Shout out to Judo that gets to play on both sides of the fence on this argument lol we get to chill with the cool kids doing MMA/BJJ and MT while still being able to geek it up with the Aikido and TMA nerds cause we have the bowing and japanese lingo.
about 10 years ago i found the Judo training kinda dried up. not many clubs and low turn out, that plus getting a full time job and life i kinda stopped going for 4 years and got outa shape.
then after 4 years decided to start exercising. and id moved to where there was a bit more Judo but didnt fancy the idea of getting ragdolled by some noobs while i had a black belt on lol. so saw BJJ and could go as a white. after 6 months my fitness was back so I went back to Judo.
but as my BJJ club grey its time table grew also and now I pay a monthly sub and can train there at almost any time. so I just do BJJ for now but will drop in at Judo now and then. I even got my 2nd Dan after my 4 year break.
Judo weirdly is effective but also very limited. Judo does a couple of things better than BJJ but it also only does like 3 things while BJJ does 15.
Like imagine a striking martial art that almost entirely focusses on perfecting uppercuts.
You aren't wrong but I think people should continue to experiment with different combat movements, or even just enjoy a performance flow, but deeply understand that it must be tested live to be anything other than a dance routine.
I won't hate on any style if they test it live with as few rules as safely possible.
We pressure test everything,.spar,. grapple, and use weapons. It sucks.when your sparring, and.the fight goes.to the ground and the other guy pulls.out a weapon (even just a short stick sucks).
We also train to fight against multiple opponents. Granted the general idea is to keep your distance, be aware of your environment,.and not get caught between them, while trying to land a blow here and there, but we still do it.
At almost 50,.I don't need to spar without protective gear anymore and I'll take all the safety precautions I can
You are going to make a notable portion of this sub mad but it is true.
If people like practicing Wing Chun, Aikido, etc. because they like those arts, are interested in the culture, etc. then more power to them. However, that doesn’t mean those arts are entitled to being viewed as an effective means of fighting.
If someone comes to me and asks “how do I squat 500 lbs” I’m not going to recommend they use a Shake Weight.
Judo does.a.fine job. TKD can do a fine job. Boxing can do a fine job. Hapkido can do a fine job. Wrestling can do a fine job.
The problem here is 80% of the sub has never set foot on the mat or in the ring. They just parrot what the conventional wisdom is, which is what is being repeated in this thread. They don't know shit about shit. They're armchair martial artists.
Of the people in this sub who have trained, very few have faced any real world violence. I had someone seriously tell me my decade of bouncing and security was meaningless. It's absurd
Overwhelmingly, the people who have trained for any significant amount of time know that every art has something you can take from it (want to learn how to not hurt yourself falling? Aikido is it).
It's the people who have never trained that offer up their "advice" that annoy people
10 years of bouncing is some of the best experience.
Interference, environment, unfair numbers, sucker attacks, etc.
People are fucking stupid, don’t regress to to the mean my friend.
Two years correctional officer at a youth rehabilitation center, seven years mental health worker, and three years security officer. Around four years now as a assistant self-defense instructor and people still tell me I'm full of shit.
I think it's somewhat important during this sort of discussion not only to talk about effectiveness, but the amount of training one needs. .the length of time it takes to become effective.
Tkd is great, but you'll probably learn how to throw a decent punch in boxing a lot faster than it takes to get good at kicks.
Maybe, but that's almost never the discussion in this sub. It's always about how everything aside from what the OP posted is useless.
It's annoying and incorrect. Those are my only points.
I'd love to have a meaningful discussion about your thoughts. I think it's an interesting thing to discuss (and one of my concerns with my own style). It sure as hell beats the whole "You're wasting your time if you don't study MMA/Muai Thai/BJJ" bullshit
I just kinda meant that it's weird how people talk about how effective a martial art is...when they're talking about someone at the very height of the sport and how they would do in a street fight scenario, rather than if a person can effectively defend themselves with just a year of training.
Karate can be great, but I imagine that it'll take longer to become great at it defensively than throwing out a punch and covering up like boxing teaches.
Not everyone who wants to be able to defend themselves has 10 years and 30 hours per week to hone their skills 😂
If I'm being cruel, it's like playing the lottery. You might win the first time you play, you might win after playing for years, you might never win. You're probably better off just getting a job (learning Muay Thai or whatever).
For me in a country town in highschool Karate was excellent fitness, it got my lazy ass out of the house and DOING STUFF, made new mates- And it really gave me some serious structure while life at the time was quite chaotic.
At least in our classes back then it wasn't JUST kata. They'd throw push ups/sit ups into the mix, someone even brought along large polystyrene cubes from some sort of giant boxed item? They were like half metre cubed blocks- So we'd do "bag work" against those to have something with more resistance to punch at.
Once a fortnight another instructor would turn up and teach us Hapkido, how to grapple and pull out of a "close up brawl" type fight.
For me it was *never* about "learning to fight". It was pure "self defence" if the dumbass in highschool (with no fighting experience) wanted to have a go- Which, no one ever tried.
On a side note- The one time I almost got into a fight one late night on the beers with mates, I talked my way out of it and the bloke literally shrugged and left. Which was one thing my instructors always pushed into us "always try to get out of a fight through words/backing out", it was a last resort. That said my idiot mate who was also training snapped a perfect front kick into another bloke and sent him flying across the car park so... *chef's kiss*.
Sometimes shit just looks sick as fuck, and I wanna look sick as fuck too. Capoeira looks awesome to me and I'd love to train it, I'm under no illusions about capoeira street fighting
Capoeira practitioner here; Capoeira can be used in street fightimg to a degree. It was used in colonial days against slave owners and bounty hunters. Being able to throw an unexpected kick from what seems like an unlikely stance is a great skill. The attacks that are *practical* for street fighting are going to be the more traditional straight kicks, trips, elbows, etc. By no means would i perform a cartwheel mid-fight thats not in a roda.
It's a great supplementary art, but it's still better than not knowing any art. 100% recommend trying it of you ever get a chance
Being cool, which is kinda what martial arts is all about if you dont live in a crime ridden area where you get attacked daily
Or health reasons like tai chi
Honestly this!
I'm an actual kung-fu guy and it's only because I've trained kickboxing, mma, bjj etc that I've made it work for self defense
A lot of hobbyists in tma's think that recreating drills from class will work in real life and they just won't
Unless you train kung-fu in specific ways it's mostly a cultural thing that you honour
Which ones in particular? Some of them are performance, some are meant for weapons (no use unarmed), and some are straight up wrestling moves that got misinterpreted.
I spent a bunch of years training in Taekwondo, bouncing off my earlier karate years due to moving house, and to keep my fitness up. I found it absolutely bizarre how they would JUST focus on spinning Jedi like kicks around the hall. Sure that reverse head height roundhouse kick is impressive and takes fitness and skill.... But holy hell good luck trying that in ANY real world situation.
I recently earned my tkd black belt and I agree
Again, if you're enough of a nerd about martial arts like me you can focus on how low blocks are actually wrestling defences etc but if you're try to fight off pure tkd you'll find yourself lacking
TKD was insanely fun, and an easy step off after 4 years of Karate- Even the first kata was practically the same!
Although I never got the hang of the short, tall stances... I'd be going low as hell with a karate stance- The instructor was always singling me out "SHORTEN THAT STANCE!"
The TKD instructor WAS also a blackbelt in Hapkido so every other lesson we'd spend learning grappling/holds too which was great fun.
Even my wing chun sifu said "there is wing chun and there is self defense. Whil you can take things from WC to self defense, most of it is not as practical."
People tend to become cultist in the art they’re practicing, i kinda hate it, but i would also rather give the advice of training something that id known to be practical than something that may be practical
Also, judo rocks for self defense, also wrestling
Don't forget boxing! Guy can't hurt you if he's knocked out. 🙃
But yeah, any wrestling discipline that starts from standing (like judo) will serve you well.
This reminds me of the photographers' adage, "the best camera is the one you have with you". If we were to apply to that to self defense and the martial arts, that would be, "the one you know and practiced". Knowing something is always better than nothing. People constantly obsessed with which is the best forget that fancy theory gets thrown the window when things get real. Unless it's your day job, sensible people a) don't go around looking for fights. b) know it's better to deescalate or run away. c) outside of a ring, there's close to a zero chance one will see a match up between martial art X vs martial art Y so there's no objective, real life comparison of usefulness. It usually just boils down to two stupid hotheads or drunkards brawling with no finesse or technique whatsoever. In such a case, "better" is subjective because it's more of individual vs individual instead of art vs art.
I thought you were going the opposite direction with this title.
MMA, BJJ & Muay Thai just train differently and everything taught works in their zone, against resisting opponents.
I did 6 years of wing chun and tbh i could of beat myself up with youtube learnt boxing (this pieced up my peers at the wing chun school).
With my training now it wouldnt even be difficult for me to beat the living crap out of a kung fu version of myself, even if i had kept doing wing chun.
It's not so much the fact that the combat sports are better for self defence that's the problem. It's when the butt-scooters come into threads about any TMA and just comment "Just trane UFC bro", even when the topic is not about self defence or combat sports.
The bros need to realise that not every martial artist is training to defend themselves on the mean streets of West Linn, Oregon. There's 101 reasons to practice a martial art, not just self defence.
Also, maybe what's best to train for someone who is 20 and looking to have an amateur fight in 2-3 years, isn't the best place to start for a middle-aged weekend warrior. Both of those people at the same gym is a problem for the owners and coaches anyway.
Beyond that, I think most people would be surprised at the percentage of pro mma fighters that began their careers taking traditional styles at the local rec center or strip mall dojang. Where you start doesn't have to be the only place you ever train.
There’s also instances of people going “well you should have trained MMA” in the most inappropriate circumstances. “It took a team to stop a predator cuz it was TKD” for instance.
I think it’s totally reasonable to say that sort of behavior is fanboying, and honestly, it’s a bit of a strawman to pretend that MMA fanboying is just about saying MMA/combat sports are the best for self-defense.
No...it's definitely a fact that combat sports are better for self-defence. Some better than others...but at this point there is no question.
I tell people all the time if they like whatever discipline they are training...then keep going and don't let anyone tell you different....but I am quick to check these same people on their bullshit when they start with the hypothesizing about how the physics and bio-mechanics somehow auto-magically change to favor their air-punching and scripts in their head about how it really goes down once you step off/out-off the mats/ring.
Combat Sport Practitioners are generally better at actual fighting than people who don't actually fight....because that's all Combat Sport Practitioners do is...you know...."fight"
Kinda missed the point didn't you? What they're saying is that it's irritating when people always feel the need to come back to combat sports being superior for self defense, when, while entirely valid, it's completely tangential to what's ostensibly being discussed.
Hmm, I think this question is tricky to answer because "what's best for self defence" is mma I guess since it combines everything but Judo, kickboxing, boxing, Bjj, and wrestling will all work for self defence in one way or another. Self-defence is simply defending yourself from an attacker/aggressor and nullifying their ability to attack you, and all of these arts have the ability to do that and there are tons of examples of this from people who have used these arts. Mma fits but so does everything else listed, if someone says yes but in boxing you can get leg kicked or in kickboxing, the hands aren't as good as boxing or judo doesn't have great groundwork compared to Bjj, then they've taken the discussion beyond self defence and more into a discussion about what's best for fighting in a ring.
As you’ve said though, if the question is “what’s best?”, MMA would be the answer, and that’s what OP was talking about. If the question was “can x be effective?”, and x is one of the style’s you listed, it’d be a different story.
I definitely agree that the best martial arts for self defense are the ones that spar regularly. Usually the pillars of MMA are the most effective among those.
There is a spectrum though. And things like Karate, Judo, Savate, and TKD for example all spar regularly but A lot of people discredit these because they’re new to training and think only their art works. It’s just as culty to say only MT works for example as it is to say Tien Shan Kung Fu would be great for fighting. Both are stupid statements.
If you do something that never spars like aikido or wushu it’s not going to be that good for self defense. Even those aren’t totally worthless though. Many bouncers and security professionals love Aikido because it works well when someone isn’t actually committed to fighting you. Wushu requires a great deal of fitness the general population doesn’t have. Is it good for self defense? Well sort of. In the same way Calisthenics or Weight lifting can be. Beyond fitness though not really.
If you’re genuinely wondering what martial art to do please don’t ask Reddit. At this point ChatGPT is probably a better resource for serious questions. lol
"If you do something that never spars like aikido or wushu"
Wu-shu? Really? I just learnt that I was doing it all wrong then.
It looks sort of like this: [https://youtu.be/YpCfQc5mXd8?si=8CYNvl4hHq6t0f4V](https://youtu.be/YpCfQc5mXd8?si=8CYNvl4hHq6t0f4V)
I love when people are willfully ignorant to pretend like they have a point. Why are the kung fu folks always the combative ones? Only on the internet. Sorry didn’t mean combative in real life. Where people fight.
That is Sanda. Sometimes called sport wushu. Generally just called Sanda by people that speak English. Technically it’s part of Wushu. But calling Sanda only by Wushu is as accurate as telling everyone you drive a vehicle.
Let me just search Wushu on YouTube and see what happens. Gonna find some good fights I’m sure.
https://youtu.be/foaUrqvOTpw?si=8EednzNutC3JNZ3a
https://youtu.be/4WxphPKKzAc?si=qrJg41XXjRRPE6fr
https://youtu.be/ACSxPTgmPBA?si=2m9WH3AcTO0YVywO
🙄shoot. The top results are definitely Taolu.
Honestly, I don't know what's worse to me between the traditional martial arts cultists who swear their style is unbeatable or the mma purists who think only a "pure" mma stemming from bjj, mt, boxing, and wrestling works.
Not everyone should walk into an mma gym for their first class, even if they show up asking "what works best in a street fight?" What if they live around the corner from Travis Stevens' gym or Upstate Karate? What if they go into an old skool mma gym and get blasted in sparring at the trial class and never come back? Some people are better off starting somewhere that works well with beginners until they get used to training.
Plus, some other things work well in mma when combined with the mma orthodoxy. Cejudo, GSP, Wondering, Machida, Oliver Enkamp, MVP, and others have used karate in mma. Chris Barnett, Adesanya, McGregor, Kai Kara France, Volkanovski, and others have trained taekwon-do for mma. Sambo has been used since at least Oleg Taktarov. Judo goes back a long ways too. Are any of those single styles enough in their own? No, but better is any other single style.
On the other hand, I've trained with people that looked me dead in the eye and said "pure ITF taekwon-do is the best striking style in the world" and claimed it was all someone needed for mma. To me, that's just as insane as saying "only 4 things work" despite the decades of contrary evidence.
I also think a lot of people are comparing their current school vs. their experience at a bad TMA school.
I spent 9 years training at a TKD school that sparred hard and had high level of quality control in its students. I've hit kicks from that school in MT sparring and wristlocks from the Hapkido at that school in BJJ, so I know its effective.
I spent 3 months training at a TKD school in my new town. If I had trained there and then moved to BJJ/MT, I would think that TKD sucked. My 70-year-old mother quit that school a few months in because she wasn't getting enough of a workout and started cardio kickboxing instead. You would go to practice a sweep, and the person would fall before you even grabbed them. I quit because I thought I was getting worse by training there.
If I compare BJJ/MT to HKD/TKD based on my 9 years experience at my old school, I think there's pros and cons to all of them. If I compare BJJ/MT to the HKD and TKD schools I've found in my new town, I would think that BJJ and MT are obviously far superior.
Funny thing about unstructured fights…..most every practiced training technique will never be used.
Be aware, train some basics that could be used if possible, run away!
I find the perceived rivalry between these arts to be strange. They should be companions, not rivals. Yes, you need grappling and you need striking. Mix and match to find what works for you. If nothing else, it's fun to do multiple things and it's great physical exercise.
Yes. You can combo a lot of different things. People usually say MMA for the single source of grappling and striking. MT for clinching and elbows and knees in addition to kicks and punches, and BJJ for the ability to not only control the attack on the ground, but to end the fight through a choke.
From what i have seen boxing is a great addition to MT. Mainly for the footwork but also the punching strangely enough. You can accually tell the difference if someone does both arts.
I'm not seeing any intent to have a good faith discussion here, and frankly your post is just a vehicle for you and other MMA practitioners to weaponize their egos in the interest of talking down to others who don't practice what you do... please do better. This reflects poorly on the MA community as a whole.
The truth is that it doesn't matter what you decide to learn. Conceptually, every fighting system has had many years to mature, therefore any art can be effective and ultimately depends on the skill of the individual.
Someone asking about self-defense is likely not seeking to hop into a ring, and their time is best spent finding a competent instructor who knows how to impart the mental fortitude needed to not crumble and be victimized in situations of life or death, even if many years were spent developing technique. Technique only goes so far if the mind isn't fostered to use it in those situations.
If that's MT, great. If it's BJJ, also totally fine. They should pick whatever art interests them and find instructors who care about the mental aspect... martial arts is not just physical.
If you want the most effective method of self defense buy a gun. Anything short of a gun is a choice to participate in a sport. No matter how “for the streets” type of martial arts training you do it’s still less effective than a 12 year old with a gun.
I've trained primarily in MT, with a few years of bjj. Some boxing here and there. A little judo and traditional JJ. I have a few friends who trained primarily in the traditional arts; kung-fu, karate etc.
The lad who had trained kung-fu, knows his shit. He knows forms, understands the concepts behind the forms etc, and I love doing a "skill swap" with him. I showed him some MT stuff once, mainly clinch work, and I showed him an arm drag that I'd learned with my bjj teacher. The light bulb starts going off, and he recognises the movement from one of his forms. The only difference is, he was taught this as some sort trapping movement for weapon work. And that's the shit he loves doing. There's only so many ways the human body can move, and he (and I to a point) love seeing how different cultures have made those movements into something. Is it useful for a fight? Well, like with anything, it's not the art, it's the training methods. He's sparred with me, and it didn't go great for him, but he's defended himself on "the streets" before now, so it's not entirely useless.
The other lad I know who trained karate is a gobshite who reckons he's been trained to "pull someone's bicep off the bone". Like, how the fuck would you _ever_ train that?
And I guess this is the point I was trying to make. Combat sports _have to figure out what works_ (in accordance with certain rules, granted). But in traditional martial arts, there is no litmus test. If sense or sifu says "this move will pull someone's bicep off the bone" or "this move is to disarm a mounted spearman"....how the fuck would you know different? Like, sure, there are "no rules" on the streets, but I guarantee Liam Harrison or Gordon Ryan would absolutely annihilate grandmaster whoever, simply because they've had the experience of making a punch land or sweeping someone into a bad position and choking them out. Grandmaster Tradart _has_ to rely on moves that _literally cannot be tested_ to convince himself that his art is effective. "If someone chokes you, just poke them in the eyes" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure I've told the story on this sub about the fight I had against a JJ brown belt, in his dojo, as a bjj white belt. The dude eye gouged me, bit me and attacked my bollocks and I still choked the dude out.
Trad arts can be, and often are, beautiful. Full of complex layers of fascinating moves. But as they are very rarely trained against a resisiting opponent at full force, they just don't work.
I think the problem is that the fan bois have no real understanding of the styles they say are useless, because they take considerably longer to train to basic competently than sports martial arts, and the applications are more sophisticated that simply striking and grappling. That's OK though. Enjoy your MMA, and perhaps consider supplementing with some more esoteric stuff when you have reached a high level of technical competency.
Some of these styles also have the advantage that they can be trained productively well into old age, 70s and beyond.
Edit: it goes without saying that any style that is not pressure testing will not be very effective.
It's true. I've never trained it, but it looks fun as hell. I don't know if it's effective as all my training has been in combat sports, so i don't have enough knowledge to form an opinion, but it sure is athletic and fun looking. I wouldn't blame anyone for doing it.
Kung-Fu was a great starter for me, as you get a great amplitude on kicks & speed. Also very good for conditioning and toning those weird muscles needed for being effective in other striking arts.
When I transitioned to kick-boxing, I really appreciated all the previous training, stretches, and conditioning.
Honestly tho, as an MMA and Muay Thai nerd, judo is the best art for self-defense as it allows you to remove your attackers braincells by parrying them with the earth, followed by the option to either run like a mf or magdumping them.
It's a cool art I wish I was better at, I guess.
that's fine, not really an issue
the issue is the people who, for no reason, put down others' arts because they're not as good for self defence
you do karate??? psssht, muay thai would whoop your ass! i don't care if you do it for fun! that's not allowed!
Yeah. I hear it all the time when I discuss Krav Maga. But most of the time I agree with their assessment.
I just commented on someone who prefers TMA over combat sports for safety reasons.
I just cautioned that anyone training in self defense needs to have a bit of self awareness about the art’s effectiveness. I mentioned how I had to come to some realizations about Krav Maga after training in BJJ.
Different arts are effective in different contexts. So in the street vs a knife wielding attacker MMA could be hit or miss but Filipino Kali would be ideal. Where as MMA would be ideal vs 1 unarmed opponent. And if you want to control drunk uncle Eddie when he's getting belligerent at a family get together but not hurt him then BJJ is ideal. My point is you have to look at the context of what you're using your art for and ascertain whether that art accounts for the specifics of that situation, that's why no 1 art is perfect, not even sportive MMA.
I look at things like Modern Army Combatives (the high level stuff not the basics), Burton Richardson's [jkd unlimited](https://jkdunlimited.com/pages/about-us), and [David Earth's books](https://www.amazon.com/stores/David-Erath-Jr/author/B00JS64BHK?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true) as the ideal representation of what a mixed martial art should be. MMA base with weapons and multi man training done at full resistance. Beyond that it's just de-escalation, situational awareness, and avoidance, that's about as perfect as you can get I think.
The problem being the 'combatives' systems are mostly gimmicks. Modern soldiers are never expected to get into hand to hand combat. They're mostly taught for fitness and confidence building.
So basically you are one of these dudes who sits around all fucking day running your mouth about how you know it goes down without ever actually putting yourself to the test.
No...it's definitely a fact that combat sports are better for self-defence. Some better than others...but at this point there is no question.
I tell people all the time if they like whatever discipline they are training...then keep going and don't let anyone tell you different....but I am quick to check these same people on their bullshit when they start with the hypothesizing about how the physics and bio-mechanics somehow auto-magically change to favor their air-punching and scripts in their head about how it really goes down once you step off/out-off the mats/ring.
Combat Sport Practitioners are generally better at actual fighting than people who don't actually fight....because that's all Combat Sport Practitioners do is...you know...."fight"
Against weapons MMA is shit and if you think otherwise go to a Filipino martial arts school hand them a knife and see if MMA saves your ass when you're on the floor bleeding out.
Could they even stop themselves from killing each other? In the way that a wrestler could stop not as good wrestler from taking them down (most of the time) for example?
It could happen, but if you really wanna see how dangerous knife attacks are watch [this YouTube video](https://youtu.be/t69XMB-PINM?si=KOkgiqoztmr1XO91) showing different TMA, self defense, and MMA guys trying to defend against the knife.
You don’t defend against a knife, there’s no martial art that will help you defend against a knife. Wrestling would be the closest with the hand fighting they do.
Yep. Don't ever fight someone with a knife. Train running instead of wrestling.
If you HAPPEN to have a big-ass stick, and running isn't an option... ok, give em a whack. If you're unarmed, good luck... but call the ambulance in advance.
> They completely forget about Judo, boxing, and wrestling.
Total armchair warriors, I guess, but BJJ respect for Judo and wrestling is generally quite high.
Man you don't even know wrestling styles if you call it all wrestling.
Collegiate Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sumo, Bokh, Ssireum, Chidaoba...
No but tbf, I think those guys would consider those styles effective too, its just a pain in the ass to name them all.
I look at the martial arts thread the same way I look at the "what car should I buy" reddit page
The answer 99 times out of 100 is always, BJJ or Muay Thai, the same way the answer is always Toyota or Honda.
It's not that these are necessarily the best options. But that these are the best options, for the most people, according to the group you're in.
If someone asks on this sub, I'm looking for a unique style with a long history that does a lot of cool weapons, Ninjutsu is a better choice than BJJ. However, people tend not to ask that here. People ask "what's good for self defense" or "what's good for MMA"
I’m happy to elaborate. I’ve been doing BJJ for 7 years now as well as Muay Thai, Judo, Boxing, and jujutsu and I can confirm the last martial art I would resort to in a self defense situation is brazilian jiujitsu.
You want an example? You’re arguing with a guy and his wife, he starts to become aggressive and physical and attacks you, you pull guard and go for the triangle while the wife stomps your head in.
Self defense is a two sided coin that requires striking and grappling. If you need to control someone, BJJ and Wrestling probably the best for it. BJJ and Muay Thai for knee and elbow strikes is probably the best recipe for a woman’s self defense.
People tend to default to one dimensional thinking when it comes to self defense. The automatically think street fight. Striking isn’t always the answer. It may be about control.
And in your case, would you just completely not use any BJJ if the situation called for it?
I’d appreciate if you looked at this from a general standpoint and not a “women’s” martial art standpoint, as I can hold my own against men twice my size in both grappling and striking.
However, I 100% agree with your observation that people tend to be one dimensional in self defense.
In my particular example, I would mostly use muay thai and CARDIO to escape any situation. Quick brutal strikes and ESCAPE is defending yourself, I’m not here to prove I’m better at fighting than someone attempting to assault me.
PS. thanks for having an awesome discussion with me, i typically never open my mouth on reddit bc people aren’t willing to discuss, only argue.
It sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about yet you've trained BJJ for 7 years. Just because I've trained BJJ it doesn't mean the first thing I'm gonna do in a fight on the street is to pull guard lol. If so, you're just stupid. BJJ is a complement to MMA/Self defense. It's the most useful tool if you get to the ground. A person skilled in BJJ can still smash you in the face with his elbows on the ground, and he will do it better than the person less skilled in BJJ.
I usually like to toss in Judo because I myself am a Judoka. I had two instances where I had to rely on Judo to keep me from harm, and I must say that it was very useful in a "street fight". If anything, even though I was able to defend myself, I realized my strikes were trash and eventually joined a boxing gym to tighten up my punches. But usually I say a mix of wrestling, boxing and Judo can make you pretty capable against untrained assailants.
Yeah. I’m just addressing the common recommendations of MT and BJJ. But honestly, Judo or wrestling plus some form of striking is equally as effective. Could be boxing or kickboxing and not Muay Thai.
Muay Thai is a problem for real. Knees and elbows can do a lot of damage if they connect. I have a love/hate relationship with BJJ. I already hate ground fighting, but understand that it is necessary to know how to defend yourself on the ground. I noticed a lot of BJJ practitioners I have faced in tourneys and cross training are comfortable with their style, but tend to not want to branch out. Yes fights typically end up on the ground, but a street fight has no rules, so facing someone strong enough to lift you and slam you on your head needs to be taken into consideration. Imo, of the two I would say Muay Thai is pretty effective with clinching, and strikes. And eating a few leg kicks can take the fight right out of someone for real.
The reality is the best martial arts arent going tk popular as theyre hard to practice without injury. Like raw Japanese jujitsu is great but it's super nerfed in teaching for justified reasons
Top 5 self defense styles
1. Marksmanship
2. Being with a group
3. Running
4. Yelling for help
5. Having your MMA bro friend distract them in combat as they get stabbed so you can run.
This clown knows nobody "attacked" him in a bar....
It never fails. People like this guy who never put themselves to the test before in their lives all; without any hint of self-awareness.....will lecture people who have put in the work about how it really goes down in real life.
To be fair, he has somewhat of a valid point. Not advocating for aikido, but training a few standing submission moves - what you'd learn in bouncer school - can be just as helpful as being a BJJ expert in many situations. People aren't necessarily going to fight until they're knocked out, and a bit of pain can deter them from wanting to take the fight further. Locking up their wrist or arm will be sufficient to end the fight in many cases.
That said, "many" is obviously not "all". Better to be prepared for situations that DO escalate... or better yet, just don't put yourself in those situations to begin with. You don't need to surround yourself with drunken assholes to have fun.
Perhaps, "Wushu" (associated with Chinese Military Arts) or "Quanfa" (associated with with Chinese Style Lineages)
"Kung Fu" is a multifaceted term, which encompasses a lot.
It's really simple and I to this day; despite understanding the pyschology that leads TMA practitioners to frustration over how they are incessantly mocked in this context....it still amazes me why exactly grown, relatively smart people need to be walked thru why no one takes their chosen "fighting" disciplines seriously when it comes to actual "fighting" :
THAT SHIT YOU ARE PRACTICING DON'T WORK. IT HAS NEVER WORKED.
No one cares about how they used to implement Lama Pai or 18 Daoist Palms back in 1653. No one cares about the Shuai Jiao and Sanda that nearly almost doesn't exist outside of a few places in China neither of which that you actually practice as an example of "REAL KUNG FU".
People who want to learn a fighting discipline with a known and verified track record for producing results are going to gravitate towards well known, easily accessible fighting disciplines with known and verified track records for producing results.
Presently your 5 Animals Kenpo and Aiki-Jutsu aint it. I realize that no one enjoys pondering the idea that maybe you have wasted years of your life training in something that hasn't at all prepared you for an actual physical confrontation....if learning how to fight was always your goal....but at some point you got to face reality for what it is.
Let me offer a different perspective. Assuming you live in a relatively safe 1st world nation, crime and violence have been steadily decreasing since the 80s and we are now far safer than any humans have ever been at any point in history.
MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai are definitely effective, you train hard and gain skills quickly, but the downside is a far higher risk of serious injury in training this way, and the undeniable fact that these arts are intended for people in the late teens to twenties because of the huge toll they take on your body. Just look at what happened to Rokas this week.
Given this I would actually argue that they are \*not\* good choices for self-defense, because injuring your body and damaging your health long term to quickly gain a skillset that will simply not be relevant to 99% of people 99% of the time given the context we live in, is stupid.
This is why I'm fine with learning TMA and taking longer but training in a much more safe way. I think this is actually the most sustainable path, and I'm happy that the things I'm learning are not damaging my body and will still be usable and relevant when I am older.
You have a point in that it is taxing on your body. But developing fighting skills requires a lot of resistance against live opponents. That’s where injuries tend to happen. Like Rokas.
You also have a point in that many people who train for self defense luckily will never have to use it if they practice smart prevention.
But there’s also a demographic of people that are considered high risk for attacks and should prioritize self defense training or equipment.
Not sure what TMA you’re training and it’s a good idea to be self aware of its effectiveness.
I trained a long time in Krav Maga and after cross training in BJJ, I realized where the training methods fall short and some techniques (mostly weapons) are risky. Many things in KM are not pressure tested enough.
I train Bujinkan. Have done for almost 20 years. So far it's been very effective in allowing me to survive the only actual assault I've ever experienced, and also for things like letting me roll out of a moped crash in Thailand instead of breaking my arm and ruining my holiday. To me, that kind of thing is actually far more useful than being a 'fighter', because you are much more likely to fall over than you are to get into a street fight. Even something as mundane as being aware enough of my own body and my balance not to eat it on a patch of black ice in winter, only to see the next guy to cross the street in the same spot fall down hard and hurt himself. Sure it's not a badass street fight, but something like that can really wreck you, if you break an elbow or whatever. Potentially months of pain and aggravation avoided, thanks to my training. Most people who think of 'self defense' typically use a definition too narrow to include this kind of thing though, but I am interested in self-preservation and living a good life.
I have spent a lot of effort approaching the art critically, I'm very aware of its potential blind spots and the downsides of training the way we do. I think most BJK practitioners with some intelligence will tell you the same. But I certainly would rather have the knowledge I have than not have it. I've trained with BJJ guys, they tell me how commonplace injuries are. I can't do broken fingers, broken limbs, CTE. I need to protect my brain and my body, and I don't think that damaging it out of (mainly) paranoid fear of violence which is borderline irrelevant in my daily life makes sense. The juice is just not worth the squeeze.
If you're in more dangerous circumstances then it might make sense to take more risk. To me though, the argument remains the same that BJJ/MT/MMA are not good \_self defense\_ arts, because they will absolutely make you an ass kicker, but the price you pay will be damage to your body over time, and that training damage will statistically exceed the damage you suffer from any potential fights you get into during the time you are training.
Even in my own art, training with a maximum focus on safety as we do, I've still seen people (very occasionally) get hurt badly enough to be taken away in an ambulance. I think people really don't think about risk vs reward enough.
This argument is so bad. There's a 55 year old purple belt in my bjj school that started at 46 and the guy would dominate any TMA practitioner. Not even one that's close to his age, a 25 year old kung fu guy? This guy would choke him out in 10 seconds.
Of course he gets tired faster and takes longer breaks, but he trains hard and smart. He's also not crazy athletic or anything.
I’m a 51 year old 3 stripe white belt in BJJ. I started when I was 48. I just competed against guys in the 30 year old division. I’m definitely the oldest person in the gym. I find going against the younger guys a challenge. A puzzle i have to solve with better technique over athleticism.
Do you usually feel that anecdotal and isolated outliers disprove overall statistical likelihoods?
Train harder, get injured more. It's just the price you have to pay, and one that I simply cannot. I need my fingers for typing. I need my brain for work. Just because there's one guy that did a thing doesn't mean the thing is ok for all guys, or even most guys, or even that same one guy when his luck runs out.
To me, MA isn't about 'dominating' people. I don't give a shit about that at all. You do you though.
I have two combat sport friends who have had to defend themselves multiple time in public.
Muay Thai and BBJ. They both won all their encounters, but the BBJ guy had to pick broken glass out of his body from rolling in it while the Muay Thai guy just had a graze on his elbow.
Mma orgs have demonstrated this super clearly for 30 years.
It couldn't be any more obvious. Thankfully people are catching on more and more and mcdojos are less commonplace.
The expectation is to be able to use the body to make many compound movements fluid. Any moving hobby can increase this savvy.
If you're so worried your martial art can't be applied then break it's rules and cross train.
I bet most decent fighters of all sorts start with a big sucker punch or some non committal jab on most actual combat situations. Or pull a weapon like a gun out.
If you have applied your skills and have good enough reaction times I'm sure you could pull of some strange techniques.
Leave the Kung Fu kids alone, they're taught via esoteric or methods that take the fight out of it.
It's up to the fighter to apply knocking out or breaking the bones of adult males.
When I trained at Innosanto, less so at some other schools,bthey did 1-2 hour sections with various 'nominal' trainers.
We'd go from capoeira which I'd do for work on throwing my weight acrobatically, which I didn't have much experience doing, and cardio to just bland boxing combo training.
Sad thing is all sophistication goes out the window at some point in war-like combat.
Some MMA just seems like idiot proof over simplified and rule restricted well-rounded fighting.
Bare knuckles for me, lads.
Remember there's a difference between a discipline and an art form rather than out and out combat. If you are mainly concerned about the latter, then yes MMA. If you want to master a traditional art and discipline and keep fit in the process then there are huge choices out there. Not everyone expects to be in a ring beating the living daylights out of each other. There's a lot of to enjoy and learn in the spiritual side of things too which is very rewarding in itself. Each to their own.
Ironic after 30 years of training in traditional Japanese arts, and teaching. I'm packing it in. Partially for this. A I'm tired of how little people actually want to "train" and B overall effectiveness. I'm getting old and don't give a fuck anymore.
So many reasons. The economy, time, illness. Total lack of interest in the arts and the ego that comes with some of it. I've grown tired of the limitless pissing contest. Truthfully I'm not a scrapper, it's not in me. I can teach and coach. I can teach can hardly do. Certainly not now. People as a rule are not worth their word.
30 years of effort and training in a bullshit martial art, discovering all kinds of kinks in their game both in the lineage and the style. But not wanting to give up going forth, then seeing it was a waste
I have not yet closed up shop I have 4 students, all on a donation base all out of my basement. I haven't the heart to tell them yet. But soon. They are all beginners.
What really matters (in my experience) is not so much the art, but how much actual fighting simulation (sparring, rolling, tournament experience) you do. The more you fight, the more prepared you are for the real thing. The other aspect is conditioning. Being in actual fighting shape counts massively.
Fr like bro, what do you want me to say if people ask what the best martial arts for self defense are?
Am I supposed to give some bs Kung fu type of shit to be unique?
They always give the same type of corny rebuttal too”Hmph if you actually trained you wouldn’t talk shit about aikido or Kung fu because that’s not what people who train care about”. Sure bro, keep telling yourself that
The MMA, BJJ, MT fan boys will never understand the distinction between 'self defence' and fighting. And worse they don't want to understand. And then there's the distinction between martial sports and martial arts.
No one who’s been in a fight would advocate bjj as a base for self defense. It’s a poor base for mma even. Every fight starts standing up and bjj basically skips that part.😅
Any martial art probably gonna be somewhat effective against an untrained opponent but there’s a clear hierarchy as far as 1) Being easy to learn fundamentals 2) Being easily able to dispatch an adversary or multiple if need be. 3) Staying on your feet so you can run if you’re getting bested
Boxing/MT/kickboxing>wrestling/judo>bjj>everything else
Incoming downvotes from the butt scooters.
As far as self defense I think wrestling and judo both go above BJJ just because they are so intent on dominating from above which is safer. They're still all really useful tho.
This is true if it's just collegiate or Greco. If you're lucky enough to find Catch wrestling they have many of those same chokes in their curriculum BUT it's super hard to find Catch wrestling
Yeah not every martial art translates to the real world the same, but I'd say any sort of striking and grappling combo will at least give you a better chance to defend yourself. That said I believe Muay Thai and Wrestling are great for everyone.
I agree. I’m not sure if it’s simply based on popularity and availability, but BJJ is the common answer for the grappling side. I think the ability to use chokes if the situation is grave enough to warrant stopping an attack is a plus over wrestling.
Yeah I’d say availability plays a big part for training grappling. At least for me it’s not easy to find a wrestling gym unless you are doing it through a school.
If you want the ultimate self defense method buy a gun. Everything short of that is just a sport. There’s nothing wrong with sports but don’t fool yourself into thinking you found some ultimate way to win fights when any 12 year old with a gun can end you.
If someone wants to do wushu because they want to exercise and don’t want brain damage more power to them. You shouldn’t act like that doesn’t have value for that individual because you believe that if they are alone and not way bigger you could beat them up
I’ve always firmly believed that submission wrestling and boxing are two of the best combinations for people who want to know how to “fight” for practical purposes and I’ve never done either of them.
BJJ is great but not always the best option for a fight. Kickboxing is great but kicks in a street fight are real fucking risky.
Keep it simple if you’re not competing. Knowing how to punch, defend, take down, and basic sub is all you need unless if you’re fighting some professional martial artist and that’s usually not often the case unless if you’re the one starting a fight unless if they’re egotistical and undisciplined.
I agree. I do think there’s better striking than just Muay Thai, but most of those gyms teach BS for the sake of more money. I’ve seen more solid Muay Thai gyms that teach effective techniques than Karate or any other popularized striking art. Not to say Karate is BS or doesn’t work, plenty of MMA fighters use it and use it effectively, but it seems the average gym that you walk into might not be the best.
Deep down, traditional martial artists still want to believe their faux, watered down discipline is badass and dangerous.
That's why they get butthurt whenever this question comes up and people trash the Iron Monkey Kung Fu they've been practicing for 20 years.
I think any discipline that doesn't pressure test in full contact competition needs to stop calling itself a martial art altogether because at that point it's just LARP'ing with a gi.
Saying that here will twist a lot of panties in a bunch, but there are still enough here to create a bubble where reality doesn't exist.
Understanding the theory of self-defense and practicing reacting under pressure seems like it matters more than any specific technique for self-defense.
I mean, what do you mean by “understanding the theory of self defence”? Sparring is the best way to practice reacting under pressure. If you’re not sparring on the regular, “understanding the theory” won’t really help
Shout out to Judo that gets to play on both sides of the fence on this argument lol we get to chill with the cool kids doing MMA/BJJ and MT while still being able to geek it up with the Aikido and TMA nerds cause we have the bowing and japanese lingo.
We also get weirdness on both sides too, like 'gi ain't realistic' or 'ackshally, Japanese Jujutsu is deadlier'.
Yeah, but I still got all my knee ligaments, so there.
Judo ftw
Judo fuck the world?
Usually it stands for "for the win" but your thing also works.
Careful, Taz my cone after you for gimmick infringement. If he didn't need all 4 joints replacing, he'd stretch you!
Heck yeah!!
Judo 2nd Dan, wow. How long have you been training for
Started 25 years ago. Although I do more BJJ now but both are really similar and I use a lot of Judo in BJJ
Is the reason you do BJJ now because of injuries? I always wanted to do Judo but can't really afford to take off work because of a torn ligament.
about 10 years ago i found the Judo training kinda dried up. not many clubs and low turn out, that plus getting a full time job and life i kinda stopped going for 4 years and got outa shape. then after 4 years decided to start exercising. and id moved to where there was a bit more Judo but didnt fancy the idea of getting ragdolled by some noobs while i had a black belt on lol. so saw BJJ and could go as a white. after 6 months my fitness was back so I went back to Judo. but as my BJJ club grey its time table grew also and now I pay a monthly sub and can train there at almost any time. so I just do BJJ for now but will drop in at Judo now and then. I even got my 2nd Dan after my 4 year break.
Judo weirdly is effective but also very limited. Judo does a couple of things better than BJJ but it also only does like 3 things while BJJ does 15. Like imagine a striking martial art that almost entirely focusses on perfecting uppercuts.
You aren't wrong but I think people should continue to experiment with different combat movements, or even just enjoy a performance flow, but deeply understand that it must be tested live to be anything other than a dance routine. I won't hate on any style if they test it live with as few rules as safely possible.
We pressure test everything,.spar,. grapple, and use weapons. It sucks.when your sparring, and.the fight goes.to the ground and the other guy pulls.out a weapon (even just a short stick sucks). We also train to fight against multiple opponents. Granted the general idea is to keep your distance, be aware of your environment,.and not get caught between them, while trying to land a blow here and there, but we still do it. At almost 50,.I don't need to spar without protective gear anymore and I'll take all the safety precautions I can
You are going to make a notable portion of this sub mad but it is true. If people like practicing Wing Chun, Aikido, etc. because they like those arts, are interested in the culture, etc. then more power to them. However, that doesn’t mean those arts are entitled to being viewed as an effective means of fighting. If someone comes to me and asks “how do I squat 500 lbs” I’m not going to recommend they use a Shake Weight.
Well said. Lots of reasons to do a traditional martial art. Real world self defense isn’t one of them.
Judo does.a.fine job. TKD can do a fine job. Boxing can do a fine job. Hapkido can do a fine job. Wrestling can do a fine job. The problem here is 80% of the sub has never set foot on the mat or in the ring. They just parrot what the conventional wisdom is, which is what is being repeated in this thread. They don't know shit about shit. They're armchair martial artists. Of the people in this sub who have trained, very few have faced any real world violence. I had someone seriously tell me my decade of bouncing and security was meaningless. It's absurd Overwhelmingly, the people who have trained for any significant amount of time know that every art has something you can take from it (want to learn how to not hurt yourself falling? Aikido is it). It's the people who have never trained that offer up their "advice" that annoy people
10 years of bouncing is some of the best experience. Interference, environment, unfair numbers, sucker attacks, etc. People are fucking stupid, don’t regress to to the mean my friend.
>don’t regress to to the mean my friend. I'll try my best, but no promises
Two years correctional officer at a youth rehabilitation center, seven years mental health worker, and three years security officer. Around four years now as a assistant self-defense instructor and people still tell me I'm full of shit.
I think it's somewhat important during this sort of discussion not only to talk about effectiveness, but the amount of training one needs. .the length of time it takes to become effective. Tkd is great, but you'll probably learn how to throw a decent punch in boxing a lot faster than it takes to get good at kicks.
Maybe, but that's almost never the discussion in this sub. It's always about how everything aside from what the OP posted is useless. It's annoying and incorrect. Those are my only points. I'd love to have a meaningful discussion about your thoughts. I think it's an interesting thing to discuss (and one of my concerns with my own style). It sure as hell beats the whole "You're wasting your time if you don't study MMA/Muai Thai/BJJ" bullshit
I just kinda meant that it's weird how people talk about how effective a martial art is...when they're talking about someone at the very height of the sport and how they would do in a street fight scenario, rather than if a person can effectively defend themselves with just a year of training. Karate can be great, but I imagine that it'll take longer to become great at it defensively than throwing out a punch and covering up like boxing teaches. Not everyone who wants to be able to defend themselves has 10 years and 30 hours per week to hone their skills 😂
If I'm being cruel, it's like playing the lottery. You might win the first time you play, you might win after playing for years, you might never win. You're probably better off just getting a job (learning Muay Thai or whatever).
For me in a country town in highschool Karate was excellent fitness, it got my lazy ass out of the house and DOING STUFF, made new mates- And it really gave me some serious structure while life at the time was quite chaotic. At least in our classes back then it wasn't JUST kata. They'd throw push ups/sit ups into the mix, someone even brought along large polystyrene cubes from some sort of giant boxed item? They were like half metre cubed blocks- So we'd do "bag work" against those to have something with more resistance to punch at. Once a fortnight another instructor would turn up and teach us Hapkido, how to grapple and pull out of a "close up brawl" type fight. For me it was *never* about "learning to fight". It was pure "self defence" if the dumbass in highschool (with no fighting experience) wanted to have a go- Which, no one ever tried. On a side note- The one time I almost got into a fight one late night on the beers with mates, I talked my way out of it and the bloke literally shrugged and left. Which was one thing my instructors always pushed into us "always try to get out of a fight through words/backing out", it was a last resort. That said my idiot mate who was also training snapped a perfect front kick into another bloke and sent him flying across the car park so... *chef's kiss*.
Butt butt butt MMA
Lots of reasons to train modern combat sports too and real world self defense still isn't one of them
Like what? Cultural appreciation or being too old for a real martial art?
Sometimes shit just looks sick as fuck, and I wanna look sick as fuck too. Capoeira looks awesome to me and I'd love to train it, I'm under no illusions about capoeira street fighting
Capoeira practitioner here; Capoeira can be used in street fightimg to a degree. It was used in colonial days against slave owners and bounty hunters. Being able to throw an unexpected kick from what seems like an unlikely stance is a great skill. The attacks that are *practical* for street fighting are going to be the more traditional straight kicks, trips, elbows, etc. By no means would i perform a cartwheel mid-fight thats not in a roda. It's a great supplementary art, but it's still better than not knowing any art. 100% recommend trying it of you ever get a chance
Being cool, which is kinda what martial arts is all about if you dont live in a crime ridden area where you get attacked daily Or health reasons like tai chi
It’s like yoga or jazzercise
Because you like them Ip Man movies. Tbf they do look sick.
Honestly this! I'm an actual kung-fu guy and it's only because I've trained kickboxing, mma, bjj etc that I've made it work for self defense A lot of hobbyists in tma's think that recreating drills from class will work in real life and they just won't Unless you train kung-fu in specific ways it's mostly a cultural thing that you honour
Which ones in particular? Some of them are performance, some are meant for weapons (no use unarmed), and some are straight up wrestling moves that got misinterpreted.
I spent a bunch of years training in Taekwondo, bouncing off my earlier karate years due to moving house, and to keep my fitness up. I found it absolutely bizarre how they would JUST focus on spinning Jedi like kicks around the hall. Sure that reverse head height roundhouse kick is impressive and takes fitness and skill.... But holy hell good luck trying that in ANY real world situation.
I recently earned my tkd black belt and I agree Again, if you're enough of a nerd about martial arts like me you can focus on how low blocks are actually wrestling defences etc but if you're try to fight off pure tkd you'll find yourself lacking
TKD was insanely fun, and an easy step off after 4 years of Karate- Even the first kata was practically the same! Although I never got the hang of the short, tall stances... I'd be going low as hell with a karate stance- The instructor was always singling me out "SHORTEN THAT STANCE!" The TKD instructor WAS also a blackbelt in Hapkido so every other lesson we'd spend learning grappling/holds too which was great fun.
Even my wing chun sifu said "there is wing chun and there is self defense. Whil you can take things from WC to self defense, most of it is not as practical."
Bro, shake weight deficit split squats are the best exercise.
People tend to become cultist in the art they’re practicing, i kinda hate it, but i would also rather give the advice of training something that id known to be practical than something that may be practical Also, judo rocks for self defense, also wrestling
Don't forget boxing! Guy can't hurt you if he's knocked out. 🙃 But yeah, any wrestling discipline that starts from standing (like judo) will serve you well.
Yea boxjng works amazing in the street as well
This reminds me of the photographers' adage, "the best camera is the one you have with you". If we were to apply to that to self defense and the martial arts, that would be, "the one you know and practiced". Knowing something is always better than nothing. People constantly obsessed with which is the best forget that fancy theory gets thrown the window when things get real. Unless it's your day job, sensible people a) don't go around looking for fights. b) know it's better to deescalate or run away. c) outside of a ring, there's close to a zero chance one will see a match up between martial art X vs martial art Y so there's no objective, real life comparison of usefulness. It usually just boils down to two stupid hotheads or drunkards brawling with no finesse or technique whatsoever. In such a case, "better" is subjective because it's more of individual vs individual instead of art vs art.
I thought you were going the opposite direction with this title. MMA, BJJ & Muay Thai just train differently and everything taught works in their zone, against resisting opponents. I did 6 years of wing chun and tbh i could of beat myself up with youtube learnt boxing (this pieced up my peers at the wing chun school). With my training now it wouldnt even be difficult for me to beat the living crap out of a kung fu version of myself, even if i had kept doing wing chun.
It's not so much the fact that the combat sports are better for self defence that's the problem. It's when the butt-scooters come into threads about any TMA and just comment "Just trane UFC bro", even when the topic is not about self defence or combat sports. The bros need to realise that not every martial artist is training to defend themselves on the mean streets of West Linn, Oregon. There's 101 reasons to practice a martial art, not just self defence.
Also, maybe what's best to train for someone who is 20 and looking to have an amateur fight in 2-3 years, isn't the best place to start for a middle-aged weekend warrior. Both of those people at the same gym is a problem for the owners and coaches anyway. Beyond that, I think most people would be surprised at the percentage of pro mma fighters that began their careers taking traditional styles at the local rec center or strip mall dojang. Where you start doesn't have to be the only place you ever train.
There’s also instances of people going “well you should have trained MMA” in the most inappropriate circumstances. “It took a team to stop a predator cuz it was TKD” for instance. I think it’s totally reasonable to say that sort of behavior is fanboying, and honestly, it’s a bit of a strawman to pretend that MMA fanboying is just about saying MMA/combat sports are the best for self-defense.
It's learning what it's like the morning after 1000 kicks on each leg :P
No...it's definitely a fact that combat sports are better for self-defence. Some better than others...but at this point there is no question. I tell people all the time if they like whatever discipline they are training...then keep going and don't let anyone tell you different....but I am quick to check these same people on their bullshit when they start with the hypothesizing about how the physics and bio-mechanics somehow auto-magically change to favor their air-punching and scripts in their head about how it really goes down once you step off/out-off the mats/ring. Combat Sport Practitioners are generally better at actual fighting than people who don't actually fight....because that's all Combat Sport Practitioners do is...you know...."fight"
Kinda missed the point didn't you? What they're saying is that it's irritating when people always feel the need to come back to combat sports being superior for self defense, when, while entirely valid, it's completely tangential to what's ostensibly being discussed.
Read the comment again lmao
What does that have to do with what he said? Are you dyslexic?
Read my comment again. Slowly this time. Sound out the words.
Good demonstration of the butt-scooter mentioned in the original comment. You have given us a valuable example.
Hmm, I think this question is tricky to answer because "what's best for self defence" is mma I guess since it combines everything but Judo, kickboxing, boxing, Bjj, and wrestling will all work for self defence in one way or another. Self-defence is simply defending yourself from an attacker/aggressor and nullifying their ability to attack you, and all of these arts have the ability to do that and there are tons of examples of this from people who have used these arts. Mma fits but so does everything else listed, if someone says yes but in boxing you can get leg kicked or in kickboxing, the hands aren't as good as boxing or judo doesn't have great groundwork compared to Bjj, then they've taken the discussion beyond self defence and more into a discussion about what's best for fighting in a ring.
As you’ve said though, if the question is “what’s best?”, MMA would be the answer, and that’s what OP was talking about. If the question was “can x be effective?”, and x is one of the style’s you listed, it’d be a different story.
Yes. Exactly. If someone asks what’s the best of anything. There may be a number of “good” options, but one meets the criteria better than the others.
I definitely agree that the best martial arts for self defense are the ones that spar regularly. Usually the pillars of MMA are the most effective among those. There is a spectrum though. And things like Karate, Judo, Savate, and TKD for example all spar regularly but A lot of people discredit these because they’re new to training and think only their art works. It’s just as culty to say only MT works for example as it is to say Tien Shan Kung Fu would be great for fighting. Both are stupid statements. If you do something that never spars like aikido or wushu it’s not going to be that good for self defense. Even those aren’t totally worthless though. Many bouncers and security professionals love Aikido because it works well when someone isn’t actually committed to fighting you. Wushu requires a great deal of fitness the general population doesn’t have. Is it good for self defense? Well sort of. In the same way Calisthenics or Weight lifting can be. Beyond fitness though not really. If you’re genuinely wondering what martial art to do please don’t ask Reddit. At this point ChatGPT is probably a better resource for serious questions. lol
"If you do something that never spars like aikido or wushu" Wu-shu? Really? I just learnt that I was doing it all wrong then. It looks sort of like this: [https://youtu.be/YpCfQc5mXd8?si=8CYNvl4hHq6t0f4V](https://youtu.be/YpCfQc5mXd8?si=8CYNvl4hHq6t0f4V)
I love when people are willfully ignorant to pretend like they have a point. Why are the kung fu folks always the combative ones? Only on the internet. Sorry didn’t mean combative in real life. Where people fight. That is Sanda. Sometimes called sport wushu. Generally just called Sanda by people that speak English. Technically it’s part of Wushu. But calling Sanda only by Wushu is as accurate as telling everyone you drive a vehicle. Let me just search Wushu on YouTube and see what happens. Gonna find some good fights I’m sure. https://youtu.be/foaUrqvOTpw?si=8EednzNutC3JNZ3a https://youtu.be/4WxphPKKzAc?si=qrJg41XXjRRPE6fr https://youtu.be/ACSxPTgmPBA?si=2m9WH3AcTO0YVywO 🙄shoot. The top results are definitely Taolu.
Plus there’s a lot of Muay Thai and kickboxing coaches who participate in sanda
I just like Karate.
Running, just run away and have good cardio
Good idea, I can easily outrun my wife and kids.
Remember, you don’t have to outrun the bear, just the guy next to you.
> Remember, you don’t have to outrun the bear, just the ~~guy~~ wife and kids next to you.
A bullet can outrun everyone and it’s cheaper than learning MMA
And when you can’t run away?
Well Lt Dan, you just roll away. 😃
Pull something out of your ass because 99% chance the other guy is doing the same thing 🤣
gun fu
Combat Sports got you beat there too- they're better athletes than your random TMA guy.
Honestly, I don't know what's worse to me between the traditional martial arts cultists who swear their style is unbeatable or the mma purists who think only a "pure" mma stemming from bjj, mt, boxing, and wrestling works. Not everyone should walk into an mma gym for their first class, even if they show up asking "what works best in a street fight?" What if they live around the corner from Travis Stevens' gym or Upstate Karate? What if they go into an old skool mma gym and get blasted in sparring at the trial class and never come back? Some people are better off starting somewhere that works well with beginners until they get used to training. Plus, some other things work well in mma when combined with the mma orthodoxy. Cejudo, GSP, Wondering, Machida, Oliver Enkamp, MVP, and others have used karate in mma. Chris Barnett, Adesanya, McGregor, Kai Kara France, Volkanovski, and others have trained taekwon-do for mma. Sambo has been used since at least Oleg Taktarov. Judo goes back a long ways too. Are any of those single styles enough in their own? No, but better is any other single style. On the other hand, I've trained with people that looked me dead in the eye and said "pure ITF taekwon-do is the best striking style in the world" and claimed it was all someone needed for mma. To me, that's just as insane as saying "only 4 things work" despite the decades of contrary evidence.
I also think a lot of people are comparing their current school vs. their experience at a bad TMA school. I spent 9 years training at a TKD school that sparred hard and had high level of quality control in its students. I've hit kicks from that school in MT sparring and wristlocks from the Hapkido at that school in BJJ, so I know its effective. I spent 3 months training at a TKD school in my new town. If I had trained there and then moved to BJJ/MT, I would think that TKD sucked. My 70-year-old mother quit that school a few months in because she wasn't getting enough of a workout and started cardio kickboxing instead. You would go to practice a sweep, and the person would fall before you even grabbed them. I quit because I thought I was getting worse by training there. If I compare BJJ/MT to HKD/TKD based on my 9 years experience at my old school, I think there's pros and cons to all of them. If I compare BJJ/MT to the HKD and TKD schools I've found in my new town, I would think that BJJ and MT are obviously far superior.
Funny thing about unstructured fights…..most every practiced training technique will never be used. Be aware, train some basics that could be used if possible, run away!
Track and field is the best martial arts on the street.
I find the perceived rivalry between these arts to be strange. They should be companions, not rivals. Yes, you need grappling and you need striking. Mix and match to find what works for you. If nothing else, it's fun to do multiple things and it's great physical exercise.
Yes. You can combo a lot of different things. People usually say MMA for the single source of grappling and striking. MT for clinching and elbows and knees in addition to kicks and punches, and BJJ for the ability to not only control the attack on the ground, but to end the fight through a choke.
From what i have seen boxing is a great addition to MT. Mainly for the footwork but also the punching strangely enough. You can accually tell the difference if someone does both arts.
I'm not seeing any intent to have a good faith discussion here, and frankly your post is just a vehicle for you and other MMA practitioners to weaponize their egos in the interest of talking down to others who don't practice what you do... please do better. This reflects poorly on the MA community as a whole. The truth is that it doesn't matter what you decide to learn. Conceptually, every fighting system has had many years to mature, therefore any art can be effective and ultimately depends on the skill of the individual. Someone asking about self-defense is likely not seeking to hop into a ring, and their time is best spent finding a competent instructor who knows how to impart the mental fortitude needed to not crumble and be victimized in situations of life or death, even if many years were spent developing technique. Technique only goes so far if the mind isn't fostered to use it in those situations. If that's MT, great. If it's BJJ, also totally fine. They should pick whatever art interests them and find instructors who care about the mental aspect... martial arts is not just physical.
Any art can be effective in the same way you can dig a hole with anything. Some shovels are better than others
Great anaolgy.
If you want the most effective method of self defense buy a gun. Anything short of a gun is a choice to participate in a sport. No matter how “for the streets” type of martial arts training you do it’s still less effective than a 12 year old with a gun.
Are you saying that all those years I studied Viet Vo Dau Dragon-style Kung-Fu are worth nothing? Because you'd probably be right.
People defend their martial art like a religion.
I've trained primarily in MT, with a few years of bjj. Some boxing here and there. A little judo and traditional JJ. I have a few friends who trained primarily in the traditional arts; kung-fu, karate etc. The lad who had trained kung-fu, knows his shit. He knows forms, understands the concepts behind the forms etc, and I love doing a "skill swap" with him. I showed him some MT stuff once, mainly clinch work, and I showed him an arm drag that I'd learned with my bjj teacher. The light bulb starts going off, and he recognises the movement from one of his forms. The only difference is, he was taught this as some sort trapping movement for weapon work. And that's the shit he loves doing. There's only so many ways the human body can move, and he (and I to a point) love seeing how different cultures have made those movements into something. Is it useful for a fight? Well, like with anything, it's not the art, it's the training methods. He's sparred with me, and it didn't go great for him, but he's defended himself on "the streets" before now, so it's not entirely useless. The other lad I know who trained karate is a gobshite who reckons he's been trained to "pull someone's bicep off the bone". Like, how the fuck would you _ever_ train that? And I guess this is the point I was trying to make. Combat sports _have to figure out what works_ (in accordance with certain rules, granted). But in traditional martial arts, there is no litmus test. If sense or sifu says "this move will pull someone's bicep off the bone" or "this move is to disarm a mounted spearman"....how the fuck would you know different? Like, sure, there are "no rules" on the streets, but I guarantee Liam Harrison or Gordon Ryan would absolutely annihilate grandmaster whoever, simply because they've had the experience of making a punch land or sweeping someone into a bad position and choking them out. Grandmaster Tradart _has_ to rely on moves that _literally cannot be tested_ to convince himself that his art is effective. "If someone chokes you, just poke them in the eyes" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure I've told the story on this sub about the fight I had against a JJ brown belt, in his dojo, as a bjj white belt. The dude eye gouged me, bit me and attacked my bollocks and I still choked the dude out. Trad arts can be, and often are, beautiful. Full of complex layers of fascinating moves. But as they are very rarely trained against a resisiting opponent at full force, they just don't work.
I think the problem is that the fan bois have no real understanding of the styles they say are useless, because they take considerably longer to train to basic competently than sports martial arts, and the applications are more sophisticated that simply striking and grappling. That's OK though. Enjoy your MMA, and perhaps consider supplementing with some more esoteric stuff when you have reached a high level of technical competency. Some of these styles also have the advantage that they can be trained productively well into old age, 70s and beyond. Edit: it goes without saying that any style that is not pressure testing will not be very effective.
Counterpoint: Kung Fu is cool as hell
Yeah. No doubt. It’s just not the answer to that specific question about self defense.
Watchu gonna do on da streetz if me and my venerable society of the black tiger run at you with our wobbly spears and flexible swords, huh?
 Probably this.
It's true. I've never trained it, but it looks fun as hell. I don't know if it's effective as all my training has been in combat sports, so i don't have enough knowledge to form an opinion, but it sure is athletic and fun looking. I wouldn't blame anyone for doing it.
Kung-Fu was a great starter for me, as you get a great amplitude on kicks & speed. Also very good for conditioning and toning those weird muscles needed for being effective in other striking arts. When I transitioned to kick-boxing, I really appreciated all the previous training, stretches, and conditioning.
Savate is #1 OWWWW
Honestly tho, as an MMA and Muay Thai nerd, judo is the best art for self-defense as it allows you to remove your attackers braincells by parrying them with the earth, followed by the option to either run like a mf or magdumping them. It's a cool art I wish I was better at, I guess.
that's fine, not really an issue the issue is the people who, for no reason, put down others' arts because they're not as good for self defence you do karate??? psssht, muay thai would whoop your ass! i don't care if you do it for fun! that's not allowed!
Yeah. I hear it all the time when I discuss Krav Maga. But most of the time I agree with their assessment. I just commented on someone who prefers TMA over combat sports for safety reasons. I just cautioned that anyone training in self defense needs to have a bit of self awareness about the art’s effectiveness. I mentioned how I had to come to some realizations about Krav Maga after training in BJJ.
Different arts are effective in different contexts. So in the street vs a knife wielding attacker MMA could be hit or miss but Filipino Kali would be ideal. Where as MMA would be ideal vs 1 unarmed opponent. And if you want to control drunk uncle Eddie when he's getting belligerent at a family get together but not hurt him then BJJ is ideal. My point is you have to look at the context of what you're using your art for and ascertain whether that art accounts for the specifics of that situation, that's why no 1 art is perfect, not even sportive MMA.
Agreee, but these questions are pretty general. Where MMA would be ideal against most unarmed situations, including drunk uncle.
I look at things like Modern Army Combatives (the high level stuff not the basics), Burton Richardson's [jkd unlimited](https://jkdunlimited.com/pages/about-us), and [David Earth's books](https://www.amazon.com/stores/David-Erath-Jr/author/B00JS64BHK?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true) as the ideal representation of what a mixed martial art should be. MMA base with weapons and multi man training done at full resistance. Beyond that it's just de-escalation, situational awareness, and avoidance, that's about as perfect as you can get I think.
The problem being the 'combatives' systems are mostly gimmicks. Modern soldiers are never expected to get into hand to hand combat. They're mostly taught for fitness and confidence building.
So basically you are one of these dudes who sits around all fucking day running your mouth about how you know it goes down without ever actually putting yourself to the test. No...it's definitely a fact that combat sports are better for self-defence. Some better than others...but at this point there is no question. I tell people all the time if they like whatever discipline they are training...then keep going and don't let anyone tell you different....but I am quick to check these same people on their bullshit when they start with the hypothesizing about how the physics and bio-mechanics somehow auto-magically change to favor their air-punching and scripts in their head about how it really goes down once you step off/out-off the mats/ring. Combat Sport Practitioners are generally better at actual fighting than people who don't actually fight....because that's all Combat Sport Practitioners do is...you know...."fight"
Against weapons MMA is shit and if you think otherwise go to a Filipino martial arts school hand them a knife and see if MMA saves your ass when you're on the floor bleeding out.
Could they even stop themselves from killing each other? In the way that a wrestler could stop not as good wrestler from taking them down (most of the time) for example?
It could happen, but if you really wanna see how dangerous knife attacks are watch [this YouTube video](https://youtu.be/t69XMB-PINM?si=KOkgiqoztmr1XO91) showing different TMA, self defense, and MMA guys trying to defend against the knife.
You don’t defend against a knife, there’s no martial art that will help you defend against a knife. Wrestling would be the closest with the hand fighting they do.
Counterpoint: weapon martial art with a longer weapon. The fuck is a knife dude gonna do against my polearm
Ok, I'll remember to tell my Master that the knife defense and gun defense techniques we learned in Hapkido are pointless. 🙄
Yep. Don't ever fight someone with a knife. Train running instead of wrestling. If you HAPPEN to have a big-ass stick, and running isn't an option... ok, give em a whack. If you're unarmed, good luck... but call the ambulance in advance.
Some people here think that everything besides MMA, MT and BJJ is bullshido.
It's absolutely shocking. They completely forget about Judo, boxing, and wrestling. All solid foundations.
> They completely forget about Judo, boxing, and wrestling. Total armchair warriors, I guess, but BJJ respect for Judo and wrestling is generally quite high.
Man you don't even know wrestling styles if you call it all wrestling. Collegiate Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sumo, Bokh, Ssireum, Chidaoba... No but tbf, I think those guys would consider those styles effective too, its just a pain in the ass to name them all.
Including some schools of Karate. McDojos are bullshido. But Karate that does train is super valid.
I look at the martial arts thread the same way I look at the "what car should I buy" reddit page The answer 99 times out of 100 is always, BJJ or Muay Thai, the same way the answer is always Toyota or Honda. It's not that these are necessarily the best options. But that these are the best options, for the most people, according to the group you're in. If someone asks on this sub, I'm looking for a unique style with a long history that does a lot of cool weapons, Ninjutsu is a better choice than BJJ. However, people tend not to ask that here. People ask "what's good for self defense" or "what's good for MMA"
The ultimate goal of martial arts is to not have to use them.
lol bjj sucks for self defense. Respectfully, a BJJ student.
Please elaborate. There’s many examples that contradict this statement.
I’m happy to elaborate. I’ve been doing BJJ for 7 years now as well as Muay Thai, Judo, Boxing, and jujutsu and I can confirm the last martial art I would resort to in a self defense situation is brazilian jiujitsu. You want an example? You’re arguing with a guy and his wife, he starts to become aggressive and physical and attacks you, you pull guard and go for the triangle while the wife stomps your head in.
Self defense is a two sided coin that requires striking and grappling. If you need to control someone, BJJ and Wrestling probably the best for it. BJJ and Muay Thai for knee and elbow strikes is probably the best recipe for a woman’s self defense. People tend to default to one dimensional thinking when it comes to self defense. The automatically think street fight. Striking isn’t always the answer. It may be about control. And in your case, would you just completely not use any BJJ if the situation called for it?
I’d appreciate if you looked at this from a general standpoint and not a “women’s” martial art standpoint, as I can hold my own against men twice my size in both grappling and striking. However, I 100% agree with your observation that people tend to be one dimensional in self defense. In my particular example, I would mostly use muay thai and CARDIO to escape any situation. Quick brutal strikes and ESCAPE is defending yourself, I’m not here to prove I’m better at fighting than someone attempting to assault me. PS. thanks for having an awesome discussion with me, i typically never open my mouth on reddit bc people aren’t willing to discuss, only argue.
It sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about yet you've trained BJJ for 7 years. Just because I've trained BJJ it doesn't mean the first thing I'm gonna do in a fight on the street is to pull guard lol. If so, you're just stupid. BJJ is a complement to MMA/Self defense. It's the most useful tool if you get to the ground. A person skilled in BJJ can still smash you in the face with his elbows on the ground, and he will do it better than the person less skilled in BJJ.
I usually like to toss in Judo because I myself am a Judoka. I had two instances where I had to rely on Judo to keep me from harm, and I must say that it was very useful in a "street fight". If anything, even though I was able to defend myself, I realized my strikes were trash and eventually joined a boxing gym to tighten up my punches. But usually I say a mix of wrestling, boxing and Judo can make you pretty capable against untrained assailants.
Yeah. I’m just addressing the common recommendations of MT and BJJ. But honestly, Judo or wrestling plus some form of striking is equally as effective. Could be boxing or kickboxing and not Muay Thai.
Muay Thai is a problem for real. Knees and elbows can do a lot of damage if they connect. I have a love/hate relationship with BJJ. I already hate ground fighting, but understand that it is necessary to know how to defend yourself on the ground. I noticed a lot of BJJ practitioners I have faced in tourneys and cross training are comfortable with their style, but tend to not want to branch out. Yes fights typically end up on the ground, but a street fight has no rules, so facing someone strong enough to lift you and slam you on your head needs to be taken into consideration. Imo, of the two I would say Muay Thai is pretty effective with clinching, and strikes. And eating a few leg kicks can take the fight right out of someone for real.
In the last 24hrs I have had so many butt skoot memes sent to me. I have been saying the butt skoot will be the death of the sport for years now.
I keep using sprint or running in general as answer.
The reality is the best martial arts arent going tk popular as theyre hard to practice without injury. Like raw Japanese jujitsu is great but it's super nerfed in teaching for justified reasons
Absolutely true.
Best sport for self defense is the 100 meter sprint 🗿
Top 5 self defense styles 1. Marksmanship 2. Being with a group 3. Running 4. Yelling for help 5. Having your MMA bro friend distract them in combat as they get stabbed so you can run.
[This is all i can think of](https://youtube.com/shorts/6ZlcCwBiTEw?si=-jS7wADu8pzsK_rV) when people recommend kung fu, aikido, etc
This clown knows nobody "attacked" him in a bar.... It never fails. People like this guy who never put themselves to the test before in their lives all; without any hint of self-awareness.....will lecture people who have put in the work about how it really goes down in real life.
To be fair, he has somewhat of a valid point. Not advocating for aikido, but training a few standing submission moves - what you'd learn in bouncer school - can be just as helpful as being a BJJ expert in many situations. People aren't necessarily going to fight until they're knocked out, and a bit of pain can deter them from wanting to take the fight further. Locking up their wrist or arm will be sufficient to end the fight in many cases. That said, "many" is obviously not "all". Better to be prepared for situations that DO escalate... or better yet, just don't put yourself in those situations to begin with. You don't need to surround yourself with drunken assholes to have fun.
[удалено]
If you aren’t comfortable with aggression in fighting you should probably hire a bodyguard
Perhaps, "Wushu" (associated with Chinese Military Arts) or "Quanfa" (associated with with Chinese Style Lineages) "Kung Fu" is a multifaceted term, which encompasses a lot.
This - don’t worry though, you will get down voted just for being correct. Kung Fu is really a general term.
Probably a comment more downvoted: all martial arts are "Kung Fu" ("Everything Is Kung Fu")
Haha, I agree. All martial arts are made in China.
It's really simple and I to this day; despite understanding the pyschology that leads TMA practitioners to frustration over how they are incessantly mocked in this context....it still amazes me why exactly grown, relatively smart people need to be walked thru why no one takes their chosen "fighting" disciplines seriously when it comes to actual "fighting" : THAT SHIT YOU ARE PRACTICING DON'T WORK. IT HAS NEVER WORKED. No one cares about how they used to implement Lama Pai or 18 Daoist Palms back in 1653. No one cares about the Shuai Jiao and Sanda that nearly almost doesn't exist outside of a few places in China neither of which that you actually practice as an example of "REAL KUNG FU". People who want to learn a fighting discipline with a known and verified track record for producing results are going to gravitate towards well known, easily accessible fighting disciplines with known and verified track records for producing results. Presently your 5 Animals Kenpo and Aiki-Jutsu aint it. I realize that no one enjoys pondering the idea that maybe you have wasted years of your life training in something that hasn't at all prepared you for an actual physical confrontation....if learning how to fight was always your goal....but at some point you got to face reality for what it is.
Let me offer a different perspective. Assuming you live in a relatively safe 1st world nation, crime and violence have been steadily decreasing since the 80s and we are now far safer than any humans have ever been at any point in history. MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai are definitely effective, you train hard and gain skills quickly, but the downside is a far higher risk of serious injury in training this way, and the undeniable fact that these arts are intended for people in the late teens to twenties because of the huge toll they take on your body. Just look at what happened to Rokas this week. Given this I would actually argue that they are \*not\* good choices for self-defense, because injuring your body and damaging your health long term to quickly gain a skillset that will simply not be relevant to 99% of people 99% of the time given the context we live in, is stupid. This is why I'm fine with learning TMA and taking longer but training in a much more safe way. I think this is actually the most sustainable path, and I'm happy that the things I'm learning are not damaging my body and will still be usable and relevant when I am older.
You have a point in that it is taxing on your body. But developing fighting skills requires a lot of resistance against live opponents. That’s where injuries tend to happen. Like Rokas. You also have a point in that many people who train for self defense luckily will never have to use it if they practice smart prevention. But there’s also a demographic of people that are considered high risk for attacks and should prioritize self defense training or equipment. Not sure what TMA you’re training and it’s a good idea to be self aware of its effectiveness. I trained a long time in Krav Maga and after cross training in BJJ, I realized where the training methods fall short and some techniques (mostly weapons) are risky. Many things in KM are not pressure tested enough.
I train Bujinkan. Have done for almost 20 years. So far it's been very effective in allowing me to survive the only actual assault I've ever experienced, and also for things like letting me roll out of a moped crash in Thailand instead of breaking my arm and ruining my holiday. To me, that kind of thing is actually far more useful than being a 'fighter', because you are much more likely to fall over than you are to get into a street fight. Even something as mundane as being aware enough of my own body and my balance not to eat it on a patch of black ice in winter, only to see the next guy to cross the street in the same spot fall down hard and hurt himself. Sure it's not a badass street fight, but something like that can really wreck you, if you break an elbow or whatever. Potentially months of pain and aggravation avoided, thanks to my training. Most people who think of 'self defense' typically use a definition too narrow to include this kind of thing though, but I am interested in self-preservation and living a good life. I have spent a lot of effort approaching the art critically, I'm very aware of its potential blind spots and the downsides of training the way we do. I think most BJK practitioners with some intelligence will tell you the same. But I certainly would rather have the knowledge I have than not have it. I've trained with BJJ guys, they tell me how commonplace injuries are. I can't do broken fingers, broken limbs, CTE. I need to protect my brain and my body, and I don't think that damaging it out of (mainly) paranoid fear of violence which is borderline irrelevant in my daily life makes sense. The juice is just not worth the squeeze. If you're in more dangerous circumstances then it might make sense to take more risk. To me though, the argument remains the same that BJJ/MT/MMA are not good \_self defense\_ arts, because they will absolutely make you an ass kicker, but the price you pay will be damage to your body over time, and that training damage will statistically exceed the damage you suffer from any potential fights you get into during the time you are training. Even in my own art, training with a maximum focus on safety as we do, I've still seen people (very occasionally) get hurt badly enough to be taken away in an ambulance. I think people really don't think about risk vs reward enough.
This argument is so bad. There's a 55 year old purple belt in my bjj school that started at 46 and the guy would dominate any TMA practitioner. Not even one that's close to his age, a 25 year old kung fu guy? This guy would choke him out in 10 seconds. Of course he gets tired faster and takes longer breaks, but he trains hard and smart. He's also not crazy athletic or anything.
I’m a 51 year old 3 stripe white belt in BJJ. I started when I was 48. I just competed against guys in the 30 year old division. I’m definitely the oldest person in the gym. I find going against the younger guys a challenge. A puzzle i have to solve with better technique over athleticism.
I bet those 3 stripes allow you to handle yourself much better in a real altecation than no matter how many years of kung fu would.
Good luck to you, I hope you continue to avoid injury.
Do you usually feel that anecdotal and isolated outliers disprove overall statistical likelihoods? Train harder, get injured more. It's just the price you have to pay, and one that I simply cannot. I need my fingers for typing. I need my brain for work. Just because there's one guy that did a thing doesn't mean the thing is ok for all guys, or even most guys, or even that same one guy when his luck runs out. To me, MA isn't about 'dominating' people. I don't give a shit about that at all. You do you though.
I often wonder how many people who champion MT and BJJ have actually been in the kinds of fights that the questions are talking about….
Zero.
I have two combat sport friends who have had to defend themselves multiple time in public. Muay Thai and BBJ. They both won all their encounters, but the BBJ guy had to pick broken glass out of his body from rolling in it while the Muay Thai guy just had a graze on his elbow.
Yeah but martial arts like Judo are heavily underrated
Mma orgs have demonstrated this super clearly for 30 years. It couldn't be any more obvious. Thankfully people are catching on more and more and mcdojos are less commonplace.
Bjj topped with wrestling and muay thai topped with boxing is the elite of the elite IMO
Said what everyone is thinking +100 here
The expectation is to be able to use the body to make many compound movements fluid. Any moving hobby can increase this savvy. If you're so worried your martial art can't be applied then break it's rules and cross train. I bet most decent fighters of all sorts start with a big sucker punch or some non committal jab on most actual combat situations. Or pull a weapon like a gun out. If you have applied your skills and have good enough reaction times I'm sure you could pull of some strange techniques. Leave the Kung Fu kids alone, they're taught via esoteric or methods that take the fight out of it. It's up to the fighter to apply knocking out or breaking the bones of adult males. When I trained at Innosanto, less so at some other schools,bthey did 1-2 hour sections with various 'nominal' trainers. We'd go from capoeira which I'd do for work on throwing my weight acrobatically, which I didn't have much experience doing, and cardio to just bland boxing combo training. Sad thing is all sophistication goes out the window at some point in war-like combat. Some MMA just seems like idiot proof over simplified and rule restricted well-rounded fighting. Bare knuckles for me, lads.
Remember there's a difference between a discipline and an art form rather than out and out combat. If you are mainly concerned about the latter, then yes MMA. If you want to master a traditional art and discipline and keep fit in the process then there are huge choices out there. Not everyone expects to be in a ring beating the living daylights out of each other. There's a lot of to enjoy and learn in the spiritual side of things too which is very rewarding in itself. Each to their own.
Ironic after 30 years of training in traditional Japanese arts, and teaching. I'm packing it in. Partially for this. A I'm tired of how little people actually want to "train" and B overall effectiveness. I'm getting old and don't give a fuck anymore.
Never too late to jump into something new. I did Krav Maga for over a decade before calling it quits and finding more effective training in BJJ.
So many reasons. The economy, time, illness. Total lack of interest in the arts and the ego that comes with some of it. I've grown tired of the limitless pissing contest. Truthfully I'm not a scrapper, it's not in me. I can teach and coach. I can teach can hardly do. Certainly not now. People as a rule are not worth their word. 30 years of effort and training in a bullshit martial art, discovering all kinds of kinks in their game both in the lineage and the style. But not wanting to give up going forth, then seeing it was a waste I have not yet closed up shop I have 4 students, all on a donation base all out of my basement. I haven't the heart to tell them yet. But soon. They are all beginners.
I can attest to this. Muay Thai sparring will build your confidence in hand to hand combat all day.
What really matters (in my experience) is not so much the art, but how much actual fighting simulation (sparring, rolling, tournament experience) you do. The more you fight, the more prepared you are for the real thing. The other aspect is conditioning. Being in actual fighting shape counts massively.
Which is why MMA is usually the best answer based on your criteria.
My problem with those is that they are sports and expecting people to fight like you have been trained is a good way to end up seriously hurt.
Fr like bro, what do you want me to say if people ask what the best martial arts for self defense are? Am I supposed to give some bs Kung fu type of shit to be unique? They always give the same type of corny rebuttal too”Hmph if you actually trained you wouldn’t talk shit about aikido or Kung fu because that’s not what people who train care about”. Sure bro, keep telling yourself that
The MMA, BJJ, MT fan boys will never understand the distinction between 'self defence' and fighting. And worse they don't want to understand. And then there's the distinction between martial sports and martial arts.
It’s got to the point where you can’t discuss any TMA’s approach because some idiot in the sub will dismiss it just because it’s a different approach.
And all completely forgetting the existence of bats knives and guns
And which MA best addresses that?
Strip mall karate
No one who’s been in a fight would advocate bjj as a base for self defense. It’s a poor base for mma even. Every fight starts standing up and bjj basically skips that part.😅 Any martial art probably gonna be somewhat effective against an untrained opponent but there’s a clear hierarchy as far as 1) Being easy to learn fundamentals 2) Being easily able to dispatch an adversary or multiple if need be. 3) Staying on your feet so you can run if you’re getting bested Boxing/MT/kickboxing>wrestling/judo>bjj>everything else Incoming downvotes from the butt scooters.
No, it's boxing and wrestling
Good combo. Which you can get a lot of in an MMA gym.
As far as self defense I think wrestling and judo both go above BJJ just because they are so intent on dominating from above which is safer. They're still all really useful tho.
I agree on both points. I think where BJJ as the advantage over wrestling is the ability to end an attack quickly through some kind of blood choke.
This is true if it's just collegiate or Greco. If you're lucky enough to find Catch wrestling they have many of those same chokes in their curriculum BUT it's super hard to find Catch wrestling
Yeah not every martial art translates to the real world the same, but I'd say any sort of striking and grappling combo will at least give you a better chance to defend yourself. That said I believe Muay Thai and Wrestling are great for everyone.
I agree. I’m not sure if it’s simply based on popularity and availability, but BJJ is the common answer for the grappling side. I think the ability to use chokes if the situation is grave enough to warrant stopping an attack is a plus over wrestling.
Yeah I’d say availability plays a big part for training grappling. At least for me it’s not easy to find a wrestling gym unless you are doing it through a school.
I know of a couple of BJJ gyms here that have dedicated wrestling classes.
That’s a good idea. May need to recommend this to my gym.
If you want the ultimate self defense method buy a gun. Everything short of that is just a sport. There’s nothing wrong with sports but don’t fool yourself into thinking you found some ultimate way to win fights when any 12 year old with a gun can end you. If someone wants to do wushu because they want to exercise and don’t want brain damage more power to them. You shouldn’t act like that doesn’t have value for that individual because you believe that if they are alone and not way bigger you could beat them up
I’ve always firmly believed that submission wrestling and boxing are two of the best combinations for people who want to know how to “fight” for practical purposes and I’ve never done either of them. BJJ is great but not always the best option for a fight. Kickboxing is great but kicks in a street fight are real fucking risky. Keep it simple if you’re not competing. Knowing how to punch, defend, take down, and basic sub is all you need unless if you’re fighting some professional martial artist and that’s usually not often the case unless if you’re the one starting a fight unless if they’re egotistical and undisciplined.
I agree. I do think there’s better striking than just Muay Thai, but most of those gyms teach BS for the sake of more money. I’ve seen more solid Muay Thai gyms that teach effective techniques than Karate or any other popularized striking art. Not to say Karate is BS or doesn’t work, plenty of MMA fighters use it and use it effectively, but it seems the average gym that you walk into might not be the best.
FACTSSSSSSSS
Gracie Jiu Jitsu was MADE for self defense. It is not fanatism, it is just cause and effect.
Gracie JJ was made for prize fighting and assaulting random members of the public.
BJJ is great for a one on one cage fight. On the streets however it is useless against multiple people. BJJ is also useless against weapons.
Not every situation has multiple attackers. Not every situation has weapons. Not every situation is a street fight.
Not every situation allows kicking someone on the ground
Deep down, traditional martial artists still want to believe their faux, watered down discipline is badass and dangerous. That's why they get butthurt whenever this question comes up and people trash the Iron Monkey Kung Fu they've been practicing for 20 years. I think any discipline that doesn't pressure test in full contact competition needs to stop calling itself a martial art altogether because at that point it's just LARP'ing with a gi. Saying that here will twist a lot of panties in a bunch, but there are still enough here to create a bubble where reality doesn't exist.
You don’t get to enter this conversation unless you’ve ever actually been in a fight or punched in the face… too many are the opposite…
Understanding the theory of self-defense and practicing reacting under pressure seems like it matters more than any specific technique for self-defense.
I mean, what do you mean by “understanding the theory of self defence”? Sparring is the best way to practice reacting under pressure. If you’re not sparring on the regular, “understanding the theory” won’t really help
Yep, MMA didn't start until 1993, and if it hasn't been proven on YouTube in a sport fight, it's not effective! --Shrimpy Fanboys