Since the advent of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993 many have watched with great enthusiasm throughout the years the development, advancement, and evolution of modern mixed martial arts. Traditional martial arts are still prevalent to this day with soccer moms dropping their kids off at McDojos all over the country.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is a lot of the students are blindly led to believe that the single martial art that they are practitioners of is sufficient enough in and of itself in a self-defense situation, which may or may not be accurate, or is superior to other martial arts. Unfortunately, there are those out there who believe that the practice of mixed martial arts is inferior due to the fact that it is in line with the jack of all trades, master of none theory.

What we see below is a Karate black belt testing his skills against what appears to be an amateur, at best, mixed martial artist. Having come from a traditional martial arts background myself (Tae Kwon Do) the thinking of the Karate guy is simple: use my kicks to keep the distance and rely on my inside jump spinning crescent kick (insert any other fancy flying technique here) to catch this guy off guard and knock him out. Normally this was followed by visions of the crowd going wild while I am celebrated like Jean Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport and there is normally a beautiful blonde standing in the background sheepishly watching the action.

In all reality, I have rarely left my feet in an attempt to pull off an aerial maneuver in a live situation, nor have I ever found that beautiful blonde girl who is watching my every move with schoolgirl-esque giddiness. As the action in the video below unfolds we can watch as the evolution of the mindset of the Karate practitioner takes place and he comes to the realization, much as I myself did, that maybe there is something out there a little more effective than what I am currently putting my faith in…it is an uncomfortable, and painful at times, lesson to learn.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here.