Originally Posted by
anerlich
I posted this link before I saw Kellen Basette had already posted it on another thread.
Alan Orr was a regular poster here for a while. He and his students have been very successful and his video offerings on Wing Chun and MMA to date have been top notch.
Several of my instructors' students have had MMA fights with mixed success. One, Nick Ariel, successfully beat a BJJ black belt with significant MMA in an MMA match some years back. At present he concentrates on kickboxing and hold an IBKF world championship belt among others.
To succeed at MMA you need to train MMA. There are aspects of Wing Chun which will suit MMA fighters, as discussed in the article, but you are most unlikely to succeed without significant wrestling and groundfighting experience. Few Wing Chun people train in the right way or hard enough to succeed in MMA. Though that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
MMA is not for everyone and is a young person's game. There are a few exceptions to this rule like Randy Couture but not many. I train at an MMA school but only a few of the people who train there compete in kickboxing or MMA, though just about everyone has a go at BJJ competition at least a couple of times.
Kung Fu and BJJ are arts that you can practice nearly all your life if you are sensible. MMA at a high level, like boxing, kickboxing, and wrestling, not so much. I'm 60 with about $30,000 of dental work in my face, some of it related to eating punches, so I don't spar with hard contact any more. I do BJJ with full on rolling 3-4 times a week with few problems, though I don't wrestle with people significantly heavier than me unless I know they have good control. Ideas of being a huge bada$$ streetfighter get old well before you reach 45, and at 60 I'm just grateful to still be able to participate in class at a competent level and occasionally surprise the whippersnappers.
Being the baddest person on the planet, competition, and street defense are not the main thrust of what martial arts are designed for IMO.
Very well said dude.
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !