Martial Arts Professional Magazine

Forget your karate, your taekwondo, your gung fu, your aikido, your arnis, your jiu-jitsu, and your kenpo; MMA (exactly like what you see in the UFC) is the ultimate martial art.

That’s right, you heard me.

For the ring, MMA is the ultimate. In the ring - or the street, for that matter - what works, works; who cares from what style a kick, punch or choke comes? If the kick rocks, if the punch lands, and if the choke chokes, then that is all that matters. I love the UFC for the way it showcases what works and what’s just a bunch of stylistic cow poop. In the ring, the country a style comes from means nothing. In the ring, the founder of a style, its greatest masters, its history and its traditions are meaningless. In the ring, what works, works - and what doesn’t is a waste of time. For the 625 square feet that is the octagon, MMA is the ultimate, the UFC rules.

This is the perfect moment to mention the obvious, however: life does not take place in a 625-square-foot space.  No, life is big, as in BIG, as in GRANDE!

Life is the birth of your children, the death of your parents, the cool mountain stream on your feet, the leaves turning brilliant colors when autumn’s chill says that summer has ended. Life is your loved ones, sitting around a table, eating and laughing; life is the animals, migrating across the Serengeti, the turn of the shovel when a tree is planted; the embrace and kiss; the tear of joy; the strum of the guitar; and the wink of an eye.

In the ring, we only need what works, but in life we need 10,000 other skills to cope. In life, the art of the martial arts is just as, if not more important, than the “martial.” In life, tradition and history and the people of the martial arts are the rich soil from which everything grows. In life, respect and compassion and love and kindness and mentoring, all of it, ALL OF IT, has value. In the ring - and in any physical “fight,” you apply what works, in the moment, to survive, to come out on top. In life there are 10,000 ways to live, love, survive and thrive. What “works” in life is, for the most part, a waste in the ring. What works in the ring is, for the most part, one drop of an ocean’s worth of skills a human being needs to live and make a difference in the world.

What This Means

What this means, school owners, teachers, and martial arts people, is that if you think of or call your method of martial arts a “fighting art,” then realize that you have narrowed your field of relevance-in-the-world, limited your value, reduced the focus of your pertinence to, oh, about 625 feet of real estate. If that was your intent, then so be it. If you think your education and knowledge extends beyond the ring or octagon, then appreciate MMA and the UFC for it’s pragmatic effectiveness - but understand that the real “fight” in the world is to be fully human - and little or nothing to do with being a professional fighter. The real fight is to be loving, compassionate to the plight of others, to be cognizant of beauty and the simple things. The flow of the river, the sound of the ocean, the feel of a hot bath, the smell of a meal when you’re hungry, the kind smile to the stranger, the helping hand, the people you have been lucky enough to know; these are the things that cannot be lived in 625-square-feet of space, or in the length of time it takes two athletes to engage in a contest.

I urge you to open your mind and expand your thinking. Forget about teaching the martial arts for fighting and for the street and the ring; we’ll ALWAYS do that. Embrace a style of teaching and education that prepares people to live outside of the ring. Be a “part of the village” that encourages people to open their minds, to pitch in and help those in need, and who understand exactly WHERE fighting belongs - and what it’s good for.

We no longer can look at the martial arts as something we practice on the mat and take into the world. To be “masters”, we must bring the world onto the mat - the wide world, the whole enchilada.