Mixed Martial Arts

Mixed martial arts is a full contact sport that allows the combatants to use a variety of martial arts to attack and defend. The idea of the sport is that it would be more practical in a real combat situation to be able to draw on a variety of martial arts and attack techniques, rather than one single style. The fighters use a variety of techniques, including grappling holds, and kicks or punches. The rules of the sport do not allow biting, groin injuries, or other hand to hand techniques, preventing the sport from degenerating to the level of a bar room brawl.

The sport has its roots in a long history of combat sports like boxing, wrestling, and early Olympic sports like the Greek pankration – a form of unarmed combat. In the 1920's Vale Tudo in Brazil became popular, Vale tudo was unarmed combat sort that had very few rules, in fact even the name means “anything goes” in Portuguese, Vale tudo matched different styles against each other. Later, in the 1970's, Japan experienced increased interest in professional wrestling, particularly the mixed martial arts matches that were known as shooto, and combined the different techniques of various martial arts, allowing combatants to use strikes and grapples.

From these two roots the modern sport of Mixed Martial Arts evolved. Wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu were two of the important techniques used during the early days of the sport. The wrestling gave the combatants strong groundwork positions, while Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, which was based on Judo, had both take-down techniques and grappling stances, making it invaluable for fighters. While it focused on ground techniques, the idea was that smaller fighter could use leverage to take down a larger opponent, which has also made it a popular with self defence training.

These ground work based styles were originally the most effective styles in the sport, as strike-based opponents were unused to dealing with the different submissions and holds emphasised in wrestling and Brazilian Jui-jitsu. The fighters trained in strike martial arts like karate, had to cross-train in order to be able to deal with the grappling of the groundwork, hence the mixed martial arts. Although fighters will still train to a particular strength, strike fighters will be well versed in grappling techniques, and ground-based fighters will train to improve their striking skills to give them an advantage.

The three main section of mixed martial arts are known as stand-up, clinch, and ground. Each phase utilises different martial arts techniques. Stand-up is when boxing, Muay Thai, and kick boxing comes into play, using kicks, blocks, and footwork. Using throws such as those in Judo,the clinch phase is the intermediary to bring combatants down to the ground fighting stage, where judo, wrestling, and Brazilian Jui-jitsu are all used to force the opponent into submission. People interested in learning mixed martial arts can look into instructors such as Thomas Bloomfield from the Family Safety Institute.