right.

1. Yep, the Gracies are Brazilian, but the UFC got off the ground once they'd established BJJ here in the US and was in collaboration with an American entrepreneur. Anyway, I didn't mean that the UFC, and certainly not the wider arena of MMA, was necessarily a byproduct of US culture (if anything, even in its competitive aspects, it's more directly a Japanese byproduct) but that the attitude was one exemplified most strongly by many in this country.

2. Yep, though the original art (and it's not jujitsu...BJJ is actually based primarily and originally on judo) is not only Japanese but is a modern Japanese sport more than a self-defense system. Judo is to jujitsu pretty much what modern WTF tae kwon do is to Okinawan karate.

3. Wouldn't surprise me. I also wouldn't be at all surprised if the rhetoric and posing, and outright bloodsoaked belligerence that characterized those original UFC bouts (pretty much reminiscent of Jackie Chan's The Big Brawl, more gladiatorial spectacle than contest) has been toned down to the point where MMA contests are now as relatively staid and businesslike as the kickboxing and full-contact karate of yore. In which case -- and, certainly, this is true of the many people who study MMA for its own merits -- I repudiate my erstwhile contempt for the movement, even if watching it still doesn't appeal to me any more than does boxing (of course, I also don't get excited about watching more traditional martial arts events, other than hand or weapons forms done by very skilled practitioners).

4. Yep. I'm interested in both but, at least for me, practical direct benefit (by which I mean techniques, because any martial arts training that's worth a damn will instill some very useful qualities) runs second. Yes, I am very interested in how to apply techniques that will actually work, or perhaps so, in a real situation. And the more efficient, the better. Not interested enough to improve my ground game, but otherwise very interested. I am certainly contemptuous of and disgusted by those who teach 'traditional' arts who insist that their students can take on anyone merely by performing their kata on the assailant, or by idiots like whoever produced Billy Blanks' Tae Bo infomercials who encouraged the message that people who train in martially-tinged aerobics can defend themselves (a potentially deadly triumph of misplaced confidence, again presented with a macho edge even though I recall the offending bits being uttered by a woman), or by people who include in self-defense-for-women crash courses all sorts of exotic Gymkata contortions and complex moves to, for example, defend against a rear grab when a stomp, us of free hands, or whatever else would not only be less dangerous and likely more effective but gets the neophyte at least thinking along the right lines. In real terms I recognize that proficiency in empty-hand self-defense, and even being able to pick up something somewhat akin to a staff, spear, or sword, has only limited application today and there's always the danger of either escalating a conflict that could be resolved or at least run away from or of having what turns out to be an inflated idea of your own martial skills, and discovering this lovely kernel of information only when it's too late. More to the point, though, it's always been the other aspects of martial arts that've been more viscerally compelling to me and that have made it part of my life and how I define myself.

The truth is that those of us who train or have trained hard in martial arts of whatever form in a legitimate school with good teachers -- who've put in the sweat, the blood, and the other lovely components (ER time and even worse things, like pushups) -- are likely to find more in common and understand each other better than might be indicated by the continual inter-style name-calling and the even larger clash of cultures that happened when UFC hit the big-time and the new breed of tournament fighters and the traditionalists began trading insults. Hell, I don't know if any MMA schools even use salutes, but I offer the old classic palm-and-fist Chinese hello and wish you the best with your explorations.