I have been looking into getting back into some sort of fighting style and am having a hard time choosing which to join. I used to box awhile back and then started focusing more on weight training.
Now I'd like to get into something that would be very useful in a realistic situation: bar fight, getting mugged, etc.
In my city, I've seen, but is not limited to:
Krav Maga
BJJ
Judo
Boxing studios
muay thai
Any suggestions?
If I may, I have 17 years of BJJ experience, about 3 years of muay thai, about a year of JKD, 3 years of Wu Shu, and some Krav Maga experience with the mandatory TKD sprinkled in there as well, so as you can imagine, my knees and knuckles creak and rattle. I have also been stabbed and attacked with bats with some attempted muggings and some street fights because there was a period in my life where I went to all the bad places in Chicago with bad people willing to do bad things, so I know a thing or two about street crime vs. sparring. What should be known is that there is no one complete art, and you absolutely have to go see the art and participate in the free classes that the schools typically offer to see if you like it. If you hate doing BJJ but love doing savate, go do the savate and you'll be both more devastating and personally secure because you will always be better if you do what you love to do. Anyways, here's my opinion based on the generic aspects of the art combined with what you can experience outside of the gym:
Krav Maga is the best for real world street attacks because they focus on weapons and mobility. The first problem is that there are so many krav maga McDojo's out there that you're probably going to get a watered down version of women's self-defense instead of the actual Israeli military system. However, if you get the real deal, the whole art can be summed up in quickly reacting to a violent situation, and then getting away. Sure, there's some punches and kicks, but the whole point is surviving which means getting away alive. The second problem is it's not a satisfying art because there's really no "art" to it; all you learn in Krav Maga is to quickly react and then get away without thinking or personal challenge. It's hard to explain unless you've done some martial arts, but once you learn to defend against a knife or fight dirty, you don't feel like coming back for more. It's the best for defense against a weapon in a mugging because it's so basic and dry, but you probably don't want to stick with it to reinforce the skills because it's so basic and dry. I have probably made this more complicated than necessary, but I would recommend the weapon training in krav maga as an ancillary art to compliment another art.
BJJ is fine if you get a good instructor, but as many people will point out, there's typically no weapons training, or group fighting training. However, what it's good at is being able to recover if someone tackles you, and they're bigger than you are. Angry, crazy, drugged-up people always try some type of bull-charge that may or may not knock you to the ground. What you need is the ability to get up and run if you need to with some idiot all over you, or to punish the person if you're sure it's just going to be a one-on-one fight. Getting up to run doesn't sound that impressive, but drunk morons always come in groups and won't let you use a kimora on their "boy," but there's no way in hell you should let that drunk control if you are going to fight on the ground or not. If it's one-on-one, a good ground game can quickly, and concretely, end the conflict. Just make sure you go somewhere that does no gi training as well unless you plan on being mugged by men with large, strong jackets.
Judo is fine, but it's more throw oriented which doesn't quite work in a real conflict, and there's really no emphasis on leg locks. People seem to really like the throws though, so don't hesitate to try it out.
Boxing is good to know, but it's not self-defense in the real world. The last thing you want to do is get into a long, bloody street fight with some drunk idiot without insurance. Throwing a punch is great, but high/drunk people don't feel much pain, especially when they're angry, and you're going to have to take some damage before they go down. I wouldn't rely on it, especially since people never hesitate to use anything as a weapon.
Muay Thai has two (amongst other) wonderful things going for it: leg kicks and elbows. A good, strong leg kick on someone who's never felt that pain before might end the fight there, or at least scare him so much he's going to keep his distance, and the elbow training is wonderful. Because people rush you when they're angry, you're probably going to have to spend time in the clinch, and if you can setup a strong elbow to the nose of your untrained opponent, that's the end of the conflict right there. Period.
There's also sambo, hapkido, wing chun, jkd, silat, escrima and a whole bunch of other stuff to look at if you can.
I know my post sounds kinda "internet tough guy"ish at times, but I just wanted to emphasize that in my experience, a criminal assault is typically very sloppy, quick, angry, and in such an unpredictable environment that you only have a couple of seconds to do something and you can only do a couple of things. If you can master these things, like a Muay Thai elbow for example, you'll probably save your life.
I also want to add that I have only experienced street violence when I went to places I shouldn't have been and hung out with bad people. Once I stopped hanging out with bad people and going to bad places, I haven't even felt like I need to protect myself. It's like the crime statistics that almost every victim of murder or assault knew their attacker, well if you don't look for trouble you probably don't have to worry about protecting yourself from it. It's not something I like to talk about, but of all the techniques I've learned, I've only been able to sloppily execute a couple because I didn't have the time or space to setup anything else, but my
cross training allowed me to come up with at least one answer to my situation.
Anyways, go check the places out and do what you enjoy the most.
