A gun.
While firearms are extremely effective, there are situations where you need to get physical without escalating to a point where your opponent or otherwise will also pull out a gun. That and escalating to a federal crime is not always the move to make.
Sorry, but you don’t deescalate a dangerous situation with a martial art. Real life isn’t a movie. You deescalate through conversation.Yet, some people are committed to a violent resolution, and in that case, there are no magic words, or chi, or anything else that will deescalate. You need to be ready to draw your weapon and kill, because they are. If that is not the case, then you don’t need a martial art anyway. Even Marx carried a pistol because he understood that.
I never said anything about de-escalation because this thread isn’t about de-escalation. Also no, most times the average person gets into a fight it is not to the death. That’s just plain incorrect. I’ve been mugged and beaten enough to know that if I pulled out a gun or a knife I would have lost a lot more than money or dignity.
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I’d say Judo and Jiu-jitsu. Things where you can use your opponent’s weight and momentum against them.
Moreover, an arm bar will end any fight.
I normally don’t like commenting like this, but some of these suggestions are really bad. At best some of these will make you lose time and money on learning some mystical bullshit pretending to be a martial art. At worst you will straight up get killed with the crap some of these ‘martial arts’ will teach you. When it comes to martial arts, you’ve got to understand that there is absolutely zero regulation on this stuff. I can open up the ‘TT17-jitsu school for super badasses’ on the corner and nobody will stop me. So you have to be VERY careful by looking deep into the program, and the instructor running it, before you sign up. I know from first hand experience, you do NOT want to sign up for a psuedo-martial art.
If they are suggesting anything on this list RUN and find a new place:
- Teaching you to disarm people with a weapon, like a gun or knife.
- Teaching you ‘magical thinking’ or any sort of mystical power.
- Telling you what they do is ‘too dangerous’ (lmao) for competition.
- Doesn’t do live contact drills (VERY IMPORTANT).
- Charging you outrageous fees and making you use their pricey equipment.
- Offering quick and easy solutions to being a deadly fighting machine. (This stuff takes time and practice, there are no quick solutions here.)
I’m sure there are more you can lookup, but these are things to avoid off of the top of my head.
Here’s a list of must have’s when it comes to this stuff:
- The martial art must have some sort of regulatory body, either a belt system, or some sort of competitive institution.
- Does live contact drills, this is absolutely necessary! This is the only way to actually practice and execute what you learn.
- A good instructor that’s verified through the regulatory body. This ensures quality control.
That being said, what type of unarmed combat is right for you? Well that all depends on a few factors, time, money, and access. I’ve run extensive data on the UFC trying to find what’s ‘essential’ in unarmed combat. You’ve got to understand there are two main aspects to fighting, the ground game (grappling, ect), and your stand-up game (kicking, punching, ect.). What I came away with from pulling UFC data, is that having a solid ground game is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. THE FIGHTER WITH THE BETTER GROUND GAME WILL WIN 9 TIMES OUT OF 10! I don’t care what kind of crazy karate kicks your opponent knows, good luck trying to kick me when you’re on your ass in a pretzel! So i STRONGLY recommend building a solid ground game first before doing anything else. My suggestions would be either some type of Wrestling or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. There are others out there that work too, but those arts in particular were by far the most successful from the data.
From there, if you still have time, energy, money, access, ect. THEN you can work on your stand up game. There’s a lot more variety when it comes to the stand up game. There’s a ton of great ones out there. I personally would recommend either Boxing, Kick Boxing, or Muay Thai.
Personally I went with wrestling/boxing, I’m not the best fighter, but I can hold my own.
If all of this sounds like too much time and energy. I suggest going with what comrade puffin said. The quickest and easiest solution to self defense would be to use weapons, weapons will win over anything I just mentioned.
I want to touch on a point these magical bullshido wizards always bring up. They’re full of excuses, but by far their favorite one is this false dichotomy between ‘real fighting’ and competitive fighting. I’ve beaten the breaks off of a handful of bullshido artists in the past, and this is always their main excuse. Claiming they weren’t trying their hardest, that their fighting techniques are too dangerous to use. It is very funny and predictable. It’s also a very bad point that relies on grade school logic. Yes, in a competitive setting you cannot use some techniques and moves. Here’s the problem though, that logic works both ways, competitive fighters are aware of these dangerous moves and can use them too. For example lets use rabbit punches (punches to back of the head or neck), who do you think would be better at this illegal technique? Prime Mike Tyson who has practiced live punching on human targets that can fight back a million times? Or the bullshido master, who hasn’t ever tried live full speed sparring with another human, out of fear of hurting them. I hope that answer is obvious. If you cannot practice your technique on live human beings, you will absolutely not be able to pull it off in a situation that requires it. This is why live sparring is a must!
These frauds that push this bullshido rely on this unfalsifiable orthodoxy. They lie to you about how badass you can be by disarming people with weapons, or how they know some secret technique that any dumb ass can do like eye gouging, and pass that off as a ‘martial art’! They are absolutely full of shit and are trying to scam you out of money. When they pick themselves up off of the floor after getting their ass handed to them, they’ll go back to ol’ reliable. ‘THAT WASN’T REAL FIGHTING BRO I WASN’T TRYING MY HARDEST BRO IN A REAL FIGHT I WOULD’VE WON BRO!!!’ These clowns are very predicable. It’d be funny if they weren’t scamming people and giving people false confidence that can get them killed.
The best Martial Art is whichever one you would enjoy doing the most on a regular basis.
At the end of the day, it’s mostly going to be about exercise and not being a badass or even self-defense. The best thing you can do when faced with danger is to get out of that situation. Most martial arts will not help you a great deal except keep you calm and rational. If someone has a gun, there is no way to remove the chance it will go off, even with a disarm (and that is unsafe for everyone around you). If someone has a knife, there’s almost certainly going to be blood no matter how good you are—although you might not feel it until the adrenaline and blood loss kick in. And that’s without getting into, even if you win the hypothetical fight, knowing what constitutes legal self-defense before, during, and after the fight to ensure you were within those bounds. These aren’t an “always” thing, but most of the time what you get out of MAs is more on the mundane side. Get into a martial arts because it’s something you enjoy, you want the exercise, becoming more comfortable in your body and how it moves, and you want to improve your discipline. And learning how to break fall—that will help you more than anything else because falling can happen anywhere, not just in a fight.
Personally, I do HEMA (Historical martial arts; primarily sword fighting) and traditional archery, because those are what I enjoy and their relevant to a lot of the illustrations and creative endeavors I do. I’ve dabbled in others MAs and there are fun techniques, but I keep coming back to those practiced in the past (mainly European but will reach into as many regions as I can get my hands on) when it comes to my time and money…even if that means having to workshop how they may have worked in their historical context (because for some of them, we just don’t know). Just have realistic expectations with what you choose.
As a short person, only martial arts class that fit me was poekelan. (Sp?) As it was mostly on the floor. Always wanted to try wing Chun. The best self defense class for me was one specifically for women, we were taught how to use our smaller size to our advantage. I have Krav Maga videos on my laptop that were made for women, they work for me
I wouldn’t say “best” because it depends a lot on what kind of fight you’re interested in. Say striking (karate), or grappling (judo), and even weapons (kendo). Though Capoeira both looks super cool and also teaches you some downright brutal moves that don’t rely too much on upper body strength, and people in Brazil (specially on the regions it’s practised more) are generally on the shorter side. It also comes with a more culture and community focused approach, whereas most martial arts clubs (in my experience) focus mostly on beating the shit out of sandbags and doing tournaments. It also has less gymbros and weebs.
But lots of good martial arts were developed with shorter people in mind, if not by actual short people. Funakoshi, the developer of Shotokan Karate, is believed to have been around 1.55m tall, and Maeda from BJJ was also around 1.65. I’m very amateurish on this but if you’re short you might want to avoid striking martial arts that rely too much on throwing punches.
@AlbigensianGhoul capoeira competitons are so weird. it is like something that isnt supposed to exist, but does.
Yeah, but thankfully most I’ve seen were more about showing it off on a higher level and having a bigger event than having a “winner” and a “loser.” Once they start handing out precious metal medals, trophies and belts though, they’ve already forgotten why the art was developed in the first place and have become the coloniser. Apparently there’s even going to be a “world championship” in Curitiba of all places. (For the foreigners, the South is skin cancer crackerland in Brazil, with some of them even wanting to separate from the country)
the only interesting championship i’ve seen was the Bambas tournament, where Saci Fiu managed to knock out the other guy with a scorpion, which i’ve never seen before.
the rest was forgetable.
Systema
Can you please share a video of it with me, comrade?
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/347769?scrollToComments=true
There very few good videos that explain what Systema is about, and if you do not understand it, it seems as if they are doing some weird movements. Basically, the idea behind Systema is to comprehend biomechanics and apply them to combat in order to utilise as less strength as possible. In Systema you strip the aesthetical dances of old martial arts, there are no fixed postures and it is designed in such a way that even a person (obviously it is not a guarantee) that is in physical, environmental or in a health disadvantage can win a fight.
I recommend Krav Maga but I think your teacher and school are also very important factors in making a good selection. Some of what Krav Maga teaches either doesn’t work or doesn’t work for everybody, so you need a good instructor to recognize and point those things out to students and train their students. I think it’s a good idea to check out all the schools in your area and find the best one that works for you.
Wing chun
