Mixed Mixed Martial Arts or MMA - Human Weapon - History Channel

We have seen videos of two deadly martial arts Muay Thai the martial arts and sports of Thailand, and Eskrima Stick Fighting Philippines martial arts and sports. Both the posts with the video created for History Channel series called Human Weapon, took us to some best training schools and camps and the grandmasters of the respective arts.

Along with it there some video animated tutorials for some of very good and effective techniques and online lessons from the best grandmasters and instructors. This episode made for History channel will take us to the history of Mixed Martial Arts or MMA, where Jason Chambers a professional MMA fighter and Bill Duff a pro football players and a wrestler will be on a journey to explore the unique history of this hyper violent sport, along the way they will learn some time honored techniques and train with some of the legendary fighters of this ultimate fighting sport. Then the will enter the rings and take on two fighting machines in a full blown MMA bout.



First they travel to the sunny Los Angeles, the Mecca of Mixed Martial Arts or MMA. It's just over a decade this hybrid fighting form has evolved from underground blood sport into a world wide phenomena. This sports popularity increased so much that it rivaled boxing and professional wrestling in Pay Per View PPV television shows.

It surpasses the punishments of these two sports also in most cases. The MMA does not limits itself to one technique, the fighters are free to hurt their opponents in variety of ways and techniques borrowed from various martial arts and combat sports. The techniques used in MMA bouts are punches, kicks, Grapples, take downs, throws, knee strikes and submissions. The techniques borrowed from martial arts form and combat sports like boxing, Thailand's Muay Thai, Japenese Karate, Korean Taekwondo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling and such. It does not matter where the techniques come from, if they are effective use them. Over the period of time the techniques that worked are used more where as the techniques that were not effective faded.

This also forced the fighters coming from particular styles of fighting to work and study other fighting styles. Fighters from striking form of martial arts like TaeKwondo TKD, Karate and kickboxing and Muay Thai had to study and train under the grappling, take down and submission based martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu, Judo and wrestling to avoid and defend other those techniques.

The journey of Jason and Bill starts with Big John McCarthy Ultimate Training Academy. There they witness a intense training match inside full size MMA octagon. Watching along with them was MMA legend Bas Rutten.

Bass is a black belt in both Karate and Judo, a brutal kick boxer and a brutal and savage wrestler. Sebastiaan "Bas" Rutten (born February 24, 1965), a Dutch mixed martial arts fighter. Bass was a three time King of Pancrase, former Ultimate Fighting Championship Heavyweight Champion, and is a certified MTBN Thai Boxing instructor, Pancrase instructor, and has a 5th Degree Black Belt in Kyokushin karate and a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is also the founder of "The Bas Rutten System" and the author of various martial art books and videos. He holds notable wins over Frank Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, Kevin Randleman, Guy Mezger and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. His trademark move was the kicks in the liver area, which he called 'Liver Shots' "Rutten Jump," which he performed in the ring every time he won a fight, resembling a jumping split.

Bass had a challenge for Jason and Bill, after the training bout he says, 'Now, are you ready for this, cause that's what you gone a do :-).' Bass explains them that they will be working with some professional fighters, some of the finest and they will help them in learning the techniques of punching, kicking and submission. Submission is the technique which has brought more victories to MMA fighters than any other techniques until now. At the end of the journey Jason and Bill would go head to head against two of the sports toughest fighters in the very octagon MMA ring they witnessed the intense training fight.

Bills opponent would be Ricco "Suave" Rodriguez, a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and winner of ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship. Bill says that considering that he has never entered the octagon ring he would be lucky to get out alive let alone victor. Jason is not going to get an easier opponent either.

They travel to the other side of La in the town of fullerton, at Erik Paulson's Combat Submission Wrestling center. Here they will train and learn with modern fighter Josh Barnett a professional MMA champion known for his slams, his ground fighting and attitude. Josh explains them that MMA evolved from many sources, he says,'you have Pancrase, yo have pro wrestling, you have shoot wrestling. Late in the 90's people began to ask the big question, 'Which Martial art and the martial artist is truly the best? Josh says people watch film and see different martial art styles and began to wonder if a fighter from one style competes with other say kung fu or Karate against boxing who would win? this reminds of a question mostly asked about the two legend Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali, who would have won the fight? and the discussions still goes on with fans of each taking their hero's side.

Josh believed that the best way to win was to take the opponent down to the ground held him for a submission. To do that he teaches double leg take down. We get to learn an online lesson on this very effective MMA technique and also a video tutorial with animated computer graphics.

We move on to the second video clip below



Then they meet Forrest Griffin, and takes valuable lessons for the defense against the effective double leg take down, called sprawl. This is the technique used by some strike fighters who are very good at striking the opponents with powerful and fast punches and kicks, but find themselves in difficulties, when on the ground. The technique of sprawl is a very good anti technique against the take down techniques. They both get some lessons for the same as even we get online lessons for this anti take down technique. A good video tutorial follows for this technique called spraw which just does not allow your opponent to take you down but the opponent is left vulnerable for many number of attacks.

Then they head towards the Hollywood at wildcard boxing, training center for few legendary boxers. There they meet champion kickboxer from Tae Kwon Do background and a MMA fighter Cung Le. They take some training in combination of kicks (more on combination of kicks and punches) and then a lesson in back spinning kick, used to be my favorite but work a lot for getting this right. First thing I did and also teach for this technique was to whirl on toe of the foot, not trying to kick but spin on the toe. After one gets the balance and speed in spinning then gradually start kicking on lower levels, speed and balance is most important, as this qualities develop go higher and higher. I use to dedicate 8 hours training in a day for this single technique, on punching bag. Any way there is a video tutorial for the same and I seriously feel it's not enough for someone wanting to learn it really well.

Then they move to get some training in Jiu Jitsu. We get to see and listen to interesting history of Jiu-Jitsu

will be continued in the next post.