Most practical martial art?
 

(Mods: I don't have a clue where I should put this. >_>)

Anyways, when I finally move back to England, I want to take up a martial art. The thing is, I don't have a clue which one to take.

I want to take a weapons *and* non weapons based martial art, but I find Karate boring, Judo I've done, and I've heard with Tae Kwon Do you leave your crotch wide open with the kicks.

I guess what I'm asking for is what is the most practical martial art? Like one which I could practice and keep fit with, but also it would come in useful if I was going to fight someone and not flailing about doing Wushu in their face while they stab me and steal my wallet.

I've just come across the Keysi Method of Fighting, which seems close to what I'm after, but anyone have any other suggestions?

Tae Kwon Do isn't very practical or I should say it is very hard to find a good school because most are olympic based plus some of the kicks are flashy. I would go with kick boxing or boxing.

Krav Maga. Wiki it. It's of middle eastern origin and every time I hear about it, it's referred to as being brutal.

Krav Maga IS fucking brutal. Most of it's moves are fatal, and the ones that aren't result in broken bones and dislocated joints. Learn it, know it, and hope you'll never, EVER have to use it.

I've heard some very good things about Jeet Kune Do. Look it up.

I think Muay thai would suit your needs. It focuses on conditioning, and practical kick boxing. It would be good to know, and keep you in shape.

Savate

It's a french martial art, developed in the 1800's and is an effective means of self-defense in reality-given situations. If compared to other martial arts, this I can say is very practical if we talk about street self-defense.

Bas Rutten teaches a pretty practical style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3K-mrlYG7Y

while it's not an official martial art, nothin ever wrong with good ol street fighting, I find most times that can pull your ass out of a jam and quickly

I've studied Okinano (forgotten how to spell) Karate. Its mostly defensive and protection, but not practical. Black Belt
Studied Tae Kwon Do. To me, it is very aggressive with all the kick, but very defenseless for the Crotch. Then again, all the movements with the kicks prevents low-blows.
However for common practice, I mix those two styles to get by.
There is another style called Aikido. Aikido (合氣道:あいきどう, aikidō?) is a gendai budō, a modern Japanese martial art, developed by Morihei Ueshiba. The art consists of striking, body throw and joint locking techniques and is known for its fluidity and blending with an attacker, rather than meeting force with force. - Wikipedia

I had a friend who studied that for about a year, and gotten himself out of a knifing incident. Plus it involves flipping people and disarming. So my guess, thats your best bet for practice.

I second AG09 with Aikido. I don't know how much it will do for you exercise wise, but it's basically taking your opponent's force and using it against them. A tiny person can win against a giant without breaking a sweat, so I'd say that's pretty practical.

By practical do you mean studying martial arts for defensive measures to ward off the neighbourhood thugs that chase you around, kind of practical? Because if so I'm at a loss as to how something like Judo, and well everything else mentioned, can be called a practical art. You're not going to want to roll around on the grass with some dude trying to shank you. If you're going to study anything I would simply suggest some form of chinese boxing. No flips. No upside down spinning heel kicks. No rolling in the mud. Just something with a heavy emphasis on striking with the fist, palm, or elbow.

Unfortunately, there's no fit-all answer. Depends on the places you can get to, and your own preferences, style, the length of time you have to study, your physical nature, etc.

Once you move, do a thorough phonebook/net search of places near you. Find a dedicated martial arts forum, post the list and ask for advice based on the styles you can reasonably get to. Then, visit a few places that sound interesting and post your thoughts after going once or twice.

Don't listen to these people, Krav Maga is what you want. It's taught to the Israeli army for a reason (I think it's the Israeli army at least). I think they have also started to teach it to law enforcement officers in the USA.

I agree with the first point, the second one I can confirm as being true, and the third point sounds right.
I wish I had taken Krav Maga when I had the chance. Now I don't have anything, except for a (very) few random moves taught to me from some friends. Basically some from juditsu, karate, and street fighting.

first chance I get though, Krav Maga is way up there on my list of things to learn

I third Aikido. I learned a style of it years ago from a great master and it seemed to work, though I didn't get into any fights it did put an emphasis on disarming the attacker quickly rather than drawing it out into a fist fight. Plus I learned some weapon combat, mainly with the jo, a quarter staff, and very little with the katana, the wooden practice version I don't remember the name of it. Once I get a job and everything settled a bit, I'd love to get back into it, it's been far too long.

The most practical method of self-defense is keeping yourself out of trouble. If that's going to be difficult, since you're going to be living in England and there aren't any guns to be worrying about, you can do what all of my friends that live in DC do, run. It's always worked for them whenever someone wanted to mug them (they are pretty fast though).

If you're really are dead set on learning a martial art, my advice would be Krav Maga as mentioned above. The Israelis live in one of the most hostile places in the world today and most of their techniques for hurting people work. You could also try out any other run of the mill self-defense class since these will probably be very similar to a civilian Krav Maga class (they're not going to teach you killing techniques unless you're in the army). :)

Krav Maga or Kali, really. Kali is great because you start with a weapon and only after you advance do you learn the open-hand stuff which is about as brutal as you can get.

Both arts are about making your opponent submit in the fews blows possible.

(jeez like.....three posts appeared when I posted this @_@)

Hoohhhh-kay then....I shall have a look at Krav Maga (since it looks pretty useful), also Wing Chun and that Keysi Fighting Method also seem very interesting still. I shall have a look at the others like that (something) Karate and Aikido and stuff.

IDK, it seems I had a very different Tae Kwon Do experience than most people. It's possible my instructor slightly altered how he taught Tae Kwon Do, since he taught I believe 3 other styles. Anyway it always seemed to be fairly practical, if you were going one on one. Versus more than one person, you'd be in a spot of trouble. I did have to fight 2 people at once during my black belt test, and it wasn't easy. It basically involves rotating around so that you always just have to fight one of them at a time. Good tactics I guess, but that isn't exactly practical in all situations. That's really the only flaw I saw in Tae Kwon Do. Can't be (easily) adapted for fighting more than one foe.

I second this, not only is it intense (which makes for a good work out) but it is alot easier to pick up on (seriously after a month of classes you will gain a TON of confidence in yourself) and is really fun :) I've tried several forms of martial arts and IMO this is the place to start. As for weapon based martial arts perhaps Kendo would be to your liking, I want to take Kendo classes but the closest place that teaches it is like 3 hours from me :(

I am personally going to shoot down Aikido, it is complicated and from what I hear it takes a years worth of training before it really starts to pay off. Kali (more commonly referred to as Eskrima) sounds interesting and could be worth looking into (especially if Kendo doesnt sound like your thing).

One warning about Kickboxing, it may be hard to find a good Sensei... alot of Sensei's are training people for cage fighting and generally train you to be a bad ass effectivly. I have yet to find a good humble Kickboxing Sensei so I've strayed away from it :-/ Martial Arts is not about attitude, it's about discipline and improving yourself IMO.

I recommend these two:
- muay thai for kicking
- judo for grappling
Both are very practical. In my country many people train judo,especially those security guards. You said that you had finished judo, but you can expert it
And remember what ORLY said. It is really the best option :)
Salute..

Well, in a street fight you need to know how to box to an extent. I imagine kickboxing would only make you more efficient since most people don't even have defenses lined up in their mind when it comes to reacting to a fucking kick to the legs. But fights, a lot of times, tend to go to he ground and you need to know your shit there too. Any sort of grappling would help. And don't worry about your fight turning into some goofy UFC LETS LIE ON TOP OF EACHOTHER FOR FIVE MINUTES because most people can't wrestler their way out of shit.

This Krav Maga sounds interesting. And isn't Aikido what that goof Steven Seagal does? Someone mentioned Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee's technique, and it's great in the sense that it teaches you to be open and ready for any/to do anything in any sort of fight scenario. If you let form and set in stone guidelines/technique dictate your style, you become predictable to anyone that knows a damn thing about what they're doing.

I see some of you people have mentioned Aikido. I tried Aikido for a year or so and I can honestly say that I didn't like it much. Sure, it's interesting, and I'm sure it's useful if you get REALLY good at it, but as a form of exercise to keep you in shape, it's a mess. I felt like Aikido was more a form of dance than a martial art. Needless to say I wasn't impressed.

I can, however, recommend good old traditional boxing. I've tried it for a while now and I love it. Great exercise(probably the best, only on par with kick boxing and such) which gives you a great body frame and really good condition. It's also very practical, since you'll learn where, and how, to punch for maximum damage as well as how to defend your own weak spots. Asian martial arts tend to go for the "avoid getting hit and you won't get hurt" principle, but real life situations aren't always that simple. If you get hit you'd better know how to take it or you'll be in big trouble.

I've never practiced Krav Maga but from what I've read and been told of it sounds very, very similar to (if not the same as) the military combatives I've been taught, which are really the only way go when someone's trying to fuck you up. Scooping out eyeballs and rupturing testicles, wonderful stuff. If you're looking to get into a barfight to teach some fucker a lesson for lookin' funny at your girl then good old fashioned boxing will work fine since you probably don't have to worry about drunken flashy kicks or takedowns (unless you're in japan?). I practice shotokan karate, it's not optimized like Krav Maga for use on the battlefield but it's well-balanced, and if you're good enough in anything you don't need to worry about getting beat up since most people can't fight for shit anyway.

Most of my friends do Wing Chun (a chinese martial art), but one of my friends doesn't find it very practical in terms of fighting ability so he does submission wrestling, boxing and muay thai.