On the other hand...
There *may* be something missing with the MMA ideal. I have no idea since I don't train seriously in any other martial art and aside from a few classes/seminars/friends here and there I have been pretty engrossed in Yoshinkan Aikido for the last 21 years.
The thing that strikes me coming from my background is that there seems to be a lack of trust in the training. Its not a fast path to learn to be subtle and blending as opposed to hard and fast, but ultimately I think most of us on this forum believe it to be a good goal.
The Japanese system that developed the kata form of training did so because training "for real" meant that people would "really" get killed or maimed. I can't imagine wanting to train "for real" in a traditional dojo because the tools that would prevent injuries would not be there. They needed to build a method of teaching the body the movements that work, without having to kill a whole bunch of uke's to do it.
Once the basic kata form was understood and the technical aspects of techniques studied, they moved on to make it more and more physically challenging...still using kata but moving on to build mental toughness or perhaps mental strength through excessive and huge amounts of physical training. (I used the word spirit in another thread and got dissed, so I won't say that again, although those that know do know
) At this stage you get to really know and understand your body and how it works in relation to others. So that if something requiring "Aikido" happens then you can trust your body to do the right thing...
Let me say that again...so that you can trust your body to do the right thing.
And perhaps to elaborate...if you can trust your training to train your body to do the right thing then maybe it doesn't matter if you just do Aikido. I think you see where I am going with this...
If you don't trust your training then go do some MMA stuff...but don't say that it's because Aikido doesn't prepare you for "real fighting".
That being said, there are places where they train "for real" and where they can be killed if they make a mistake. That's what they choose to do and the elite military training that they do in shotgun alley and other realistic situations have an "acceptable" level of risk. However, if even one person in my dojo was maimed or killed, I think that that would kind of be a catastrophe.
One other point...I find it annoying when people say "Train for Real" and then don't get hurt. How can it be real if you aren't defending your life, your family, your beliefs. Even Pride and these other MMA events have rules...my understanding is that there are none in a real confrontation.
FWIW...
--Michael