I am wondering as to what the most useful martial art to learn would be in terms of practical self-defense application. Note that this means that having access to a gradient of techniques, ranging from roughhousing with friends to neutralizing a psychotic knife-wielding mugger to dealing with Bruce Lee. In short, which martial art is the most effective in teaching a theoretical foundation for and practical applications for most types of self-defense situations?
From what I’ve heard Tae Kwon Do is not as useful as other disciplines, since it has a lot of emphasis on static positions and flashy but impractical kicks. I’ve also heard that Kempo (karate) is fairly useful as it has emphasis on dynamic positions and pressure points.
A Karate (Ive studied Kempo and Shotokan) works well. But if really serious self-defense is what you are looking for, try to find a grappling school.
I’ve studied these, but I’d never use them in a fight. Shotokan doesn’t seem to emphasize this stuff. My advice is to go with Shotokan or grappling. If you stay in reasonable shape, you should be able to use either of them as you advance in age, too.
One thing not to do is go for a flashy style. Kung-FU is great and all, and I have admiration for its practicioners. But for the average person it makes a less-than-ideal self defense science.
The Ultimate Fighting Competitions have fighters from different disciplines, they are always won by grapplers, the winner that sticks in my mind was Joyce Gracie, who practised a form of Brazilian Ju Jutso. He was so good that it was very rare he actually had to hurt anyone, he just got them into a position where they knew they had to give up.
Buick-Fu. Fairly modern art, and can be adapted to any make or model and used by anyone regardless of physical ability.
Seriously, I guess it would partly depend on the type of person you are. Are you willing to possibly really hurt someone? I might suggest boxing, even though I know that some people don’t refer to it as a martial art. The thing with boxing is, though, is there really are not any halfway measures with it. If your hands are up, you’re looking to hurt somebody. There are no “submission” holds or anything like that, as incredibly useful as such hlds can be to a skilled person (no sarcasm). If you’re more merciful, go for grappling or something with holds. If you’re really nasty, go for Ed Parker kempo karate, which I understand can be pretty brutal.
Search the boards for “martial” and you’ll find a bunch of threads that have already covered this.
Many people have many opinions, and what you are looking for depends on many factors. Are you into discipline and will have a respect for belts and procedures or do you just want to wear sweats and learn to hit? Are you looking to get physically fit or just want to learn how to gouge someone’s eyes out and knee them in the testicles? Do you want to learn how to use weapons? Lots of questions like these will help you find the martial art that you will stick with and enjoy, which is what will help you the most. Otherwise put, learning a few classes of “The Best Martial Art” won’t be as effective as a long-term study in a normal one that gets you excited every time you go.
I personally have found non-traditional martial arts to be the best for me. Mostly no belt ranks, lots of physical conditioning (200+ push-ups and sit-ups a class), weapons, grappling, boxing and kicking. JKD, Kali, Thai kickboxing, ju-jitsu (Brazilian or otherwise), Savate, Shootwrestling, Krav Maga, and many more fall under non-traditional martial arts.
But you might really enjoy the more traditional Karate or Tae-Kwon-Do class, many people do. I’d try a few out first before settling on one (especially in the days of year contracts, etc.).
I’d recommend going to your local police department or YMCA and seeing about enrolling in a self-defense class. They’ll teach you things you’ll remember how to do, and be able to do, seven years from now. If you take a bunch of karate or judo classes, you’ll learn stuff that you can do once you’ve warmed up, or when you’re young and limber, or once you’ve been practicing this stuff for fifteen years. If somebody attacks you seven years from now, most of that stuff isn’t going to do you much good.
but if you are in a situation you can’t talk your way out of, and can’t quite shoot the guy yet either… any fighting style that contains actually sparring would be useful. Having studied Yoshukai karate, Imo there is no substitute for actually getting hit and actually hitting people.
The most useful martial art is really the one you enjoy and keeps you fit. If you ever end up in a fight you were either very unlucky or got yourself into a bad situation. All decent martial arts will teach you to avoid bad/dangerous situations. So the chance of you actually using the martial art you learn should be very low (unless you are in some sort of profession that requires hand to hand fighting like police or bouncer) so the best advice is do something you enjoy and keeps you fit, both of which will be more useful in a normal persons life than fighting skill ever will.
FTR, I started taking Judo when I was 9, and have been teaching for the last 20 years or so. I’ve competed at the local, State, and national level - never made it to the big leagues of international (Olympic/Pan-Am Games) level. It has never failed me, but at the same time, I’ve never had to use it anywhere but in a tournament or at the dojo. As the Bipster said, it’s kept me fit and helped me stay out of situations that might otherwise have degraded to physical confrontation.
The most useful martial art is the one that brings you personal enlightenment, personal fitness and inner confidence.
I take Aikido. Others use Buick fu. Others run away (fU!) It is whatever the individual finds to be of the most positive contributor to the peace inside himself. With inner peace comes outer harmony.
True that. Most of the fights Gracie was in, became long-boring spectacles. I still remember the title bout between Gracie and Shamrock taking over a half an hour. All they did was roll around on the ground try to put a submission hold on each other. Gracie is boring to watch, but there’s no disputing that he’s one of the deadliest fighters out there. Patience is a virtue.
But I doubt he could survive anything thats not one-on-one however.
For effectiveness in ending a confrontation quickly, boxing is a brilliant tool. Learn to hit very very hard! Any kicking art is impractical on the street as you have to be extremely skilled to pull it off. Same goes for pressure points - great tool, but one of the hardest things to master in the martial arts.
Grappling is all well and good, but remember we’re talking about a guy out in the street here - you don’t want to be rolling around on gravel do you? It’s a good support system, especially when used in conjunction with headbutts, knees and elbows (Thai Boxing is especially good for this kind of work). For a practical and slightly more ‘martial artsy’ fighting style, Wing Tsun is excellent - again, emphasis on punching techniques rather than flashy kicks (although kicks have their place - when used low and hard).
For the opinion of guys who REALLY REALLY know what their talking about, check out the message boards on www.geoffthompson.com
One thing that worried me about punching people are the stories I hear about people dying from that one strong punch. Then the guy who punched him goes to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Submission & Grappling are probably the best options. Or you could do that snazzy move Steven Segall does in every single one of his movies.
I’ve studied Ishinryu karate, which is more or less a consolidation of Shorin Ryu and Goju Ryu styles. It emphasizes upper body rather than kicks, so blocks, strikes, and grappling are what you learn. They’re easier to use in actual situations rather than competative sparring. Speed is also emphasized over power and strength. My boss and sensei has found Ishinryu to be condusive for effective self-defense in real life scenerios when he finds himself in a stupid situation. The thing that keeps getting drilled into our heads in class, however, is that the high ranking martial artists don’t get into situations that they have to use their skills. Karate for me was less about self-defense and rather more about mental discipline.
However, the more I learn about Krav Maga, it seems to be better suited to real life situations that you might actually have to face in this day and age. While karate might be pretty, how often are you really going to have to disarm someone with a katana with your sai’s? Krav Maga has lots more disarming techniques and what I would call more “practical” defenses and attacks. It’s frequently taught to law enforcement officers and I believe it’s the “official” martial art of the Isreali Defence Force.
So, I think that what you want depends on what “useful” means to you. If you are after health benefits, mental discipline, and enjoy things like contact sparring, I would say go with one of the karate flavors. Doing a kata is a great way to meditate while getting yourself in shape. And you can work out some aggression and increase your focus while sparring. If you are looking to defend yourself in a fight, my opinion (and that’s all it is), is that you look into Krav Maga. It’s straight forward, simple, and effective.
Yes, because he’s going to try to box and I’m going to start the fight from the inside, break two of his ribs on the pavement, and come down on top of him with palm-heel strikes to the bridge of his nose until somebody pulls me off.
If I’m faced with a fight that I can’t get out of, or run away from, I’m going to be nose-to-nose with the guy and have my hands up ready to grab. I’m not going to stand in his prime striking range or come in from a distance and force my way through that area. Maybe I’ll get tagged. So what? In a judo match I got creamed in the head that I had to forfeit a match. The thing is that I was so amped up that I have no memory of getting my head crunched, I finished the bout I was in (and almost won), and won my next match before I became even remotely cognizant of my injury. It was my third match that I had to bow out of, but I was injured in the first.
I’d recommend judo because it is designed to be safe and as such it is practiced at full power. Ditto for Brazilian jiu jitsu. Plus it is very rewarding to experience moving and throwing bodies, and forcing someone to submit via choke or joint lock. It’s good therapy. I choked a guy into submission just tonight and it felt great. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
Though, really the biggest thing is probably finding a good instructor and getting your ass in the dojo ASAP, otherwise you’ll find yourself looking at the calendar, realizing it is 2010 already, and kicking yourself because if you had started in June 2003 you’d have six-and-a-half good years of practice in. Hell, even if it is a meditative form of tai chi, time spent in the dojo is more important that worring about which style is the best.
This page has a lot of good info (I mean lots… I’ve had it bookmarked for weeks and still haven’t come close to reading it all).
I haven’t heard anything about the author, so I don’t know if he’s considered brilliant or a crack-pot, but what he says makes sense.
From the bits I have read so far:
There’s a big difference between “self-defence” and “fighting”… aka -dueling- both in regards to what you do and what the other guy will do. No one style/school will teach you everything for even a specific purpose… and the three separate (or one large range) of purposes mentioned in the OP are completely different from each other, so that means one style is even less likely to give you all you’ll need. Soooooo,
If you’re looking just to take on one system, narrow down your expectations as to what it’ll do for you (you’re not gonna be able to do the same stuff to buddies in the backyard that you will with a pshychotic killer), OR keep the large range and study several styles over the next few years… and we’re talking 5-10 here.
Better to read the links on that page than for me to try and repeat it all here.
