Should I do MMA?

[Magnanimous]

Just curious, since Leo recently talked bad about basically all sports in a previous post.

I haven't figured out if it's in my Zone of Genius yet, but if it is I think it'd be in my best interests to do it.

[Kksd74628]

Keep staring towards sandwitch contemplating if it'd taste nice in your mouth.

-joNi-

[Ulax]

You could give it a go, and see how you find it.

I'd personally recommend trying out a few different places. I know from my experiences with boxing, which I got pretty good at, that its not uncommon for gyms to have a toxic masculine atmosphere. For example, not respecting personal boundaries, coaches manipulating folks into competing. Imo, there will be plenty of places where you get that masculine energy, but in a respectful way. So, I'd recommend searching around for one of those.

Good luck.

[Recursoinominado]

Yes

[Bird Larry]

Jiu Jitsu for now, or Judo seems to be the most practical, hands-on, reasonably (only reasonably) safe options for truly learning Martial Arts. 

Fighting can help you learn so much about social dynamics, and about who you are. 

Try to be safe and be respectful of everyone, so everyone will be the same to you. 

Boxing and kick boxing is good to learn, but I know that frequent hits on the head in their games can be detrimental to your intellect. 

[Danioover9000]

   Yes, go do MMA and Jeet Kune Do, maybe wing chun.

21 minutes ago, Bird Larry said:

Jiu Jitsu for now, or Judo seems to be the most practical, hands-on, reasonably (only reasonably) safe options for truly learning Martial Arts. 

Fighting can help you learn so much about social dynamics, and about who you are. 

Try to be safe and be respectful of everyone, so everyone will be the same to you. 

Boxing and kick boxing is good to learn, but I know that frequent hits on the head in their games can be detrimental to your intellect. 

   Not fully safe as you can still suffer dislocations and tears from Jiu Jitsu and Judo if going 100% into the techniques. Very common to dislocations in shoulders, wrists and even back pains from getting stacked on. Also fingers can dislocate or deform over time from all the death gripping.

   Not just impact trauma to the head, but to other locations in the body near any internal organ for too long can be detrimental to health.

[Magnanimous]

18 hours ago, Bird Larry said:

Boxing and kick boxing is good to learn, but I know that frequent hits on the head in their games can be detrimental to your intellect. 

Just manifest some venue to heal your brain and body back to full health and you'll be alright.

[Jannes]

I would agree that MMA probably isn’t that healthy because of the punches and kicks on the head depending on how serious you do it. I did kickboxing for some time (enough to get my first belt at least) and there was a lot of toxic masculinity definetly. I was so inexperienced and got hit at the head hard so often that I got afraid to do anything basically. You should avoid these people and set boundaries. If someone is to aggressive you shouldn’t be ashamed to say that you only want to fight with easy contact (no real punches). But my place was probably more toxic then other gyms I would imagine.

That being said I will never forget the feeling in the ring once when I was sparing and something just clicked. My movement suddenly made sense and I know exactly how I did a turning kick to create space and really felt my power in how in how I could manipulate the environment with my hands and feet. I felt like a threat. I felt like a lion, like my root chakra just opened or something. So it can definetly be extremely satisfying. If you have to integrate some stage red values it’s also great.  

I wanted to get back at it but didn’t find another kickboxing gym and was also a bit afraid of doing it again … I think wrestling is a great alternative though. You have to tap into all of your aggressiveness and masculine energy but you can’t really hurt others or be hurt by others so thats just great. If you want to transition to MMA you could easily do that because MMA is also a lot about wrestling. 

[Eternal Unity]

Go for it, man! I trained the last 4 years. Thinking now where to continue.

[zurew]

If you care about brain damage, then doing MMA is considered to be safer compared to doing only boxing on a high level.

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by zurew

[Artsu]

MMA glorifies violence.

Avoid.

[King Merk]

Deciding to going a BJJ gym was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life

[Bujo]

I'm going to assume you procrastinate about most things and seek external validation to justify your choices. Just sign up to a beginners class in your chosen discipline and see if you like it. I would not pay too much attention to those who say MMA glorifies violence as this is an extremely limited viewpoint.

It's like the old saying goes;

 

[King Merk]

3 hours ago, Artsu said:

MMA glorifies violence.

Avoid.

Skilled martial artists are some of the most peaceful people you’ll meet.

Martial arts is one of the best mediums I’m aware of to facilitate humility and emotional regulation.  

Martial arts is to humans what dog training is to dogs.

An untrained dog is wild and at a heightened risk of causing hard to others. However with proper training and socialization a dog can learn how to control its emotions and become obedient. Same with humans.

Martial arts will help you control your emotions as well as be able to defend yourself if needed.

There is nothing glorious in being helpless. 

[Ry4n]

On 2/8/2022 at 10:55 PM, Bird Larry said:

Boxing and kick boxing is good to learn, but I know that frequent hits on the head in their games can be detrimental to your intellect. 

You can always tell them to go easy especially above the neck, although with boxing this is a bit more difficult; Muay Thai and kickboxing you can definitely tell them to only tap above the neck so that you still are mindful of keeping your hands up, and theres plenty of stuff below the neck that’s not so risky. A few bruises on your arm or body is fine no big deal. 
 

@Magnanimous Go for it dude I’ve trained in Muay Thai for multiple years and it’s been one of the very best personal development habits I’ve ever done, right up there with yoga and meditation. 
Like I said you can always ask them to just do light taps when reaching above the neck vs other parts of the body where you can go a little harder. 

But yes there are the occasional big egos who go too hard and if they still go too hard after you’ve requested going easier than tell them to fuck off and walk away ?. I’d even complain to the teacher in such a situation. 
Be mindful of the overall gym culture going into this, you can find places where everyone has gotten all that anger and ego out of their system and are thus very peaceful, humble, friendly, awesome people. But not all places are like this so try a few different places in your area and see which one fits the description I mentioned best. 

[Kensho]

Examine each sport for which values it promotes and enhances in people.

Knocking the opponent to the floor and then starting punching his head, what kind of values promotes?

[Danioover9000]

@Kensho

4 hours ago, Kensho said:

Examine each sport for which values it promotes and enhances in people.

Knocking the opponent to the floor and then starting punching his head, what kind of values promotes?

   It promotes kensho, because the person getting knocked out of waking consciousness, into unconsciousness, would maybe glimpse the void in that time gap. The person doing the beating, may at some point, sooner or later, decide not to follow through, but get better at knocking down opponents standing up, or in turn get knocked out, and sooner or later develope more empathy and less need to beat up people, and exhaust his/her stage of development to go higher. However, the main reason why we allow MMA in the first place, is to give an infrastructure to those eith stage red shadows, and for those lower in development, to express those values, because that's where they are at in their stage of development, cognitive and moral development, personality typing, state of being, life experiences and other lines of development.

   Of course, it's also business related, and other reasons, but let's focus on the deeper reasons firstly, and that's due to developmental psychology.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Danioover9000

[Yarco]

As just a hobby, for self-defense, or for fitness it's fine.

But since OP mentioned Zone of Genius it sounds like they want to make MMA their life purpose. In that case I'd think more critically about it. 

All sports are super-competitive and you usually need to start young to become world-class unless you're exceptionally gifted.

With fighting specifically it's very win-lose. Someone always wins and someone always loses. And the way you lose is by getting significantly hurt or knocked unconscious.

It's possible to make a high consciousness career or purpose centered around MMA, like coaching kids that are getting bullied or teaching self-defense to women. But if your goal is to fight for prize money, not so much.