What is an MMA curriculum, and does your martial arts school have one?

Many martial arts schools want to get aboard the MMA popularity train. This would be the same martial arts schools that jumped on the tae bo train, kung fu train in the 70s and 80s, the Krav Maga, the BJJ Train,, and now the MMA train. It might sound like I'm putting these schools down, but I'm not, I know, as well as anyone that it is hard to run a martial arts school, and sometimes you want any advantage you can get.

When somebody tells me that in their martial arts school follow, an Mma curriculum, since MMA is a sport, I'm a little confused on what their curriculum really includes. If they follow an MMA curriculum, does that means that in a self-defense scenario, their students are not allowed small joint manipulation, 12 to 6 elbows, no groin kicks, no eye poking, a five-minute round with a one-minute rest, 4-ounce gloves, a cup, and a mouthpiece for every fight? like KaJuKenBo, which was created in 1947, way before MMA was created, some modern-day practitioners of Kajukenpo say that their system was the original MMA. KaJuKenBo was a mixture of martial arts, but it was very far from a sport it with a plethora of rules and regulations. A martial arts, school, like mine, which is called Hawaiian Kempo, who has a mixture of different techniques in its martial arts. The curriculum, we are made for the street, and there is no sport like rules. If your martial arts school has a mixture of techniques in his curriculum, abiding by the rules and regulations of an MMA fight, your curriculum is not an MMA curriculum. I know that sounds more attention-grabbing, but it is a misrepresentation of what you're really teaching in your school.

In my school, The Pit, we teach a system called Hawaiian Kempo, which is a street defense system that includes striking, wrestling, Grappling, and hard physical conditioning, but we do not abide by the rules of any MMA organization, so we do not consider our core martial arts curriculum "MMA". While I do coach and MMA team, they are not training in our Hawaiian Kempo system; they are following the rules and regulations of MMA.

So a heads up out there, guys. If you are looking for a martial arts school where you wanna learn the basics of martial arts. You want to be able to defend yourself and your family, or you're signing your child up so he can gain the focus, confidence, perseverance, and anti-bully skills will take good martial arts school, provide, going to a school that professors to have an MMA curriculum, you might be going into a MMA training facility, and not really a true martial arts school.

I know it can get confusing, and, like many Kempo practitioners say that their system was the original "MMA," what they really mean was that their system was the original mixture and blend of different streetfighting art, and their system became a very effective street, defense system, but it was very far from the sport of MMA.

So while I teach a street defense system in my dojo, I also coach an MMA team as well, but like I said, the two are very different. I by no means consider Hawaii Kempo an MMA system. I consider Hawaiian Kempo a system of martial arts that was created to defend your life or the life of your family if you ever get attacked, and while I will call the techniques in our system a mixture of different martial arts, I would never consider my Hawaiian Kempo, Curriculum "an MMA curriculum".

I hope that clears up any questions you might have about the differences. If you have any further questions, please email me or direct message me and I will answer them for you.

I hope you all live clean, train hard, be happy, and don't let anyone take your lunch money.