What are the 3 most effective martial arts that will actually save your behind? Well, they are more of fighting styles rather than martial arts but are by far the most effective ones to help you survive: Kickboxing, Wrestling, and Grappling.
The main reason why they can help save you? They work against trained opponents just as well as against non-trained ones.
What Can You Do To Effectively Defend Yourself?
What exactly is self-defense? Let’s define it like this: if you can get out of a potentially violent situation without any harm done to yourself, you’ve excelled at self-defense. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
So when a situation does get violent, which martial arts will actually help you defend with minimal damage and get to safety, rather than hoaxing you in a false sense of security?
These are the arts (or sports if you will) that help you easily dispose of people who have no martial arts experience at all. They are also the ones that help you deal with trained martial artists by using the same principles that you would against non-trained assailants.
The ability to deal with trained people is what makes the difference when we’re deciding whether or not a martial art is effective.
What you want is to get good at fighting quickly, rather than spend years trying to perfect “if this than that” responses to specific attacks.
Naturally, the martial arts that use chaos training (live, unscripted sparring) like kickboxing, wrestling, and grappling are the best choices.
Fighting Styles vs. Martial Arts
There is an argument to be made that the following three are more fighting styles than martial arts. They are, however, sports, that is for certain, with one of them (wrestling) being an established Olympic sport.
So, let’s take a look at the three martial arts you can bet will get you out of a tight spot:
Kickboxing
Most violent encounters begin with striking. Being comfortable in a situation where somebody is throwing punches at the very least, or, more realistically, kicks, elbows, knees, etc as well, is a big advantage in a street fight.
Once you understand that a punch won’t kill you (like in the movies) and you are at ease to trade and control the exchanges (which you do every time you spar), you’ll never panic if you have to use your skills in a real-life situation.
The downside is that you can easily injure your wrists and hands when you punch, particularly without wraps and gloves.
Wrestling
A very, very good option for self-defense is knowing how to wrestle. This involves not just ways to slam somebody on the ground, which most people think of when wrestling is mentioned. In fact, it is more about controlling the distance, and being able to manhandle anyone from a standing clinching position.
Also, knowing how to land safely on the ground makes the world of difference if you’re ever caught off guard. Once again, sparring instincts kick in when you’ve been trained in martial arts that use chaos training.
Grappling
Grappling is the ability to control somebody on the ground, and execute joint locks and/or chokes. BJJ is the best example, as it will prepare you for combat involving any type of attire (Gi/No-Gi).
It doesn’t get more chaotic in training than during grappling, where every round of sparring brings something else. The pressure of being crushed under people and tangled up in weird positions will give you a calm of mind that will help you stay cool in a real-life situation and easily deal even with opponents that are trained in the same art, or other martial arts.
What Makes These The Best Martial Arts?
A great example of what makes an effective martial art is looking at MMA. When you see people pull off flying spinning kicks or flying submissions, you should take a step back and not reach the conclusion as to whether or not a move worked in a specific fight is the same as an entire martial art is effective.
There have been a few capoeira knockouts in MMA, sure, but those do not make capoeira an effective martial art for self-defense. Simply put if at least 80% of the fighters cannot execute the same moves with the same outcome, then it is not an effective move from an effective martial art, but rather a wild card move for a very specific fighter with very sophisticated skills.
What works is not the same as what you can pull off under certain circumstances, so when you’re wondering what are the best martial arts to train for self-defense, don’t look further than Kickboxing, Wrestling, or Grappling.
Conclusion
The ideal scenario here would be that you train in all three equally, which would translate to you doing MMA. However, striking is not for some people, while grappling or wrestling might not be for others. Getting sufficient training (more than3-4 months) in any of these and doing regular sparring will keep you safe regardless of who comes at you in the streets. As long as it is a one-on-one situation. And there are no weapons. And…. well, you get the point.
