Many guys ask to start MMA with no martial arts background at all, thinking MMA is like any single discipline. They want MMA and if you explain what crosstraining is, they get disappointed and go to find some more commercial gym that has MMA 2 times a week 1,5 hrs each class.
I personally think they should build up a decent background in one/two disciplines, going for the rest after a while and then crosstraining.
Your ideas?
Agree I think it's funny how people want to be MIXED martial artist w/o know a martial art to mix with another...
Ive yet to make the leap, Muay Thai has always been passion. started in Kung Fu as Child, then moved to Muay Thai at 15. some people dont truly love Martial arts, just want the groupie love that comes with trane of UFC tekniques
I agree with you.
You need a solid base in at least ONE thing that you can always go back to when things get hairy.
Just being trained in "MMA" is a "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario.
ttttttttttt
DinoFuoco - Many guys ask to start MMA with no martial arts background at all, thinking MMA is like any single discipline. They want MMA and if you explain what crosstraining is, they get disappointed and go to find some more commercial gym that has MMA 2 times a week 1,5 hrs each class.
I personally think they should build up a decent background in one/two disciplines, going for the rest after a while and then crosstraining.
Your ideas?
oh fren, you are breaking the whole into parts. don't explain what you are teaching just teach.
PatK - I agree with you.
You need a solid base in at least ONE thing that you can always go back to when things get hairy.
Just being trained in "MMA" is a "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario.
I'm on the other side of this one. I think if your a boxer/jiu-jitsu guy, your missing a lot of MMA stuff. Boxing has to be altered for MMA. Jiu-jitsu has to be altered for MMA. If you have a guy thats done this alteration, and teaches a "new" style based solely on what he has learned as applied to MMA, you have a DIFFERENT style, approach, techniques, etc...
I think a lot of guys are a mix of a couple styles and miss out on what MMA has the potential to be when trained as its own artform.
Just go over the base of fundamentals in all areas. Strengthen the aspects he acclimates well too, work on the areas he has trouble with.
I never had a backround in anything before I started mma and I'm doing just fine. The only thing I had going for me was a good natural athletic ability.
The most dominant up and comers are all kids that learned "MMA" from the start and not each discipline individually...
DinoFuoco - Many guys ask to start MMA with no martial arts background at all, thinking MMA is like any single discipline. They want MMA and if you explain what crosstraining is, they get disappointed and go to find some more commercial gym that has MMA 2 times a week 1,5 hrs each class.
I personally think they should build up a decent background in one/two disciplines, going for the rest after a while and then crosstraining.
Your ideas?
I think they're doing it because it's the right thing to achieve their goals.
At Team Quest they have classes for wrestling, Thai boxing, Tae Kwon Do, and bjj. They also have the mixed martial arts class that puts everything together. It works great for me and I came into it with some Kung Fu experience which was pretty much worthless.
When I first started I used to go to the mma class only. I realized that I would not be able to work on the different facets of the game on an individual basis and therefore I wouldn't be good at any one thing, let alone them all. However, after working on the techniques in the other classes I was able to put it all together in mma.
So I would say that you need to work on each discipline individually in conjunction with your mma training for the best results. I'm not saying I'm great because I'm not, but it has worked for me as far as making improvement and progress.
MMA is a sport not a style
Really athletic helps even with no official MA training.