This is a great article.
ps-I didn't write it.
The seeds of the modern-day MMA were planted in the Hermosa Beach garage of Rorion Gracie, son of Helio, brother to Royce.
When he began teaching jiu-jitsu in California's South Bay community, he attracted students that belonged to various karate, tae kwon do and boxing schools. All were fascinated by the exotic grappling-based style.
The story goes that the instructors of these other schools scoffed at the Gracie style and expressed their skepticism to their students. The result was a series of martial arts instructors, one after another, tapping on Gracie's garage.
When Royce entered the Octagon, he won fight after fight, establishing Gracie jiu-jitsu as a dominant martial art.
The sport of MMA owes its existence to Gracie and the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whose techniques like the rear-naked choke still enjoy wide success today. Ironically, in the intervening years, MMA has evolved in ways that diminish the value of the classic jiu-jitsu style.
The first such change was the introduction of the super fight at UFC 5. Today, all fights are what superfights were in the early days. In those tournament-style days of yore, the best fighters were sure to be exhausted by the time they met for the championship bout. By adhering to the classic jiu-jitsu principle of energy conservation, Royce Gracie did everything he could to ensure that he was the fresher fighter.
In the first superfight, his old nemesis Ken Shamrock was, like Gracie, rested and fresh, not having fought all night. Royce still won the superfight, but he spent 36 continuous minutes wearing Shamrock down before finishing him, the longest single round of combat in UFC history. This brings me to my second point.
What is the most valuable style in MMA
Jiu-Jitsu
Boxing
Kickboxing
Muy Thai
Wrestling
Tae Kwon Doe
SUBMIT VOTE vote to see results
The limiting of a fight's time and breaking the fights into rounds pulls fighters apart and gives them a break just as a tap is within the jiu-jitsu practitioner's reach. How many times have we seen a fighter locked in an inescapable submission saved by the bell seconds before a tap only to come back after a minute's rest and seize the win?
Further, the prevalence of the stand up in MMA is antithetical to the spirit of classic jiu-jitsu, which guides its students to slow the pace of the fight, to make the opponent exhaust himself trying to get free and, in the process, create for the savvy jiu-jitsu practitioner the space needed to hit the submission.
The brilliance is in having your opponent exhaust himself attempting to do exactly what you want. With referees standing up fights whenever the pace slows, this technique is much more difficult to leverage.
Finally, a new grappling-based art has arisen, which meets the challenges of the rules in MMA. Submission wrestling for MMA incorporates the positional control of wrestling, with ground and pound and submissions for finishing the fight. No longer having the time to wait for an opponent to wear himself down, these fighters pound the strength from their opponents prior to locking up a strangle or lock.
The effectiveness of classic jiu-jitsu is without question. But with the changes in the rules of the sport it was founded on and the rise of new arts to meet these rules, class jiu-jitsu is being supplanted as the go-to grappling style for MMA fighters.
ps-I didn't write it.
The seeds of the modern-day MMA were planted in the Hermosa Beach garage of Rorion Gracie, son of Helio, brother to Royce.
When he began teaching jiu-jitsu in California's South Bay community, he attracted students that belonged to various karate, tae kwon do and boxing schools. All were fascinated by the exotic grappling-based style.
The story goes that the instructors of these other schools scoffed at the Gracie style and expressed their skepticism to their students. The result was a series of martial arts instructors, one after another, tapping on Gracie's garage.
When Royce entered the Octagon, he won fight after fight, establishing Gracie jiu-jitsu as a dominant martial art.
The sport of MMA owes its existence to Gracie and the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whose techniques like the rear-naked choke still enjoy wide success today. Ironically, in the intervening years, MMA has evolved in ways that diminish the value of the classic jiu-jitsu style.
The first such change was the introduction of the super fight at UFC 5. Today, all fights are what superfights were in the early days. In those tournament-style days of yore, the best fighters were sure to be exhausted by the time they met for the championship bout. By adhering to the classic jiu-jitsu principle of energy conservation, Royce Gracie did everything he could to ensure that he was the fresher fighter.
In the first superfight, his old nemesis Ken Shamrock was, like Gracie, rested and fresh, not having fought all night. Royce still won the superfight, but he spent 36 continuous minutes wearing Shamrock down before finishing him, the longest single round of combat in UFC history. This brings me to my second point.
What is the most valuable style in MMA
Jiu-Jitsu
Boxing
Kickboxing
Muy Thai
Wrestling
Tae Kwon Doe
SUBMIT VOTE vote to see results
The limiting of a fight's time and breaking the fights into rounds pulls fighters apart and gives them a break just as a tap is within the jiu-jitsu practitioner's reach. How many times have we seen a fighter locked in an inescapable submission saved by the bell seconds before a tap only to come back after a minute's rest and seize the win?
Further, the prevalence of the stand up in MMA is antithetical to the spirit of classic jiu-jitsu, which guides its students to slow the pace of the fight, to make the opponent exhaust himself trying to get free and, in the process, create for the savvy jiu-jitsu practitioner the space needed to hit the submission.
The brilliance is in having your opponent exhaust himself attempting to do exactly what you want. With referees standing up fights whenever the pace slows, this technique is much more difficult to leverage.
Finally, a new grappling-based art has arisen, which meets the challenges of the rules in MMA. Submission wrestling for MMA incorporates the positional control of wrestling, with ground and pound and submissions for finishing the fight. No longer having the time to wait for an opponent to wear himself down, these fighters pound the strength from their opponents prior to locking up a strangle or lock.
The effectiveness of classic jiu-jitsu is without question. But with the changes in the rules of the sport it was founded on and the rise of new arts to meet these rules, class jiu-jitsu is being supplanted as the go-to grappling style for MMA fighters.
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