Self-Defense: Which Style? Beginner

[SearchingMethod]

Hello all, I am a new member to the forum and I am just about to begin my training in an unknown program, that's where you guys come in!

I have no previous martial arts training but I am extremely interested in beginning. I am in my early 20's and a college student, I am trying to decide which martial arts method would best suit my interests and physical frame.

Basically I am trying to figure out which style would best suit a 5'9 140 lb male in the area of self-defense, in a more street fighting sense.

I know this is kind of a bs question seeing as there are many pros and cons and arguments for each style, but if you had 10 weeks, 2-3 sessions (1-3 hrs each) a week to dedicate to training, which method would be most effective for me?

the entire style name and perhaps an explanation as to why you picked it would be most appreciated.

thank you guys!!!

[KenshiRyan]

boxing would be one of the best choices, reason being; theres always a gym or two round any town, and its good because its simple easy to use and you'll catch on pretty quick, its also a pretty good style for the street; as it will teach you to hit hard fast and efficiently and is good for mid ranged combat, and you'll be used to taking hits so you'll be able to shrug off alot of whats thrown at you, its for more rumble n tumble stuff; dont expect to be taught any knife defence etc obviously

just make sure you get a good gym, a good hardass one that'll push you to your limits.

hope it helps.

[pstevens]

Boxing is a very solid choice, but finding a good gym will be a challenge. Speaking from my own experience, many boxing gyms focus on talents and getting a trainer to actually train you is difficult; however, not impossible. Boxing will train your hands, footwork and body to handle aggression, but it's not really self-defense, per se. In the end, you're training within the context of a fight sport.

Honestly, if you're looking for self-defense, then call around and visit gyms that focus on self-defense. Ask questions and watch a class or two. Some gyms will say they teach self-defense, but their curriculum will look like a sport with some extra fluff. Therefore, if you're really serious about self-defense, it's your job to find out for yourself.

On a side note, I know you were intending to get some directions, so here are some martial arts:

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. A grappling style that focuses on taking your opponent to the ground and using positional control to finish your opponent. Schools today focus mainly on the sports aspects, but some retain the self-defense aspects.

Boxing. Highly-effective striking art that teaches the fundamentals of punching, movement and conditioning. Great for developing punching power, mechanics and combinations.

Muay Thai. A grueling martial art that features elbows, punches, knees, and leg kicks. In some ways, similar to boxing, but involves more dynamics. The conditioning is quite brutal in some gyms, but it will get you in shape.

Mixed Martial Arts. A mixture of jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, Boxing and other martial arts. The curriculum will challenge you mentally and physically. You're developing all your attributes for one purpose; the cage fight! There's a lot of contact, unless you let the instructor know that you just want to get into shape. Many people use MMA conditioning to develop core strength.

Jeet Kune Do. The late Bruce Lee's legacy to the martial arts. Depending on the school, it features Filipino martial arts, boxing, Muay Thai, Jun Fan Gung-fu and some trapping and grappling. More specifically designed for street fighting.

Karate. A generalization of the many Japanese and American styles of open-handed martial arts. Commonalities include: static blocks, kicks, reverse punches and kata (forms) training. American-style karate look more like kickboxing, while their Japanese counter part are usually more traditional; however, this isn't always true.

Tae Kwon Do. The most widely spread martial art on the planet. Gyms can range from being very serious to plain silly; considering the number of gyms in the world. You'll recognize this art by its kicks; flashy and potentially dangerous to your opponent or yourself. Some schools have good self-defense systems.

That's a start...

[chillaplata]

Excellent advice so far -- you can't go wrong with boxing, Muay Thai, judo or BJJ (assuming you are training at a good gym). Since you are still in school, wrestling may be your best bet: it's free, it's very effective, and it will get you in awesome shape. (On the other hand, if the wrestling team or club at your school is really hard-core you may not be able to make the time commitment to train with them.)

I agree with Mr. Arieson that you want to learn "dirty tricks" (i.e., techniques designed specifically to incapacitate your opponent in a situation in which you may be threatened with death or serious injury) BUT FIRST (or at least at the same time) you want to develop strong basic competence in striking and grappling. It's going to be a lot easier for a boxer, wrestler, judoka or BJJ player to learn headbutts, eye gouges and groin strikes than it will be for someone who's trained only those "deadly" techniques to become a solid, well-rounded fighter. A good JKD Concepts school (*admitting my bias here*) will teach you both sets of skills at once.

[chillaplata]

Boxing is a very solid choice, but finding a good gym will be a challenge. Speaking from my own experience, many boxing gyms focus on talents and getting a trainer to actually train you is difficult; however, not impossible. Boxing will train your hands, footwork and body to handle aggression, but it's not really self-defense, per se. In the end, you're training within the context of a fight sport.

Honestly, if you're looking for self-defense, then call around and visit gyms that focus on self-defense. Ask questions and watch a class or two. Some gyms will say they teach self-defense, but their curriculum will look like a sport with some extra fluff. Therefore, if you're really serious about self-defense, it's your job to find out for yourself.

On a side note, I know you were intending to get some directions, so here are some martial arts:

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. A grappling style that focuses on taking your opponent to the ground and using positional control to finish your opponent. Schools today focus mainly on the sports aspects, but some retain the self-defense aspects.

Boxing. Highly-effective striking art that teaches the fundamentals of punching, movement and conditioning. Great for developing punching power, mechanics and combinations.

Muay Thai. A grueling martial art that features elbows, punches, knees, and leg kicks. In some ways, similar to boxing, but involves more dynamics. The conditioning is quite brutal in some gyms, but it will get you in shape.

Mixed Martial Arts. A mixture of jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, Boxing and other martial arts. The curriculum will challenge you mentally and physically. You're developing all your attributes for one purpose; the cage fight! There's a lot of contact, unless you let the instructor know that you just want to get into shape. Many people use MMA conditioning to develop core strength.

Jeet Kune Do. The late Bruce Lee's legacy to the martial arts. Depending on the school, it features Filipino martial arts, boxing, Muay Thai, Jun Fan Gung-fu and some trapping and grappling. More specifically designed for street fighting.

Karate. A generalization of the many Japanese and American styles of open-handed martial arts. Commonalities include: static blocks, kicks, reverse punches and kata (forms) training. American-style karate look more like kickboxing, while their Japanese counter part are usually more traditional; however, this isn't always true.

Tae Kwon Do. The most widely spread martial art on the planet. Gyms can range from being very serious to plain silly; considering the number of gyms in the world. You'll recognize this art by its kicks; flashy and potentially dangerous to your opponent or yourself. Some schools have good self-defense systems.

That's a start...

I would just add that you should make sure whatever school you choose requires you to test your skills with some form of effective sparring. I'm not saying that you have to do all-out full-contact stuff, only that you need to try out what you are learning against a fully resisting opponent. If you haven't been able to execute a technique in sparring against a training partner who is trying his best to stop you, what makes you think you'll be able to pull it off in a real fight against an aggressor who is trying to rob, rape, maim or kill you or someone you love?

[KenshiRyan]

as long as you have good trainers at your boxing gym you'll be sweet, make sure you talk to them though; ask them how you think you need to improve etc etc, this will get them to notice you more and steer you in the right direction, dont stand at the back of the crowd and not get noticed your progress would be very slow if you did.

get on good talking terms with your trainers and the other boxers get their opinions etc, and it'll make training 10x more effective.

their there to provide a service; make them do their jobs.

In my book your best options would be Boxing or if you can find a gym: muay thai.
I would strongly not recomend bothering with ground arts (bjj etc etc) being that its street self defence.

[SearchingMethod]

I really appreciate all the advice, I was looking into things like Judo and Karate, not that they are bad but I just felt that they weren't the best fit for me. I'm going to look around and see if there are any good Boxing or Muay Thai gyms in my city, thanks again all!

[chillaplata]

Judo is an excellent choice as a self-defense art, particularly in conjunction with boxing or muay thai. BJJ would also be a great choice, but ideally you should (i) find a school that strikes a good balance between self-defense training (i.e., throws, clinchwork and takedowns) and pure groundwork and (ii) cross-train in a good striking art (e.g. boxing). In other words, you must learn both striking and grappling in order to be able to defend yourself: you shouldn't spend all your time training for the ground, but you can't neglect it either.

The term "karate" can be used generically to refer to lots of different arts and lots of different approaches to training, so it's difficult to generalize about "karate" schools. My view is that if "karate" basically looks like kickboxing, the instructors and experienced students are all in very good shape, and the training incorporates realistic sparring, then it's probably going to be effective. Otherwise, it likely won't be.

EDIT: On rereading the OP, I see that you have a limited amount of time available for training. You aren't going to be able to learn a lot of BJJ or judo in such a short amount of time. So I would say the key grappling techniques to learn for self-defense purposes would be the following:

(i) Upa and elbow-knee escapes from mount and side control
(ii) The basic guard position, and one or two sweeps from guard
(iii) Takedown defense (sprawls)
(iv) Counters to common attacks (e.g., headlocks, bear hugs)
(v) A few simple judo throws (e.g., hip throws)

My thinking here is that these techniques will give you the best chance to defend yourself if an attacker clinches with you or takes you to the ground. You will still be in trouble if your attacker is himself an experienced grappler, but there is not much you can do about that risk unless you are willing to train in a grappling art long enough to acquire some proficiency.

In view of your limited grappling experience, you would generally not want to take a fight to the ground intentionally. Thus you probably shouldn't spend much of your limited training time training things like takedowns or submissions. It would probably be worth your time to train a few simple judo throws, though, because (i) you will be able to learn (though obviously not master) these techniques fairly quickly and (ii) they may enable you to quickly and easily end a fight with an untrained opponent.

If your school has a judo club, you might consider training with them for a while to learn the basic grappling techniques that I have suggested above as important for street self-defense. It would be useful, fun, good exercise, and probably free!

[legshot420]

Krav Maga or Kali. If you can't find any of these, any of the tenets of MMA (boxing, muay thai, wrestling, bjj, judo or sambo) will do.

[jubaji]

I would strongly not recomend bothering with ground arts (bjj etc etc) being that its street self defence.

I would strongly recommend taking that advice with a giant grain of salt.

[KenshiRyan]

thanks, but its searchingmethod whos looking for advice.

[KenshiRyan]

I based my comment before entirely on the criteria searchingmethod mentioned:

I have no previous martial arts training but I am extremely interested in beginning. I am in my early 20's and a college student, I am trying to decide which martial arts method would best suit my interests and physical frame.

Basically I am trying to figure out which style would best suit a 5'9 140 lb male in the area of self-defense, in a more street fighting sense.

I know this is kind of a bs question seeing as there are many pros and cons and arguments for each style, but if you had 10 weeks, 2-3 sessions (1-3 hrs each) a week to dedicate to training, which method would be most effective for me?

the entire style name and perhaps an explanation as to why you picked it would be most appreciated.

thank you guys!!!

As you can tell, he has no previous martial arts experience, hes average height and sounds to be near the skinnier side, and is looking to defend himself in a street situation, he has also stated he has 10 weeks to train, and will be training one art only; this is an important thing to remember.

back to my comment before;
I dont suggest the likes off bjj because its a much more technical art than more stand up styles, as he said: he has 10 weeks to train, and compared to boxing he would learn far less selfdefence in the ten weeks.
I think its is a very bad decision to recomend a ground style to a beginer with no experience in martial arts in this circumstance; because he is looking to defend himself on the street and only has a short ammount of time to do so, I beleve he is far better off sticking with the likes of boxing as its alot less technical than bjj etc and fits into his time frame of ten weeks,

I stand by my statement before.

If you have reason to disagree with me Jubaji explain why, (as Im pretty sure you have more experience than alot of people round here) Im not some stuck up loser who thinks he knows everything, Im just using my past experience to help out a newcomer, rather than giving a one line statement aimed at me, give us some more insight, it'll help searching method a hell of alot more than "I would strongly recommend taking that advice with a giant grain of salt."

[pstevens]

Kenshi Ryan,

Based on the given criteria(experience and time frame), I agree with you more than I disagree. Ten weeks is a relatively short period to develop any martial arts prowess, but boxing is a pretty good bet. He'll learn some basic fundamentals that can apply in a street scenario.

However, there are street-specific martial arts that incorporate boxing, grappling and the likes; provided you can find such a program in your area.

I disagree with you regarding ground grappling; specifically BJJ. While it is a very complex art that requires many years of study, the self-defense applications are fairly simple to pick up. In fact, most gyms teach these right off the bat with the full understanding that should the student quit early, at least they'll have this knowledge.

I would encourage someone who decides to go the BJJ route, or any route I guess, to let the gym know (if you're on a time restraint) what your intentions, priorities and time frame are. Don't just go into a gym without any expectations. Ask, inquire and request at all times!

Finally, after 10 weeks it's up to the person to keep building on what was learned. If not, that knowledge will quickly disappear.

[SearchingMethod]

I only said 10 weeks because thats how long I have before my college school year ends, and then i will be relocating for a short period of time before next year begins, so i would only be able to stay with the gym for 10~ weeks before leaving for 3 months.

It sounds like a Boxing/Judo combination would be good?

or a Boxing/Muay Thai duo? except from what I have read Muay Thai is much more complex?

anyways, I really appreciate all the advice, I definitely came to the right forum

[chillaplata]

Kenshi Ryan,

Based on the given criteria(experience and time frame), I agree with you more than I disagree. Ten weeks is a relatively short period to develop any martial arts prowess, but boxing is a pretty good bet. He'll learn some basic fundamentals that can apply in a street scenario.

However, there are street-specific martial arts that incorporate boxing, grappling and the likes; provided you can find such a program in your area.

I disagree with you regarding ground grappling; specifically BJJ. While it is a very complex art that requires many years of study, the self-defense applications are fairly simple to pick up. In fact, most gyms teach these right off the bat with the full understanding that should the student quit early, at least they'll have this knowledge.

I would encourage someone who decides to go the BJJ route, or any route I guess, to let the gym know (if you're on a time restraint) what your intentions, priorities and time frame are. Don't just go into a gym without any expectations. Ask, inquire and request at all times!

Finally, after 10 weeks it's up to the person to keep building on what was learned. If not, that knowledge will quickly disappear.

What pstevens said. As great an art as boxing is, it isn't a complete answer for street self-defense. Notice how often clinches occur during boxing matches. Now suppose you are trying to box a guy on the street and he clinches with you or or manages to take you down. Suppose he's a lot bigger or stronger than you. There is no ref to break you apart or pause the action while you get up. Without at least minimal grappling skills, you have no answer at all in this situation.

Especially if you are willing to pay for a few privates, a good judo or BJJ school may be able to concentrate your training on those aspects of the arts that are most important to street self-defense. In my book, as I suggested above, these are (i) escaping from mount or side control, (ii) establishing guard and executing a sweep or two from guard, (iii) defending takedowns, (iv) countering grappling attacks commonly attempted by untrained people (headlocks, bearhugs, etc.), and (v) executing one or two basic judo throws.

Even if you spend just ten weeks training and divide your time between striking and grappling arts, I think it is reasonable for you to expect to become sufficiently competent in these basic techniques that you can reliably execute them against an untrained attacker. You'd still be in trouble against an experienced grappler, but you'd have a good chance of defending yourself against someone without training who might otherwise overpower you through sheer size and strength.