ReMA vs. MMA

[M Wallgren]

Hehehe... Well, I havea gotta some Italaino blood so watta I know! (shrugging in a very mideteranian way)

Deveriation from the post WARNING!

hehe...

Thanks for the very diversed answers to my post!

Sofar I have the poll like this:

Genting into a MMA contest wearing the colours and badge of ARMA...

For: Martin, Jeff and Joachim
Against: Nobody so far...

Martin

[JeffGentry]

Hey Martin

I think you should if nothing else for yourself it will show you what you are lacking in your training.

And it is the closest thing we have to realy test this.

Jeff

[david welch]

Well, hopefully at the end of this everyone will be offended.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. WMA is supposed to be war craft. MMA, no matter how effective it is in the ring, is a sport. And this is nothing but the samuri/knight question in a different wrapper.

The idea that one of my favorite sport fighters, Chuck Liddell, has the tools to have been able to keep himself alive on a medieval battlefield because he is good at MMA is absurd. WMA, set up as a combat art, keeps in mind you may not be facing just one opponent, you may be disproportionately armed, you may be trying to transition to a weapon, you are on unforgiving terrain, etc., etc. None of which a MMA artist would care about.

Just as absurd is the idea that one of the Masters would be able to win a UFC title. Just the list of rules in MMA takes away a considerable amount of tools a master would have used. Add to that the fact that Fiore Dei Liberi says there are techniques that are not even safe to train, but yet it would be ok to use them in a competition?

These are two completely and totally different things, and the less people try to compare a sport to military training to kill your enemy, the better off I think we will all be.

How about in a different thread, we discuss if you could validate WMA by raising a Master from the dead and giving him a foil and making him compete against an olympic fencer?

[Gene Tausk]

Jeez - a person is hard at work over a two-day period and misses looking at the posts and look at what happens.

First - thanx to Shane for stepping in and toning things down.

Second - this thread is about two seconds away from being closed. I am appalled at some of what has been going on here. Tone it down or get off the forum.

And, while we are on the subject - get it back on track to unarmed combat. Any more personal snipes and this thread is closed, pronto, and I will discuss with John about having certain individuals re-read our forum rules before being allowed back on.

This is ridiculous that I even have to make such a post.


---------------->>>>>>>>>>>gene tausk
SFS
Director - ARMA Southside Houston study group

Forum moderator

[M Wallgren]

Hi David!

I would like to comment a few things.

This was not at all intended as a question in what would be the best thing, MMA or RMA. More a thing on what experinces people have of crosstraining and sparring against our brothers in the modern MMA. Seondly and foremost it was a question on what people thought of competing in open fighting events as an Official ARMA member.

Add to that the fact that Fiore Dei Liberi says there are techniques that are not even safe to train, but yet it would be ok to use them in a competition?

Nops, I don´t think one would be allowed to use those technics. In the beginning of Codex Wallersteins Ringen Section there is a reference to how to train and sparr. The author calls this Friendly Play and say that the "Forbidden" ringen should not be applied in this. He also states that in this kind of play a bigger stronger fighter always will have the upper hand if I dont remember wrongly. (I don´t have a copy here right now.)

Thank you Gene for straiting things out.

Martin

[david welch]

This was not at all intended as a question in what would be the best thing, MMA or RMA. More a thing on what experiences people have of crosstraining and sparring against our brothers in the modern MMA. Seondly and foremost it was a question on what people thought of competing in open fighting events as an Official ARMA member.

Again, why would you want to do that? The MMA people found out that the answer to one opponent, no weapons, no "foul moves", and a soft floor is a combination of styles for striking and grappling, with an advantage of going to the ground and wrapping up your opponent if you are in trouble. If you competed in an ARMA shirt, to be competitive you would be doing MMA in a red shirt. What you would be doing would have nothing to do with ringen.

Nops, I don´t think one would be allowed to use those technics. In the beginning of Codex Wallersteins Ringen Section there is a reference to how to train and sparr. The author calls this Friendly Play and say that the "Forbidden" ringen should not be applied in this. He also states that in this kind of play a bigger stronger fighter always will have the upper hand if I dont remember wrongly. (I don´t have a copy here right now.)

"Friendly Play" for exercise and training would be completely different from competing in a MMA match.

[Jay Vail]

The best way to fight a MMA fighter is not to fight by their rules. The rule set of MMA is a sporting rule set. You can’t attack the eyes, throat or fingers. In real life, these are your PRIMARY TARGETS on the ground. On the ground, you are a fool to wrestle anybody, especially if you are the smaller, weaker party. I personally know of an instance in which a female police officer, weighing about 130 (your standard issue woman), was attacked by a 250+ guy during a routine traffic stop. He grappled with her. She thrust a finger in his eye. End of fight. I can tell you other stories with similar results. At the end of the day, MMA is about sport not about life and death, and that makes all the difference in how you respond. Ringen is both for sport and for life, as Fiore said. He knew the difference, and so should we.

[G.MatthewWebb]

Martin,

Jay and David raise some very good points that the rules of competition may not allow you to use the full panoply of effective techniques that Ringen has. On the other hand, sparring against a resisting opponent provides invaluable feedback that may not be attainable in other ways and is, after all, a part of the ARMA study method. Perhaps competing as an individual first (without wearing the red shirt), would be more prudent. See how using Ringen fares. If you crush your opponents and make their women weep, then maybe wearing a red shirt in the future is not such a bad idea. If you represent ARMA and lose because of rules, most people will conclude that ARMA and Ringen are to blame for your loss and not the rules of engagement. This is not a correct conclusion but it is how most people operate. <img src="/forum/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

Keep honing your Ringen skills. Inspire us all with your prowess. Perhaps one day soon, you can teach us what you have learned. I look forward to that day. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Matthew Webb
Oklahoma City, OK
USA

[Jay Vail]

Thanks, Matt.

Gene, you really should close this thread. I'm sorry, after reading all the posts again, that I got involved. This is the usual "my style is better than your style" debate. It is pointless for many reasons. In future, Armateers, lets not have these kinds of discussions. They naturally inflame people, who have deep emotional commitments to their style or approach to fighting, and never lead to any meaningful resolution.

[Jake_Norwood]

Hi Jay.

I agree with your sentiments. However, the thread started as a valid question about the capabilities of RMA compared to other styles. Not so much "A is better than B," but "what are A's advantages over B, and vice versa." It's highly unfortunate that things turned as they did, because *that* is a very valid and (IMO) important discussion.

Jake

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jay

Gene, you really should close this thread. I'm sorry, after reading all the posts again, that I got involved. This is the usual "my style is better than your style" debate. It is pointless for many reasons. In future, Armateers, lets not have these kinds of discussions. They naturally inflame people, who have deep emotional commitments to their style or approach to fighting, and never lead to any meaningful resolution.

Well i personaly don't agree with not having these discusion's everyone just need's to leave emotion at the door and not get aggravated.

Most of us here are adult's, if we can't have a discussion and disagree with each other with out it turning in to an argument of this is better than that, why are we here?

I am not a scholar(i.e not much secondary education), i learn through reading, discussion and trial and error and taking a good old fashioned butt kicken.

These type's of discussion's are important in my mind to assist us in our effort's of reconstructing HEMA as a valid martial art.

IMHO

Jeff

[Jay Vail]

Jeff and Jake, agreed that the initial question was an innocent one.

[Jaron Bernstein]

I don't look down on things Swedish. I am very fond of the Swedish band Garmarna. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" />

My sense is that ringen historically had all 3 ranges (kicking, striking/close grappling/throws, groundwork). The problem as I see it is that the manuals I am aware of don't list or explain as many of the unterhalten (what would be groundwork) material as you would need to successfully use them in groundfighting in a MMA competition with someone who does a lot of groundwork from BJJ for instance. I am NOT saying that they weren't part of it (Ringeck lists several), but compared to the standing stuff which gets lots of manual time, the manuals I am aware of don't provide enough to adequetely reconstruct that aspect.

I do agree with our Swedish colleagues that you need to train as intensively as an MMA fighter if you are to use this in real life or in a competetion effectively.

[Jaron Bernstein]

"Has anybody sparred or trained against/with any MMA Fighters?

If so it would be very interessting to hear what your experiences from this you have aquired."

Yup. Just some friendly training, nothing very seroius. Standing I did just fine. As soon as it went to the ground, I was done.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jay

The problem as I see it is that the manuals I am aware of don't list or explain as many of the unterhalten (what would be groundwork) material as you would need to successfully use them in groundfighting in a MMA competition with someone who does a lot of groundwork

That is a good point, how valid it is i don't know, personaly i haven't seen much text on groundwork myself i know some have said it is out there, I just haven't seen it.

I do know some of the standing lock's can be done from the ground, I do agree with out text on groundwork it would make thing's more difficult nearly impossible to use Ren. martial art's exclusively.

Now if you can use the clinch and keep it standing and/or close you may do ok.

It seem's to me a matter of realy controling the fight and not doing or letting your opponent do what they want, they want to stand take them down if they want to go down keep them up.


Jeff