One of the most prevalent aspects of martial arts, today, is grappling. Granted, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Boxing, Kung-Fu, and Karate are American Household names, and will remain as such for some time. To a lesser extent will other popular names like Taekwondo.
This increase in popularity of grappling arts as a superior specificity in nomenclature, over the very drab and oversimplified "wrestling" is the inevitable result of sport popularization. I am talking about MMA and the UFC. Without question, to martial artists and MMA enthusiasts Vale Tudo is also very influencial, but UFC is the definitive gateway.
Slowly but surely it is closing the gap on the market for the attention of youth, regarding sporting violence. In the previous forty years Pro-Wrestling had an intense hold on this. Somewhere in the advent of the new millennium, things took a turn with K-1 Pride Fighting gathering a crowd and boxing seemed to be on the decline. The real clinch came when the Gracie Family entered the Octagon. This family sported its young men who would bravely dive onto their backs and draw their opponents down to their own submissions, but almost simultaneously with the introduction of BJJ to the sporting public, the NHB fighting began to be systematized. Like the Eye of Lord Sauron gazing on Frodo ascending Mount Doom, the eye of the American Sport World opened and turned its gaze to the UFC.
What has happened to striking though? While many are analyzing the gorge which developed between the two aspects, and many seek to "sync" the two, I would like to offer a comparison, rather that a contrast.
Striking and Grappling are the same. There I said it. It's been sitting there, in front of everyone's eyes for decades. I would like to conjecture many have known this for centuries, but let me explain what I mean.
I do, in fact, mean the same. By that, grappling and striking use the same principles, the same strategies, and the same contact. The distinction comes in the distance and timing/speed, not to be written of here- for now.
If you look at many targets of grappling: the head, hips, ribs, and joints, you see the similarity. I may want to push your head away from me, just like I want to strike it, under the nose, on the forehead, on the high cheek, under the jawline, or on the chin. In the abdomen we look at the liver, kidney, floating rib, and hip shots. In grappling we form our knee mount right on the live, floating ribs, or centerline. throw by placing our hip into the kidney or on the outer thigh (where we often throw low kicks) or reap the inner thigh (where we also throw low kicks or punches). When we toss on opponent over our hip, we work by elevating their hip and isolating it off-balance. The mount places our knees to contain the ribcage, like a lower hook or uppercut from the arms, or roundhouse, sidekick, or knee from the legs.
Even when we grapple the arm for a shoulder lock, we are looking to isolate the arm in an open and vulnerable position, just like an armpit shot from a knife, ridge, or tiger mouth hand. The strategies of the art are not that different from each other that one could never figure the other out, it just takes some will and study to bridge the gap.
