[Closed] Martial Arts/Self Defence

I’d mostly be interested in the fitness side (and getting out of the house) but any usefull life skills would be a bonus 🙂

My friend swears by Brazilian jiu-jitsu but from a cursory glance at his instagram it looks like a lot of rolling around on the floor

If you want to really know how little fitness and strength you have, pop along to a BJJ class or even better an (olympic style) wrestling class. Very humbling.

BJJ is so much more than rolling on the floor. It's proper chess and with maybe the exception of muay thai, the only genuinely useful martial art in a real life situation. The learning curve is incredibly steep though. Think it took me a year before I managed to submit anyone!

but any usefull life skills would be a bonus 🙂

Sprint training would probably be better.

The best advice is get the f*** out of the situation rather than wondering whether Kick Boxing, BJJ, Tai Chi etc is going to work when some thug is intent on kebbabing you with a 14" carving knife.

Thanks BoardinBob

i am open to it! the rolling around on the floor was a tongue-in-cheek comment, lets just say my friend is not the most athletic of humans 🙂

Proper authentic Muay Thai for fitness and for learning something that may come in useful (God forbid!). For proper fighting have a look at Krav Maga.

Most fights end up on the floor, good idea to be able to defend yourself if you're down there.
Just remember, when in doubt give em a clout and eye gouging and biting are your friends.

I've done karate and a fair few other martial arts (inc Japanese JJ) on and off since I was about 11 (I'm now 45) and IMO I'd say it's more important to get the right class than worry about which martial art.

Some clubs are just a money making exercise and they'll push you through gradings and you'll be a black belt within 18 months but you'll also have absolutely zero chance of defending yourself. At the opposite end you can end up with a load of arseholes that have no actual control and every session just becomes a scrap and you end up getting injured a lot.
I'm lucky that I stumbled upon the group I'm with now as the sensei has a great attitude and the people there are all really good martial artists that can spar pretty hard but no one oversteps.
IME Japanese Jujitsu (or BJJ) are probably the best if you are ever in a bad situation, but that only tends to work if it's one on one. Also I found that the training really takes it's toll on your joints. If you have a friend that's already doing BJJ then I'd say go along with him/her and give it a go.

IMO I’d say it’s more important to get the right class than worry about which martial art.

This

Personally I would suggest trying to do a few taster sessions at different places and see what is the best fit for you.

I started Karate with my kids through a club run by their head teacher. This was a few years back and we are training for 1st Kyu now.

The important thing is to find a good club irrespective of the Art.

Ours has a great atmosphere. The teacher is no mug (European Champion a couple of years back), but the place isn’t full of meat heads trying to kill each other.

I’d go along and see what your local club does or ask about for a recommendation.

This is us http://prestwichkykkarate.co.uk/

Where are you based?

If you're more interested in the Arts part, over the self-defence, then a trad kung fu class is the last word in artistry (if you can find a practitioner) - it is the OG source material. It's pure movement, though, and exceptionally hard - only worth trying if you are quite limber and generally move well (imho). It's also effectively non-contact - punching the air etc.

You could only spar with the techniques if you were very advanced - whereas even a beginner at judo or grappling is immediately in contact, trying moves on other people. So how much you want contact if probably an important question to ask.

Years since I did it but recall coming to the conclusion that the soft style Tai Chi we also did was actually much more rewarding (and even harder in terms of controlled movement) and you could get the conditioning elsewhere from normal sports. The hard style Kung fu did start to feel silly after a while but all trad martial arts can look ridiculous if you step outside of them.

This

Personally I would suggest trying to do a few taster sessions at different places and see what is the best fit for you.

This ^

I’d mostly be interested in the fitness side (and getting out of the house) but any usefull life skills would be a bonus 🙂

Its equally a social side ... (if you want it to be).

Where are you based?

Shoreham (just outside Brighton)

Ah. My link is no use to you then.

Agree we were always taught option 1,2,3,4+5 are 'run'
Option 6 is also 'escape'

Last resort is you want to have been taught how to effectively 'defend yourself' (with the sole purpose of making escape possible), rather than some ritualistic martial art dance

Yep. We are taught to run away.

What muggomagic said, find a class you enjoy.

For purely self defence reason I'd be looking for judo, ju-jitsu, or something similar - as others have said fights tend to quickly end up as grapples.
If you are more after the fun/fitness side then you might consider karate. It will of course help with self-defence as well. SAMA karate are based in your area and have a good rep - they have loads of classes for all different ages and levels. They teach Wado Ryu style, which is based on speed and balance more than strength, and includes a few throws and grapples. They do trial lessons, so you could give them a try.

http://samaorganisation.co.uk/main.htm

Not sure about self-defense, but Muay Thai is loads of fun and an amazing workout.

Shoreham (just outside Brighton)

Small world. I live on Shoreham Beach.

More than welcome to join us (Sussex Karate) when we get back to it in the next couple of weeks. We train at the Shoreham centre on Monday and Wednesday evenings.

Personally would avoid Sama. They are the no.1 in pushing people through grades. They are tied in with schools around here too and it's funny seeing how quickly these kids in my youngest's year went from white belt to brown belt 😀

We've got our first face to face on Tuesday after months of online.

No kumite yet, but pad work is allowed!

Occasionally we do a bit of grapple type self defense too in a "someone has got you by the throat" type way. Lots of twisting and pushing against joints to get your attacker down then give them a slap and run away.

We also did an interesting "knife drill" using washable marker pens. Everyone was dead or bleeding to death within about 10 seconds. Very sobering.

https://kamonwingchun.com/worthing-wing-chun-kung-fu-class/

I've done lots of martial arts over the years and although I've not trained with Kamon for a while, they were always a great bunch no matter what class you went to, very progressive and useful self defence. They didn't just  teach traditional Wing Chun and say this is how it worked for Ip Man so it's got to be this way. Kevin Chan would incorporate some of the BJJ he'd learned as well as other styles to make it his own. Steve who teaches the Worthing class is a good guy, worth going along and seeing how you get on with it.

Small world. I live on Shoreham Beach.

Me too!

More than welcome to join us (Sussex Karate) when we get back to it in the next couple of weeks. We train at the Shoreham centre on Monday and Wednesday evenings.

Perfect sounds like a good place to start! Thank you.

it’s funny seeing how quickly these kids in my youngest’s year went from white belt to brown belt

That would take 120 sessions, 7 gradings and a couple of courses for us. 2+ years if you go every week.

Interesting 're wrestling, on one of the rugby podcasts paul stridgeon was on, he was commonwealth games wrestler, only 60kg. So when the rugby guys wrestle in training apparently a few think they can beat him, at say double his weight if a forward at say 120 kg. He flattens them, always go for the legs to get them on the floor.

I like the 5 defence moves tho..run run run. A mate was a copper he said he just avoided trouble in the first place if poss.

That would take 120 sessions, 7 gradings and a couple of courses for us. 2+ years if you go every week.

Yep, they know the kids love a new colour belt and they charge a fair old whack for each grading so they are certainly successful in making money.
When I first started out I went to Sama as they had a class just along the road from me and I graded up pretty quickly. This local class shut down a couple of years later and I went to Tang Soo Do class which I loved and but it took ages to grade and having gone from a blue belt back to white belt which at 13 was really annoying as I thought I was shit hot. So when I did my first grading after about 6 months and all I got was a stripe on my white belt I just quit as I was so annoyed at still having to wear a white belt 😀

Perfect sounds like a good place to start! Thank you.

No worries. I'm not sure if we can start training again indoors from Monday or not. They have been training up Buckingham Park every Wednesday but I draw the line at doing drills and Kata in the middle of the park though so I'm hanging on for indoor training again.

Like mentioned above :
Run
Tell your ego to shut up, play the wimp, run.
Run

Have a serious conversation with yourself - now - before any future fight - now! If you have no choice, how far are you willing to take it? How far are you willing to go protect you and yours?

Consider:

Your opponent gets lucky first attach - pushes you. You stumble - fall back smashing your head on the curb - and you will never be the same for the rest of your life.
or
Your opponent is a 55k weed you met 10s ago. But unknown to you he is a ex-uk kick boxing champ contender with a chip on his shoulder and has just caught his women cheating on him. He's angry and nuts and wants a human punching bag. Won't stop on you until he feels satisfied.

So: your choices are to:
Run
or to do anything to finish the fight as fast as you can. Then run (because his mates will hit you over the head with a bottle).

Self defence is about mind preparation, situation preparation and physical preparation. The first 2 serves people much better.

I hope neither I or anyone I care about ever needs to go for the third.

Which one is it that ninjas do? All about those flying kicks. Also, do you have to bring your own stars?

As a lot of people have already posted the best defence is to run away.

However, as a practical form of training that will get you and keep you very fit you have three options......BJJ, Boxing or Muay Thai (Thai Boxing). Pick one of these, find a decent club and go regularly and you will make friends for life and will maintain a good level of fitness which as a by product will assist in the first option of running away.

The other forms of Martial Arts are window dressing compared to the 3 above.

I did some krav maga- quite liked it, nothing clever, nothing fancy, it felt more applicable/usable than other martial arts I've tried. And I liked how much of the lessons were about escaping 🙂 Not just "run away" but "if you can't run away, do this, then run away"

Having said that it's something that can vary a lot depending on your teacher/school.

I was attacked at work and decided to get some training to help me get over it. There’s not much round here in the way of weekly classes so I travelled and did a 3 day Krav Maga course and loved it. Similar to Northwind the preferred solution is just to get the hell out of there and run away. If you can’t then the techniques are very useful IMO. If there was a regular KM class near me I’d go to that. I realise it’s not a martial art but it is very much self defence.

+1 for Krav Maga. It's clever, effective and quick to pick up although like anything it's muscle memory so need to train. Simple philosophy of taking what works from an array of fighting styles for one to be able to block an attack (punch/kick etc), strike back and get away. It's not about looking good - no Karate Kid crane kicks from Mr Miyagi - just what can you do to stop and attacker and get away. Highly recommended. Loads of examples on Youtube.

Earl: Self defence is about mind preparation, situation preparation and physical preparation. The first 2 serves people much better.

This for self defence.

For martial arts, go with the class that you enjoy going to.

I have done a lot of martial arts and contact sports in the past.

Contact sport’s like Judo/BJJ/Muay Thai/kickboxing/BJJ/wrestling are great for improving your fitness and training at progressive levels of resistance. Learn to handle the adrenaline dump and get a view for what you can and can’t do against a fully resisting opponent.

It’s a lot of fun and may help later on if you end up in a situation you can’t escape. Humbling how much skill it takes to overcome a 15kg weight difference.

Grappling based sport’s are fab for kids, you need to work with and look after other people to succeed.

Don’t do any striking art that promotes round kicks with the top of the foot and all the tiny delicate bones there. Use your shins instead like a normal person! 😂

Not doing extensive bag or pad work and relying on forms/kata is like learning to swim on dry land. Anything which is small joint or pain compliance based is too hard to pull off live. Almost all “reality based self defence systems” are neither based in reality or will teach you to defend yourself... 😉

from my various experiences: -
kick boxing for the best workout,
muay thai if you want to strike effectivly
mma if you love the stench of testosterone,
krav maga for most expensive, pointless*, cult

expect to trial a few, go along to the BJJ class with your friend and see how you find it.

ive been with the same Ju Jitsu club for 6yrs, to me its a good blend of fitness and technique and can be trained as hard as you want, sparring, ground work, weapons & open hand kata... and sorting out your ability to hit the ground without damaging yourself translates well to the bike

*teaching techniques that you cant actually train without seriously damaging your training partner

kimura54321 Free Member

Username checks out

no Karate Kid crane kicks from Mr Miyagi

Even in Karate there aren't any crane kicks from Mr Miyagi!

I joined a freestyle karate class about 8 years ago and would echo what others have said - it's great for fitness, but for self defence, your best option is to run. I've really missed it over the past year and am looking forward to getting back.

I’d agree try a few and see what you like. The style of how the class is taught really matters.

There are lots of classes run as businesses where it is about gradings and belt progression. Others more about the fighting and some about the art of it.

Find a style you enjoy. I’ve done judo since I was 6 and still doing it in my 40’s. Can do competitive gradings or technical/theory based ones.

Good for fitness, mobility and strength.

I have used it in self defence once but generally I’d go with most good classes teaching you the best option is defuse the situation or leg it rather than try to fight.

Judo/BJJ/Ju Jitsu are very useful when you OTB training kicks in, you roll perfectly to you feet. Then think WTF???

With my knees, even running away is no longer an option - A brisk stroll would be pushing it!
I did do Wado Ryu karate for a while, and much later on Tai chi, which I really enjoyed, but the class closed after a while, and the only one available now is once a week in the afternoon, which is sodding useless! Shame, as I think it would be a help with my general health, ‘cos at nearly 67, although I’m reasonably fit, it’s joints and things that are an issue now, and tai chi as a ‘soft’ form is generally seen as beneficial.

My advice would be to find the best coach in your vicinity regardless of the particular style. Boxing wrestling muay thai kickboxing bjj judo karate..

Competition is king, if the person teaching doesnt have credibility in Competition whether its themselves or their students that speaks volumes.

I was lucky, i had a brilliant bjj blackbelt round the corner from me that regularly brought in world class athletes from all around the world to teach and train.

Find someone who is the real deal and is also dead on. You dont want to be training in anywhere with a bad atmosphere.

Tai chi not really suitable for the OP tbh, but maybe fits in the wider discussion? It's a funny one because of how varied it is. I did a hippie bullshit class, hated it. Did very applied, very practical wu style for quite a long time for physio mostly after I broke my hip, really enjoyed it- massive focus on "why this is in the forms and what it's really for". And I found it really useful for muscle balance stuff, which I had a lot of issues with after 4 months on crutches, it's not like it's a hard workout but like cycling it finds bits that you've neglected. Also did some old lady yang style which I did enjoy but for different reasons. So actually finding the right class for you is probably the first battle.

Found it really interesting when sparring years later that some of the forms and techniques came popping out, apparently having been burned into the monkey brain for later use. But even with that in mind it's a rubbish way to learn self defence and not really a good way to get a workout. Absolutely ace if you've spent 4 months on crutches and your body's forgotten how to move, though. And it was a lifeline when I started struggling with anxiety

soobalias
Free Member

*teaching techniques that you cant actually train without seriously damaging your training partner

Interesting comment though. Because yep, there's stuff you can't train fully because it's just unsafe or impractical- though, you can still use dry moves, practice forms, variants with pads, and put in the shell of the moves. You say that's pointless but is it really better to completely avoid them? To me that's a difference between learning a martial art for it's own sake, or for competition, compared to only wanting to use it for defence.

Put it a different way, there's things that I've trained a three tenths version, but which I;m comfortable that I'm in a better place to use should i ever want to do so in a really bad situation, and if that happens "It's too dangerous to the other person" isn't a negative any more. There's a risk of learning only the three tenths version of course but that's part of the training.

Basically I feel like a lot of criticism of krav maga is really criticism of bad teachers/bad groups and bad teaching methodology, and that definitely seems like where the "cult" side thrives too. TBF what I learned is very different from how it started but that's a good thing.

As a lot of people have already posted the best defence is to run away.

It's funny, and I'm sure there's a huge possibility I'll have to eat my words at some stage in the future but, at the age of 16 or 17 or so, after running from a fight I swore I'd never run from a fight again. I've been in situations since, but never in a fight, I'm sure there's a lot of psychology going on behind the scenes but giving off the signals that you're ready to fight seems to diffuse a situation (it's all posturing on my part, I wouldn't have the first clue how to defend myself). Still, I'm a month away from 54 so it's done me alright so far 🙂

I actually did some Tae Kwondo but figured statistically and financially it made more sense to just live with the random possibility of getting attacked and robbed maybe every 15 years rather than getting the shit knocked out of you every week sparring and paying €50 odd euro for the privilege. 🙂

@northwind - Or it might give you a false sense of security that it would work the way you expect? Bike analogy expecting only using a static manual training machine to let you flow first time on a pump track when you “really need to”? Lots of Ju Jitsu, Karate (not full contact like kyokushin), Systema and other martial arts face the same criticisms.

Training using progressive resistance is key and getting the feel for how to use them and what it feels like when applied to you.

I spent years training, doing big target stuff like arm bars, rear naked choke or reliably being able to land a jab that does something as a short guy was very hard. They have much larger margins for error than things like eye pokes, throat punches and groin strikes. Wrist locks don’t work that well for exactly the same reasons.

If you are able to, try out a BJJ or Muay Thai class if you can. You might be pleasantly surprised 😉

to be clear - what i say doesnt have to apply to every class, just my experience of Krav Maga was pretty poor..

was it the teacher, the rest of the class, the venue, the price, the class time, the time in my life etc. etc.

Which one is it that ninjas do? All about those flying kicks. Also, do you have to bring your own stars?

That would be ninjutsu.

I would cast a vote for Taijutsu. Very good workout with the stretching routine we did (juan taiso) very similar to yoga. Some very good techniques for real life situations.

I have always wondered about jiu jutsu though. While you're grappling the guy on the ground, what do you do about his mates who are showering you with kicks? Genuine question.

When we've done it we were told to avoid going to ground for the reasons above.

Run away.

If you can't, kick them in the knee or balls then run away.

A couple of years back one of our guys got jumped at a cash machine for his wallet and car keys. He was mid 40s and not in great shape, but he used Combination 4B : One in the balls, one on the nose. The cops were involved and the whole thing was caught on CCTV. They had a good laugh then let him go.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

m. tyson

any system/class without contact sparring is meaningless in the real world.

went to an aikido class once, got told off by the sensei for punching ‘the wrong way’…

@jam-bo I was gently told off by the sensei in a freshers Uni Ju Jitsu demo for actually trying to strangle him when he asked me to “strangle him properly”. He was bit surprised when I went for it and it took him a fair bit of effort to escape...

@shooterman - You probably don’t want to, but a lot of fights/attacks end up on the ground anyway. Unfortunately there also are different risks for women, which means they are more likely to be held or restrained and need to escape. Being able to throw people, counter or have better balance/situational awareness is a good thing. US military combatives program was created by the Gracie BJJ family.

Grappling is very useful for escaping being pinned on the ground, grabbed, clinched, making space/wall walking to get back to your feet safely (exhausting and far far harder than you would expect).

This kind of went full cycle in early MMA where strikers effectively said “well I don’t need to grapple, I will just stop them from taking me down”. Cliff Notes, this approach did not go very well for them...

Have a Google on Straight Blast Gym (SBG) and Dog Brothers systems, some interesting stuff and all based on having live sparring.

Most convincing answer I’ve seen to trying to survive a knife attack is the Russian tie/waki gatame grappling based STAB system from the late Karl Tanswell (BJJ blackbelt, professional coach and human pincushion from his bouncing days).

kimura54321
Free Member

@northwind – Or it might give you a false sense of security that it would work the way you expect? Bike analogy expecting only using a static manual training machine to let you flow first time on a pump track when you “really need to”?

Absolutely- same with just about any form tbh. I like the analogy, I reckon my krav classes managed to be more on the lines of "learning skills in the foam pit with the aim of being able to do it in the real world" but I've no doubt some end up being like the wooden manual machine that teaches you how to use the wooden manual machine.

Then it sounds like they were/are a nice bunch of people to train with 👍

@kimura54321 thanks for that. I wasn't trying to knock jiu justsu but it was a vulnerability in the system I had always wondered about.

Interesting topic. I studied BJJ and Wing Chun in younger years. The first for a couple of years, latter for 3-4 (on and off).

IMHO if options 1-4 are not possible, then an art that teaches you how to grapple is a very good starting point. Like judo. Many moons ago some eejit attacked my mate in a bar, said mate being a judo black belt. The guy who attacked ended up flying into a wall in an inverted state and that was that.

BJJ teaches you how to get an opponent to ground very fast and then disable them. Great in a one on one, but as posited above, fairly useless if your attacker has a group of mates intent on playing footie with your head.

Wing Chun I really liked. As most real fights are close, sweaty affairs, the format is based upon 'having a fight in a phone box,' up close and personal if you will. Emphasis is on incredible speed and sleight of hand, deflecting rather than opposing the opponent's energy and power. Never had to use it myself (I'm 6'4", a good talker and an even better runner), but I have seen it applied in real life. Again in a bar, again with an expert practitioner, who in this case was the wrong skin colour and again it was over very, very quickly.

Is Wing Chun 'better' than other arts? Don't know about that, but I'd say it is one of the best and definitely works from a practical self-defence point of view. Point to make though is as Harry and others have said above, whatever style you do, you're looking at a couple of years minimum before you're at a level where you could even think about putting it into practice!

However, best strategy is always to avoid trouble in the first place!

@shooterman - No worries, hope some bits were interesting.

I didn’t take it as a knock at all, perfectly sensible question. I might come across as a bit of BJJ fanboy but have tried other styles that were a lot of fun as well and offered things it doesn’t.

This thread has made me want to get the Thai pads out next weekend if I can persuade my mate or other half to give it a go. Been too long 😅

Started face to face last week after 15 months of training online from home.

2 lessons and a pre-Dan course in 7 days. It feels like my limbs have all been removed and put back on in the wrong order. Everyone's knuckles and feet have gone soft judging by the blood and blisters!

Fantastic to be back!

Nice one HTS. Good luck with the Dan grading

I was meant to be back last week but had a cold that I can't shift (not COVID as we've all been taking the home tests regularly). I've been chomping at the bit to get back, but hopefully be well enough for a double session on Monday.

Not Dan grading just yet. Have to do 2 pre Dan to get my 1st Kyu and another 4 for my Dan. In this for the long haul!

Not Dan grading just yet. Have to do 2 pre Dan to get my 1st Kyu and another 4 for my Dan. In this for the long haul!

Well good luck all the same. Are you back doing any contact stuff like sparring yet?

No Kumite, but we can do pads.

The Village Hall anti-bac spray and wipes were being used to clean off the blood due to split knuckles.

As someone who did karate to an international level in my younger years and some BJJ in later years, here is my take on it.

If self defense is your main objective, don't bother with any martial arts and spend the next two years getting strong. As a rough standard I would say aim for 2x bodyweight squat, 2.5x bodyweight deadlift, and 1x bodyweight overhead press.

My thinking is that presumably you are only going to be training in martial arts 2 to 3 times per week. You are only really going to be able to focus on a small subset of fighting and you won't have time to prepare for the various ways you can find yourself in a self defense type situation.

If you focus on a sport based system you'll be better prepared for one on one situations like road rage or the classic pub '**** you, nah **** you, nah **** you' type altercations.

If you focus on a self defense based system you'll be better prepared to deal with the more common multiple people melees which I've found myself involved in (any one on one I've always been able to get out of without violence).

Being really strong will help no matter what situation you find yourself in.

After a couple of years of solid weight training I would start looking at martial arts then. I found when I started BJJ I was in a beginner class with an average age that was at least 10 years below mine and I spent more time injured than not. Had I gone into that class stronger injuries would not have been nearly the issue they were.

If self defense is your main objective that would be my advice.

Being really strong will help no matter what situation you find yourself in

Interesting take, most of the good judo people I know were seriously into weight training and other exercise stuff, the marital arts part was only part of it.

It was more than turning up for a lesson twice a week, it was a complete life style.

They were technically very good,strong and stupidly fit.

We used to have interesting discussions on how a lot of people seem to have very little street smarts and situational awareness.

It's also worthwhile doing a little research on the history of the system you're thinking of taking up to establish that it will suit you.

I'm 6' 2" and heavily built. I took up an art I was interested in a few years back and really struggled as it was largely based around agility rather than power or strength.