Which Martial Art?

Training Powerlifting
81

Sorry for starting this back up, but I want to put in my $.02

As with everything martial arts have strengths and weaknesses, I will list some of the more practical ones.

Wrestling
pros: takedowns, holds, superior positioning on the ground.

cons: no striking, can’t fight on their backs, and few submissions.

Jiu-jitsu
pros: ground fighting submissions
cons: little to striking

Judo
pros: throws/takedowns/sweeps, depending on the school ground fighting/submissions

cons: sometimes they focus too much on throwing and not grappling. No striking

Boxing
pros: punching, footwork, head movement
cons: no ground fighting, only the use of fists.

Muay Thai
pros: most aspects of striking, clench.
cons: boxing has superior punching(but only punching since that’s all boxing uses to strike with).

From my experiences, these are the more practical martial arts. In a ideal world you would cross train in every one of these, but if I had to narrow it down I would go with Jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai.

Jiu-jitsu has many submissions on the ground, if you do it for long enough you will feel comfortable on the ground even if you are on your back.

Muay Thai is, in my opinion, one of the top striking arts (kyokushin karate is great too). The kicks aren’t flashy(compared to other martial arts) or meant to be, they are powerful and direct (leg kick is a good example, it will drop someone if applied correctly and most people on the street don’t expect it since they expect punching and wrestling).

The application of knees and elbows are also extremely devistating. Most of the time you see a solid knee or elbow landed it either knocks them out, cuts them wide open, or makes them want to stop because of the pain.

I focused more on the fighting martial arts, I would recommend an aiki-jujitsu type arts to handle other standup aggression such as wrist grabs, bear hugs, head locks, etc.s (although jiu-jitsu and some judo schools touch on these).

Watch some fights, pay attention to good grapplers and good thai fighters compared to other arts and imagine them combined. Many fighters are trained in both but tend to stick with their favorite art (the gracies, matt hughes, wanderlei silva, cro cop, and anderson silva are good examples of fighters who cross train but stick with their bread and butter).

82

I personally train in MMa style, meaning to implement all styles Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ Ect.
Here where I live we have alot of the fights as shows in the clubs and our fighters do very well in competition.

Just start learning stand up and ground and put them together in practice. In my experince fights wind up in one position or the other(unpredictable) so practice it all.

Find a school where fighters practice a. Most fighters are good guys and will get you started without you getting hurt(help you, not hurt you)

Later

83

BJJ beautiful sport effective self defence but if you use it you will break somebodies arm and go to jail. And then you will really need it to fend of the sodomy clowns

84

For self defense purposes here are a few that i’m would recommend:

. Ryabko or Kadochnikov Systema

. ROSS

. Krav Maga try going Moni’s group though. (www.combatsurvival.com)

. Amoke (www.knifefighting.com)

these are SOME of the good arts out there (personal prefference been the Systema group) but remember to experiment and find what best suits you.

85

[quote]oztrav wrote:
BJJ beautiful sport effective self defence but if you use it you will break somebodies arm and go to jail. And then you will really need it to fend of the sodomy clowns[/quote]

You don’t have to break the arm. 95 times out of a hundred BJJ in a street fight is about mount control or cross side control, maybe some strikes but then the guy settles down. In extreme cases maybe a blood choke until he’s unconscious. Breaking something would only be if you were getting creamed and it was all you had available.

86

Im not sure if anyone’s made this point already, but its valid so im gona say it. The first thing to decide when taking up a new martial art is whether your doing it cos you want to do a sport or whether your doing it to defend yourself. Obviously there is overlap.

However if you want to learn something with self defense in mind pick a self defense system not a sport. The easiest way to distinguish between the two is to see whether or not a paticular martial art has competitions or not. If it does not this means they were developed as a self defensesystem…two examples are wing chun and krav maga.

Once you look into the moves of a self defense system such as wing chun or krav you realise why they dont have full on competitions…there would be too many deaths!

The draw back of self defense systems is the nature of the training involved. I box and do krav, and i love sparring when boxing. With Krav you always have to hold back, which for me lessons the enjoyment of training. However, for self defense purposes its fantastic.

Sport or self defense? You gotta make that decision first

87

What???

88

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
What??? [/quote]

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

89

[quote]Scrappy wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
What???

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

[/quote]

think about it! Some fighting systems were designed as sports, some as self defense systems. The self defense systems tend to have more deadly moves and are therfore trained some what differently to fighting systems that are sports. If you dont get my point you probably havent seen a true self defense system like wing chun or krav maga being used.

90

Umm, I will be 32 next week and I’ve seen and trained in a lot of martial arts since I was 6. I have seen a lot of wing chun and krav. I found bjj in '94 and fell in love. I think all fighting systems were developed to fight and then maybe became sports later. I am completely supportive of people doing self defense, sport, kata, whatever. I think it’s important that they realize what they are capable of and what they are not capable of.

It is unlikely that many practitioners of most martial arts don’t fight because they would kill each other if they used their techniques to their full extent. It is common that many martial artists don’t train at full speed because they don’t want to find out that some of their techniques don’t actually kill people as easily as they believe or that they are difficult to pull off altogether.

Training in an alive way like sport boxing, bjj, judo etc is good as it provides you with a realistic look at an uncooperative opponent and their reactions. You must be open minded and remember there are ‘dirty’ tactics and rules and sometimes your opponent is another sport guy so he’s not going ‘wild’ like an attakcer would. But you can experiment with that if you like or even watch a dvd on foul tactics. There are many. But I find people are a bit easier to beat when they go nuts then when they actually know some bjj/boxing or sport fighting.

MMA doesn’t allow things that will make the sport really bloody, like biting, but I’m not certain those things would change the victors in most fights, they’d only make for bloodier fights. Some of the wilder bjj guys who used to do challenge matches long before the UFC had plenty of finger twisting, groin grabbing, throat striking, eye gouging, biting ‘killers’ attempt to beat them. Don’t think they don’t know how to handle that kind of thing or do it themselves.

The right positional control can really nullify these sorts of things and put you in a position to inflict them worse. Not to mention everyone knows them. I would suggest to those interested in self defense that they train primarily an alive sport like MMA and just take a weekend course in some foul tactics, watch a dvd, or ask the instructor or old timers about them. When I started back in '94 I can tell you EVERY bjj guy there was into some form of reality based self defense already and tons of others styles and sports.

Wing Chun, some Krav, tons of TMA’s and JKD and alot of the ‘reality based stuff like Tony Blauer. Boxers adn wrestlers. A lot of big strong ex-football players. All of us got our asses handed to us. It was not cause we weren’t proficient at other things either. Most of us liked it and decided to learn more. The ones who didnt’ like it got really bitter and said ‘I would just do this or do that’, but during the roll you could see the upper belts politely ask, when would you do that. The fact is they couldn’t.

If you really want to train self defense tactics to shock someone and get away that can be taught fairly quickly, but when it doesn’t work what happens? Typically, it is a crazy brawl ending up on the ground and if you haven’t trained for your kill techniques failing you may panic. Sometimes you’re even put on the ground before you see someone coming. It is nice to do mma as it effectively addresses the real ranges and speeds of a fight. Also, you tend to avoid getting in stupid fights cause you get out all your frustration on the mats.

I need to stop getting in these discussions. But I speak with good intentinons and sincerely from real experience in several karates/kung fus/ jkd/ reality based things and even other sport fighting styles. I recommend that if you love your art that’s great, but you should go roll with guys at a good bjj academy. you can even, after you get to know them, ask how they’d handle whatever technique you want to show and they’ll usually be really cool. I know Roger Gracie is in England, I’d expect his academy to have some good guys as he maybe the best submission grappler alive right now. All I’m saying is, I’ve done a lot of things. Everyone interested in self defense should try just 6 months at a GOOD bjj school. You may hate it, you may beat everyone there, but at least you know what it’s really about.

[quote]elliotnewman1 wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
What???

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

think about it! Some fighting systems were designed as sports, some as self defense systems. The self defense systems tend to have more deadly moves and are therfore trained some what differently to fighting systems that are sports. If you dont get my point you probably havent seen a true self defense system like wing chun or krav maga being used.

[/quote]

91

[quote]elliotnewman1 wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
What???

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

think about it! Some fighting systems were designed as sports, some as self defense systems. The self defense systems tend to have more deadly moves and are therfore trained some what differently to fighting systems that are sports. If you dont get my point you probably havent seen a true self defense system like wing chun or krav maga being used.

[/quote]

Hi elliot,

Well, honestly I understand where you are trying to come from, but your logic is slightly flawed. Just because a school/system allows it’s participants to compete does not necessarily mean that it is not self defense oriented in nature.

The system I used to train in (haven’t been for a little while, but probably going back soon) used to have a team of students who enjoyed competing and would therefore compete in grappling/kickboxing/MMA. Many of the students did very well against other fighters from arts such as BJJ, kickboxing, etc…

However, the system is primarily a self defense system. They practice all of the things you can’t do in MMA/grappling/kickboxing competitions. They simply also realize the importance of experience and developing one’s striking and grappling arsenals.

Shihan Lysak (Walt Lysak Jr.) addressed the issue of “conceptual martial arts” vs. “sport martial arts” several times. He put it like this, “Conceptual martial artists make a lot of good points, but the problem is that because they don’t spend enough time in active combat, or have enough actual combat experience, they won’t be able to apply the ideas that they talk about. However, sport martial artists tend to get tunnel vision and neglect training the other arsenals (besides grappling and striking). Both sides have their good and bad points, combining the two is the best bet.”(paraphrased)

So, in other words, styles like Krav Maga, WC, etc… that don’t actually put on the gloves and spar in real time won’t have the timing, distancing, or experience to actually pull off their techniques against a skilled, fully resistant opponent.

However, systems like wrestling, or sport jiu-jitsu schools need to also address arsenals such as biting, eye attacks, etc…

In regards to how to train deadly techniques, yes, you do have to use some restraint and control when practicing lethal techniques. But they can still be trained in a “live” environment against a fully resistant opponent. We used to bite each other while grappling, we used eye attacks, nerve attacks, body handles, etc… in real time.

This type of training is essential if you ever want to be able to pull off these techniques in real combat.

Good training,

Sentoguy

92

The special forces hand-to-hand contact instructors are themselves trained by MMA experts/instructors, so I heartily disagree. Also, it is absurd to think that striking training in using only 2 of the body’s weapons (fists i.e. boxing) is superior to training in all of them (muay thai or MMA).

93

[quote]TunaMonkey wrote:
The special forces hand-to-hand contact instructors are themselves trained by MMA experts/instructors, so I heartily disagree. Also, it is absurd to think that striking training in using only 2 of the body’s weapons (fists i.e. boxing) is superior to training in all of them (muay thai or MMA).[/quote]

Yes…
Many of these programs and guys bring in MMA guys if they feel a task will require hand to hand. In the past many have claimed to be spec forces or swat type trainers but the truth is some spec ops get minimal or NO hand to hand. They are on teams of 15 guys who sneak up on their target with machine guns.

I know a few seals who’ve learned almost no hand to hand except for their own training. So many ‘experts’ were able to say they were killers cause they taught to the military. It is so good to see cops and military getting mma instruction now. My friends in the secret service/Military/fbi used to show me some crazy stuff they taught them.

Now they teach a lot of BJJ. Plenty of agents and cops came to our school feeling they needed more. The law enforcement stuff done by straight blast gym is also mma based but tailored to law enforcement needs and situations. The greco and thai clinch and bjj control for these guys is priceless.

It is rarely a boxing match. Also, they can’t just shoot an unruly guy who isn’t armed. So in those cases a cop can need hand to hand more often than a soldier.

Bottom line is, the stuff works when people get wild. And it works when many other things don’t work or worse yet get you into trouble. And I need to stop getting involved in these discussions.

94

[quote]Scrappy wrote:
Umm, I will be 32 next week and I’ve seen and trained in a lot of martial arts since I was 6. I have seen a lot of wing chun and krav. I found bjj in '94 and fell in love. I think all fighting systems were developed to fight and then maybe became sports later. I am completely supportive of people doing self defense, sport, kata, whatever. I think it’s important that they realize what they are capable of and what they are not capable of.

It is unlikely that many practitioners of most martial arts don’t fight because they would kill each other if they used their techniques to their full extent. It is common that many martial artists don’t train at full speed because they don’t want to find out that some of their techniques don’t actually kill people as easily as they believe or that they are difficult to pull off altogether.

Training in an alive way like sport boxing, bjj, judo etc is good as it provides you with a realistic look at an uncooperative opponent and their reactions. You must be open minded and remember there are ‘dirty’ tactics and rules and sometimes your opponent is another sport guy so he’s not going ‘wild’ like an attakcer would. But you can experiment with that if you like or even watch a dvd on foul tactics. There are many. But I find people are a bit easier to beat when they go nuts then when they actually know some bjj/boxing or sport fighting.

MMA doesn’t allow things that will make the sport really bloody, like biting, but I’m not certain those things would change the victors in most fights, they’d only make for bloodier fights. Some of the wilder bjj guys who used to do challenge matches long before the UFC had plenty of finger twisting, groin grabbing, throat striking, eye gouging, biting ‘killers’ attempt to beat them. Don’t think they don’t know how to handle that kind of thing or do it themselves.

The right positional control can really nullify these sorts of things and put you in a position to inflict them worse. Not to mention everyone knows them. I would suggest to those interested in self defense that they train primarily an alive sport like MMA and just take a weekend course in some foul tactics, watch a dvd, or ask the instructor or old timers about them. When I started back in '94 I can tell you EVERY bjj guy there was into some form of reality based self defense already and tons of others styles and sports.

Wing Chun, some Krav, tons of TMA’s and JKD and alot of the ‘reality based stuff like Tony Blauer. Boxers adn wrestlers. A lot of big strong ex-football players. All of us got our asses handed to us. It was not cause we weren’t proficient at other things either. Most of us liked it and decided to learn more. The ones who didnt’ like it got really bitter and said ‘I would just do this or do that’, but during the roll you could see the upper belts politely ask, when would you do that. The fact is they couldn’t.

If you really want to train self defense tactics to shock someone and get away that can be taught fairly quickly, but when it doesn’t work what happens? Typically, it is a crazy brawl ending up on the ground and if you haven’t trained for your kill techniques failing you may panic. Sometimes you’re even put on the ground before you see someone coming. It is nice to do mma as it effectively addresses the real ranges and speeds of a fight. Also, you tend to avoid getting in stupid fights cause you get out all your frustration on the mats.

I need to stop getting in these discussions. But I speak with good intentinons and sincerely from real experience in several karates/kung fus/ jkd/ reality based things and even other sport fighting styles. I recommend that if you love your art that’s great, but you should go roll with guys at a good bjj academy. you can even, after you get to know them, ask how they’d handle whatever technique you want to show and they’ll usually be really cool. I know Roger Gracie is in England, I’d expect his academy to have some good guys as he maybe the best submission grappler alive right now. All I’m saying is, I’ve done a lot of things. Everyone interested in self defense should try just 6 months at a GOOD bjj school. You may hate it, you may beat everyone there, but at least you know what it’s really about.

elliotnewman1 wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
What???

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

think about it! Some fighting systems were designed as sports, some as self defense systems. The self defense systems tend to have more deadly moves and are therfore trained some what differently to fighting systems that are sports. If you dont get my point you probably havent seen a true self defense system like wing chun or krav maga being used.

[/quote]

i completely hear what your saying. i probably didnt explain my original arguement as well as i could of done. however having boxed for years and only recently just started krav i reckon krav would be way more useful to me in a street scenario. training with guns, knives baseball bats etc seems a lot more like a street scenario than when i get in the ring to spar.

Also, looking at the amount of armed forces, police departments etc who use krav…clearly im not the only one who thinks its a fantastic system.

Ultimately, all martial arts/self defense systems can be good, i just feel something like krav prepares you for a street scenario better than something where your in a ring.

I guess a final point is that anyone extremely good at any fighting system has a major advantage over untrained or average practioners of any other fighting system.

95

[quote]elliotnewman1 wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
Umm, I will be 32 next week and I’ve seen and trained in a lot of martial arts since I was 6. I have seen a lot of wing chun and krav. I found bjj in '94 and fell in love. I think all fighting systems were developed to fight and then maybe became sports later. I am completely supportive of people doing self defense, sport, kata, whatever. I think it’s important that they realize what they are capable of and what they are not capable of.

It is unlikely that many practitioners of most martial arts don’t fight because they would kill each other if they used their techniques to their full extent. It is common that many martial artists don’t train at full speed because they don’t want to find out that some of their techniques don’t actually kill people as easily as they believe or that they are difficult to pull off altogether.

Training in an alive way like sport boxing, bjj, judo etc is good as it provides you with a realistic look at an uncooperative opponent and their reactions. You must be open minded and remember there are ‘dirty’ tactics and rules and sometimes your opponent is another sport guy so he’s not going ‘wild’ like an attakcer would. But you can experiment with that if you like or even watch a dvd on foul tactics. There are many. But I find people are a bit easier to beat when they go nuts then when they actually know some bjj/boxing or sport fighting.

MMA doesn’t allow things that will make the sport really bloody, like biting, but I’m not certain those things would change the victors in most fights, they’d only make for bloodier fights. Some of the wilder bjj guys who used to do challenge matches long before the UFC had plenty of finger twisting, groin grabbing, throat striking, eye gouging, biting ‘killers’ attempt to beat them. Don’t think they don’t know how to handle that kind of thing or do it themselves.

The right positional control can really nullify these sorts of things and put you in a position to inflict them worse. Not to mention everyone knows them. I would suggest to those interested in self defense that they train primarily an alive sport like MMA and just take a weekend course in some foul tactics, watch a dvd, or ask the instructor or old timers about them. When I started back in '94 I can tell you EVERY bjj guy there was into some form of reality based self defense already and tons of others styles and sports.

Wing Chun, some Krav, tons of TMA’s and JKD and alot of the ‘reality based stuff like Tony Blauer. Boxers adn wrestlers. A lot of big strong ex-football players. All of us got our asses handed to us. It was not cause we weren’t proficient at other things either. Most of us liked it and decided to learn more. The ones who didnt’ like it got really bitter and said ‘I would just do this or do that’, but during the roll you could see the upper belts politely ask, when would you do that. The fact is they couldn’t.

If you really want to train self defense tactics to shock someone and get away that can be taught fairly quickly, but when it doesn’t work what happens? Typically, it is a crazy brawl ending up on the ground and if you haven’t trained for your kill techniques failing you may panic. Sometimes you’re even put on the ground before you see someone coming. It is nice to do mma as it effectively addresses the real ranges and speeds of a fight. Also, you tend to avoid getting in stupid fights cause you get out all your frustration on the mats.

I need to stop getting in these discussions. But I speak with good intentinons and sincerely from real experience in several karates/kung fus/ jkd/ reality based things and even other sport fighting styles. I recommend that if you love your art that’s great, but you should go roll with guys at a good bjj academy. you can even, after you get to know them, ask how they’d handle whatever technique you want to show and they’ll usually be really cool. I know Roger Gracie is in England, I’d expect his academy to have some good guys as he maybe the best submission grappler alive right now. All I’m saying is, I’ve done a lot of things. Everyone interested in self defense should try just 6 months at a GOOD bjj school. You may hate it, you may beat everyone there, but at least you know what it’s really about.

elliotnewman1 wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
What???

I will second zecalo’s ‘what??’

think about it! Some fighting systems were designed as sports, some as self defense systems. The self defense systems tend to have more deadly moves and are therfore trained some what differently to fighting systems that are sports. If you dont get my point you probably havent seen a true self defense system like wing chun or krav maga being used.

i completely hear what your saying. i probably didnt explain my original arguement as well as i could of done. however having boxed for years and only recently just started krav i reckon krav would be way more useful to me in a street scenario. training with guns, knives baseball bats etc seems a lot more like a street scenario than when i get in the ring to spar.

Also, looking at the amount of armed forces, police departments etc who use krav…clearly im not the only one who thinks its a fantastic system.

Ultimately, all martial arts/self defense systems can be good, i just feel something like krav prepares you for a street scenario better than something where your in a ring.

I guess a final point is that anyone extremely good at any fighting system has a major advantage over untrained or average practioners of any other fighting system.
[/quote]

Really, you find your krav better than full contact boxing experience? Then stick with it. I have respect for experience. AS for armed forces and cops using Krav. That’s tough, many spec ops and cops use bjj too. It has a lot to do with personal preference.
With these law enforcement/military guys, sometimes there is the stuff they are required to learn and then there is the stuff indvidual ones seek out to learn. Where I do bjj we have tons of corrections/cops/military/agents/marines. They were all taught some form of self defense they felt was inadequate and they all have stories of bjj helping them in real life. From the guys who need to control people without hurting them, to a guy who shot a huge guy several times and still got rushed and taken down and the guy was going nuts. BJJ allowed him to get on top and completely control this guy. I belive he was on pcp or crystal meth. Anyway, I wouldn’t necessarily say becuase a military or law enforcemnt program teaches something that it’s the best. There jobs may need the confidence a quick hand to hand course can offer or just awareness, but swat and corrections guys who regularly get in the think of it, many of them love bjj/mma and can tell you many experiences where it literally saved their life when many other methods failed. Even in situation where the assailant was shots or there were multiple cops and only one lunatic and the lunatic was winning.

96

Oh come on, I can’t believe no one mentioned Shaolin Kung Fu.

LOL

97

Its kinda sad but most martial artists per se are overtrained and or are trained to the point where most times they will overthink their attackers.

Attackers are usually fast and aggressive.

I personnaly think that boxing is a really good start. I have done muay thai and sambo, I just can really see these martial arts being to particularly effective in a street brawl. Don’t get me wrong if you come across some one thats been in Muay Thai or Sambo for 5 years they will destroy you mainly because its second nature to them due to the fact they have been doing it for so long.

98

[quote]Happypillz wrote:
Its kinda sad but most martial artists per se are overtrained and or are trained to the point where most times they will overthink their attackers.[/quote]

LOL what a bunch of crap.