Martial arts

Mixed Marital Arts is for you!

Figure 1: A kid being bullied

Have you ever been picked on before by a bully? Do you ever feel like you don't have too much confidence in yourself? Do you want to learn a fun way to improve your overall health? These are some questions someone would ask themselves before they decide to participate in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Participating in your local MMA gym could help you with all of these questions, but before you decide on joining, let me give you some advice on whether or not MMA is the right choice for you.

 

 

What is Mixed Martial Arts?

Figure 2: A list of a few Martial arts in MMA.

Now you might ask, "What exactly is MMA or Mixed martial arts? " Mixed Martial arts (MMA) is a combat sport that combines the use of fighting techniques and strikes from Martial arts from all over the world such as Karate, Judo (Both from Japan), Wrestling (Greece), Muay Thai (Thailand), Kick Boxing (Japan), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (Brazil), Boxing (United States), Wu Shu (China) and so many more (Figure 2). Another question you might ask is, "Wow, so would I learn all of these martial arts from all over the world if I do MMA?" Not exactly! Before you could say you are a Mixed martial art practitioner (Someone who practices in something) you must first learn one martial art. Let's use a famous movie star for example. You know Jet Lee, right? (Famous Chinese movie star that does really cool stunts and fights all the bad guys in the movies.) Well before he could beat up all of the bad guys in the movies, he learned a martial art called Wu Shu. We would call Jet Lee a Martial artist because of the fact that he only trained in one specific martial art. Now let's take Ultimate Fighter Championship (UFC) Featherweight champion, Demetrious Johnson, for example. He started off learning wrestling in high school and than later learned Kickboxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Since Demetrious knows and trains in more than one Martial art this makes him a MMA practitioner.  

Self Defense Only!!!

Figure 3: Martial arts is for self defense.

Now let's just say your reasoning for participating in MMA is because you want to beat up the kid at your school who is bullying you. Well let me start off saying, YOU SHOULD NOT ENTER ANY SCHOOL OR GYM THAT TRAINS ANY MARTIAL ART IF THAT IS YOUR MOTIVE! The reason why I say this is because if you learn a martial art for the wrong reason, it goes against the whole meaning of what the martial arts stand for. For example, lets say you decide to go and learn karate from a school in your local town and you tell the teacher that you wanna join because you want to learn how to beat up this bully at your school. The sensei (teacher in Japanese) will deny you because in Karate the purpose of learning it is to protect oneself. also to train the mind and body and that the Way is not to attack or harm others but to exercise restraint. So to put it in easier words the whole purpose in learning karate is to teach yourself to control your actions and not to act on your emotions.

Improving Self Confidence and Overall Health

Figure 4: Practitioners of MMA trains with each other

Another question that you may ask is, "How would training MMA help me with my self confidence and health?" Well there is multiple ways I could answer this question for you. First, a school or gym that trains in MMA is a social environment where people of different ages and genders come together (Figure 4) and train with each other in order to better themselves. So if you are nervous around people this will help you build some social skills and help you gain some good friends. Second; when training, you are exercising your body and your mind and after a certain period of time you will notice a change in your body and in your skill in MMA. In doing so, you will build confidence in your body image and skill which can cross over into your self confidence. Also learning and training MMA can teach you discipline. In which can be helpful in your life later on when you face tougher challenges.

Are you up for the challenge? 

MMA is more than just learning how to fight and defending yourself against bullies. MMA is a way of improving your overall health and self confidence, helps you create discipline in your life, and always remember that learning MMA or Martial arts is only for self-defense only. Now that you have gain some knowledge about MMA let me ask you. Are you up for the challenge? 

For more some inspiration watch this video
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 References

A kid being bullied. [Photograph] Retrieved from http://survivallife.com/2015/01/19/best-martial-arts-self-defense/

A list of a few Martial arts in MMA. [Photograph] http://stockfresh.com/image/2017892/mixed-martial-arts

Black Belt World's leading Martial arts Resource. (n.d) Japanese Marital arts. Retrieved from http://www.blackbeltmag.com/category/japanese-martial-arts/  

International, Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF). (n.d.) About MMA. Retrieved from http://www.immaf.org/mma-2/about-mma/

Martial arts is for self defense. [Photograph]  Retrieved from  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/07/bullying-prevention.html 

Practitioners of MMA [Photograph] Retrieved from http://www.kshb.com/sports/grindhouse-mma-training-a-family-of-champions