MMA FactCheck: Is MMA really safer than boxing? · TheJournal.ie MMA LIFE SHOP

Everybody buys into the concept of Deadly Martial Arts Techniques, but most schools don't deliver. Teaching Little Johnny, training for tournaments, these concepts take from the fighting arts. Interestingly, one need only understand the three stages of technique, or bunkai, and it doesn't matter whether you do karate or kenpo or taekwondo or whatever, and your art is going to become deadly.

The basic idea and principle of what you are doing must be understood. Often there are a bunch of little things that need to be understood, but they come together in a single idea. This idea is presented in the form, and it is why things like Karate kata or taekwondo poomse are actually vital training tools.

The form, you see, is a concept that is perfect. You practice it without distractions and you attempt to make each move as perfect as you can. You try to lose such things as reaction times, and you train your body to move more and more efficiently.

The second thing you need to do is apply the pieces of the forms in bunkai, or techniques. You need a touch of controlled distraction, you need to experience resistance. Most important, you need to experience the reality of bodies colliding with bodies.

The idea here is that you need to have somebody try to stop you from doing your tricks. This enables you to deal with real live opposition, and go through the doors that will enable you to make a trick work, and to find all the 'what ifs' that will get in the way of that workability. This is perfection pushed new levels of difficulty; this is learning how to make the art work in spite of anything that might get in the way.

The third thing is to take your skills and make them work in freestyle, or sparring. Here your kenpo techniques may not be so smooth and liquid, in spite of anything Mr. Parker might say, and you are going to have to push through all resistance and make them functional. Ultimately, as you test these applications and find the working parts, you are going to find the perfection of art that can be found in such forms as wankin and seisan and even lowly sanchin.

The thing you have to watch out for, in this process of smoothing out distractions, is getting sold on violence as a solution. You must not come to love the Joy of Combat that is so alluring. You must, in spite of the chaotic nature of the subject, hold to cold, calm logic; you must control yourself until you find yourself.

The martial arts are a project of finding yourself through intense workouts, and through the seeking and isolating of perfection in every movement you do. Perfection is there, you know, but you have to pay a price. Deadly Martial Arts Techniques, you see, can only be bought by inner peace.