Episode 655 - Is MMA Ruining Traditional Martial Arts
In this episode, listen in as Jeremy and Andrew ponder on Is Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Ruining Traditional Martial Arts?
Is MMA Ruining Traditional Martial Arts - Episode 655
What’s going to be talked about in this episode might ruffle some major feathers just by reading the title. Hold back on that because you are in for a very interesting talk about the question: Is MMA Ruining Traditional Martial Arts? In this episode, listen in as Jeremy and Andrew ponder on whether MMA is ruining the traditional martial arts and what impact does mixed martial arts to the traditional martial arts.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, we're asking the question is modern mixed martial arts (MMA), ruining traditional martial arts? We're gonna dig in some of you're probably already upset and have strong opinions. We're gonna go deeper. So just hang on, you can yell at us, in a moment. I'm Jeremy Lesniak joined by my frequent co-host, Andrew Adams, thanks for being here.
Andrew Adams:
And of course, it's always great to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I appreciate you coming up. And if you're new to this show, well, thanks for joining us. And I would recommend that you do a few things, the first thing I'd recommend you do is go to whistlekick.com, because that's where you're gonna find all the stuff that we've got going on whistlekick is far more than just this podcast or just a YouTube channel, or just our social media, there are actually quite a few things. Products, services, events, content, we do a lot of stuff and we do it for you, the traditional martial artists of the world. Why we do it? Well, because we have a fundamental belief that traditional martial arts makes people better. And so the more we can get people training, and keep them training and support their training, we feel the better people that are going to be and well call me optimistic, but I think it'll make the world better. If you want to go a little deeper on this show, go to whistlekickMartialartsradio.com. That's where you're gonna find all the episodes we've ever done, including an episode that we did within the first year, titled, Where is the Martial Arts in MMA? It's been a long time since we visited the subject. So that's kind of why we're doing it again, it's been five years, time to tackle it again. But in a different way, with more modern understanding,
Andrew Adams:
and with the co host
Jeremy Lesniak:
and with the co host. The goal of the show specifically is to connect, educate, entertain traditional martial artists, and that's why we do the variety of things that we do we bring you interview show on Mondays, we bring you a topic show, usually a topic show on Thursdays. And from that, you get some stuff stuff to think about. That's really what we want out of the show. We want you to think if you're not thinking if you're just angry, well take a step back. Why are you angry? Okay. So let's dig in. Let's define some terms first, okay. Because I, it's the debate guy in me, I don't know if you know, I don't know if I've talked, I think I've talked about it on the show, I did debate in high school. So whenever I step into a subject that might be a little murky or controversial, I want to make sure that we're on the same page 2:48. So traditional martial arts being things like Karate, kung fu, taekwondo, tai chi, depending on how you define them, boxing, wrestling, right. These arts that have been around for a little while. And by my definition, the focus is not necessarily combat skill, but training, personal development. Is your definition of traditional martial arts much different?
Andrew Adams:
No, not really, I don't think that it needs to be, it needs to have been around for any length of time. There are some what I would consider traditional martial arts that have only been around maybe 40 or 50 years, that can still be a traditional martial art. In my opinion.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You could develop your own system today that is rooted in traditional principles and leans on old martial arts. And I think you could call that traditional Martial ARts. The only other aspect of my definition that I didn't mention, because it's not really relevant here. Is that it's rooted in hand to hand combat. Oh, sure, you know, firearms, or driving a tank, not really a martial art, mixed martial arts. And if you had asked me years ago, my definition might have been a little different. It might have been the way that the term was originally used, which was, you know, cross training and a variety of martial arts with the goal of having a better expression of whatever your goal is. So if like, the goal is combat, we trained a bunch of different martial arts to get better at that if your goal is self defense. I'm going to do a bunch of different things. So hopefully, I am at less risk in a confrontation.
Andrew Adams:
I would agree that my definition may have changed in the last five to ten years as well as our school teachers traditional Shorin Ryu Karate but our school also teaches some Aikido and jujitsu stuff. Does that make me a Mixed Martial Artist? Because I do these different martial arts? You know, am I involved in MMA? I think you know, because because when you talk about terminology you've got, what is the dictionary say? And then you've also got, how is it used? Yeah, and those two as they become more and more different, lead to revision. And I think we're at a point where MMA mean something that is not necessarily what you've described, or where that term originally was. If we think of MMA, most people are gonna think of competition. And specifically in America, they're gonna think of the UFC and they're possibly going to think of specific people. And if someone stays up on MMA, they're probably going to think of specific arts that contribute in you know, the current crop of MMA practitioners seem in large part, I'm not going to say most, but in large part BJJ, Muay Thai, to a lesser degree boxing, wrestling.
Jeremy Lesniak:
MMA has in some people's eyes become almost almost a standardized curriculum. At this range you learn this, at this range, you learn this at this range, you learn this. And the reason one practitioners better than another is because they're better at transitioning from ranges, I hear those arguments made. Okay, so I think you and I are on the same page and listeners and viewers are at least spun up enough on what we think, yeah, we can have the conversation. So the premise of the show, the question to ask is, is what's going on in MMA ruining traditional martial arts? And that's a strong word, and is intentionally a strong word. Here's why it's a strong word. Is it having an impact? I think we would all agree.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Does what happens in a traditional martial arts school? Does it impact the conversation about MMA? Is it a significant impact? Ah, now we're getting somewhere now comes nuance. And you all know I love nuance, I love discussing nuance and what happens when conversations lack nuance. So that the idea of whether or not it's ruining comes from my observation, the question comes from my observation, that people who are aware of MMA, but not the nuance of martial arts overall and the context for mixed martial arts, let's let's just call it MMA. Let's not break it out. We kind of agreed those terms or maybe mean slightly different for most people. Is what's going on in MMA similar enough to traditional martial arts, that they're applying the same opinions. And here's where this really started to gel for me, whistlekick as a brand, initially whistlekick was me, only me. And one of the things I spent a lot of time doing this trying to raise money. And so I would go and I would talk to people and I would pitch at business competitions. And I would take meetings with people and say, you know, I want you to give me money so I can grow this business and here's why. And the number of people who, without me using the terms UFC, MMA, talking about any of the celebrity fighters from within that world would draw correlation. Oh, my cousin does MMA. Oh, I watched the UFC last week. Oh, what do you think of so and so? And early on it really like it stopped dead in my tracks. To me that was as different as saying, oh, martial arts. I play basketball. To me, they're that different? Because of the intent. And I'm probably taking a little bit of liberty, no, they're not that different. But it's still hit me very abruptly. Yeah, because I didn't connect the dots that they were similar. Over time, more and more people have drawn that connection. When I've been out in the world with you know, Joe Blo having a conversation about what I do. And then I started connecting that with the dots of how the average person perceives MMA. So now they're connecting what I do to MMA, and they're connecting certain negative emotions and perception to MMA. And that's where I started to really think about that syndicate. Yeah. Have you had any of that comparison? When you tell people that you do karate? Do they say, oh, MMA.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, absolutely. I think most people listening or watching would probably be hard pressed to have not had that happen. I think it's that prevalent and MMA has become such a large industry, that it's hard for anyone to not know that, in their opinion, know what it is. And it's really easily easy to correlate the two together, even though in my opinion, they're two totally separate things.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I will say the UFC has done a wonderful job capturing media attention. They with the variety of programming and on a variety of channels. You know, if you want to watch some MMA, not that hard to find it. And there's a good chance in the US, because this is the perspective I can speak from that it's coming from the UFC. You know, are there other fight promotions? Absolutely. But no one's gonna argue that they're not as big. I mean, pretty well established. Where I think I started to get upset about the relation was when certain individuals in MMA started breaking my definition of martial arts so blatantly that anyone could tell. Yeah, so my definition of martial arts, first two words, personal development. Personal development through the lens of hand to hand combat. Personal Development, one would argue them that over a stretch of time, if one is a martial artist, that they are becoming a better version of themselves. I don't think there are too many people who are going to argue that mean, you maybe you have a different definition. But if you've spent time training, you can you can look around and say, persons a better person than when they started. You know, maybe you don't see it day to day, but you start looking over the span of years. It doesn't mean you don't have setbacks or challenges. I'm a better person because of martial arts. I'm a better person now than I was five years ago, because of martial arts. Also, because of other things. But because of martial arts,
Andrew Adams:
But it plays a part.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you start to look at certain people who are in at the MMA world, and they're taking pages out of the playbook of professional wrestling. And it's pretty well documented that, you know, this is not solely my opinion, you watch the growth of the UFC, and things started to get really successful for them, when they started creating characters, and they started leaning into that characterization in a way that the only place I've ever seen it otherwise, is in professional wrestling. The difference being there is a perception, a widely held perception that pro wrestling is fake. MMA is not. So you get people getting up and having that pose shot, right, like they are fighting, right. And it used to be, you know, they'd get so pumped up, maybe there would be a shove and they would break them up. And now we've reached a point where I don't even have to name names. There are certain fighters that you know, they were in that pose somebody throwing a punch.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The organization could could find them for that. They could stop that if they wanted to be really easy.
Andrew Adams:
They have no desire to though
Jeremy Lesniak:
They have no desire to, why? Because it captures attention and attention means money. There are other things that we could look at to show that MMA and I want to be specific here. Most of what I'm talking about is from my perception of the UFC. There are plenty of amateur fight organizations that do not do this. Yeah, I actually really enjoy amateur MMA. Because you watch people beat the tar out of each other and then much of the time, maybe even most of the time based on promotions I'll go to, they hug or bow or shake hands when they're done
Andrew Adams:
Or become friends afterwards. They didn't know each other when they went in. And I saw this personally, I have a friend who did an amateur MMA fight. That's an older gentleman. Actually, both of the competitors were in their 40s, which is fairly rare. And they had never met each other, went into the ring. Obviously, one, one and the other one lost. And they became great friends afterwards.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that, to me, that's Budo, that is the spirit of traditional martial arts. And if that was the majority of what happened in a ring, or an octagon, or whatever,
Andrew Adams:
or what most people saw
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would have no problem calling that martial arts. Because it is. It's two people trying to get better beating the snot out of each other. And recognizing when the match is over, having respect the way you present yourself as has changed. Yep. So I don't want anybody to think you know, because I have a friend who has a fight promotion, right there, like one town over. He does a great job with it. I've been to his fights, I think the world of him and what he's done. There have been pro fighters who have been on this show. Why have they been on this show? Because they are martial artists who choose to engage in MMA, there's a difference. Okay, we got through that. When we look at the governing bodies, refusal to do anything about the... what I think we can all agree is crummy behavior, misconduct. We know that they are doing it for money ultimately becomes about money. So the organization responsible for orchestrating all of this has a financial interest in people not conducting themselves. Yeah. And if you take a look at conversation around the UFC, especially specific people, let's call a spade a spade. Conor McGregor is a dirtbag. Yeah. And why do I say he's a dirtbag? Why does Conor McGregor break my definition of a martial artist? Because he's a bigger dirtbag than when he started? Hmm. If you look at his behavior of recent, he is engaged in things and I'm not going to mention specifics because they're gross. He's become so infatuated the limelight and commanding the attention of people talking about MMA or sports or wherever you want to draw that line. That he's willing to do anything. Either he really is a horrible person, or he's willing to play the role of a a horrible person. There's no other option. Neither was okay.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, yep. And don't get me wrong. There are bad people in every arena. So it doesn't matter. Right. And there are bad people that teach traditional Karate
Jeremy Lesniak:
We talk about the bad people in traditional martial arts. In fact, I'd say the subject that we've attacked the most in the history of this show, is ego, unchecked ego in the martial arts, and what it leads to and why it's not okay.
Andrew Adams:
But here's the difference. Joe Schmoe bad karate instructor doesn't get the attention globally, as a bad UFC fighter, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sadly, but maybe positively. The local news isn't talking about martial arts instructors who have gone rogue or done crummy things. Very often, unfortunately. There are times but it's not about their conduct in class. It's not about their conduct in a competition. It's about their off the mat..
Andrew Adams:
Doing something bad outside of their school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. And yet, when someone like Conor McGregor, I'm gonna focus on him by name because he's the most popular MMA fighter in the world. Or at least my understanding is that he is. And I don't get to talk about anybody else as an example. When you look at someone like him, if the news whether it's ESPN or something else, talks about him, how do they describe him? And then they champion former MMA champion, mixed martial artists pro MMA fighter, whatever, there is always going to be some descriptor referencing him as an MMA fighter.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, always. You're right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And we already established that a huge number of people, maybe not most, but many equate MMA with martial arts. They love MMA and Karate and Taekwondo, they're all in the same bucket. And thus, if that person sees Conor McGregor or someone else being a scumbag, and that person also feels that MMA is similar to Karate and Taekwondo, are they more or less likely to enroll their children or themselves in a traditional martial arts program?
Andrew Adams:
I would make the argument less likely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hard enough. They are absolutely less likely. Yeah. If you are a parent, and let's say you're, you enjoy watching sports, maybe Sports Center, you know, and you hang out, you watch TV, sports center's on and you're catching football highlights and basketball highlights. And you catch them highlights from the most recent big name UFC. And you see Conor McGregor or somebody else being a dirtbag. Like, you know, my kids been asking me to take karate,
Andrew Adams:
I don't want to involve them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm gonna encourage them to do something else. Now, is there a middle ground? Is there a mile of nuance between connecting those dots? Yes. You know that? I know that. Will the public know that? The listeners and the viewers know that? Does the public know that? And I would say many of them do. I don't know that most of them do, but many of them do. And thus, we're talking about a substantial portion of the population who are going to withhold traditional martial arts training from their children, because of the exploits of some intentionally bad people. Bad actors governed, sanction by a group of people who allow them to do what they're doing. So the premise of the show is, is MMA ruining traditional martial arts? And the only thing we can ask ourselves to get to there is, how much of an impact is this having? I don't think we know yet.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I don't think we have the ability to say yes or no, I think it doesn't have an impact on traditional martial arts, I think yes. Is it ruining it? I don't know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're in a really interesting time right now. In order to say it was ruining it, we would have to see enrollment numbers go down. And we're going to get some people say, well, enrollments down at my school. Okay. Well, we're kind of in an awkward time with, you know, yep. What's going on and closures and everything. We also have other people might say, well, my school enrollment is up, because a lot of schools have closed. So I don't think we can say this yet. Now, obviously, anybody who's already trained, or has experienced training, is going to have the context to at least push back on this. They might not even be cognizant of it, but they're going to push back and say, you know what? I know that the karate school I went to was good. I know that the aikido school my cousin enrolled in was not like this. I I don't I understand that these things are different. I'm not worried. Anybody who's got their kid enrolled and they're happy with the school, doesn't matter. Whether or not they feel that the school their kid is in is a rarity, or the general rule doesn't matter. They're there. They're good to go. It's the people who are considering enrolling in martial arts. And I think for the most part, we're talking about parents and kids, how the parents handle kids training. We know that kids make up the majority of martial arts practitioners in the US. I don't know what percentage it varies dramatically by school, so I'm not even going to make a guess. But it's more than 50%. How much further is the conduct of a high level MMA fighter going to slide over the next few years? Do you see it correcting? Do you see them waking up one day and saying, You know what, the thing that we were doing that got us a lot of attention made us a lot of money, we're not going to do that anymore. Not a whole lot of examples of businesses doing that.
Andrew Adams:
Pretty few and far between.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We have seen momentum towards more people watching more people paying attention and now we're starting to see that attitude, that spirit coming outside of MMA into celebrity boxing. If the UFC were not a thing, I don't know that celebrity boxing would be a thing. And so now we've got a bunch of people who are famous for anything but fighting. Yeah, getting into fighting, boxing, because it sells tickets and makes them a lot of money. Why does it sell tickets and make them a lot of money? Because we like watching a fight story. People don't like watching fights. They like watching a fight story. They need context there.
Andrew Adams:
I don't know. I'm gonna disagree with you on that people don't like watching fights. It's been something that we as a culture have always liked. And I don't even mean just the US culture. I'm talking, when we look at the gladiator pits and, you know, putting people in a ring to fight each other people tend to always want to see that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I didn't say they don't like watching fights, they like watching fights with a story. The more of a story there is the more that we're going to watch.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, there'll be more invested for sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And perfect example, any of these celebrity fights brought in more money and had more viewership than any of the recent boxing promotions.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How many people can name Jake and Logan Paul? And can't name Tyson Fury? Most? Most people in the US would have heard of Jake and Logan Paul, because of what they have done. I mean, they really spearheaded celebrity boxing. But this current crop of it, you know, we had some stuff in the 90s.
Andrew Adams:
I remember Dustin Diamond went up against I think Donnie Osmond.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I mean, there's been some stuff there. But the money was not on the line the way it is today. And thus, it was not commanding the attention the way it is today. So that's a little bit different. You know, it's a little bit outside the premise. But my point is, I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Andrew Adams:
I don't either.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is it ruining? Are we in the process of traditional martial arts being negatively impacted and not seeing an endpoint in that negative impact because of MMA? Yes. Is MMA ruining traditional martial arts? Yes, but it's very slow.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I mean, if it's having an impact in a negative way at all, it's hurting it and if MMA continues to rise and grow a popularity, that impact that it has will continue to grow. So I guess I can see that. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now the only thing that gives me hope is that there's so much money on the line they're going to continue to do things. At some point, there's pushback. And I've heard that from some people I've talked to, specifically, it tends to be traditional martial arts, who have stopped watching the UFC. Like, I can't watch that anymore. It's gross. Doesn't mean I will watch it once in a while. Usually, if I'm around, friends, you want to watch kind of the same way I watch football. Sure, I'm not gonna sit down and choose to watch football. But if we're with friends who want to watch football sure it's a social activity, I can have some discussion about it. Same deal with MMA. Now, what can we do? We can make sure that when someone brings up MMA who doesn't train that they understand there's a difference? I'm not saying you call them out. I'm not saying you treat them poorly for not knowing. But make sure they understand. Hey, you know, you're right, those guys are kinda gross. I don't like it but you know what? My school, it's nothing like that. And would you be willing to come? You wanna come try a class and see how different it is? You want to come watch for a few minutes and see how different it is? What are you doing this weekend? We're all going to a competition. I will pay your admission just come hang out for an hour or two. And see what real martial arts is about. If you're not willing to change the conversation, the conversation will not change. We cannot do it alone because non martial artists are not going to walk the show. So I can shout and yell and jump up and down and have banners and posters and we can buy ads and do all kinds of insane things. But we're not going to do it. It is up to us as a community. To protect the thing that we love, traditional martial arts, so that people who are only out for money and are willing to stand on the back of traditional martial arts to get there. Don't have the weight to crush us.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I'm with you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you have feedback, I want to hear it. I want to know what you think. Here always you can give feedback. There is a video version of this episode, and you can find it on YouTube, you can leave comments there, that's probably the best place. Other places you could though, you could go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And you could find the show notes for this episode. We're not numbering them because I'm not quite sure when they're coming out. But you would have seen in your podcast player wherever what episode number this is, leave a comment there. You can also leave a comment on the Facebook group whistlekick Martial Arts Radio behind the scenes. But if you have feedback that you don't want to leave publicly email, Jeremy@whistlekick.com and if you have feedback you don't want me to see but you want to tell Andrew, Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Remember lots of ways you can support us and our effort to support the traditional martial arts patreon.com/whistlekick buy something at whistlekick.com use the code PODCAST15. Leave reviews on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Facebook, Google. I don't care about Yelp. Yeah, don't care about Yelp
Andrew Adams:
they can tell a friend.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They could tell a friend that's a great one. Buy a book, share an episode all that good stuff. Our social media is @whistlekick. We've got a newsletter you can sign up for on pretty much any of the websites that we do. Don't forget we have training programs. The flexibility program is free. And we've got a strength-building program and conditioning program. And a speed development program. There we go whistlekickprograms.com. That's it. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.