2nd for wing chun. Very easy on the joints, and the kicking doesn't get much higher than the knees. Friend teaches a slightly modified version to the SBS because the premisis is to take down your opponant asap with no messing about. Therefore uses a lot of eye gouging, groin strikies, arm breaking etc. It's a pretty nasty discipline if you want it to be. And it involves a lot of body mechanics where doing things like making simple shapes with your arms gives you incredible strength, and can result in a much smaller person taking down a much larger stronger one. Also where the 1 inch punch came from. After 6 months I was breaking through boards of wood with no more than 1 inch of back lift. One small girl who's black sash can break through 2 of them! Quite amazing to watch. The more advanced people can break pieces of wood hanging from strings. Having a powerful punch would not help in that situation, it's all about technique.

Watch the movie Ip Man. It's very very good. He was the chap who bought wing chun to the masses. He was also Bruce Lee's first teacher (wing chun was Bruce Lee's main style which he modified to create his own jeet June do style)

... breaking wood is of course incredibly easy and requires no training whatsoever , it's all in the grain!

Yeah, very true. Does get a bit tricky when a small bit is hanging from a piece of string or you're only allowed 1 inch of back lift though.

That's brilliant! I was going to ask for some tips on the best practical self-defence discipline when attacked by an immobile small bit of wood dangling on a string in a confined space, no need for a separate thread now.

It may just be me, but it seems to happens suprisingly often.

I would disagree whilst bjj is very important in mma the best guys tend to be black belts in it but use it as defence rather than there main attribute look at anderson silva who is mu ti. GSP all round expert wrestler.

Guys that focus on the bjj like bj penn as talented as he is he would benefit from a stronger striking role.

The only one guy who has evolved karate into the mma scene is macheda which seem to make him harder to hit from the karate stance.

Bjj is a must but not the best it is the second best or more of a base art in my opinion.

I'd tend to agree with that, hence my recommendation for mma in all it's aspects - which includes striking, grappling and defensive techniques

That sums up the self-defense argument for me

I was thinking about getting back to kickboxing after two years off fixing my knee but I don't think it'll stand up to it in the end. I was going to go for UsainBoltokan but after the posts above and a bit of research, Krav Maga it is. Looks like it'll tie up well with the kickboxing skills I've already learnt

For anyone thinking of a martial art from the purely self defence aspect , I would never suggest an art that depends ( although you should always know how to do this if and when the need arises ) upon allowing close contact between you and the attacker or deliberately going to ground and I'm afraid judo, BJJ and jujitsu all share those problems.

First off, judo is a sport and not a martial art so engrains rules from the start and when the brown stuff really hits the fan, there are no rules.

Secondly, rolling about on the ground is never a good idea in a real fight. The ground is hard and often covered in broken glass when fights start.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, it is rare nowadays for a violent incident to involve only one aggressor and whilst you are demonstrating your best strangles and locks on the tarmac, the bad guys mates are stamping on your head and hitting you with bins.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, it is rare nowadays for a violent incident to involve only one aggressor and whilst you are demonstrating your best strangles and locks on the tarmac, the bad guys mates are stamping on your head and hitting you with bins. [/quote]


This^^^^ If my mrs hadn't got stuck in i would have ended up in hospital at best.

Which is why wing chun is very good for self defence. It's not a competition style so no rules, and 2 (or 3) on 1 attacks are practiced most lessons to get you familiar with being attacked by more than one person. Like you say, head locks/holds etc are seen as a waste of time in street fighting because it keeps you tied up.

I agree again, mostly - hence my oft stated opinion that a ROUNDED set of skills across several disciplines id ideal. Maybe its just round here that some fights seem to end up with drunks rolling about scrapping after trying and failing to land any meaningful blows, but only 8 days ago i witnessed two in burton!!!! The ability of a good BJJ artist to snap and disable limbs in seconds is a very useful skill in those circumstances and i'd never hesitate to use it should the occasion arise

Very interesting read Barnacle.

Yes Neil, excellent article thanks

Bear in mind that I have little experience in that sort of violence. I've been in some hairy places, but not the bits of the USA where this sort of thing is thought to be common. But he seems to speak sense...

Rule one of unarmed combat: be somewhere else when it's happening.

if you don't want all the fancy Karate / kung-fu kicking & punching etc & want a true self defence martial art, try Ju-jutsu (the art from where Judo was formed) I trained this for 14 years & it's a great range of techniques

a true self-defence martial art, escaping from an attacker using throws, strikes locks, trips, atemi (nerve point) strikes etc also weapon kata's & most dojo's run full belt grading system

Alot of ground-work though, But no 'competition/sparring' etc as its a martial art & not a sport. although we had to do non-stop attack for a set length of time in our gradings! - which were very hard, the belts were not 'given' to us like you see In a lot of modern fancy clubs

I might be a bit late on this one....

but i can definately recommend, Keysi (ive been doing it for 12 months now)

It tends to concentrate on close quatered combat, realistic scenarios (multiple opponent observation, night club scenarios are fun ), body control/manipulation/disabling (standing and ground work) and what some might consider 'dirty tactics'.

It descrete and brutal in the right hands, there are only a handful of clubs in the UK that teach it.

It fairly new in terms of martial arts (ie not had hundreds of years tradition) and is constantly evolving. It does not use Katas, and can be very 'freestlye'.

There is a grading system, ie white through black

It also features in the latest batman films, batman begins, dark night and the upcoming dark night rises (although slightly over emphasised movements) if you want some examples

Just to elaberate - after reading through barnacles link, this sentence;

"attack explosively for the purposes of escape......Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape."

I think sums up what ive learnt so far quite well

Ninja

You lot have got it all wrong..

The only martial art to learn is hoovering. Master that and the world is your lobster

krav maga. My housemate is an instructor and it trains REAL situations where there are no rules and multiple attackers. very effective!