Ask Lemmy

Depends on what you want out of it. Are you looking for exercise, self-defense skills, how to disable someone with practically no effort, looking to impress someone with some "ninja moves," etc.?

When I was stationed in Japan 20 years ago, I found a martial arts course taught at our base's gym. Ninpo Budo Tai Jitsu. I had never heard of it before, but they were offering a free month before you had to start paying for classes, so I figured I'd check it out.

Turns out, it's not a self-defense course like I thought. It's an assassination art. They said the goal was to kill your opponent as quickly as possible, before they had a chance to kill you. They made a point to say that we weren't allowed to practice our training on each other or spar with each other, in case we accidentally killed someone.

Suffice to say, I dropped the course after my free month and signed up at a nearby Karate dojo. That was much more my style. It's probably the most basic of martial arts. Gives you good exercise, some self-defense skills, and mental focus.

Definitely research different art forms and decide for yourself which works best for you. I've sampled a bunch over the years, but I think Aikido spoke to me personally now than any other form.

Teacher>art

And the best martial art for self defense is track

Depends.

For self-defence, you can't really go wrong with any serious martial art though krav maga is really effective against untrained combatants if you have to fight, but in other situations where you can flee, the 100M sprint is best to ensure your survival. Krav maga is otherwise not recommended because it teaches a lot of techniques that are illegal in MMA.

For MMA, it's best to go with wrestling, judo or brazilian jiu jitsu as grapping martial arts, and muay thai (a superior Thai form of kickboxing) as a striking martial art. Boxing can work but you'll be limited to just punches. Other martial arts are inferior for their own reasons.

The one that inspires and keeps you engaged.

The school of Anything Goes Martial Arts!

If you could only be an expert in one and average at the rest, it's wrestling because of the ability you would have to control your opponent. If I could pick a second it would be Mauy Thai as striking is obviously important

Swordfighting, because it looks super cool.

What is best? Best for physical exercise? Best for real world fighting?

The best self defense technique is only taught through one school. It has been referred to by different names over the millenia though. The crazy thing is, it is super simple and easy to pick up. Of course I'm referring to the ancient art of Run-fu (or Run Foo!). It has also been called Tae-Kwan-Go or Jiu-Sprintsu.

In all seriousness though, what are you hoping to gain? All around self defense? Exercise? Train for a street fight with "rules" (like spectators will stand you up the moment it goes to the ground)?

I got weinie arms and Tae Kwon Do was mostly kicking so I enjoyed it for that and just the stretching and general exercize.

MMA. It’s interesting to go back and watch early UFC fights. The fighters back then specialized in one style so you would see these crazy matches like Tae-Kwon-Do versus a sumo wrestler or something. I remember a boxer going up against a BJJ fighter and getting his ass handed to him. There were some really lopsided matches with BJJ fighters or wrestlers.

Back then, they didn’t wear gloves and it was billed as “no holds barred”. I think the only rules were no biting or eye gouging. The matches were bonkers. There was one where some little dude was fighting a big guy and basically punched him in the balls like 20 times until he couldn’t stand.

Over the first couple dozen events, you can see the styles start to blend into what became modern MMA. The wrestlers were taking up boxing. The strikers were learning some ground skills. It was several events in when a boxer was demonstrating an ability to evade BJJ takedowns with a sprawl move.

Early MMA fights are the only thing I can think of where you can witness the evolution of a new martial art that’s practical and combat-tested. You see weaknesses in styles and fighters who respond by adding a new move. You see what works and then other fighters start copying. Eventually, it blends together into modern MMA.

I don’t consider it “real” martial arts but I learned MCMAP in the Marine Corps and a lot of those skills are very relevant for self defense and quickly disabling an opponent. The tan belt stuff isn’t great but if you go up in belts you learn a lot more and it gets really fun if you’re into it.

What’s you definition of “best” in this context? For serious, real-world ass kicking, I’d look into Krav Maga… but most of us aren’t mercenaries. If you’re looking for something more well rounded, FunkyMonk and qyron seem to have better suggestions.

For the physical fitness, Muay Thai.

It is also effective for a self defense context, if the trainer teaches non-sport Muay Thai. Muay Thai is essentially street fighting.

For self control and development of balance, speed and coordenation, try Aikido.

There are no "best" martial arts. What you will find is that each martial art style has some kind of figurehead who can demonstrate how effective it is, but in reality it's the fighter not the style that's effective.

I'm all sold for strengthening and balance so a mix of wing chun and tai chi chuan for me.

Also "nigerundayo smokey" if I get some good constitution back.

Depends what you want from it. Self defense? Fitness? Coordination? General health? Discipline?

For self defense, which is what most people want, probably Krav Maga. AFAIK it's the only thing that's been developed purely for self defense.

20+ years of martial arts experience here and there's some terrible advice in here. Any martial art that doesn't have an active competition scene is garbage in terms of self defense. This includes krav maga, aikido, most types of kung fu (except sanda and shuai jiou). I spent half of those 20 years doing aikido and hapkido, and they were largely useless.

In the competitive martial arts, wrestling, judo, Brazilian Jiujitsu, Muay Thai, and boxing are the gold standards. Most MMA is a combination of those four and definitely the most effective. I don't like getting punched in the face so I stick with jiujitsu (brown belt). Karate is hit or miss, but some styles like kyokushin are really good.

I've been talking about self defense effectiveness. If you just want to get in shape, then pretty much anything that makes you sweat is going to work for that. Just don't do krav expecting to be a killer, no matter how much camo your instructor wears.

Aikido

Steven Seagal does it so it must be good

MMA - the whole idea is to poach the good stuff from every other martial art and dump what sucks.

but the real answer is guns