When I was a kid I remember wondering what was best, wrestling or boxing. At the time I thought boxing was the best but when karate became popular in the 60′s – the argument became boxing or karate! Well fast forward past the 90′s (was a very confused time) and now if you ask any kid… they will no longer say jiu-jitsu but mma! Why to a teenaged kid that would not even watch a boxing match – MMA is king!

So why am I not impressed with the flavor of the day? I am not out to challenge anyone or trying to get an accomplished martial artist in judo, muay thai, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, or boxing to come over the dark side. But what I do want to do in this post is to examine how effective various martial arts would be in a real fight for an average guy/gal that has a couple of years experience under his/her belt.

I also want to look at some other factors such as the point of each martial art… you know what is it good for anyway? Don’t get mad but if your martial art has lots of rules that don’t easily transition to a real fight – what good is it in a fight (unless you are a world class fighter – then it makes no difference what you learn… it will all work)?

Let’s look at boxing, wrestling, muay thai, jiu-jitsu, judo, aikido and karate (including kung fu with karate as both are similar) in light of how easy is it to learn, what is the goal of the martial art, and does it work in a fight for most people (is it effective in most situations?). Then I’ll look at karate and kung fu in general terms because our stuff is not immune to my criteria (80% of karate and kung fu as it is taught would not work well in a real fight).

Now that I have made a lot of friends and I don’t think I’ve excluded anyone I would like commenters to keep your responsive civil and to the points. I will not post personal attacks but please feel free to civilly disagree and make your points. I will be happy to respond comments.

Boxing is fairly easy to learn the basics but really hard to do it right. One has to get into great physical shape to excel in this sport. The goal of boxing is to win on the street or in the ring with one’s punches. All other strikes are illegal. I do not think boxing would work very well unless you were a good boxer in a fight with someone else that did not want to do anything but punches. Boxing can work in a mass attack if he can avoid the ground so I give boxing two kicks (out of five).

Wrestling is taught in school for most males at some point so there are many good basic wrestlers (as I would categorize myself). Again wrestling like boxing takes a lot of conditioning if one wants to excel at wrestling. The goal of wrestling is mostly sport as it has no defenses against striking unless the wrestler learns additional skills. While the UFC is awash in wrestlers that have transitioned to fighting, the average wrestler can win most fights if he can take the fight to the ground. As most untrained fighters have no defense against ground fighters – wrestling can be effective sometimes. However one cannot easily defend against a mass attack nor avoid a bystander punting a goal at wrestler on the ground so I would give wrestling one kick on my scale.

Muay Thai is a sport that is not easy to learn because of the conditioning. While muay thai does strike with hands, elbows, knees, and feet – the rules do not favor fighting as the groin is not open. I would say that muay thai does come closer to an effective method of fighting because it would work well against a mass attack so long as the fighter does not get taken to the ground. Because of the major conditioning of body parts (deadening the shins for instance) I would only give muay thai three kicks on my scale.

I’m going to lump in jiu-jitsu, judo, and aikido together as one came from the other and share many common moves. While it is true that judo is more dependent on transitional moves (getting the opponent to the ground), jiu-jitsu is more of a ground fighting method and aikido mostly uses ones attack against the attacker, none of these are easy to use and are not really striking martial arts. Practitioners would have to learn striking to effectively survive a real fight with no rules. I am grossly oversimplifying here but my point is still valid. I would say that none of these styles would come out well against a mass attack. So based on the complexity of learning and the lack of striking – I can only give these styles one kick on my scale.

Now let’s look at karate and kung fu as it is taught. No paneca here either. While karate can be a good fighting style – as it is taught it does not have the conditioning of many type of fighting – it is for the common man (read person). Karate learning styles can be easier than most styles as it does not take more than a couple of years to be proficient for most people. Karate can work if a student was taught by a proficient teacher. Karate/kung fu works well against mass attacks if the student is any good. Before I assign karate/kung fu a kick scale consider the types of schools and ways to teaching.

• Some karate/kung fu styles do not allow sparring.
• Some karate/kung fu styles teach non-contact sparring.
• Some karate/kung fu styles teach semi-contact sparring.
• Some karate/kung fu styles teach the equivalent of kick boxing.
• Some karate/kung fu styles are old school – meaning no gloves and flat feet.
• Some karate/kung fu styles are more modern and use pads and move around.
• Some karate/kung fu styles have open groin shots in semi-contact.
• Some karate/kung fu styles give more points for kicks and flying kicks than for punches.
• Some karate/kung fu styles emphasize more conditioning than fighting (karate aerobics).
• Some karate/kung fu styles’ instructors have never been in a real fight.

So let me opine about karate/kung fu styles and weed the 80% of karate that does not work.

If the style does not sparring or uses non-contact sparing I give that style one kick on my scale.

If the style does not have groin shots or gives more points (in training) for kicks or flying kicks than punches – I give that style one kick.

If the style is for yuppies wanting to get into shape (karate aerobics) I give that style no kicks.

If the style teaches kick boxing but no groin shots – I give that three kicks.

If you instructor tells you he thinks it will work if he ever had to get into a fight (meaning he does not know) – Run from that school. Why pay money for something the instructor does not believe in?

If the style allows groin shots in sparring, uses hand/food pads of some kind, moves around, uses semi-contact (can get hard at top levels), the instructor is confident and has fought before, counts the same for a kick or punch… the student has a chance…  that is only about 20% of the schools out there.

Lineage means nothing unless it works. All of the black belts, trophy’s, free karate babysitting services and such are just meaningless unless a student and learn how to fight pretty good in a couple of years.

So if you find a good school as I have outlined – I would give that school four kicks – on a five kick scale? Why not five kicks? That is up to the student. I cannot guess how hard the student wants it.

So I want to clarify I do not dislike other styles and I think very highly of them. And I think most any style can be very effective against most attacks – all I reviewed here is if a person only had a couple of years to invest – what would he or she need to learn to fight back!

I am interested in your opinion – please let me know your thoughts!

The news has been full of knife attacks and even the TSA has been considering letting people fly with small pocket knives. It is even scarier to some so removed from fighting or using hand tools that in my estimation I think most people think that a knife attack is not survivable!

I would like to make the point that as in any other kind of attack (read club, gun, baseball bat, hand to hand or whatever) – they are all serious. You can get hurt if you are not a trained fighter. Heck even if you are a trained fighter – you can get hurt.

In this post I’ll evaluate the obvious (to me) about knife attacks (or really any attack – they are all the same from a self defense point of view). But first review this video for a realistic overview.

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Wow that first video with the cop shooting point blank at the guy with the knife and he missed? Most people would never think it would be possible to miss at that range – but as you saw it happens.

The rest of the videos should show you that your best defense is to lean how to fight. But say you learn how to fight – what are your chances?

First off a knife, gun, bat, rocks or whatever gives the attacker an advantage he thinks. And correctly most people that are not trained fighters have not ever come up against a weapon or multiple attackers – would not know how to fight back.

But say you are a trained fighter – are you going to give up because some guy is going to try and kill you? That would be a forgone conclusion that many that are attacked face every day. But that does not have to be the case.

If you like I did – immerse yourself in learning self-defense or fighting arts for several years – if you take to it you tend to learn how to overcome obstacles including ways to face weapon attacks. Really what do you have to lose?

For me a knife attack puts the attacker at a disadvantage. He does not know I’m a trained fighter as I’m not a braggart (I guess other than when I blog) – all he knows is I am a middle-aged man that does not look too intimidating.

So the guy does not want to rob me but wants to slash me – that means I have to defend myself… no other choice (letting the guy stab me is not a reasonable choice – he might kill me).

The first thing to realize – he is depending on his knife – whereas I have at the very least two hands, two elbows, two knees, two feet, teeth (I could go on). However you were trained to fight – it is time to kick in your defense… no rules (that attacker does not have any) but use whatever is at your disposal to mitigate the attack and use all of your tools against his one knife (weapon attackers tend to use the weapon – ignore the rest of their limbs).

So unbeknownst to the attacker – you have superior firepower if you don’t lose your cool. The big thing is to fight the way you train… if you like to fight inside – do it. If like me you like to fight on the outside – do that.

Remember the attacker is banking on his weapon scaring you so if you don’t lose your cool – you should do ok.

So what weapons have I defended against? Knives, clubs, pool cues, tall bar glasses projectiles, tree branches, and at least three of these times against more than one attacker at a time.

I’m nothing special – just a guy that has trained in my youth and enjoyed learning how to defend myself!

Please do not think that I am saying anything is easy – it is not but it is fun to learn how to do something you like… it does not matter if it is boxing, karate, judo, wrestling, or whatever – just so you enjoy it and train for that odd day with the rules of society breakdown.

So I hope many of you are like I have been – ready for whatever the world throws at you.

Foreword – It is my pleasure to introduce Sensei Matt Klein, founder of Kenpo Freestyle Academy in Sydney, Australia. Matt also runs Australia’s Youth Self-Defence Karate (http://karate-kids.com.au) website and blog (http://karate-kids.com.au/blog/). – John W. Zimmer

I saw this video on YouTube and I laughed as it reminded me of a brawl on the street, where as the two combatants (cats) were engaged, people from the sides (crows) took pot shots as they saw opportunities.  The action takes about a minute to start, so be patient, as once it starts it is fast and furious.

Crows and cat triple team other cat

Street fighting is like war combat. You never know who is with you until the proverbial crap hits the fan. Some will run and some will stay and duke it out until the end. On this night, I found out which camp my mates lived in. It was me against three of them, as the sound of my mate’s running feet faded away. As the three squared up, I lined them up in a row as best I could, knowing it’s a heck of a lot easier to fight one at a time. I blasted the closest one with a jab to the nose, stunning him. The second wrapped his arms around me from behind and with the help of the third attacker slammed me into the pavement. As I wrestled free and looked up, the last thing I remember seeing was the top of someone’s foot….

This fictional fight is typical where a combatant is outnumbered. If they can overpower their single opponent and force him to the ground, a group of attackers can strike at will. While keeping upright and on the move, a single fighter can sometimes take on two, three, or maybe four attackers if he can fight, as this 2nd video illustrates.

Guy fights off multiple attackers

So the question here is, can grappling-based arts like wrestling and BJJ be useful against multiple attackers? Although going against popular opinion, I am going to say yes, it is. Here’s why.

First, it is not always your choice as to whether the fight goes to the ground or not. If it does, you better know what you are doing. This applies to any fight, no matter how many opponents you face.

If you can fight on the ground, you have a better chance.

Second, grapplers train in take-downs regularly, which makes them better able to defend against them. In high school I saw a wrestler on our team fight a guy at a party, knocking the guy out with a good old 1-2 jab and cross combo (his dad, an ex-Golden Gloves fighter taught him how to box). The guy’s friend jumped in with a low tackle, and the wrestler, using his trademark whizzer move, planted the second attacker head first to the pavement. This fight was not fictional. Grapplers train to defend against tackles using sprawls, whizzers, guillotines, etc. and can get up amazingly quick after a ground-and-pound.

Third, many chokes and joint locks can be applied standing up. If a grappler trains in these techniques on the ground everyday, you can bet they can do it standing up as well. I saw a guy in a pub in Paddington attack the bouncer, the bouncer quickly subduing him with a stand up behind-the-back wrist/shoulder lock. As the attackers mate came into the picture, I took my jacket off as I hate to see a guy outnumbered. Before I could get across the bar, the bouncer knocked the second attacker straight out the door, a snapping jab with his free hand. The bouncer then threw the first attacker smack into the second as he tried to get back in. The two landed in a heap and by then three bouncers were there and the tables had turned. Bouncers are experts at restraint and removal techniques, but you rarely see them go to the ground.

Fourth, most grapplers are expert throwers, which means the hard ground is their ally. A guy hitting the ground hard is as good as knocked out. My college football coach, who was a world class judo player, once took on a group of bikers and threw them about on the hard floor of a bar until they gave up.

Fifth, knowing BJJ, judo, or wrestling doesn’t mean you have to stay on the ground, it means you know what you’re doing once you are there. In fact, most systems teach how to get off the ground quickly if necessary. John Will, one of the most knowledgeable BJJ experts in Australia, and the world for that matter, teaches disengagements from just about every position. In his work “FIGHT GONE WRONG Disengagement Strategy: Getting back to our feet” he illustrates disengagements from mounted, mounted and striking, side-mounted, guard, and opponent standing while we are down. You can bet that the best BJJ schools practice these disengagements regularly.

Sixth, the grappling arts are strong arts because they train in a realistic way every training session. Grapplers become very comfortable using their techniques against resisting opponents, and since resisting opponents are what you find in a self-defense situation, grappling-based arts prepare people for it.

Seventh, and perhaps most importantly, grapplers train with control on the mat, but if they need to, they can snap your arm/wrist/ankle, etc. in a second, or choke you out within seconds, which means one less person to fight. After one guy is disabled, the others will likely lose courage, when they see what they are up against. Basically, people that fight in groups are cowards. If the bouncer in the above example fought these two guys on the street, he could have snapped the first attackers wrist or dislocated his shoulder immediately, and then fought the second or maybe a third attacker, but in the bar his options were limited due to the liability of his profession. As John Will states, “If there are many attackers,  problem for the ‘bad guys’ was one of ‘too many’ trying to do the same thing with the end result being that they just got in each others way. Also in several such scenario’s, I’ve been told that the grapplers were able to ‘choke out’ one or more of the aggressors by fighting from the ‘bottom position’; where they were to some degree protected from third party attack.”

I am not advocating going to the ground against multiple-attackers here, but I am suggesting a knowledge of grappling will give you a better chance than someone who is not comfortable on the ground. When you are outnumbered, sometimes it pays to take the offensive as this final video illustrates. This guy just took it to them, even the guy who didn’t smack the girl. As you may have also noticed, both guys in these videos were good boxers. I’ve always advocated boxing as a top stand up skill to have. Combine this with good grappling skills and you can survive a fight, outnumbered or not.

Boxer lays into two guys.

What do you think?

About the Author:

Matt Klein is a 5^th Degree black belt and founder of Kenpo Freestyle Academy in Sydney, Australia. He is a 4^th Degree Black Belt in American Kenpo, and a brown belt in Shinbudo Jujitsu. He has studied judo, wrestling, MMA, BJJ, Kali, boxing, and kick boxing since high school. The Kenpo Freestyle grappling syllabus includes over 150 techniques. The Kenpo Freestyle tournament team has been rated #1 in the state of NSW, Australia for six years straight (iska.com.au.rankings).

Today while was reading the news I saw this article, entitled, “In Rough Slum, Brazil’s Police Try Soft Touch.” Apparently in the favela’s (slums) some cops have been working with the youth to reach out with karate! After a little more research I found out about an organization called, “Fight for Peace” were this NGO (non-governmental organization) also reaches out in a favela to offer boxing & martial arts, personal development, youth support services, job training, and youth leadership!

In this post I will highlight the problems, some traditional solutions, and what I think of this organization’s approach, “Fight for Peace.” First here is the movie trailer – City of God.

I have not seen this movie and I might not have considered it because the trailer seems to point out the gangs. I generally don’t think much of gangs of any kind because my great grandfather was apparently snuffed in New York City after having a disagreement about paying protection money (or the story goes – I was not there).  

After reading this article I am guessing this movie is not glorifying gangs but trying to show the world the challenges. That is a noble endeavour as the first step to changing something is to take a long hard look at the problems. One thing here to know is poor neighborhoods are generally forgotten by developers because no one wants to live there. The people there generally do not have an easy way out so they try to make the best of their situation.

Now if you discount the crime rate in the favelas and poorer sections of anywhere – lower middle class or working class neighborhoods can still be a rough to grow up. Sure there are more opportunities for the children if they want but there is still a lot of pressure to be tough so kids won’t take advantage of you.

The differences are though that most of the favela kids won’t have the opportunities that the working class kids will have.

What is the one thing kids need to succeed? They need to believe they can first and after that they need to know how to go about it!!!

Some solutions have included special schools, clubs and what I’ve always liked are boxing  clubs seem to set up in the poorer neighborhoods! Why? Because poor kids more than any other have a burning desire to succeed at fighting! Kids have to learn how to take care of themselves early or become victims.

The thing about boxing or any martial art is it takes a lot of effort to do good. Sure a street fighter can do ok for a while but put a good fighter against him and he will get his clock cleaned.

Trainers try to instill wisdom into the young fighters because they want the kids to succeed in life. A real messed up kid will not be consistent with her training and never advance to any real success. I found this video about Fight for Peace for your review.

I love watching this video… aren’t kids the same the world over? I mean why really do some kids have lots of opportunities and others have little to no hope? Sure life is hard in some places and the adults might have given up but why should we write off the kids? I know we generally don’t question are place in life but know this… if you don’t like your lot in life… it is up to YOU to change it.

Organizations like Fight for Peace, offer a framework for kids to know there is more out there. There are a lot of other NGO’s, program, organizations that offer similar help for those who seek it out but let me give one example of what we need to overcome to make a positive change.

Kids that are told they are a piece of crap and live in a slum start to believe what they are told and where they live – define them! Both what the kids are told and where they live are not the kids fault (maybe no one person’s fault) but if the kids parents, teachers, people of influence don’t know how to console the kids to be their own advocates and methods of getting ahead in their surroundings – how is a kid going to surmount that?

 I think Fight for Peace is one good approach to change the thinking of the kids in these favela’s and slum’s. Many of the readers of this website like me have been part of a martial arts school for years and have already seen first hand the benefits of training, camaraderie, guidance, and friendship to kids of all socio-economic backgrounds. I have witnessed kids with rough backgrounds transform into wonderful adults because someone thought to enroll them into a boxing club.

Kids are our future. In this age if mindless distractions and schools scaling back on the arts and physical education – kids are a resource we can ill-afford to squander! Support your local boxing, martial arts or youth organization!

Here is another poor kid that made good, the King, Elvis Presley, performing, “In The Ghetto.” I hope you have enjoyed this story about what I believe can be framed as how we can make our world a better place, through martial arts and some outreach. I hope you will consider a gift to Fight for Peace, if this organization meets your criteria for how to help kids succeed life!

I’ve been learning a new martial art lately that I’ve alluded to at times – Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). Our association has adopted jiu-jitsu training as part of our curriculum so even though I don’t need it (as I’ve already attained rank), I decided to widen my martial arts horizons.

In this post I’ll discuss how jiu jitsu relates historically to the kenpo that I practice and some background on what grappling is today. I’m going to have some fun because I have always been one of those guys that does not like ground fighting. I mean when I wrestled in school – boy was that a lot of work compared to striking. Here is an overview video of BJJ.

The Gracie’s have done a lot to promote BJJ, their own version of jiu-jitsu from Japan. Jiu-jitsu in Japan has historically been a combination of fighting arts and family favorites such as choking, locks, flips, striking and some weapons. BJJ was derived from Judo/Jiu-Jitsu and soon seemed to overtake its parent arts as well as most other martial arts. The Gracie’s fought many styles of martial arts to promote BJJ and did well. Here is a look at the end of UFC 1.

The rest is history as BJJ became a widely known and well respected marital art after that point. In this post about the history of kenpo, I traced how kenpo/kempo I study traveled from China, Okinawa, Japan, Hawaii, and the United States (and beyond).  In Japan, kenpo and  jiu-jitsu were intertwined but as kenpo migrated, much of the grappling was minimized to a few techniques. So it seems re-integrating the grappling into kenpo is the natrual order of things and why our organization supports this view.

As I mentioned, I am going to have a bit of fun here and take the devils advocate. When I started taking karate lessons I did not want to learn wrestling; I did that in school! Plus only people who did not know how to fight (punching and kicking in my estimation used to be fighting) resorted to just wrestling! Hmmm… I’d bet I am going to get a few comments about this.

I mean in my experence fighting (as a bouncer for 2 years - 1978 & 1979), I only ended up wrestling one guy – a friend that my manager made me kick out of the bar – we started to come to blows but transitioned to wrestling because we did not want to hurt each other. I’ve fought boxers, karate guys, wrestlers, and plenty of pissed off bigger guys that wanted to take my head off. Never did I have to resort to wrestling to win the fight.

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So what about the myth that most fights will end up on the ground? In my case of about 100 fights – that is a myth! Whew! I got all of that out of my system. Switching back from the devils advocate to reality mode.

I would bet that I did not ever fight a good jiu jitsu fighter when I was a bouncer. I don’t think there was much of BJJ around back then – at least I did not know of it so for me to seemingly mock ground fighting above seems sort-sighted to say the least. One thing I’ve learned over the years is just because one might not have run into something before does not mean it does not exist or a method of attack could not happen to you!

So what do I think today? After watching a lot of MMA lately and having taken about five BJJ classes – I am coming to believe that I want to know how to fight on the ground incase I ever end up on the ground in a real fight!

That brings me to the “What an Experience” comment in the title. As I mentioned I used to wrestle. In wrestling you use moves designed to get the other guy pinned on the ground. In wrestling I did not have to worry where my arms or legs were. If I was on bottom in wrestling, I was in trouble.

In BJJ I have to think about how not give away limbs for locks while I am trying to jockey for position. I know little yet but I still have a bit of wrestling in me… I just have to watch out as I am moving around because I can get choked, or locked and if fighting someone good – it will seem to be one attack and then transition into something else while I am defending against the prior attack!

One thing is clear – BJJ is going to take a lot of practice and to that end I have bought a mat for my garage. My buddy Mark and I are going to start practicing the moves in between classes so we can get more out of the lessons.   

I hope you have enjoyed my look at BJJ and my take on ground fighting. Know that now I have the highest respect for grapplers and please let me know if you have any insight that will help me while I am studying BJJ!