Self-Defense Tip 124 What Is the Best Fighting Art?

Manabi-Masho Ju-Jitsu, as it’s non-competitive and solely for defense. The premise is if two men fight and one or both are not dead in 30 seconds, then it’s not a fight, it’s just a match, or you have two perfectly matched combatants trained in the same form that know all of each others counters, in which case you would probably not be fighting them to the death in the first place. At least that’s how it was taught in the ’80’s.

It all boils down to APPLICATION. I think this is why Peter Ralston (Cheng Hsin founder) recommended folk take boxing and judo, since they constantly do what they train to do.

I have only been in a handful of street fights and they were amateurish events at best where the other opponent was drunken oftentimes, but I did find some training in kickboxing such as keeping your guard up etc to be effective to the point where the other opponent was mimicing me. I also have worked in a patient hospital setting where a patient once grabbed me by the throat unexpectedly and whilst in that situation I would have escaped because my work mates were there, I later did attend a class on Krav Maga where using the ‘escape technique’ that was taught would not have worked in my situation as my back was to a wall where the technique shown was not going to be effective.

As for what the best martial art is, there probably is no singular best art. A variety of disciplines is required to have some kind of proficiency. I do think that mixing in some combat only art such as Krav can only be effective when mixing it up with other disciplines such as wrestling and boxing/Muay Thai. I like looking at fighters smaller in height because they HAVE to be technique based and effective. I do feel the need to point out that BJJ is mostly used in a cage fighting setting and if you use BJJ and get an opponent on the ground, what is to stop his five friends from then kicking you on the ground etc and stabbing you? I think you have to strike first, strike hard, and use some form of body manipulation/standing joint locks to get the opponent to the ground, then use strikes whilst they are on the ground. You cant afford to get into a prolonged wrestling scenario as in the situations I have seen that guy usually has buddies around who will kick you in once you are on the ground, wrestling in a protracted scenario only works if you are 1 vs 1 and even in a cage…this is why I dont like people saying BJJ is the end-all martial art, or even that MMA is the best as this is only applied in a cage setting. Sure, learning MMA gives you a huge advantage, but it is a sport not for everyday fighting where people sometimes are wearing thick clothing that nullifies the effect of your punches etc. I have even heard of a tale where a MMA fighter caused an assailant to ‘tap out’ and when the guy started fighting the MMA fighter let him go and was subsequently stabbed and killed by the assailant. His MMA conditioning caused him to let go of the assailant when he tapped, and that was the cause of the MMA fighter’s demise.

Someone here mentioned ‘eastern martial arts’ are debunked…I dont think this is true, there was a 5′ 6 135 lbs guy who submitted a 6′ 6 behemoth with his eastern martial arts, and only lost later on in the tournament in the final against another opponent due to the eye injuries suffered from the 6′ 6 guy who used illegal eye gouges, the name of the short guy was Yuki Nakai.

I think a striking discipline + wrestling discipline + standing joint lock discipline + Krav Maga/other combat only art involving weapons training = the overall package. So there is no ‘best’ martial art. I don’t like the idea of belts in the sense that people with higher ranked belts are often overcome by lower ranked ones, there is no consistency here. I dont like MMA as a recreation of real life combat, nor do I like ‘combat only’ arts like Krav being used in isolation without learning other martial arts disciplines. And even all that practice is pointless if you dont address legal ramifications after the fight, and know that even after all that training all may be lost if the other guy’s buddies step in/ he produces a gun at range/ etc etc… heck, the worst predators aren’t the guys who fight fairly, they’re the guys who stab you in the back or as in days past, poisoned you. I think a total combat discipline that encompasses multiple martial arts also needs to address the psychology of opponents who win by fighting dirty and in an asymmetrical fashion. Sorry I talked too much, I was just sharing my opinion which even though I may not be necessarily ‘right’ in all I said, I did feel I have some genuinely good points to contribute to the discussion.

I think the point of the question is what martial art is the best for me. I am not so interested in who’s gonna win the world championship of all fighters and most of all, I can’t train 8 hrs every day.

In my experience, Systema is perfect. I tried Guided Chaos only once, but I felt its concreteness. BJJ is wonderful, if nobody has a knife.

My respect to all martial arts and artist.