Self Defense Styles

[Lazy Procrastinator]

I'm wanting to join a specific style of martial arts/self defense that does not rely heavily on punches and kicks, but rather take downs and techniques on unbalancing your opponent. I tried karate a while ago when I was younger, was pretty good at it but stopped it because of all the dumb carter moves (punches and kicks put together in a sort of dance where you change direction and attack air) and repetitive single punches, so preferably something that is diverse - weapons training could be cool if it was already incorporated in the style of self defense.

Please leave your suggestions below, greatly appreciated.

[Magus]

See.

Kick Boxing and Muay Thai are reall offensive martial art. You use your leg and hand to bash your opponent.

Tai-Kwon-Du uses mostly leg and hand so it is offensive, but uses block and parring techniques.

Karate is all right MA, it uses your whole body.

Judo is like Parry-Block into Hold-Grab-Throw/Break technique, it is defensive MA.

Brazilian Ju-Jitsu is really good for things going down, offensive and defensive. But if things goes down, you are in the winning side. You just hold-lock and break.

Ninjutsu is good all round, a more tweaked Karate.

Kav Maga is the Ultimate Mixed Martial Arts, every thing is going into it. Defense, offense and weaponry.

Well, the King is Kung-Fu, this is not easy and might take a life time to learn and perfect it. But it is next to Shaolin techniques. Shaolin is the king of Martial Arts, but this is if you want to be Buddhist Monk or Islamic Warrior(Exclusive to China only)

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Judo is your call for defensive martial arts; also integrated in teaching weaponry, be it a Bo-Stick or an Odochi. It's truly defensive, with block/Parry into Hold-Throw/Break/Dislodge. Cool thing is, when you catch somewhere, like you are hold a hand, you have 30 other choices to what to do next; after that you get to do 30-70 choices of different stances to execute. Nice in my opinion. They do teach you weaponry, from Bo-Stick, Sai knives, Odachis and even Ninja Stars.
Go for this, it is near the criteria you asked for.

So, it's up to you to decide now.

[overcome.]

Stand up - kickboxing/muay thai.
Grappling - Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ)/wrestling.

It depends what you're looking to do, I don't know personally if I'd want to go to the ground in a street fight. The risks are overwhelming. If you fight on the street and trained BJJ, you'd have to defend strikes which you wouldn't normally have to defend or look out for in practise - because there are no rules street fighting. People will fight dirty. That goes for wrestling too, would you want to take the fight to the ground knowing that the person you're fighting could easily have people jump in for them when you take the fight to the ground. This leaves you in a very vulnerable position.

From a competitive point of view, I would say look at BJJ. I'd also recommend kickboxing or muay thai. Muay thai is a very complete striking martial art, using hands, feet, elbows and knees, which you wouldn't obviously get in basic boxing or kickboxing.

I thought the post above was very informative and well thought out, btw. Reps.

[georgiamay]

i suppose whatever you think you'd enjoy more :) kick boxing is good...

just to let you know, i've been doing karate for 4 years, and kata's actually are helpful in real life, and if you ever did kumite, which you normally do no matter what style it is, it would definately be useful for self defense, but i suppose even though i enjoyed it any found it useful that doesnt mean you will...

so try different things, and whatever you think is better, stick with that :) i think kick boxing is good if you are only doing it for self-defense :D

[Magus]

so try different things, and whatever you think is better, stick with that :) i think kick boxing is good if you are only doing it for self-defense :D

Kick Boxing is offensive and not defensive.


Ai-Kido and Judo are amazingly good defensive style and with good weaponry handling skills.

But, BJJ is mostly grappling and it is set for downed opponent and not good for multiple opponents who are standing.

But, in the end it is your choice.

[Jean Poutine]

See.

Kick Boxing and Muay Thai are reall offensive martial art. You use your leg and hand to bash your opponent.

Tai-Kwon-Du uses mostly leg and hand so it is offensive, but uses block and parring techniques.

Karate is all right MA, it uses your whole body.

Judo is like Parry-Block into Hold-Grab-Throw/Break technique, it is defensive MA.

Brazilian Ju-Jitsu is really good for things going down, offensive and defensive. But if things goes down, you are in the winning side. You just hold-lock and break.

Ninjutsu is good all round, a more tweaked Karate.

Kav Maga is the Ultimate Mixed Martial Arts, every thing is going into it. Defense, offense and weaponry.

Well, the King is Kung-Fu, this is not easy and might take a life time to learn and perfect it. But it is next to Shaolin techniques. Shaolin is the king of Martial Arts, but this is if you want to be Buddhist Monk or Islamic Warrior(Exclusive to China only)

====================

Judo is your call for defensive martial arts; also integrated in teaching weaponry, be it a Bo-Stick or an Odochi. It's truly defensive, with block/Parry into Hold-Throw/Break/Dislodge. Cool thing is, when you catch somewhere, like you are hold a hand, you have 30 other choices to what to do next; after that you get to do 30-70 choices of different stances to execute. Nice in my opinion. They do teach you weaponry, from Bo-Stick, Sai knives, Odachis and even Ninja Stars.
Go for this, it is near the criteria you asked for.

So, it's up to you to decide now.

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I'm going to post a topic just to answer this shit.

By the way Judo doesn't teach you weapons. Where in the hell did you come up with this? It's also not "defensive" : if it were there wouldn't be any Judo competitions since all they'd do would be wait for the other to make a move.

Kung-fu is not the ultimate and Shaolin is a money grab. Your vision or martial arts seems to come from movies and other wuxia flicks.

[Fruit_Tart.]

hmmm??? i use kick boxing and karate together... eh. but i don really need to defend myself.