81–90 of 121 posts
Not a martial art exactly but I would say fencing without a doubt. It's like physical chess
Have a look at Wing Chun Kung Fu. Amazingly complicated and deep. Every move is defence and attack at the same time using minimum energy, quite relevant nowadays.
Not a martial art exactly but I would say fencing without a doubt. It's like physical chess
It is a martial art; it's just not an Asian martial art.
My two cents on which martial art to pick is boxing or one of the kickboxing varieties. The "east asian" martial arts schools in your American strip mall practically never emphasize that fighting is 90% physical fitness and strength, and so I regard them as a bit of a joke. Rare is the taekwondo student who'd last three rounds against a golden gloves guy.
I mean, you see fat people coming out of these karate classes. There's very rarely such a thing at a muay thai or boxing gym that actually fields fighters. When I was boxing it wasn't rare for guys to puke.
I suppose nerds want to think fighting is this cerebral thing where all these advanced skills with funny japanese names make the difference. Sorry, it's mostly being able to hit hard and keep doing it a lot for minutes.
I study Krav Maga. I prefer a practical self defense oriented approach. It is the system developed by and taught to the Israeli military. Moves are generally very simple (important so you can be effective without years of training). The problem with pretty much all other martial arts everyone is mentioning is that they have morphed to work ideally in a competitive environment. Sure, knowing just about any martial art…
Every art I've seen teaches getting out of holds first because it is something a novice can do pretty easily with some understanding of technique.
I've also been hit in the balls during sparing matches a number of times. It's not the decisive hit many imagine. In fact, a strong solar plexis shot was much more effective in my personal experience.
A lot of "real world" martial arts teach about "disabling" shots that their practitioners never get to seriously try because they are, at least intended to be, truly crippling.
Yet that means that in the "real world", when assaulted, you are trying to do something you've never previously done in the same fashion.
For that reason, I think that "competition" based martial arts certainly can be at least as good for "real world" defense. The tactics used in MMA matches would work good in the real world - with the proviso to avoid fights and avoid the ground as much as possible.
If anyone wants to debate these issues in gruesome detail, look at http://bullshido.net . There's plenty of attitude there but it's a group of folks who've worked pretty hard sorting out bs from effective martial arts.
Not a martial art exactly but I would say fencing without a doubt. It's like physical chess
I study Krav Maga. I prefer a practical self defense oriented approach. It is the system developed by and taught to the Israeli military. Moves are generally very simple (important so you can be effective without years of training). The problem with pretty much all other martial arts everyone is mentioning is that they have morphed to work ideally in a competitive environment. Sure, knowing just about any martial art…
one of the problems with grappling that BJJ doesn't address is that in many holds your opponent has the opportunity to stab you if they have a knife/shiv etc. this is most apparent in rear chokes. real self defense is not at all glamorous which is why it doesn't have the market that martial arts does. typically you're crushing or breaking something as fast as possible and then RUNNING. I remember I was particularly i…
Typically, you're avoiding without getting involved. Occasionally, you're facing someone down or pushing someone away as quickly as possible and then running.
Breaking bones? Is that something you expect to do easily?
Also, if you manage to get one mega-pain-inflicting blow in mugging type situation, you might give the guy and his friends much more impetus to chase and injure you.
-- Before learning martial arts was mugged a couple of times. Despite the fact that they assaulted me, they were aiming for money. If I'd injured one guy before they got me on the ground and snitched my wallet, I might have been facing considerably more injuries.
Sure, there's lots of attitude in martial arts but I think the "this is the REAL WORLD and we fight DIRTY" folks have as much of this attitude as the wanna-be ninjas.
I study Krav Maga. I prefer a practical self defense oriented approach. It is the system developed by and taught to the Israeli military. Moves are generally very simple (important so you can be effective without years of training). The problem with pretty much all other martial arts everyone is mentioning is that they have morphed to work ideally in a competitive environment. Sure, knowing just about any martial art…
I study Krav Maga. I prefer a practical self defense oriented approach. It is the system developed by and taught to the Israeli military. Moves are generally very simple (important so you can be effective without years of training). The problem with pretty much all other martial arts everyone is mentioning is that they have morphed to work ideally in a competitive environment. Sure, knowing just about any martial art…
Heh, that reminded me of this practical self defense oriented approach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2REG3-Wb5gM "First you're going to want to get wrist control. Then, you pull out your gun."
Aikido gets a lot of bad press but it's worth remembering that comes from Aki-Jujitsu, which was created to allow armed samurai to gain control of unarmed opponents.
It seem pretty obvious that if you've got a gun, you should put yourself in a position where you're wrestling with your opponent - keep them at the minimum at arm's length. I've heard that why Akido uses straight-arm throws.
Walking the city armed for real is pretty literally looking for trouble anyway.