What type of martial arts should I practice?

[Durete]

I will do BJJ first for at least 6 months to a year before beginning the other. Maybe I'll change my mind about boxing by then who knows. But definitely sticking with BJJ.

Just take this to heart:
BJJ is a great sport to do, but that's all it is, a sport.Do not use any of this in self defense.

I've been around quite a bit of fights, due to my line of work, and everytime someone from MMA or BJJ enters a fight they end up in hospital unless being saved by bouncers or local authorities. no exceptions. This is simply since of the way they train, they focus too much on the 1 vs 1 and do not spend time practicing sparring vs multiple opponents. (Going to the floor means you lost a fight. as there are always friends of the person around that will kick you in the head while you're trying to grapple or tackle that person that you're fighitng. standing up and controlling your enviroment is the way to go in an actual fight. BJJ and MMA do a terrible job at stand up fighting.)

Now this might mean that the schools in my surroundings for MMA and BJJ are bad, but that's not the case, as I work globally. (I've been everywhere except for south-america and mainland asia) My main country, the netherlands, is known for it's fighting culture. pretty much everyone and their mum's know at least kickboxing, boxing, or muay thai.
p.s. as for fights, I do not know how many fights I've witnessed (Must be in the hundreds.) I've been in almost 70 street fights in a period of 1.5 years myself.
And learned one thing: Fights are dirty, cheap and involve 95 out of the 100 times multiple persons. and 7 out of the 10 times a weapon of some sort.
So if you do want to practice for self defense, practice an art that prepares you for such events.
That's why I'm such a big fan of traditional karate for self-defense. as it has the least amount of rules (Groin shots, throat strikes are allowed, no protection other than a mouth-guard so it's either learn how to defend yourself quickly as you will get punished every time you slack on your defense.) and pretty much every training has some sort of you vs multiple and defense against weapons/fighting with short weapons in it. - this is done gradually ofcourse, a newbie will not be put in with defending against an actual knife. or been kicked /punched in the throat. My first lesson was though to protect my *ahum* lower region. second to defend against attacks in the solar plexus, thirth in the throat, fourth on the ankles.
I was lucky enough to be trained by the world champion shotokan karate(Most technical sports karate form) that trained me in the traditional karate forms, and my class was filled with people that had 10+ years experience.


If you do want a good sport to roll around and learn some fair to decent ground fighting and takedowns, BJJ is a good choice.
In the end:as a sport do whatever feels best for you, and boxing and BJJ will definately get you fit.
but don't expect that you'll become a better fighter than the average college kid that gets into barfights in the weekends with either boxing or BJJ.
(I know that there are people out there that will disagree with me, but to those: before you respond let me ask you;...How much actual fighting experience do you have outside of the ring?)

 

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[z6Evolved]

Back when I was younger and in much better shape I studied any martial art that looked interesting that I could find a trainer for. Everything from Wing Chun to Krav Maga, grappling, boxing, kickboxing, judo, jiu jitsu, hell even took some greco-roman wrestling classes at one point. Honestly, best bang for your buck is going to be Krav Maga or Sambo.

Everyone knows KM, not many people are aware of Sambo.

It goes under a lot of names now, when I studied it the brand was "Russian Martial Art" which is crazy generic but sums it up. It's a Russian martial art, after all. It's really effective and focuses a lot on 1 vs many which is something a lot of martial arts don't touch on. There's lots of floor work too which is also helpful in the real world, since (from my experience) a lot of real fights end up on the floor anyway.

Check out the videos from Vladimir Vasiliev on youtube if you're interested, that's the guy I learned from when I was younger.

 

[Lathan]

Going to the floor means you lost a fight. as there are always friends of the person around that will kick you in the head while you're trying to grapple or tackle that person that you're fighitng

I think a lot of people are under the impression that 'self defense' means only defending yourself in a bar against a bunch of drunk assholes. I don't even drink, much less go to bars, clubs, etc. I don't put myself in those kind of situations where I am going to get jumped.

When people on here keep saying "most fights are a group vs 1" I think they have a bar environment in mind. Most street fights are 1v1 unless you're in the ghetto and have a bunch of idiots in gangs and what not.

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

EDIT: Also, going to the floor does not mean you lost the fight. Most people usually try to tackle you down and ground and pound so having a good ground game is a big plus.

 

[Kreedos Phoenix]

I hear Krav Maga is where its at. If you're tall Muay Thai is beneficial because you can take some swift kicks to the chin of your competition and they wont see it coming.

Just some game I was given back in the day. I'd still like to give Krav Magra a shot just because its personal and takes you by surprise.

 

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[Durete]

I think a lot of people are under the impression that 'self defense' means only defending yourself in a bar against a bunch of drunk assholes. I don't even drink, much less go to bars, clubs, etc. I don't put myself in those kind of situations where I am going to get jumped.

That is good, evading is always better than fighting back.

When people on here keep saying "most fights are a group vs 1" I think they have a bar environment in mind. Most street fights are 1v1 unless you're in the ghetto and have a bunch of idiots in gangs and what not.

Most fights are indeed in a bar enviroment.
The second highest is getting mugged/discriminative attacks, which always includes multiple attackers.
The only time when a fight involves a 1 vs 1 situation is usually in domestic violence.

You'd be surprised what kind of fights I've seen. as I said I work in an enviroment where I see almost daily fights....
Guess what; this is an enviroment where you wouldn't expect it: It is called vacation. Atm I work on a cruise ship, even while fights happen a lot less here than it does in hotels where I used to work (Then we're speaking about the top 25 hotels of the world.)
In those so called "Care-free zones" I have seen: Attacks with weapons, attacks without weapons, (Lots of them racial or religious minded) riots(Been in the riots in Greece, Egypt, and a few other ones), drunken fights, domestic violence, fights since someone is dancing with someone's girlfriend. etc.) Heck, I've had one situation on a cruise ship when a 80 year old brittish couple each broke a glass and started to cut up another 80+ couple since they where from germany. ((Happy vacation anyone?))

The only times that I've seen a 1 vs 1 fight was in domestic violence.(the order of occurance is usually: Wife beating man up> Man beating wife up> parents beating kids up. and yes, it happens a lot more often that a female is the attacker than the male.)

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

EDIT: Also, going to the floor does not mean you lost the fight. Most people usually try to tackle you down and ground and pound so having a good ground game is a big plus.

Knowing a bit of ground work can always help, but tbh traditional Muay/karate have enough ground fighting in them, and (Traditional)jujutsu is the master of ground fighting.

Quite a few people-that are drunk, or simply don't know how to fight- go in for the tackle, indeed. but it's not those that you have to worry about.
A below average stand-up fighter is incredible hard to "Tackle" or bring to the ground. Heck the only way that I know that you can get a fair stand up fighter to go down to the floor is;
A) Knock him out
B) Get a lucky sweep in (sweeps are more effective than tackles, and a lot less risky)
C) Get a lucky clinch in and throw him off-balance.

One situation for counter tackling where I've been in myself was when I was attacked by a group of 6(!!!!) people that tried to get me down to the floor. They failed, simply since I was a fair/somewhat decend stand up fighter and they where not. eventually they just gave up. as I was using a standart karate mentality of fighting (Being mainly reactive. sollid defense, only counter attacks. you can see the same mentality in the UFC in the early fights of the karateka Lyoto machida, when he became world champ.)

tackling/grappling on the way you see in BJJ/MMA usually does not work against a stand up fighter.
And take it from someone that has been in, and has secured many fights: Going down to the floor does mean you lost. as you will get kicked/knee-ed/elbowed in the head/groin/throat by the first person that stands up again, or by surrounders. Or you might just get stabbed while you're down fighting the person you where originally fighting.

But hey if you want to put your safety in the hands of some men hugging eachother and rolling over the floor practicing fairly harmless technique's on eachother (or just plain dangerous technique's to yourself such as the "Guard position in BJJ", which is the most useless thing in self defense in history.) Go ahaid. it's your life/safety that you're risking, not mine.

*I'm out of this discussion, said what I wanted to say and tbh I strongly doubt that there are people that think totally different about this all that have equal or more experience in the field than me. I don't claim to have much expertise in many things, but this is one of the points where I think I can safely say that I'm one of the more experienced people that I've seen, other than my colleague's offcourse*

 

[Lathan]

But hey if you want to put your safety in the hands of some men hugging eachother and rolling over the floor practicing fairly harmless technique's on eachother (or just plain dangerous technique's to yourself such as the "Guard position in BJJ", which is the most useless thing in self defense in history.) Go ahaid. it's your life/safety that you're risking, not mine.

I will! Thanks!

P.s. BJJ isn't just rolling on the floor.You of all people should know that.

 

[OVOvince]

Boxing is to karate as Judo is to Jujutsu. (watered down versions of it.

nothing could be furthest from the truth. ive practiced korean and japanese arts more than I have of boxing, and i completely disagree with you...

 

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[Forodstar]

Hypothetically, say there was someone who saw fight club and thought that was pretty cool but at the same was pretty hesitant about this kind of thing... because you know only having one body and not wanting to **** it up . What's the safest martial art?

 

[loop101]

Hypothetically, say there was someone who saw fight club and thought that was pretty cool but at the same was pretty hesitant about this kind of thing... because you know only having one body and not wanting to **** it up . What's the safest martial art?

Hurt in a fight, or in training? You will spend 1000x more time training than fighting, so whichever is safest to practice, is the safest. I would say BJJ is the safest. I used to say Judo, but BJJ is safer because you don't practice falling so much. Classical jiu-jitsu has way too many joint-breaking techniques to be safe. All the striking styles are more dangerous because you will be training with beginners who cannot control their strikes.

 

[Leo Hendrix]

Jeet Kune Do, Systema,Boxing,Ninijitsu, my personal favourite is Jeet Kune Do, because you can add/remove moves from your base style to create your own 'style'.
Ive trained and sparred in Jeet Kune Do, tiny bit of boxing, used it(JKD) in a streetfight against multiple opponents and it worked...I wouldnt say I smashed them all...I could say I blocked them all...more than 5 opponents.

Can't comment on any other styles because I haven't learnt them yet properly, P.S Wing Chun is one of the foundational pillars of JKD.

 

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[loop101]

Thanks. I actually have that book but I haven't read it yet.

Lmao @ the part where he's not even hitting the guy and the guy is spazzing out. What a joke.


Thanks everyone for all the responses. After reading here, and elsewhere, I've decided on doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu(or jiu jitsu..gotta look up the differences between the two) along with boxing. Striking art as well as ground work.

Boxing speaks for itself and the only concern of brazilian jiu jitsu I've read so far (here and elsewhere) is that it is only good against ONE opponent. Which I don't think is a big issue as long as you have the striking art along with it. Not to mention that contrary to what a couple people have said on this thread, most fights I've seen are 1 vs 1.

And if worse comes to worse and you are to get jumped, (the chances of that are very slim as it is... much less if you are an observant person who stays aware of your surroundings and doesn't put yourself in stupid situations) you can just flee, and use your striking art if necessary.

Doing 6 months of BJJ is a great start. Classical JJ is a little weird, you may not even be able to find a school for it nowadays. From what I remember from talking to Japanese karate guys, classical JJ was mostly used as a complement to karate. When I was younger, the only places to learn JJ was at Japanese Karate schools. BJJ, IMHO, is a more complete style, not reliant upon karate. Both JJ and BJJ lack real stand-up skills, so you will have to eventually train in striking.

As another poster said, training in anything is good. One you start training, you will learn quickly. If you are serious about it, you can make serious progress in about a year.

If you have a goal, you might tell that to your teacher, so they can guide your progress. if I was starting now, I would tell the teacher, "I want to be able avoid getting KO'd or ground'n-pounded by 95% of street thugs." At least they will know where you are coming from, and might alter you training plan. At least they will know you are not there to just lose weight.

 

[loop101]

When I was young, this was the closest thing to the UFC. A documentary called "The Fighting Black Kings". The movie follows the training and outcome of two African-American guys, who go to fight in Japan. It was basically real fights between all kinds of martial-artists. Free-style, no pads, and full-contact. The losers generally got KTFO. It was sad when the two Americans had to fight each-other. I don't think they mentioned it in the movie, but the short guy had a heart condition, and later died while training in his NY dojo.

 

[mthw]

I think what those guys mean by saying "BJJ is useless in a street fight" think that you want to learn BJJ to use it in a fight, that instead of stand up combat you'll grapple with them once the fight starts and try to take it to the ground. But I think what you really mean by saying your interested in BJJ is for the possibility of you being tackled during a fight, and then if that happens you'll know how to defend yourself on the ground/on your back.
If I am correct, and you want to learn BJJ to just be prepared for a fight that could get taken to the ground by your opponent, then yes BJJ is a useful martial art to learn.

For me I've trained in boxing, Muay Thai, BJJ, wrestling, and Jeet Kun Do. I trained Jeet Kun Do first for the shortest period of time, boxing second, then wrestling, followed by Muay Thai, and lastly BJJ. Boxing was what interested me the most first and is the one I enjoy the most and rely on it the most in street fights, Muay Thai is a very close second with how much I use it, just because of the Elbows/Knees being VERY EFFECTIVE, and in case of being tackled during a fight I rely on my wrestling more than BJJ honestly. Wrestling was more natural and came very fast to me, I was a very good wrestler just off of my own common sense and instincts. It's all about leverage. BJJ is very useful in a street fight, but you shouldn't end up on your back.

Id say for you to learn Boxing or Muay Thai for your stand up, maybe even kickboxing if you like Boxing more but just want to be able to use the kicks, etc. For your ground game id say to learn wrestling, if you get your takedown defense high enough you won't need any ground game, I've never been taken down in a street fight, but I've slammed many ppl on their backs. Even carried guys double my height and weight on my shoulder and just threw em around like a rag doll. BJJ is good to know to have the sweeps, and locks in the back of your mind in case it's needed.

Never took karate, seemed like a little kid thing, never learned Krav Maga but I've heard that is very useful.

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

Wow.... I'm so shocked that this carried on for 4 pages.

I teach Martial Arts for a living:

JKD, Muay Thai, Boxing, Filipino Panatukan, Maphilindo Silat, Wing Chun, Combat Submission Wrestling, Shoot Wrestling, Rapid Assault Tactics, and Edged Weapons etc. etc.

Certified under very very well known instructors in the world. I don't want to leak out too much as this is a public forum.

The simple answer: Try anything that you want to try. See what you like and dislike. It's not much different than figuring out what you want and like.


Don't over complicate it.

 

[Tyler K]

I do grappling and if you're looking at it from a self defense point of view Krav Maga is your best bet. Grappling i also a good skill to have though.

 

[Ninjakid]

In a real life fight, the most important factor is the person, not necessarily the martial arts style. A person with years of martial art's training can be beaten by someone with no formal training just because that guy was purely focused on putting the other guy down, and not so much on some fancy systematic maneuver. It's likely that unless you're looking for trouble, you'll never get into a fight, but if you ever do, do whatever it takes to incapacitate the other guy.

Now if you want to train a particular martial art:

Krav Maga is most tailored to real life scenarios, so if that's what you're looking for, I recommend that. It will teach you to severely injure your opponent with the littlest movement possible.

I practice Taekwondo, and have been for many years. I've heard from many people that taekwondo isn't useful for actual fighting, but I beg to differ.
Taekwondo is based mostly on striking, and I would prefer to take someone out be striking them at a distance rather than wrestle with them. There's some sophisticated grappling techniques that I would never recommend in an actual fight, but if you train TKD, you will develop very strong punches and kicks.

Most Karate schools I would avoid. Karate traditionally is a serious, devastating form of martial arts, but since it got introduced to North America, it's been watered down and preached in McDojos, and lost much of its effectiveness. It would be difficult to find a decent school under the banner of "karate". If you went to Japan though, I'm sure it would be a completely different story.

 

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[Ninjakid]

In a real life fight, the most important factor is the person, not necessarily the martial arts style. A person with years of martial art's training can be beaten by someone with no formal training just because that guy was purely focused on putting the other guy down, and not so much on some fancy systematic maneuver. It's likely that unless you're looking for trouble, you'll never get into a fight, but if you ever do, do whatever it takes to incapacitate the other guy.

Now if you want to train a particular martial art:

Krav Maga is most tailored to real life scenarios, so if that's what you're looking for, I recommend that. It will teach you to severely injure your opponent with the littlest movement possible.

I practice Taekwondo, and have been for many years. I've heard from many people that taekwondo isn't useful for actual fighting, but I beg to differ.
Taekwondo is based mostly on striking, and I would prefer to take someone out be striking them at a distance rather than wrestle with them. There's some sophisticated grappling techniques that I would never recommend in an actual fight, but if you train TKD, you will develop very strong punches and kicks.

Most Karate schools I would avoid. Karate traditionally is a serious, devastating form of martial arts, but since it got introduced to North America, it's been watered down and preached in McDojos, and lost much of its effectiveness. It would be difficult to find a decent school under the banner of "karate". If you went to Japan though, I'm sure it would be a completely different story. Some of those older, more traditional karate masters are tough as bricks.

 

[Ninjakid]

^ this one above is a typo. Please delete it