Is martial arts a practical form of self defense?

[Demon-Xanth]

Where I can see martial arts really helping:

Breaking a grip.
A blow to stun them. (if you can clock a guy good, that gives you a few seconds lead)
Being athletic enough to get the fsck out of there fast.

 

[astralnaut]

Originally posted by: kazeakuma
Actually, with martial arts there is an advantage to being small. You're faster, usually more flexible, tire less and small size is great for acrobatics.

It also depends on the martial art and the teacher. Nearly all martial arts can be effective from a basic level, it depends on how you are taught and well. There are exceptions to this, Aikido and Kung Fu springing to mind. They require a much more thorough knowledge to be effective.

EDIT: Jehovah beat me to it and said it better. Damn I'm slow

From a jiu-jitsu point-of-view, being smaller means that your hips are usually lower than your opponent, which gives the smaller person an inate advantage with movement.

 

[LordRaiden]

Originally posted by: astralnaut

Originally posted by: kazeakuma
Actually, with martial arts there is an advantage to being small. You're faster, usually more flexible, tire less and small size is great for acrobatics.

It also depends on the martial art and the teacher. Nearly all martial arts can be effective from a basic level, it depends on how you are taught and well. There are exceptions to this, Aikido and Kung Fu springing to mind. They require a much more thorough knowledge to be effective.

EDIT: Jehovah beat me to it and said it better. Damn I'm slow

From a jiu-jitsu point-of-view, being smaller means that your hips are usually lower than your opponent, which gives the smaller person an inate advantage with movement.

Correct, because you have a lower center of ballance and can therefor move much quicker without having to compensate for weight shift and other things that kill speed and agility.

 

[Babbles]

Okay massive pet peeve incoming:

It is not jiu jitsu or jujitsu or anything like that. It is called: jujutsu.

jutsu - art/technique Kanji #187 in "Kanji and Kana" for those that practice Shodo
ju - soft/flexible Kanji #774 in "Kanji and Kana"

How come many people can say 'judo' or possibly 'kenjutsu' but when they take the respecitve prefix and suffix it turns into something like jiujitsu?

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: Daniel

Not commenting on the styles mentioned in any way but I see the above statement of "most fights end up on the ground" but no one really backs it up too much. I've seen many people quote FBI studies but they can never find them, does anyone have any hard facts or studies that actually show this?

• Hard facts and studies.

Quite a few years ago, I mentioned the same thing about fights ending up on the ground, to my friend who currently teaches martial arts. He said he was pretty certain nobody could get close enough to him without getting their head kicked in. I then treated him to a couple UFC videos, including the grueling 15 minute match between Royce Gracie and Dan Severn. . Today, grappling is a part of their classes.

 

[StatisticianOG]

"I can't see how much learning something like Tae Kwon Do will help someone who's 5'2", 120 lb., defend himself from someone who's 6'2, 220 lb..or does it?"

In the martial arts you can learn how to properly defend yourself, if it comes to that, and methods for defusing situations verbally. A smaller and/or weaker person could down a larger and/or stronger person with a kick to the knee, strike to the throat, or a finger break, for example.

"Hard facts and studies."

I fail to see how a link to a site that shows pictures from pay-per-view entertainment fighting and is obviously biased towards MMA's is hard fact or a study. Perhaps you should argue for Judo and post a link to a judo site?

Anyway, some miscellaneous questions:

1. I've always wondered why the grapplin' (almost to be confused with wrasslin') magazines advertise to angry youth or males who need Viagra?

2. If I wanted to be the World Heavyweight Champion of the Cosmos, could I start my own organization, and get my own plastic and fake jewel encrusted belt made?

 

[newbiepcuser]

funny video I found. -->martial arts

In the martial arts you can learn how to properly defend yourself, if it comes to that, and methods for defusing situations verbally. A smaller and/or weaker person could down a larger and/or stronger person with a kick to the knee, strike to the throat, or a finger break, for example.

I agree to certain point, but some one who is trained in MMA (not WWE crap) would be prepared for that. Today's MMA fighters are trained in grappling, judo/sambo, muy thai, etc.


But I also have to agree, when i was in Brazilian JJ, a lot of meat heads who just wanted to rip people's head off. The teacher did not encourage it, heck he got mad at me for cursing.

 

[Buttzilla]

at my school...formor school, i was in a club called martial arts club, superficially we were just a club that promoted martial arts to santa barbara community. but underneath it all, we a plehtora of practioners teaching each other our respective MA. what i've learned is it doesn't really matter what style or what MA you pratice...its the execution that matters. i'm 5 8, 185, i got taken down by a 14 year old 140 pound jujitsu student. (every month we have a guess teachers and students...pretty neat). we were strictly using ground techniques but if we were to do open combat i'm sure i can take him.

like i said...its the executiont that matters. we pratice for about 2-3 hours 3x a week and the last half our we do open sparring. i'm not talking about tkd point system no hitting above and below the waist thing here. all we wear is hand, feet, cup, and a mouth piece and duke it out. i've taken on hapkido students, tkd, thai boxers, wing tsun, tai chi, jujitsu, choy lay fut (northern and southern style)...you name it, even caperera (sp?). most of the members pratice more then one style or try to incorporate what they learn from the other members. the good ones are the ones that can adapt. i heard some people say that "they are aware" and that is totally true. once you do full contact sparring you become aware.

we had this isralien special force guy come in to demonstrate once... oh man, he took down our president in 3 moves. it was crazy, and our president is hardcore hapkido/thai boxing/grappling. what he taught us is that once you start a series of punch, blows, eye gouging, nut kicking...you must complete your combo.

well, i got my ass kick quiet a bit. i do tkd btw...and let me tell you it sucked big time when i first started out at the club...since then i've picked up wing tsun and tai chi to help w/ my balance, my hand to hand combate, and my inside technique.

execution execution execution. a 120ibl 3 degree black belt tkd can take a 200ibl guy if she knew where to hit him and hit him fast. like round house the guy's acl, front kick his knee cap, punch him in the throat. that's not visual artistic but it is effective.

bruce lee was good cause he knew pressure points, he would hit and block at the same time and would target pressure points...crazy.

 

[ace31216]

If anyone has watched UFC, martial arts is just one form of fighting. It can be useful in certain situations and in other circumstances it doesn't help as much. Overall, martial arts is really for strengthing the body, as well as the mind and spirit. It provides foundation and a guide on how to live life. It discipline as well as self-defense.

I had been practicing Tae Kwon Do for about 3 years. The focus is mainly on kicks and I like it because it's flashy, looks good when you can pull it off and fun! However, learning other styles as well will maximize and better prepare you against any opponent, even if he is 7 feet tall.

 

[syberscott]

I'm 6'5" 265 pounds. I just don't ever worry about self defense. Not that I wouldn't have my ass handed to me by someone with physical combat training, but how many thugs have that kind of disipline?

 

[freegeeks]

what a worthless macho thread

 

[bradruth]

Originally posted by: newbiepcuser
agree to certain point, but some one who is trained in MMA (not WWE crap) would be prepared for that.

It doesn't seem that you're very familiar with professional wrestling. A number of the moves they use (namely holds & some suplexes) could be used very effectively if they weren't "worked" (read: used in a way to protect the person taking it). In MMA you occasionally see suplex-like takedowns. An example would a video I saw of Frank Shamrock knocking a guy out using a sort of front belly-to-belly suplex. The difference between it and the way a pro wrestler would use it is he angled the guy's head to hit first and threw him down violently.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

kick boxing is porbaly the best for learning to defend yourself quickly. Krav Maga requires alot of effort to get to the point that Spec Ops goes. If you have time and effort in you then i would suggest taking both kickboxing and Kung Fu. If you master them both you need only a couple fingers to kill.

 

[StatisticianOG]

Originally posted by:tcsenter
There are definitely 'practical' forms of martial arts out there. Practitioners of some unpractical martial arts will swear on their mother's grave that their forms are 'practical', because they can't very well admit they've just spent ten thousand hours perfecting some fancy precision kicking, trapping, and chopping that will likely get them killed on the street.

Practical? The facts are that the probability of any of us getting into a serious fight "on the street" are super low. So it looks like all martial artists, traditional and MMA/etc., have spent time doing nothing. Considering there wasn't Gracie stuff in China or Japan, you wonder how those silly Chinese and Japanese ever survived back then with their fancy forms and stuff. It makes one wonder how some got names like "The Invincible" and "One Touch". I wonder how those silly French and German fencers and boxers were so good with all of their fancy stuff?

As far as Bruce Lee, he was a terrible actor in my opinion, a cha-cha champion, probably a decent martial artist in real life, but defintely not one of the greatest practicioners, and didn't really bring much new to the table (intelligent martial artists already knew that cross-training is a good idea and to not be binded by their own style), besides getting the word out about martial arts and being a great motivator. But I could be wrong. Could you list as many martial arts tournaments that he's won (or even placed highly in) as you can? I would think that martial arts historians (note, I didn't say Bruce Lee students or fans) would be writing volumes about Lee, but it doesn't look like they are to me, but I could be wrong.

If Bruce Lee said that kung fu sucks, I would say that his understanding of it was shallow, and probably didn't learn much from his teachers and from his own study.

This is off topic, but I heard he charged outrageous fees for private martial arts instruction. Can anyone verify that?

Its an inescapable matter of physics. I can run a Geo into a Kenworth at 100MPH and probably not do any major damage to a Kenworth while rendering the Geo unidentifiable.

Yes, one could, but a Geo and Kenworth are not human bodies and when you add a brain, pain, tactics, etc., to the mix, physics are not the only factor. There is a story about a small boy leading an 800lb bull to the next village. The boy couldn't pull a 800lb block of anything that far, but by using the little ring in the bull's nose, and the bull itself, it made it really easy.

 

[Yax]

If you watch Jackass the movie, you'd see that kick boxer lady kick the shtt out of that guy. That should be proof enough that martial arts is a practical form of self defense.