My attempt to hijack the current self-defense thread was unsuccessful, so I’ve decided to post a new thread.
There is a Muay Thai (Kickboxing) school in my city, and I have heard several reccomendations of it as the next best thing to Krav Maga as a standing self-defense art. Assuming the school is quality (which has yet to be determined), would it be worth it? I may try the double-art style, and continue in Tae Kwon Do for the sport aspect (although I may join the Fighters’ Club after six+ months of kickboxing, if it seems worthwhile).
For the record, I am a tall, lanky male whose balance is mediocre (but from how far it has come since I joined Tae Kwon Do, I know it can improve with practice). Sorry if this thread is too similar to the previous one!
Just so you don’t go suggesting other styles that aren’t available here, this is a list of the schools in the city:
Tae Kwon Do (obviously)
Karate
Bujinkan Budo Taijitsu
Judo
“Ninjitsu” (they claim to be, as far as I know, this is in fact another Bujinkan Taijitsu school)
Aikido
Kung-fu (I forget which disciplines. Wu Shu and another)
Seriously, any of those styles will be effective if you want them to be. Personally I beleive that Tae Kwon Do and Judo are the less effective styles, being too restricted on what is taught. However having said that I know several TKD and Judoka who kick arse. They just don’t exclusively utilise the techniques of their style.
Within reason any style will be about as good as the practitioner. There are too many other variables to give any other factual answer. Some styles will be better for some body types. Some schools wll suit some personalities regardless of style. Some styles and schools will produce great results if you train 4 hours/day and be useless if you train 2 hours/week, some will produce worthwhile results in 2 hours/wk but will show little additional benefit form training 4 hours/day.
It really does depend on you. How hard you want to train, how prepared you are to risk injury, whether you want to learn how to brawl, fight in a ring or cripple an attacker as an absolute last resort. It depends on the school, the instructor and your fellow students as much as the style.
Ultimately it’s a case of trying all the available options and going with what suits you.
A ninjitsu school? I didn’t know that was a formal martial art. Sensei always told me that ninjas were taught how to fight by their families, so their styles would probably differ a lot between them. Plus I thought ninjitsu involved a lot more than fighting and self defense.
Just wondering, it sounds like a promotional gimmick to me.
Modern ninjitsu was probably started as a promotional gimmick. However it does have a solid basis in juijutsu and kendo. Depedning on the school all the other stuff like fighting blinfolded and walking on rise paper may be taught.
There is also a huge difference between learning a martial art and learning how to fight/defend yourself. Which do you want (or both)? If you want to learn now to defend yourself you must have situations where you will be working full contact whether it be with/without padding. You’ll need to work with focus mitts, etc… You need to know what it’s like when the adrenalin goes through the roof. Hell you could get a Paul Vunak video and a trainer and be ready to defend yourself pretty well in a month. Personally, I love the option of submission moves. I like a combination of American boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. What is the Hybrid Submission fighting a hybrid of?
In regards to the “Hybrid” style, I don’t know. It’s in quotes because that’s the name of the school. While it’s possible that the owner of the school is versed in several martial arts and has combined the best self defense aspects, it’s more likely that it is just a typical self defense school like you’d see at the local police station.
The biggest advantage of Muay Thai over other arts, in my opinion, is the tremendous focus on body conditioning and pain training. If you have to be in a fight, it’s better to be physically fit than, well, not. Thai boxers train hard, and their bodies are hard as iron because of it. And, on top of the fitness training, much of their conditioning deals with training the body to deal with pain. In Muay Thai, you build up a layer of scar tissue that works almost like body armor. It’s hard to hurt a Thai boxer short of seriously damaging the integrity of his body.
cough Um, is that “layer of scar tissue” healthy? Well, obviously not, but would it seriously hinder my ability to live a reasonably long, healthy life?
My reply is essentially the same as my previous one. I’ve been teaching martial arts for a little over 2 decades. I’ve focused primarily on the subject of self defense. I’ve taught self defense/hand-to-hand fighting to military personnel (when I was in the military), police, woman’s groups, business people (primarily sales people who travel to somewhat less civilized regions of the world) and, of course, the average joe on the street who wants to learn.
The key to self defense is not a technical one. When I teach a focused self defense course to, for example, a woman’s group very little of it focuses on technique. You need very little technique to be able to successfully defend yourself because everything you need is pretty given to you by nature, all you need to learn is to tap into it. That is the real core of self defense.
That being said, some schools are better than others because some school sell false confidence. They want you to believe you are a Martial Artist ™, they want you to think you are some continuation of an ancient Warrior ™ tradition and line. This is not helpful to cause of being able to defend yourself.
So, what’s the bottom line. Muay Thai is a solid, effective & legitimate style. It focuses on body conditioning (as previously noted) and their basic tactical view is that “Grind the opponent down under withering blows to hard parts of the body”. Is this viable? Sure it is. The hard parts of the body tend to be easier to hit than soft parts… that’s why they’re hard. And this is what makes the conditioning so vital.
Remember the objective of self defense is “To survive sustaining the least amount of injury as possible”. Anything that helps you get to that is a good thing.
Speaker: I started out in the martial arts with Taekwondo just like you for 3 years, and went to two different Dojang, both had a disctinctly different style. Comming out of TKD I was ridiculously flexible and could do all the fancy (useless) kicks that would get you killed in a streetfight. Then I moved to Chicago and went to a boxing gym…and got laughed at. I was punching the way they tought in TKD, which is flat out, unrealistic and bad. TKD punches have no power, speed, or technique, they’re just kind of…there.
If you’re really looking to learn to defend yourself, you need to balance yourself out, first by learning how to box and grapple. Muay Thai is great, but IMO after TKD experience the first thing you should learn to do is grapple effectively, and most good grappling schools teach excellent standup boxing skills. I’d check out the hybrid fighting school’s credentials and look into them first. Good luck!
So generally the idea is that anything that will get me conditioned to take hits (not my dojo of TKD), and teach me to grapple is what I want. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I cannot wrestle effectively. Even when using proven, effective moves on willing targets, I can’t do it.
Needless to say, this is a liabilty. However, would it be better to struggle to improve something I obviously have no natural tallent in, or learn something that will condition me (Muay Thai seems to be universally considered good at this)?
To be honest, Muay Thai is ideally a young man’s art. You don’t see wizened Muay Thai masters like you see wizened karate senseis, mainly because Muay Thai is so intense. Mind you, I’m not warning you away from it, I’m just giving you a heads up on the situation you can expect. But if you want to get fit and don’t mind hurting yourself (one week, almost everyone in my class had an injury of some sort – not major, but everyone was banged up), then go for it. Just remember how hard it is on the body.
Hm… that’s what I was worried about - will it cause me problems in the future? I’d rather risk getting hurt a little more in a fight by using a weaker art than getting arthritis at 40.
Well, I’m not saying those old Muay Thai fighters dropped out because of injuries. I mean that they dropped out because they couldn’t keep at the same level. It’s like Western boxing, a 50 year old fighter is probably going to get a new anus torn out of him by someone younger and fitter (yeah, there are exceptions, but they’re rather exceptional).
If you’re arthritic, I wouldn’t really recommend Muay Thai. Having said that, there’s a guy in my class who’s 50+ and has an arm that prevents him from doing right crosses, but he still attends. The instructor doesn’t insist that he stay at the level of everyone else (like a good instructor, he knows how to make lessons which are appropriate to individual students), but the guy still tries his best.
I think Muay Thai is the best stand-up, non-grappling, empty hand martial art there is. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to defend himself or herself, and wants to do it quicker than in other martial arts (not taking into account, of course, physical handicaps and such). Speaker, you can just try it out for a class and see how it feels. You’ll notice a training philosophy radically different from most of the other arts you’ve studied. My first class, it was so intense I felt close to puking halfway through – 22, occasional 5 km runner.
I totally agree. If you’re not comfortable with traditional grappling styles like wrestling and Brazillian Jiujitsu (can this even be called “traditional” yet?) then I would definately take the Muay Thai. If Muay Thai is even remotely like Western Boxing (which I did for a couple months) you should see phenominal improvements in a very short time. Once you realize how powerful your fists (that you’ve neglected thanks to TKD) are, and how little effort it takes to throw a punch compared to a kick, a whole new world will be opened up to you.
Thank you all. You’ve cemented my desire to check out the school. Now I’m just crossing my fingers that it won’t be a disappointment (it’s not in the nicest area of town, but neither is the best TKD school in the city).
How would someone who practices Shotokan do in Muay Thai, if that someone (namely me) is otherwise young and healthy? We haven’t much bothered with TKD-style kicks. I’ve been busted up several times in Shotokan so that element isn’t as scary as it once was. I’ve long considered taking up Muay Thai as well, but I’ve also been considering capoeria and Krav Maga.
And this is what makes the conditioning so vital.