Quote Originally Posted by sleepinIS5
After watching a few episodes ive decided that yea its retarded and yea some of the things do take skill..BUT its definitly not the kind of defend your self/kick ass fighting that would make it a badass show...I haven trained for a while...but I wanna get back into it..Used to do Tae Kwon do...considering jumping into Jujitsu..
As I've said before, most of the things they're doing are very low %, meaning it's just not realistic. About as fancy as you'll ever see is a spinning back kick, but that's about it, and even that requires almost perfect timing and skill. I mean, the only person in recent memory I've seen pull it off in a REAL fight is Georges St Pierre in his first fight with Matt Hughes. TKD has basic kicks that do work though, so it's not useless, but most other TMA's have the same basic kicks, so it's a matter of preference. If you wanna become well rounded, BJJ or wrestling is probably the best base. Then you incorporate striking into your repetoir. It's pretty much the norm these days for a COMPLETE fighter to train in MT, BJJ, wrestling, and boxing. Judo is also very good, and it's a matter of preference as to what you want, as Judo concentrates on throws in most places, as opposed to submissions, but you do find some Judo schools that do the opposite. I personally started with 8yrs of wrestling, then went into Gracie Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, and boxing. Striking didn't come natural to me, but after hours of training a day, I've become much more proficient. MMA is really the best, and there are some very good places to train at in ATL. I train at Creighton MMA (www.paulcreighton.com), but Knuckle Up is also very good, as is Alliance, and the Hardcore Gym (although it's in Athens, GA). These gyms/schools, have pretty good roots in MMA, and cover all bases when it comes to becoming a better fighter.
As far as the show is concerned, I read a blog of one of the participants on his Myspace profile a few days ago, and he actually said that pretty much everything you see on that show is for balance, flexiblity, etc, and specifically said that if you wanna learn to fight, MT and BJJ is what he would do. He left this blog after many people had been leaving "hate" mail on myspace, and talking about "kicking his ass" and "setting up a fight" etc. Anyway, there's always something useful in a martial art, you just gotta weed through what works and what doesn't. The MMA you see currently in the UFC, Pride, KOTC, ROTR, etc, even in its current infancy, has already done a good job of that.