@jameshegeman5660
There is one ‘S’-Tier self-defense art: Track & Field / 100m dash. 😉
@DoctorZisIN
Ever so casually, Icy Mike gave us one of the best thoughts about self-defense: "You need to be really amazing at one specific thing, and be good enough at everything else to funnel people to that".
@raginasiangaming910
I agree 100% that one of your best self-defense skills is verbal de-escalation. I've worked in the military, high-risk security and VIP protection and in all areas verbal de-escalation has played the biggest role. As a trainer, I used to tell new guys that the best martial art was a verbal judo class. You can't lose a fight that doesn't start. You also can't get sued for it. People don't think about it, but if you beat the crap out of a guy and then the civil court finds out that you've studied ten different martial arts and fought amateur MMA...things don't look quite so rosy for you if you didn't make every effort to de-escalate first.
@harryohrn6051
I'm 70 years old. I currently hold Black Belts in Taekwon-Do, and Shotokan Karate and have 25 years of Yang style Taichi Chuan. I joined organized martial arts when I was in my early 40's. I did so for exercise. Having said that I started fighting when I was around 10 years old. School yard fights, back alley scraps and later parking lot fights when the bars closed. I had many many fights in my early 20's and 30's. I have an Anxiety Disorder that manifests itself as anger. Consequentially I ended up in prison in my early 20's. But that is another story. I have been beaten so severely that my own father didn't recognize me. In my early 40's I decided to start with organized martial arts for exercise. And first started playing Tai Chi Chuan and then gravitated to Taekwon-Do and Katate with a bit of Judo thrown in. I found that organized martial arts helped me with my anxiety which in turn helped me with the anger issues. OK. But I never viewed, and still do not view, organized martial arts as a form of self-defense other than how it helps me emotionally. Organized Martial Arts from what I've seen is concerned with rules and is generally sports orientated. Which, I suppose, is the the most effective form of self defense. "Defending oneself from our greatest enemy which is the one that lives inside of us." But that is "waxing philosophical". As a martial arts instructor I have taught self defense classes. But those have nothing to do with any type of organized Martial Arts. Self defense is defending yourself. It is fast, dirty and get out of there as quickly as possible. And it is not "fighting". Do what you have to/need to, to get out of the situation. If possible do not allow your assailant to grab onto you but if they do you need to eye gouge, bite, or stab them with whatever is at hand. The second step of self defense is "Don't put yourself in the position to get hurt in the first place." That is the second step because the first step in 'self defense' is learning to believe that you are actually worthy and therefore you deserved to be defended and take care of yourself. Don't put yourself in harms way. As I mentioned I've fought, I've fought hard, I've kicked and bit and been kicked and bitten. I've run away to fight another day. People need to stop confusing organized Martial Arts as self defense. There is no "tapout" when you get assaulted in an alley. There is no ref or corner judge or coach.
@GuitarsRockForever
I have a real life example regarding boxing and wrestling. Two friends were involved a fighting vs a larger group of people (sort of self-defense situation, as they may or may not have had option to run away). One was trained boxing, one was trained wrestling. One on one, the wrestler would destroy the boxer, but in that fight, the boxer was unharmed (knocked out few attackers in fact), the wrestler was badly injured because he took the fight to ground (he knocked one guy out, but was beaten by the the group). If there are multiple people involved, don't go down ground.
@Skylander404
As a former Wrestler with 11+ years of experience, I think one of our biggest issues in a self defense situation is how vulnerable we can become to outside interference in an actual street fight. If you are getting in a fight, chances are there are going to be more that just you and your opponent there. There is a high likelihood that as soon as you take a guy down and start clubbing him with your fists (we don't know what punching is), his friends are gonna come in and kick you square in your head, and next thing you know you are getting jumped. While I think this is a pretty universal weakness in grappling in general, I think other martial arts/ self defense systems are more equipped to deal with something like that. If we had to rank the best SUPPLIMENTARY martial arts, I think wrestling and a lot of grappling arts would rank pretty high, but by themselves, there are a lot of dangerous holes for a self defense situation.
@dogsartandhealth
As someone who has unfortunately been in alot of fights, something I've noticed is that grappling pretty much always comes into play, even when neither myself or an opponent(s) intended to. You're in a survival mindset, you get close to somebody attacking you, and you instinctively grab and hold. Grappling training with a basic knowledge of striking is your best bet in a life or death hand to hand situation. Boxing is great but the candid videos you see of dudes lighting someone up on the feet, is in reality, a small fraction of street fight's outcomes. I took capoeira for 5 years, and I agree with what they said 100%, one thing they missed in it's favor, is the understanding of measuring and rhythm it gives you, which if a fight goes long enough on the feet (>30 secs), is a HUGE benefit to your safety and success. That being said, there's no great defense for a bullet. The best fight is one you just don't get into.
@roundandsquareful
My son started off studying jiu-jitsu, but moved over to the judo classes and loves them. He has a t-shirt that says something like, "Judo takes them down, Jiu-jitsu keeps them there."
@tmauntler
This was so easy to watch. I started it without looking at the length and about 20 min in realized what I signed up for lol I am happy that I wrestled in HS for 4 yrs and that coupled with Army Combatives training has always made me at least a little more confident in my ability to defend myself and my loved ones. I don't want to give anyone too much false hope, but even simply being the first to calmly step up can easily turn people away from wanting to fight you. I've stepped up to groups of 2 or 3 dudes who wanted to do harm to someone else on multiple occasions and they turn away with a remark. Nobody wants to fight someone who's calm and confident.
@coffeeortea547
The duality of how sport can wash away BS but also water down a martial art is quite an interesting thing to think about.
@jarlbregadan914
Fun fact: greco-roman grappling techniques were developed to be used in real combat situation (particularly in war) and we have historical records of those techniques being actually used in battle.
@skywalkerneoblade
I'm a south African and have been in a mugging situation twice in Cape Town. I never knew instinctively that If I where to find myself in that situation weather I would have a fight or flight/freeze reaction. I practiced wing-chun forms for many hundreds of hours before these incidents. IE: The forms where wired into my brain like a musician's instrument. The first incident happened when my dumbass wanted to take nighttime photography of the town during a misty night. (dont do that in SA). I was jumped by two guys and I responded so quickly that I surprised myself. I always trained to use palms and fingers to the face and fists to the solar plexus. Because of my hard wired training and explosive reaction I managed to mess both guys up and escape with my camera, which was my source of income at the point. I probably would not have responded the way I did if it was not. The guy who thought he was a flight man became a martial artist in a second. (this sounds lame but it's true). The second time I was much more aware of my situation and as the assailant reached into his hoody pocket for his weapon blood was coming out of his nose. I did not stick around in either situation. I acted very swiftly and left just as swiftly. I was fitter and stronger back then but I know that those neural pathways are still in my brain and my body will react without much thought. I dont need to bench the whole gym if I can stick my finger in someone's eye; they don't want to play when they are blind. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
@aneczka413
I’ve trained three years of Muay Thai and after traveling around to different dojos in the U.S, the biggest issue is tradition vs. fitness. So many people try to compete locally and although their cardio is excellent and they are muscular, their technique is lacking. Striking a balance between the two is important.
@nein62
As someone who wrestled for 15 years it really makes me happy to finally hear it included in a "top martial arts" discussion... always feels like it gets left out but you guys summed it up perfectly.
@metalheavyawesome
I was like "I'm not about to watch an 1:23:14 long video, so I'll just click on the ones i want to hear about" and then i clicked on every martial art out of order and watched the entire video lol
@drunkenrampage1588
S-Tier: A gun
@onotinikow
My japanese Jiu Jitsu club was excellent. I think mainly due to our instructor though... he had black belts in multiple martial arts and used to encourage us to go train at other clubs. He said we may learn techniques that work for us, but was confident that at worst we'd appreciate our club more. He also said if we learned something cool somewhere else, he wanted us to show it at our club and see if it was viable. He was a pretty cool instructor.
@KARATEbyJesse
No need to watch… we all know AMERIDOTE is on top!!! 👊 Just kidding, Karate of course 😇
@RequiemTao
Having grown up in one of the most dangerous part of my town in poland and seeing people geting jumped on daily, this list is very odd. I think it all comes down to the viciousness and fact that theres usually more than 1 opponent. Kickboxing and muay thai always was the king and fellas who were training those faired by far the best.
@MartialArtsJourney