Probably going to get flamed by this, but whatever. I've been researching the past couple weeks some different martial arts schools in my area and I've begun to notice a trend. MMA schools seem to be the latest "craze" in martial arts schools.

In about a 20 mile radius from my house, there are about 8+ MMA schools I have found (this doesn't include MMA that is done in old school style gyms). With these, I am noticing something else:

Almost all of them teach adults Tae Kwon Do.

I am not knocking MMA here, and I know, unlike prior fads MMA schools actually do fight each other and don't do forms and say "Well if he does this, you counter with this" in slow motion, relaxed environments. They do engage in local events here as well, and that is fine. I have taken BJJ before at 2 separate schools, and while I feel that isn't my thing, at those 2 schools I saw something in common.

The first school started out as a Tae Kwon Do school led by some old Asian guy. He then brought in a black belt in BJJ who was certified to teach Muay Thai, and who later became a black belt in TKD (If not had it simply handed to him and said "You are a black belt in TKD"). The TKD class paid the majority of the school's bills. When the TKD was being taught some nights, in the back of the training area was a separate room where we did BJJ and some Muay Thai (mainly BJJ). The school however didn't participate in MMA events as they were far and few in between, however the students did participate in actual straight BJJ matches and kick boxing matches.This was years ago and it may have changed (the BJJ/Muay Thai instructor left the school to teach at another TKD school in the area, but too far from me).

Second school I trained at left a bad taste in my mouth. This was a school that also originally started as a TKD school. The head of the school knew only Karate and Tae Kwon Do (taught both himself) but he then brought in a guy who taught Muay Thai and another guy who taught BJJ. This school however trained fighters for local MMA events. When I was being "interviewed" by the head of the school, he asked why I wanted to train there. I explained that I wasn't there to participate in events or be a fighter. I just wanted to learn the stuff more for defense than sport, figuring a school that was more heavy into training and fighting would be better than a traditional school. He was fine with that. However, one of the other instructors wasn't, and asked me after my second month "Why are you here if you don't want to be a fighter?" I explained to him what I wanted and he told me to leave as he would not instruct me any further if I did not have the "desire" to be a fighter. So I did. Hence the bad taste.

Now, I know there are those who say "Well if you want to see how good they are, go there and fight some of their fighters." This is where it is different than past fads in the martial arts.

However, it seems every couple months a new MMA school is popping up. With MMA becoming more mainstream, people who have no business doing it (I.E. they aren't in any shape) want to do it, and so the demand increases. I understand this is basic economics.

However, looking back over the history, in the 1960s karate and judo schools were popping up everywhere, the 1970s it was Kung Fu schools, the 1980s we had the ninja craze, and what were the 1990s? Tae Kwon Do? I think those were the dominating thing.

Now it seems almost every TKD McDojo in my area has a room set aside for the MMA training. Anyone else think this is the newest fad? Or do you think it will stay around?

One more thing, I decided to do a simple Google search in my area for Judo schools. I found 2 schools in my county that taught traditional Judo. All of the BJJ schools said in the searches that they teach Judo, however upon contacting the school, they only taught BJJ/MMA. It seems like traditional Judo is dying as a result of what I believe to be a fad, and that to me is the biggest disappointment of it all.