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I always wonder which martial art is the most effective in a 1-vs-1 street fight without weapons. After doing some research I came up with 3 types of positions (maybe there are more) someone can hold during a fight.

My logic tells me this:

STANDING: the most effective would be Muay Thai or Boxing.

CLOSE DISTANCE: one should consider to wrestle.

GROUND GAME: Finally on the ground you better use your grapple / BJJ skills to survive :p.

So in my opinion you have Muay Thai or Boxing, Wrestling & BJJ or some grapple art (luta livre).

UPDATE:

This type of questions are asked by many. It's better to avoid this kind of situations, but sometimes you just have to be prepared. Some people maybe living in a dangerous environment. Some people don't know which martial art they should practise to be prepared. So the answer for my question should help people in making the correct decision. I'm not trying to underestimate any martial art, but let's face the reality and think logical.

Tassisto
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  • I am afraid that this question has too many problems. The term "most effective" is highly subjective and has not been defined. Your three categories of position in a fight are candid at best. You ask a question and give the answer at the same time thus inviting discussion/argumentation. This question needs serious work before it is even remotely suitable. – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 22 '13 at 07:38
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    While I do think some excellent answers can be generated by this question, it is entirely too broad and subject to opinion (e.g. it is impossible to provide definitive studies/facts/statistics/etc to validate the answer). This is exactly the sort of question that is to be avoided. If you want you can still edit this and ask for it to be considered for reopening, or you could ask a new but far more tightly constrained question. – slugster Oct 22 '13 at 08:55
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    This could be an interest question if you narrow what you mean by "effective". Effective for MMA is different from effective for self defense which is different from controlling someone without doing serious harm the way a police officer or bouncer would want to. They overlap somewhat of course, but they are different. – TimothyAWiseman Oct 22 '13 at 16:46
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    Even with the edit, I am afraid that this remains a bad question: (i) street fighting generally involves weapons, (ii) street fights are rarely one on one, (iii) the three position types remain candid at best, (iv) you still give your answer to your question thus inviting arguments, (v) "most effective" is ill defined and primary opinion based. I feel that you are either trying to troll or that there is a more fundamental question you have. I hope and assume the latter: what is the problem this question is trying to solve? – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 23 '13 at 07:26
  • BTW, please take my comments in the best possible helpful light you can shine of it. They are meant that way, even if they do not read that way... ^_~ – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 23 '13 at 07:27
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    @Sardathrion I agree, but I think it has moved closer to a good question. If rephrased to something like "a 1-v-1 fight in urban environment and no weapons" we would have a legitimate question (I don't know what the answer would be or why you would want to ask that question, but it would be a valid question). If changed to "for MMA style rules" we could probably answer empirically by looking at the history of PRIDE and UFC. – TimothyAWiseman Oct 23 '13 at 18:29
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    Is your question What is the best martial art or arts that one needs to know to survive street fights?... If it is, I have a good answer for you. – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 24 '13 at 12:59
  • I'm sure my question is clear enough. Or do you still need me to update it? – Tassisto Oct 24 '13 at 13:08
  • I still think it is a bad question for all the points I raised before... – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 24 '13 at 14:33
  • Perhaps instead the question could be reworked. Since the OP proposes that there are only a few styles in which he's interested (Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling [Greco-Roman? Catch? Jello?], and BJJ [Grappling being too broad a term]), perhaps the question could be asked of how each art could individually be applied in response to a theoretical street fight application. This then would rely on the answerers practical knowledge of any/all such arts and their capability to respond, then the determination of which is "best" (best fits his needs) could be left to the OP. – stslavik Oct 24 '13 at 15:12
  • @stslavik: perhaps although this could end up as a hundred questions of the format: How does X martial art deal with street fights. Not necessary a bad thing but... – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 25 '13 at 14:05
  • True; I don't mean though to imply asking "how to deal with street-fights" but rather a more specific and practical scenario. We have dealt in the past with a theoretical scenario involving multiple attackers by focusing the scenario into something manageable. This could potentially be redirected into something equally manageable. – stslavik Oct 25 '13 at 15:19
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    Its interesting that Krav Maga has not been mentioned at all. – Btuman Oct 25 '13 at 15:22

2 Answers2

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You're going to get a lot of push-back and they'll probably close this question, but you're not far off. Hard-sparring arts have proven themselves in ways that non-competitive arts have not.

However, don't forget that other arts spar hard as well: san da/san shou is akin to kickboxing with fast throws and takedowns. However, like how all modern mixed artial artists need to wrestle and train jiu-jitsu, historians Kennedy and Guo described how san da/san shou explicitly and consciously incorporated boxing techniques after comparing hand techniques of indigenous martial arts. The same process occurred in muay Thai, after they were shown the power of Western boxing, and also in Kyokushin karate, many schools of which have incorporated boxing hand techniques, but which also incorporated muay Thai's leg kicks in the mid-20th century. Now, these are all distinct arts that share boxing's hand techniques, but before they did not.

The key is not stylistic, but rather the degree to which the style emphasizes athleticism and frequent feedback in the form of hard sparring and competition. Styles which do not require their exponents to be athletes are suspect. Styles which do not spar or have a competitive outlet are doubly suspect, since there is no way to weed out ineffective techniques, tactics, or teachers.

Dave Liepmann
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  • Actually, both of you are far off. The most effective martial art is gun fighting: easy to train, effective at a distance, and far more likely to make your attacker flee without resourcing to a fight... ^_~ – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 22 '13 at 07:58
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    Reductio ad absurdum – Physics = ultimate martial art ;) – stslavik Oct 23 '13 at 14:08
  • Good answer! I don't like how you oppose "hard-sparring" and "non-competitive", though. Can't you spar often and hard without participating in organized competitions? – Dungarth Oct 26 '13 at 15:16
  • @Dungarth Sure. It's uncommon, though, and leaves the many benefits of organized competition. But I'm not sure what you have in mind. – Dave Liepmann Oct 26 '13 at 18:49
  • @DaveLiepmann - I'm just wondering, really. Wouldn't focusing on competition orient the combat system towards moves and techniques that are efficient in scoring points more that they are at saving your hide in an actual fight? I'm not saying it's bad, though, I'm just genuinely curious about what you guys think about this. Because I don't think non-competitive should automatically mean no sparring either. – Dungarth Oct 27 '13 at 02:12
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    @Dungarth First, there's a good full-fledged question in your comments here, but I don't know what it is. :) Second, over-optimization to a sport ruleset is always a factor, but as I said in the answer, the reason combat sports repeatedly produce better fighters is that they produce athletes who are well-trained in actually executing techniques on fully resisting opponents who are trying to do the same to them. – Dave Liepmann Oct 27 '13 at 07:24
  • It might be a little more street-y to add a chin-push or palm strike to osotogari, but the competition judoka specializing in osotogari without the chin push is going to execute that move faster, harder, with more balance and control, and more effectively in a self-defense scenario than the "street-oriented" martial artist who practices the chin push version--and even spars!--but doesn't compete or use the chin push in sparring. (Neil Ohlenkamp writes about this eloquently.) – Dave Liepmann Oct 27 '13 at 07:33
  • And of course non-competitive doesn't necessarily mean no sparring, but it often does, and even when it doesn't, the sparring in non-competitive arts is usually less (not more) oriented towards self-defense. (Fewer techniques, less contact, fewer ranges of combat.) There are always exceptions, but if I train competitive boxing I'm pretty sure I'm going to get good at punching people, taking punches, and not getting punched. I can't say that for the average, say, wing chun school, where they might drill eye pokes (slowly) but which probably doesn't spar beyond chi sao. – Dave Liepmann Oct 27 '13 at 07:49
  • Those are really good arguments, but I can't find myself agreeing to all of them... Probably because you can't expand on them too extensively in the comments... But I'll figure out the good question hidden in here and ask it tomorrow night when I get back from work! – Dungarth Oct 27 '13 at 14:43
  • Arguably, @DaveLiepmann, you're not talking about stylistic differences (Competitive BJJ is better than Wing Chun), but rather the dependency is the instruction quality itself. If the instructor emphasizes quality live sparring, whether openly competitive (participating in competitions between schools), regardless of art, then they meet your criteria. Therefore, if I'm teaching Aikido with the emphasis on training self defense and encourage students to beat the everloving crap out of each other in randori (full commitment even when attacking with other styles), the training is quality. – stslavik Oct 28 '13 at 13:21
  • @stslavik The "it's all about the instructor" argument, while technically true, is almost entirely useless. Styles have tendencies. 99% of Bujinkan schools don't train or spar full contact the way 99% of competitive boxing schools do. It beggars belief to say that an aikido school is remotely similar to an MMA school when it comes to sparring: literally one in a thousand aikido schools wrestles or spars the way nearly every BJJ school does. – Dave Liepmann Oct 28 '13 at 13:29
  • @stslavik Is there a way to phrase this "it's all the instructor" that could turn this into a question for a more robust elucidation of the topic? – Dave Liepmann Oct 28 '13 at 13:29
  • @DaveLiepmann by that token, the tendencies of 99% of BJJ instruction are aimed toward winning competition; there is no thought for breaking the joint or bone and moving away, but rather submitting one opponent. This isn't self-defense, it's delusion. But for that 1% that teaches how to lift the hips and bring the arm to the side just a little... As for phrasing, I already proposed one way to rephrase to reopen. I only proposed the instructor comment as a corollary to your usual answer. – stslavik Oct 28 '13 at 13:42
  • @stslavik I didn't mean rephrasing this question, I meant rephrasing this whole instructor-versus-style discussion. As for 99% of BJJ being competition, the idea that BJJ practitioners don't know how to lift the hips to break the elbow is...interesting...perhaps you should investigate Rener Gracie, or any of the many BJJ-for-MMA instructors? – Dave Liepmann Oct 28 '13 at 14:29
  • It's not a matter of knowing, but rather curricula; your implication regarding Bujinkan is equally imprecise. That is, the logic is flawed. Regarding turning "its all the instructor" into an alternatively phrased question, that's better taken to meta it would seem. – stslavik Oct 29 '13 at 14:28
  • Even in a non-sport art, how would one spar techniques that would harm other students when preformed? Isn't there a similar danger for a student learning to stop right before completing any dangerous technique? The one advantage I can think of might come from learning to defend against attacks that would appear on the street, but never on the mat. – Btuman Oct 29 '13 at 15:06
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    @Btuman See the Neil Ohlenkamp link I posted above, or this answer. I am convinced of the evidence that allocating the majority of one's training towards becoming an athlete and sparring with as many sparring-safe techniques as possible is superior to not sparring or sparring with highly restrictive rulesets (e.g. only light or slow sparring) and not becoming an athlete. – Dave Liepmann Oct 29 '13 at 15:25
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Depends on the application. BJJ is useless against more than one opponent, for instance.

MMA is probably best because it distills all the best parts from various styles into a collection of useful techniques for most situations.

Captain Kenpachi
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