What is the Best Martial Art for Self-Defence?

Type the name of any martial art into Google, and I can almost guarantee that before you're halfway down the page there'll be a question along the lines of 'is [blank] good for self-defence', usually leading to a blog post or forum thread extolling said martial art's virtue for self-defence (yes, the irony of this being one of those very same blog posts is not lost on me!) Sometimes you'll see something silly as well, like 'an MMA fighter would destroy a Krav person (sic) in a fight', to which my response is 'really?' (I can't convey the raised eyebrow that accompanied that thought via the written word, so you'll just have to imagine it). The usual 'my style can beat up your style' nonsense aside, the salient point here is one of context: where is a style applied? What are its strengths? What are its limitations? Unfortunately, too many martial arts practitioners and instructors are not overly forthcoming when it comes to these kind of questions, instead presenting their style as the answer to all problems. This in turn creates a problem for you, the customer, when trying to make an informed choice suitable for your circumstances.

By way of illustration, lets consider the example of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). BJJ is immensely popular at the moment, its reputation buoyed by its status as a critical component of any successful MMA star's repertoire. And make no mistake, it is an excellent sporting art – in my admittedly very limited exposure to it I'd describe it as a cross between chess and origami, using the medium of another human body. The problem arises for me when BJJ is sold as a self-defence method. Some of these problems are inherent to BJJ: as a ground-based system, while you're rolling around on the floor applying an arm-bar on your opponent you're extremely vulnerable to his mate coming up and stomping on your head, which is pretty much an instant 'game over', regardless of how tough you are. It is an 'incomplete' system that doesn't give the student the full range of techniques needed for effective self-defence. Even assuming the arm-bar on the floor is effective in a given situation, there's the issue of what happens once the lock is applied: what happens if he doesn't stop fighting, because he's so off his face on Colombian Marching Powder that he can't feel pain, or even realise that you just broke his arm? What if he 'taps', and then sucker punches you when you try to disengage? What if he does something that the 'rules' of BJJ don't consider, like hitting your groin or poking your eyes?

The issue of ‘rules’ is not just relevant to BJJ, but to any combat sport, which immediately creates a problem for the self-defence context. Sure, anything that gives you exposure to physical violence and proper application thereof is better than nothing at all, but that by no means makes this or that discipline a complete answer. Simply put, combat sports have rules, street violence does not. BJJ does not allow striking, and spends the whole time on the ground. Boxing doesn't permit punches below the belt. Taekwondo encourages kicks at head-height because these score more points in competition. Even MMA, notorious for not having rules, in fact has plenty of them, such as no groin shots, head-butts, gouging or particular elbow strikes, introduced to mitigate perfectly reasonable concerns around severe injury to competitors. Furthermore, combat sports have referees to enforce the rules, and declare when the bout is over. Street violence, of the kind that we in the self-defence world concern ourselves with, has none of these limitations – truly anything goes - s training in a sporting system may create a degree of inhibition in the practitioner against techniques that are against the rules of that system, which turn lessens its efficacy for self-defence without some form of supplementary practice.

Considering the well-known 'Traditional' Far-Eastern martial arts, particularly styles such as karate, aikido and kung fu, have their own limitations when it comes to self-defence. Much of the training is performed 'solo' (shadow-boxing and katas or forms) and/or with cooperative partners, with limited free-style fighting. These training methods in and of themselves have their place - even within Krav Maga we shadow-box - but a result of prioritising this style of training is limited exposure to a live, resisting opponent. In competitive combat sports like boxing (or even Judo and TKD) the student is used to the fact that they are trying to defeat an opponent that is in turn trying to defeat them, but in a kata there is no opponent, no resistance, only motions (which, make no mistake, may still have combat and aesthetic value) performed against thin air. Of course this is not true of all traditional styles – kyokushin karate for example is renowned as a particularly hard style with an abundance of high-impact sparring – but certainly your typical karate class at the local village hall is likely to suffer from this defect from the perspective of effective self-defence. Within my own experience, I practised the classic and ubiquitous karate style Shotokan as a teenager, believing it would be valuable for self-defence, a belief I was disabused of within six months when I was attacked one night outside the local supermarket. Fortunately I was able to escape with nothing more than a fright and fat lip, but in the moment, karate gave me nothing. My practice came to nought when I needed it, because the practice did not account for real-life, unrestricted violence.

This is where Krav Maga excels. It is a pure self-defence system; it does not concern itself with rules and stylistic niceties. The only question it asks is 'what is the quickest and most effective way to deal with this threat, so that I can get home safely?' As such we use techniques which are anathema to combat sports, but are extremely effective in dealing with a real-life street attack, such as the time-honoured knee to the groin - a drug-addled unit of a man might absorb punches reasonably well, but swiftly hoofing his balls into his neck will elicit a response that we can leverage. We also implement stress training, for example where the students are required to response to an unknown attack, starting with their eyes closed so they don't when or where its coming from. There are also fighting drills which simulate a resisting attacker. We work with weapons, both in dealing with armed threats, and improvising weapons from everyday objects to even the odds. All of these can be performed with more or less intensity and force depending on the level and confidence of the practitioner. And perhaps most importantly of all, we emphasise the primacy of avoiding the fight altogether; proper awareness of your environment, listening to ones intuition, using the appropriate amount of force for a given situation (no more, no less) and at the end of it all, escaping a dangerous situation at the earliest possible opportunity. Ultimately, all of we do is informed by the real-life experience of regular citizens, military and law-enforcement personnel, and always under development so that new knowledge is applied to make the system even more effective. For effective self-defence, Krav Maga is your top-of-the-range.

…And to answer to the question posed by the title, in the ring, MMA probably has the edge over Krav Maga, but in the street, Krav Maga is the better option!

All blog posts are reflective of the private opinions of the author, and are not to be considered as an officially-held position of any organisation, including the IKMF and Pentagon Krav Maga. Pentagon Krav Maga, the IKMF and the author will not held be liable for any action or inaction taken by a third-party as a result of this article.