Well, if an attacker will wait for me to put on my men, do, tare and kote and warm up with some suiburi, It’s ON!! 
Not sure about Special Forces (maybe I will ask my nephew), but the US Army currently uses a program based mostly on Gracie jujitsu. But, as has been mentioned, engaging in unarmed combat in war is a sign that something has gone very wrong. The jujitsu training (Matt Larsen designed the system - he moderates at www.e-budo.com) is designed not so much to equip the soldier for hand-to-hand without weapons, but to encourage fighting spirit.
Probably one of the stripped down versions already mentioned. It depends on the training, IMO.
It would be possible to get the advantages of boxing in other martial arts. Kyokushinkai karate does a lot of conditioning and modified full-contact training. Their best guys have been known to beat muay thai fighters. Judo, jujitsu, and other submission grappling forms tend to have the best record in UFC-format events, when considering pure styles.
But it depends on your goals. True self-defense training should prepare a person for combat under non-ideal conditions - multiple attackers, “no-gi” equivalent training, low-light conditions, poor footing, surprise attacks (especially this one) as well as situations where it would be inappropriate to kill your assailant.
No, there is no magic system. Six months training in a reasonable system of self-defense will prepare you for maybe 50% of the people who are likely to attack you. Five years training will bring you up to probably 80%. Being able to beat the rest depends a lot on natural talent - and luck. And nobody is invincible.
In my opinion, yes, they would wipe the floor with the average black belt. This is mostly because of conditioning (which is roughly 60% of success in combat) and mental attitude (which is a good big chunk of the rest).
I doubt it.
Regards,
Shodan
Ugh, hate Gracie jujitsu. Can’t deny it’s effectiveness, but I am glad Sakuraba beat so many of the Gracie clan.
I think it’s important to remember that some of the ‘modern’ fighting systems were developed by street fighters. Kyokushinkai was developed by a Korean street fighter living in Japan, and made into a movie called “Fighter in the Wind”. Hapkido was developed by another Korean living in Japan who got into a lot of scraps. Jeet Kune Do was developed after Bruce Lee was challenged to a fight to stop him from teaching non-Chinese. He was very disappointed in how difficult it was to defeat his opponent as well as how little real training his previous style gave him.
In the movie Iron and Silk, there is the wushu teacher by the name of Qingfu Pan. He liked to hit an iron board over and over, and was supposed to have strong fists. This leads me to ask, if martial artist would do well training like boxers (jump rope, heavy bag, road work). Would boxers gain any benefit hitting wood or makiwara with bare fists?
I don’t think kyokushinkai and its offshoots are particularly effective because of different techniques - they just train differently. They train full-contact (no hand strikes to the head or neck, no kicks to the groin) and they are demons for conditioning.
But you are correct that many modern arts are attempts to re-introduce realism into arts that have become increasingly stylized. Judo did it in their famous 1888 tournament with traditional Japanese jujutsu, Fairbairn did it with his manual in WWII, Gracie JJ did it in the UFC.
Yes, I saw that. He had hugely calcified knuckles on his right hand.
There exists considerable controversy over whether hand conditioning of this sort helps all that much. You can certainly create skin callouses, and kill the nerves so that it hurts less to punch, but I am not sure how much you will reduce the incidence of hand fracture in a real fight. And it leads to all kinds of unpleasant conditions that will limit the ability to use the hands for anything else. Traumatic arthritis is not a fun condition, even for tenth dans.
I don’t see why - they never box bare-knuckle. When they did (back in the London Prize Ring days) they did much more wrestling and attrition than they did knock-out punching.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m a 5th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. However, I do crosstrain with joint locks, pressure points and groundfighting as well.
Any training style that does not teach you to control your environment to your advantage is a waste of time and will more than likely get you hurt. Your own self-confidence and self-control will keep you out of 99% of aggressive situations, and will help you come out on top in that last 1%. But it’s not an overnight thing and that’s where people go astray. Someone with 6 months training is in horrible shape compared to someone with 6 years training; both of them are in horrible shape compared to me with 18 years training, and I sure as hell would not want to go up against the folks that teach me.
It is a lifetime committment and it requires a lifetime of dedication.
I used to study Tae Kwon Do, and used to be quite good at it. I don’t think its effective for street self defence. It seems to focus too much on style and correctness.
Also, for people brought up on a staple diet of Chinese kung fu movies, its easy to imagine that a peron with kung fu skills can easily leave a dozen or so thugs writhing on the floor in agony. (I blame Bruce Lee for that. 50 guys couldn’t give him as much a scratch. That honour was reserved only to the Big Boss). To me, fighting in the various martial arts styles in movies is just a masculine form of dance (just watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero. The fight sequences are visual poetry)
Kicking technique from Thai kick boxing, punching technique from boxing and holds/chokes from Judo would be quite effective, IMHO. Just my $0.02, of course.
Do you take your shinai everywhere you go?
It’s funny, but every time I run into one of these threads asian martial arts dominate the discussion.
No one has yet mentioned western martial arts, except for modern sport boxing, how about historical european martial arts?
Several modern police and military groups have actually began to study these methods of unarmed and armed combat both for actual application in their field, and for the same reasons jujitsu is practiced by some other army units, pure confidence building and encouragment of the ‘warrior spirit’.
Such as? Is it likely that the OP is going to find a Glima school near his home? Should we consider Greco-Roman wrestling as a good fit?
Medieval and Rensissance systems?
There is a growing community of Western Martial Artists working from German, Spanish, Italian and english martial art systems from the late medieval and renaissanceperiod.
As I mentioned, some of these systems is even seeing use by police and army personnel.
It is likely that such a group could be found near the OP’s location.
Krav Maga. Its the martial arts equivelent of Aussie Rules Football. You are taught to exploit obvious weaknesses and use whatever you need to win and survive. No wonder, when attacked the Jews win. This is their fighting style, and it wins. This is why the 6 Day war only took six days. On the seventh day they rested. They are just as good as Og.