Modern Martial Arts = Mixed Martial Arts

Modern Martial arts start with mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts essentially combine the hitting arts with the grappling arts. However, some of the world’s best Mixed Martial artists have a solid grounding in the classical arts with at least ten years training in those arts.

The classical arts were designed for no rules street contests but even in street challenge matches there were still rules as people did not want to really end up in jail. According to Master Wang Kiu, most fight in Hong Kong just lasted a few seconds with combination hits to the body. Dangerous strikes to the eyes, throat and knees were not employed. However in underground gang retaliation fights there really were no rules.

I think it is best to learn classical martial arts if the art is meant to serve you for a lifetime. Competition arts often lead to lifetime injuries where you end up with no kind of martial art. Young people are especially vulnerable to these kinds of injuries because if you have never been hurt before, you tend to be overly confine with a Macho attitude that you can take anything the opponent can dish out.

Whatever is your training intention, a real martial artist does not keep his head in the sand and tries to learn eventually from whoever is knowledgeable in the fighting arts. You can never learn too much.

These days everyone should at least be aware of some basic grappling. Grappling means to grab on to people at close range to bring them to the ground. In the early UFC days many good hitters were surprised that they were taken down very easily. A classical martial artist may not care for the wrestling kind of arts which is perfectly fine, but for those who have an interest and and who have achieved a half decent level in their own martial art then you can do no better than to learn from the pioneer Gracie Jujitsu family who spent years to refine and develop their technique.

So in that light, here is a basic instructional video on the kinds of things they do: