criticism i can really think of is that the athletes are so aggressive and hardcore and used to beating guys who have balls of steel that if they seriously fought an average hoodie they'd beat them to near death without realising it. I do judo, and i didn't realise until recently how far back you can bend an average person's arm before they wince in pain. Usually i bend my opponent's arm a little before they tap, and that's only when the pain starts. Then i found out most average guys' elbows only go straight, and any pressure no amtter how small beyond thatcauses intense pain.
MMA isn't perfect by any means. If you just start straight with MMA you become a generalist: a person who's shit at everything but because you can do them all at once you get away with it. So i think specialising is probably better. A grappling martial art is ideal for self defense, rather than a striking one, for many reasons. But if your life's at risk, then a striking art really shines through. And being able to do blth is ideal.
This is probably the worst video i've seen of yours, by a long shot too. And it's a combination of finding criticisms that aren't relevant, and underestimating the kinds of physical training these people go through.
Even McGregor would beat Maywheather if there're no rules. And it's because McGregor is tough as nails and knows all the niches of fighting, and it's because of MMA.
If you want to be a more complete fighter combine MMA moves with self defense mind set & proven tactics. But if you want to be the most complete fighter join the U.S. military, and take advantage of all that they can offer you which is gun & knife training(both offense, and defense), wrestling & boxing, MMA, self defense against multiple attackers, military type Aikido(better than regular Aikido), and a lot of other means of survival. But all of the above in the military isn't guaranteed training. Some of it you got to request.
MMA is a complete art for unarmed fighting, it'll cover striking, grappling, takedowns, etc. Self defense, on the other hand, is not always about fighting, most of the time a conflict can be avoided with awareness of situations and submission, if a guy stomps on your foot, just apologise and move on, he probably is not worth the energy of a punch.
I basically agree with you but I don't like the sports VS reality comparison. Though MMA is a sport it's still real fighting. It's still standing in front of someone who tries to hurt you. I'd call it the difference between self defense and fighting, because yes, SD has a lot of characteristics that a fight doesn't have, but that's because of the nature of fighting and not because of the nature of sports.
An ambush is element of surprise I don't think anyone could prepare for that especially if having weapon. Regardless of traditional or modern arts. I dont think MMA would add self defense training to there cirrculum, because it's not what they do. Meaning it would take away from the MMA whole objective as a sport. But I think fighters should seek courses , dojo, classes on real world scenario. It would show reality from sport. This gose for traditional martial artist as well. But great video sensei.