Ever since the beginning of combat sports, people have debated over which martial arts style is the superior. Whether a practitioners style is stand up (such as kung fu and kickboxing), or a grappling style (like wrestling and jiu-jitsu), martial artist can always argue many reasons why their particular style is best.
With the recent growing popularity of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), many martial artist are putting there skills to the test against various other styles. Given this environment, fighters quickly learned that in order to succeed in MMA, they must actually learn techniques from many other styles.
Learning and combining techniques from many martial arts styles is actually a new concept. In many traditions, it was thought to be dishonorable to have multiple teachers or abandon one school to go to another. Practitioners would train for years in a particular style under the same master, only expanding their combat knowledge in that field.
In the early days of MMA, many one-dimensional fighters were able to do well in MMA because they were so good at their particular martial art. Also most other fighters were one-dimensional in there discipline as well. An example of this would be Royce Gracie in the early days of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). He was so good at his style of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that he was able to defeat opponents much larger than himself and become champion.
With the evolution of MMA over the years, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) for a one-dimensional fighter to make it far. Most mixed martial artists practice at least three styles in order to have a victorious career. An example of one of these hybrid fighters is UFC welterweight Rory Macdonald. Rory started his martial arts career as a true mixed martial artist. He has never trained in any one traditional martial art. He started by studying all styles equally, and this method has lead to a winning record of 14-1 in MMA’s toughest organization.
MMA has given martial artist a true venue to see which style is truly the best. But after years of testing, fighters have realized the the best style is actually a combination of many.
Author: Jason Gandy
Published: April 27, 2013
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