What is the Best Martial Art to Study?

I am often asked,  “What is the best martial art to study?” The answer really depends on why you want to study, and what instructors you have available to study with.  What are your goals for training? You must answer this first. If your goal is to make it to the Olympics, then Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, and Taekwondo are better choices. If you want to move to a specific foreign country to train, like I did, you need to pick an art from that country.

If your goal for training is purely to defend yourself if ever attacked, you may be better of with a combatives type course, or something such as Bill Kipp’s FAST Defense training or Peyton Quinn’s RMCAT courses. These are not martial arts programs, but rather shorter courses that focus on simple self-defense moves and adrenal response training. Despite what is advertised in the window or on the flyer, not all martial art classes, as taught today, have a focus on self-defense. And there are black belts out there, sadly, that wouldn’t fare very well in a real fight. And even with those arts that do focus more on defending oneself, part of your training time may be spent doing things that don’t necessarily increase your street fighting prowess in the quickest time possible. This is why some bash traditional martial arts as being antiquated and even useless. (Stances I disagree with, but understand why some feel this way.)

Don’t get me wrong, I am a martial artist and have trained since high school, and will continue to train. But I recognize that there are things in martial arts that are not necessary, and even contrary sometimes, for defending oneself. However, there are many other positive reasons to study and practice the various martial arts as long as you realize the differences. Here is a short video I filmed to discuss this topic:

If you have questions about different martial arts and what you should practice for your goals, contact me and I’ll do my best to help. And don’t forget that you can do an awful lot of training by yourself or with your training partner in the garage. There are many good instructional materials available that teach the basics of defending yourself to the more complicated stuff. You can learn from these resources if you put your mind and training into them.

Yours in Training,

Alain