Ironically excellent video showing how traditional stances from Kung Fu or karate are used in MMA

What he said

The other side of it is if you have sparred enough and done enough functional training you can see the practical techniques in forms and patterns and relate them to functional movements you already do and make them work, but are you making them work because of the traditional art, or because you have the functional back ground in good training methods to make most things work.

Case in point in the CLF I have done there are a lot of throws and sweeps movements I recognise them now because of my judo, wrestling and MMA training and can pull them off,

But am I pulling off those techniques or am I still pulling off my judo and wrestling and then simply seeing the correlation between them.

I know that these techniques I could not make work without the endless sparring and drilling I have done in judo and sub grappling and MMA regardless of the fact the mechanics and movements look the same, heck some of the techniques I couldn't even recognize as throws until after a few years of grappling training and then going back to the forms.

 

I think in terms of applying form/kata motions I think we are at a junction or a tipping point. A transitional time.
Because so much of the functional stuff was downplayed/removed/not passed on, we still have people looking to other arts to fill in the blanks. Learning how to do a throw from judo and then seeing the same motion or set up in a kata/form. Doing ju jutsu and learning arm locks and then recognising them in, seemingly, abstract or esoteric TMA motions.
But as things progress, and those functional things are once again part of the art from the outset, then those skills will need to rely less and less on that kind of outside influence and "joining of the dots".
I make no secret that I'm a fan of Iain Abernethy's approach to martial arts. He himself has cross trained in Judo, to improve his throwing skills, and in so doing (partly), made similar observations in seeing throwing and sweeping motions in kata.
So he teaches his students those kata AND the throws (sweeps, locks, chokes, etc) he derives from that kata.
Unlike Iain they learn the throws without having to go and do judo in order to recognise them because he's done that legwork for them. They just do "karate" that has functional training in throws.
Now...will they be as good at doing those throws as committed judo players? No. But that is not their aim. Their aim is to do karate in a holistic fashion and have rounded skills that supports the primary striking approach. "Jack of all trades but beginner at none" as Iain puts it.

 

The question isn't really whether you can see the traditional stances (or principles and concepts from them, even). The question is whether the way they're being communicated is the most effective way. So when you see an MMA fighter do something that looks a bit like a front stance and they win, the next thing to look for is someone winning with a stance that looks precisely like the way you train your stances. If you can't find that, then the key to making those principles and concepts work would appear to be in the point of divergence from your training rather than in the ways they converge.

 

I have read a lot of opinions based on the person winning average, yes, I agree that you should take advice from someone with a low winning fight average with a grain of salt, however, a good point was made about not being married to a stance. One thing I

 

Sorry hit the wrong key lol, have to start this over lol.
I have read a lot of opinions based on the person winning average, yes, I agree that you should take advice from someone with a low winning fight average with a grain of salt, however, a good point was made about not being married to a stance. One thing I learned in life, sometimes we can learn more from ones mistakes then ones success. If you find or see a mistake, analyze why its a mistake and what would be correct, and why. Yes I disagree with some things in Bayle's video, but my form is much different then todays martial arts, but I find things that are the same or close to the same. Always keep in mind, there is no one way of fighting that will be the dominant, also, you can have two students that study the exact same form from the same Sensei, but there styles will be different. When you strike or block, have a solid stance, but then quickly be fluid.