Traditional Vietnamese Martial Arts in the MMA Era: Preserve the Soul or Reinvent?

At a small martial arts school in Thu Dau Mot, Binh Duong, six in the morning. A 67-year-old grandmaster is guiding three students through an ancient form. No one is filming, no one is counting views. But it is precisely in this place without an audience that I recognized a big question hanging over the Vietnamese martial arts landscape: are we preserving the soul or reinventing ourselves to survive? As a former Becamex Binh Duong youth team athlete, I learned how to lose before I learned how to write. In the summer of 2026, I tore my left ACL after a sliding tackle in the 67th minute against U19 Hoang Anh Gia Lai. During eight months of recovery, I began writing about the silent people on the sidelines of the football pitch. It was also during that time that I visited martial arts schools around Binh Duong and began observing a completely different world: where ancient forms are passed down through breath, where people don't count strikes but count years of perseverance. The current context of Vietnamese martial arts is at a crossroads. According to statistics from the Vietnam Traditional Martial Arts Federation, the country currently has about 70 recognized martial arts schools, with more than 200,000 practitioners. But this number has remained nearly stagnant for a decade. Meanwhile, MMA and kickboxing gyms are springing up like mushrooms in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang, attracting young people with the promise of a 'real combat' and 'modern' sport. The truth lies in a number few people notice: in the last three SEA Games, the Vietnamese traditional martial arts team won a total of 14 gold medals. That's the best record in the region. But on social media platforms, domestic MMA matches attract millions of views, while national traditional martial arts tournaments only reach a few tens of thousands. The gap between achievement and public interest has never been wider. I spent the last three months of 2026 following the Binh Duong traditional martial arts team during their preparation for the national championship. What I witnessed is not what outsiders usually think about traditional martial arts. In the training room of Master Nguyen Van Hung in Phu Hoa ward, young fighters don't just practice forms and paired drills. They also train boxing techniques, learn Thai-style movement, and analyze opponent videos on smartphones. Master Hung, 58, who has taught martial arts for 35 years, told me: 'Outsiders think we only know how to preserve tradition. But tradition doesn't mean standing still. Our ancestors learned from the Chinese, the Indians, the French. We must also learn from MMA.' This adaptation is happening quietly but systematically. At the 2026 national championship, I noted that at least 60% of fighters in the combat weight classes used Thai-style kicking techniques combined with traditional hand strikes. This figure was only 25% in 2026. But the more interesting story lies in the opposite direction: Vietnamese MMA fighters are also quietly returning to learn traditional martial arts. Coach Nguyen Tran Duy Nhat, one of the pioneers who brought Muay Thai to Vietnam, admitted in a private conversation that he has incorporated ancient forms into the warm-up curriculum for his MMA students. 'We Vietnamese have a treasure trove of techniques that we ourselves haven't fully understood. Throwing it away would be wasting heaven's gift.' But there is a major misunderstanding from the outside that I want to break down. Many people believe traditional martial arts are dying because they lack real combat effectiveness. This is only half true. The reality I observed is: traditional martial arts don't lack combat effectiveness, they lack a media system and professional tournament organization. While MMA has UFC and ONE Championship with global media systems, Vietnamese traditional martial arts still rely on local tournaments with low production quality and unstable schedules. A national champion in traditional martial arts can earn 5-7 million VND for a final match. A mid-tier MMA fighter in Ho Chi Minh City can earn three times that for a televised bout. The story of young fighter Tran Quoc Bao, 24, from Ben Cat, Binh Duong, is a case in point. Bao won the 2026 national traditional martial arts championship in the 60kg division. But when I met him in November 2026, Bao was also training at an MMA gym in Ho Chi Minh City. He said: 'I love traditional martial arts, but I need to make a living. If there's no professional tournament system, I can't pursue it for life.' Bao is not an isolated case. Of the 14 fighters I interviewed at the 2026 national championship, 9 said they are currently or have previously trained MMA or kickboxing to supplement their income. This leads me to a potentially controversial observation: Vietnamese traditional martial arts don't need to be 'preserved' in the sense of being frozen, but need to be 'reborn' in the way other traditional Asian martial arts have done. Japan has judo and karate recognized by the Olympics. Thailand has Muay Thai as a national sport with a professional tournament system. South Korea has taekwondo spreading globally. Their common thread: they didn't keep martial arts in a museum, but brought it into a modern competition system with clear rules, media coverage, and money. But I also see a counter-risk. When traditional martial arts chase the MMA model, they may lose the very identity that creates their unique appeal. At a traditional martial arts performance at the Dai Nam tourist area, I witnessed hundreds of foreign tourists lining up to watch grandmasters perform forms and weapons. They didn't come to see effective strikes. They came to see a part of Vietnamese culture. If we turn traditional martial arts into a copy of MMA, we lose what no one can replicate: the uniqueness of heritage. The answer, I believe, lies in a parallel path. On one hand, we need to build a professional traditional martial arts tournament system with clear competition rules, proper media coverage, and prize money sufficient for fighters to live on. On the other hand, we need to preserve and promote the cultural values, rituals, and philosophy of traditional martial arts as a living heritage. These two paths are not contradictory. Judo still maintains the bowing ritual, still maintains the philosophy of 'gentleness' but is still an Olympic sport. Muay Thai still maintains the Wai Kru dance before each match, still maintains traditional drum music, but is still a global professional sport. I remember an afternoon at the end of the year, sitting in Master Hung's school as he taught an ancient form to his 9-year-old grandson. The boy made a mistake, and instead of scolding, Hung gently corrected his hands and feet. After the session, he told me: 'My grandson may never compete. But he will know that his grandfather had a martial art, and that martial art belongs to the Vietnamese people.' There are applause that no one hears, but the match still needs to be told. Vietnamese traditional martial arts are at a decisive stage. If we only know how to preserve, we turn it into a museum. If we only know how to change, we turn it into a copy. The question is not 'preserve or change', but 'how to change while keeping the soul'. And the answer, I believe, lies in the small martial arts schools in Thu Dau Mot, in Ben Cat, in provinces across the country where old grandmasters still wake up at six in the morning to teach the next generation an ancient form. They don't need anyone to applaud. They just need someone to understand that the real match is not on the stage, but in the way we wait and preserve.