BEST Martial Arts

[Nightwing]

Originally posted by Ice Cold


and there's israeli fighting style (forgot what it's called)

I believe it's called Krav Magra.

 

[booboo]

Martial Arts

Hi,

To tell you the truth there is no best martial arts. Wing Chun is very effective, yet don't limit youself to that style only. I've studied Wing Chun and found that it has its own limits. You need to incorporate different styles to become a seasoned martial artist. Now if you're only taking martial arts as a hobby one style is fine, but be reminded that in a real fight situation you can't be bound by one style. If you decide to study Wing Chun I recommend that you read on other stlyes of martial arts to get a more well rounded perspective of martial arts. Bruce Lee's The Tao Of Jeet Kune Do is an excellent choice for any martial artist. Lee first studied Wing Chun before finding that it was incomplete, and later developed his theory of Jeet Kune Do. Its a difficult read at first, but read it more than once and it will soon be clear. Good luck.

 

[Kuen1]

israeli fighting style

The Israeli ish is called Krav Maga. If you've never studied another MA then I think this one is good. If you've studied another system that sucked then Krav is good as well. I took some classes to get a feel for it, and it's pretty good. Lots of bag work, basic punch combos with knees, kicks, and elbows. It has some self defense moves, ground fighting, and disarming techs etc. The real benefit of it in my opinion is its focus. They don't do forms or katas, high kicks, or flowery movements. Their main focus is how to smash the guy on the street starting trouble with you. This is important because many schools out there focus on point sparring, fancy kicks, and other things that are kind of worthless on the street. Jun Fan Kung Fu is another good system as long as it is under the direct lineage of Bruce like under Dan Inasanto.
Anyways...my top picks are:
Wing Chun
Jun Fan
Muy Thai
Krav Maga

 

[Kuen1]

booboo

I'm curious what you found limiting about Wing Chun. I've been training in it for a few years so I'd like to hear your thoughts.

 

[Nightwing]

Re: israeli fighting style

Originally posted by Kuen1
This is important because many schools out there focus on point sparring, fancy kicks, and other things that are kind of worthless on the street.

Im glad someone else pointed this out, hence the martial artists that you occasionally hear about that gets his ass whipped in a streetfight. Not to say that nobody is beyond getting an ass whipping, what Kuen was saying is the point that I was trying to make and is my primary criticism about many martial art schools.

 

[MVPlaya]

MARTIAL ARTS

What are you going for? Having a good time? Winning martial arts tournaments? Having your cracked up ego square off against a bulky guy who resembles your high-school bully?

If you answered yes to:
#1) Any martial art, judo and kung-fu are loads of fun. Mud-wrestling with women would be a 10.
#2) Tae Kwon Do. In mixed tournaments, Tae Kwon Do competitors seem to kick the most ass (beating Kung Fu people). I did TKD for 6 years (Brwn Belt) and I am 17 in 0 against Kung Fu folk.
#3) Jiu Jitsu. TKD and Karate are equally good, but I like Jiu Jitsu in that you can grapple someone rather than break their shoulderblades. I'm a man for subtlety during fights. If you want to kill them, JJ does the trick too, but you're an A$$H0LE. If you just want to get the point across that you can kick their sorry asses, a well-timed throw or well-placed kick above the thighs or backside of their legs gets the message across.

 

[Slashco]

As Ice Cold said, if you're looking to defend yourself, learn one of the systems used by military organizations, whether Israeli (Krav Maga) or Russian (Systema), etc. They teach the most efficient ways to dispatch an opponent and deal with various situations, without flowery movements. If you're just looking to increase your fitness, any martial arts class will work.

 

[felony]

Hmm i don't care too much about fights. I'm not a fighting guy. And no one ever picks fights with me.. unless they are a bit drunk and jealous of my girl

Hmm i must apologise for posting this thread when i have now only noticed a few other martial arts threads! lol.

Right now i'm trying to gather more information on boxing in my area. The people who teach how to box, are they meant to have a particular qualification? I've heard that boxing doesn't do much for you in the way of muscles and building up your arms? I don't want to have HUGE arms... but i would like to think that after say a few months of boxing i would have decent arms plus maybe some pecs etc!

Also, fair enough about all that stuff about needing experience on the "street" to be a good fighter... but surely after boxing for a while, if i wanted to throw a punch, it would be much better and stronger punch than if i didn't do boxing right? So if two people had never fought, and one did boxing the other didn't they were roughly equal weight an so on, you'd have to put your money on the guy with boxing right?

Also, what is a reccomended level of boxing activity? I have noticed some places offering 10 weeks @ 45mins a week, and others that are open every day every night but no particular personal training.... though i'm guessing if a few guys are in the room working out, they'd help each other at the same time.

Or should i just grab a gym membership and do the speedball and bag work on my own? Perhaps after getting some instruction first?

Cheers,
felony.
My charm is a felony. But i need som strong arms to fend these
b!tches offa me !

 

[Ice Cold]

I lived in Russian for quite a while, and it's quite normal fight there. I've been in 6-7 serious fights with broken noses and really black eyes. Sometimes it was me who got the black eye, sometimes not.

I've also witnessed at least a couple dozen fights. From what I observed, box is quite effective agains untrained opponents because it's basically a fistfight. Usually boxer guys kicked the crap out of the opponens.

BUT - I've seen 2 fights boxer vs wrestler and boxer vs sambist. It was funny. The guy ducks and hugs the boxer on the waist. While he goes that, he gets 1 maybe 2 punches. Once he grabs the boxer, he just throws him on the ground and locks. The fight is over and the sambo guy received less damage from boxer, than boxer from an untrained opponent.

But it's a choice you have to make

 

[balengar]

just go with muay thai plus BJJ

kick a lot of ass

 

[Nightwing]

Originally posted by felony
Hmm i don't care too much about fights. I'm not a fighting guy. And no one ever picks fights with me.. unless they are a bit drunk and jealous of my girl

Hmm i must apologise for posting this thread when i have now only noticed a few other martial arts threads! lol.

Right now i'm trying to gather more information on boxing in my area. The people who teach how to box, are they meant to have a particular qualification? I've heard that boxing doesn't do much for you in the way of muscles and building up your arms? I don't want to have HUGE arms... but i would like to think that after say a few months of boxing i would have decent arms plus maybe some pecs etc!

Also, fair enough about all that stuff about needing experience on the "street" to be a good fighter... but surely after boxing for a while, if i wanted to throw a punch, it would be much better and stronger punch than if i didn't do boxing right? So if two people had never fought, and one did boxing the other didn't they were roughly equal weight an so on, you'd have to put your money on the guy with boxing right?

Also, what is a reccomended level of boxing activity? I have noticed some places offering 10 weeks @ 45mins a week, and others that are open every day every night but no particular personal training.... though i'm guessing if a few guys are in the room working out, they'd help each other at the same time.

Or should i just grab a gym membership and do the speedball and bag work on my own? Perhaps after getting some instruction first?

Cheers,
felony.
My charm is a felony. But i need som strong arms to fend these
b!tches offa me !

Felony, if you go the boxing route, get some guidance first from a good instructor. The instruction is usually easy to pick up and is something that you can practice on your own. Before I got coaching in boxing I spent about 6 months trying to figure it out on my own and didnt get it right, until I a boxing coach took me under his wing and showed me how to develop speed and the ability to KO someone.

Also, I would still reccommend that you add a mixture of stand up as well as ground fighting to your fight game. If you end up doing both, you will soon realize that just because youre in shape to box, doesnt mean youre in shape to grapple. Both stand up fighting and grappling requires two different types of breathing and cardio fitness. If youre in shape to grapple real good without getting tired, your body will be in for a real shock if you stand up and throw some punches, and vice versa. So it would be advisable to cross train between ground fighting and stand up if you can. Learn to be deadly from any position.

 

[Komodo]

Sambo and systema along with kenpo and jiujitsu are pretty good arts.If I had to choose one it would be systema checkout www.russianmartialart.com .

 

[MVPlaya]

The Best Martial Art is Track. If you get into lots of fights, nothing like some hurdles and 200meter dashes. But for the love of it for the purpose of kicking ass, I love Tae Kwon Do. Tae Kwon Do gets you flexible and has lots of good kicks that get worked into you for perfection. One thing I find lacking in TKD, however, is that it does not emphasize hand combat enough. I do Tae Kwon Do, Wrestling, and Boxing so I have all I need (with the exception of a pair of healthy knees) but I think with a year and a half of TKD you'd be able to stand your own.

 

[Cremasta]

Go and get one of those Martial Arts magazines down at the newsagent like Blitz, or just flip through a few of them. See which MA appeals to you and go have a look at a local school.

I would suggest doing any MA training more than 1 night a week though, at least 4 times is doing well. If you train only once a week two things are going to happen:
1. You won't progress in skill level
2. You'll get injured

There are plenty of ideas on which MA to choose from other posters, just make sure that whichever one you pick, you find a good instructor and you enjoy doing it, or you will just bin the training and have wasted your time and money.

I'm currently doing Kungfu and enjoying it, but have always been keen to try out Capoeira just because it looks like fun. All depends on what you want out of it.

 

[Ice Cold]

I would advise against the MA magasines, because I beleive you can't get any info from them.

They have to sell, so they have to write in an exciting manner. So they buff up real qualities of the MA they are discussing...

 

[Soshyopathe]

Ask around about any basement karate clubs. They are usually the hardest core, and they don't teach a specific style, they teach it all. It's just a 'karate' school, and they're usually cheap.

 

[BMW]

my current schedule is as following:

Mon. & Wed: Boxing
Tue & Thur: Brazilian Ju Jitsu
Friday: Kyokushin Karate
Saturday: Vale Tudo and Muay Thai

I also wanted to do Escrima, but as you can see my schedule is filled up and I like to spend time with my kids when I am not training. So I am gonna plan on cutting down on the Ju jitsu for a while and try out Escrima.

 

[BMW]

Also, I found Krav Maga to be good only to get into the mentality of being prepared if you are threatned with a knife or a gun. Krav Maga is not for people who want to spar all out in a ring.

About the Russian arts, I got alot of respect for Russian fighters, but when I went to observe some Sambo and Systema classes, I thought to my self that Brazilian Ju Jitsu is better because the Russian arts depend too much on the predictibility of the opponet. I could be wrong, but if someone can comment on that, it would be great.

 

[Ice Cold]

Originally posted by BMW
when I went to observe some Sambo and Systema classes, I thought to my self that Brazilian Ju Jitsu is better because the Russian arts depend too much on the predictibility of the opponet. I could be wrong, but if someone can comment on that, it would be great.

I am by no means at a level to compare different systems, but I did find that Systema is practiced at speeds far slower that the actual fight and the complexity of some movements against a knife is nearly impossible for the real world.

But on the other hand you'll get cut if you go into a knife-knife fight, what can you expect from a knife-bare hands fight?


Sambo on the other hand gives you an idea on how to deal with the basic/simplest moves your opponent can use on you. For me it also seemed too inflexible, but then when I fought a guy on the street he didn't do anything complex. Basic punch, front kick, grab me by my shirt and shake etc.

I've done enough training for my responses to become automatic. So when he punches, it's a standard procedure which has been done a few thousands of times: grip, twist, shift his center of gravity, lock the joint when he's on the ground. The guy is disabled.

I have yet to see some use a high kick on the street in a fight, but when I was doing judo, it was funny to watch the noobs doing movie styled kicks with jumps and twists. It even looked good, until you make a small jump and push him when he's at his highest point. The dancer flies away.


Simple moves are the most effective ones, simple moves are also the hardest to learn.

 

[Nightwing]

Originally posted by Soshyopathe
Ask around about any basement karate clubs. They are usually the hardest core, and they don't teach a specific style, they teach it all. It's just a 'karate' school, and they're usually cheap.

I trained in one of those type of karate clubs for a couple of years. That's where I learned how to really fight and not some of that point contact crap.