A few months back, I was reading Forrest Griffin's Got Fight book. It's a witty and occaisionally philosophical look at Forrest's life and what it's like to fight in the UFC, but one passage caught my eye in which he tried to define the difference between a fighter and a martial artist...

If training [and particularly cross training] in the martial arts doesn't necessarily make you into a fighter, in spite of having a shared skill set and level of conditioning, then what does? What is the difference between the two and how would YOU define yourselves?

Surely a fighter is someone who fights, be he a martial artist or not. You can learn a martial art for years and never use what you've learn't in a fight. Personnally I quite like to fight so therefore that makes me a fighter and a martial artist. Not one of the greats but I enjoy myself.

No, it is NOT fair to call MMA martial arts, because it is a sport, instead of a combat form for real life situations, which is what makes martial arts martial arts! TRUE martial arts focus on not only the technical aspects, i.e the actual fighting techniques, but also include philosophy as a regular part of the training. A TRUE MARTIAL ARTIST recognizes that his art is not solely for the purpose of fighting, but rather for LIVING!!! in other words, the concepts and techniques he learns in the dojo are applied to everyday life, for the purpose of bettering oneself, instead of, as in the case of MMA, for the purpose of dominating other people.
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johnride wrote:


You contradict yourself by your attempt at backlink spamming to a UFC equipment website.

I digress, but to answer your points.

MMA is an accronym for Mixed MARTIAL ARTS.

Once again, the word Martial is taken for the Latin Martialis or belonging to Mars, the Roman god of war and conflict, ergo all so called Martial Arts should be training with the possibilty of conflict at the forefront of their mind when training.

I would consider an MMA athlete more of a Martial Artist than someone who never pressure tests their art, yet claims to study 'Martial Arts'.

Martial Arts were never about bettering oneself, they were designed as arts to protect people against acts of violence. Bettering oneself is a by-product of that training regardless of whether one studies Wushu, Shotokan, or (dare I say it) MMA.

nemo mk2 wrote:


this is something i think about quite a bit, especially with my issues around confrontation that i may or may not still have.

i think that fighters in martial arts are yer boxers, thai fighters, UFC etc, they tend to be more brutal, going for the knockout, drawing blood, doing damage etc,
there is a lot of emphasis and expectation on that aspect too for the spectator.
of course all this is still "martial arts"...

but for me, martial arts is about learning all of the other aspects associated with martial arts, humbleness, self control, patience, mastering all these amazing things that your body can do that you don't even know about yet.
it all may centre around fighting, but these things are the most important, otherwise it is JUST fighting.

i think the difference is as such:

i have a friend of a friend who is a born and bred football hooligan, he is a "hard ba***rd and can fight already, he does'nt need to learn how to defend himself, he has no desire to be enlightened (which makes me wonder why he has joined our wing chun class) he just wants to fight better.

it's fair to say he has "fighting spirit"
in martial arts class you may spend ten years learning "martial skills", but without "fighting spirit" you'll probably just get tw***ed anyway when it hits the fan.

like the proverbial black belt who walked into a nightclub feeling proud as punch, only to get knocked out in one punch by a drunken imbecile with coordination of a one legged cat trying to bury turds on a frozen pond.

as a result, i fell it is important for people (me especially) to be honest with themselves about who and what they are and what they want to be, and what they expect from their martial art.

A martial artist is not a 'fighter' because a 'fight' intimates a struggle between two people, a martial artist works on skill to resolve any situation that involves the least struggle..