despise MMA all you want, its a legit form of battle. no pu**y stuff like boxing.
To me MMA is just like iPhones and Suzuki GSXR's. I have no problem with MMA, iPhones or gixxers, but I do have a problem with the people. Instead of a sport, MMA is a fashion - splatter paint, skull, angel wings t-shirts. And MMA is synonymous with meat heads, guys getting ripped just for the sake of being ripped and wearing angel wings splatter paint t-shirts that are way too small just to show off muscles. I don't want to be related to these guys in any way shape or form.
I did mixed martial arts since I was 12 years old, but that was martial arts. You go in, you do your thing, you leave. It's not a lifestyle or a fashion for me. I won't go into a "good old fashioned martial arts" lecture here but when I was learning, there was a set of values that went along with it. It's a completely different thing. I never trained for an organized sport with rules. I trained for fighting which is a completely different thing. I realize that MMA guys will justify this by saying the only difference between the street and the ring is about 5 lbs more pressure on your arm bar and you break an arm. But when you train for MMA you learn to let people tap out and that will get you killed on the street. You also don't practice things that are illegal in MMA, you don't train to fight dirty. I don't care how big your MMA muscles are, if I stick a finger in your eye socket it's going to hurt. Training for a sport, and calling yourself a "fighter" go against my paradigm of martial arts. The idea is NOT to go to the ground although that's where most fights end up. If one person was fighting me that's not really a big deal, but in my experience people like to fight dirty and come at you in groups. If you go to the ground, your dead. So again you may have awesome arm bar skills but when someone smashes your in the side of the head with a brick while you have their buddy in an arm bar it doesn't do you much good.
So I know this where people interject with "mixed" martial arts and why their style is superior because it's mixing some kind of kick boxing with grappling. Yeah that's cool, I really like that actually. It's super effective. But I think after you do it for a few years, you might want to move onto something more advanced. For instance in 18 months of thai boxing you can be good enough to effectively defend yourself in most situations. However in something like tai chi, 18 months isn't enough to even be considered a beginner. But don't think that means it's not effective! I took lessons from a tai chi guy and at first yeah, I thought it was BS. I mean the guy was so skinny that I was sure I could probably break him in half. It looked like he had NO power. So one day after class I was like "Look does this stuff really work?" And he was just like "Come at me bro." lol not exactly, but pretty much. So I went at him and it was like I was punching air. It was almost a religious experience to try and hurt this guy. The more power I put into attacking him, the harder he hit me back. He knocked me across the room, I was airborn, and then slid across carpet on my ass and rolled until I hit the wall. That was when I was over 200 lbs too and this guy was maybe like 140? With barely even lifting a finger this guy pwned me. So I'm not saying tai chi is better or something, but there are other things that are worth investing your time into if this is going to be a life long interest of yours.
