If you’re in a rough part of town martial arts will only serve you to better run away. While disarm techniques are taught in a lot of martial arts if the teacher doesn’t put emphasis on them being a last option then you shouldn’t go there. As skilled as you might get a blade or a gun is not something you can engage in hand to hand fighting really and even if you manage to disarm the attacker you’ll probably get stabbed or take a bullet for your troubles.

Martial arts are more useful as a good sport and for scaring away high school bullies. Life is not a movie, the rules of engagement are incapacitate and run away

I trained Aikido for 10+ years, but that’s now also 10+ years ago. Aikido used to be pretty well regarded and was hyped for some years thanks to being featured in martial arts movies and Steven Seagal in particular. Unfortunately, with MMA fights becoming popular, people realized that a lot of “traditional” martial arts where more art than actual fighting. Over time Aikido became a laughing stock among martial arts enthusiasts. This process was again helped by Steven Seagal, who -as the defacto face of Aikido to the rest of the world outside japan- just got more and more ridiculous and heinous in his statements and actions.

This is all very unfortunate, because Aikido is a really fascinating and cool looking martial art. To this day a lot of the throws in action movies (for example in the John Wick franchise) are actual Aikido techniques. (Some traditional Ju-Juitsu practitioners might argue that it’s actually JJ, because Aikido has adopted a lot of techniques from JJ and Judo, but I would disagree, looking at the way they are applied. In the end that’s just a nerd argument either way.)

Aikido was developed by Morihei Ueshiba, a man with a fascinating history! It grew with his physical, spiritual and philosophical development from a straight forward, practical combat system (at the time called Aiki-Jutsu) into a non-violent, spiritual martial art (then called Aikido). One of the reasons there are very different kinds of Aikido practiced today, distinct in how violent and spiritual they are, is that their masters studied at different times under Ueshiba, who continually became softer and more spiritual with his age. However, although developed decidedly after the time of the Samurai in Japan a lot of the techniques still focus on disarming people carrying swords or reversely focus on attackers trying to prevent you from drawing your sword. This means most of the attacks trained in Aikido are people grabbing your wrist and then not letting go, which looks weird if there is no sword. This also limits the practicality. Towards the end of Ueshiba’s life his focus was not to teach a system to defend yourself anymore. His goal was to unite the world spiritually through Aikido, literally. He sent his top students out into the world often in countries, which languages they don’t even speak, to teach and spread Aikido. Not to gain money or fame, but genuinely to make the world a better place by helping people to spiritually grow through the practice of Aikido.

What and how Aikido is practiced varies depending on the style and your teacher. It goes the extreme from what is called practical Aikido, which is still dedicated to self-defense, to styles that are practiced solo in the form of Katas, resembling what you might see from Tai-Chi or Qui-Gong practitioners in the park. Generally, it is practiced in pairs with a so-called “cooperating” opponent (as opposed to an “resisting” opponent as would be usual for Ju-Juitsu). Actually, in Aikido we don’t speak of an opponent. There is only a “giving”/“throwing” and a “receiving”/“getting thrown” partner, because Aikido is supposed to be peaceful. I’ll still call it opponent or attacker here, though.

The central idea of Aikido is to embrace and merge the attackers energy with yours and then redirecting it without harming anyone, breaking only the attackers balance and/or throwing them. This is of course a very high-level goal. Basically you’re trying to skip all the nitty-gritty, violent, messy fighting (that Ueshiba did learn and teach extensively back in the day) and concentrate on the end goal of non-violently dissolving confrontations. Assuming that with enough training this goal can be reached, it means you will not be able to use most of what you practice in a real-life fight until you pretty much have “mastered Aikido”. Then you will, supposedly, be at such a level that you can defend any attack peacefully. Most Aikido practitioners are wise enough not to test this out, mostly because they prefer peace and harmony and aren’t training to prove anything. Most Aikidokas I know are training to better themselves, but there will always be exceptions. The teachers I’ve trained under did not make Aikido out to be about self-defense at all. When questioned by new students they usually say, that it might help you a little, but this is not what we train here.

Practicing Aikido will help you get in better shape, improve your health and especially your balance. Aikido practice will teach you how to properly roll and fall, which -at least where I live- will come in handy much more often than fighting skills. It is also a lot of fun to practice and it looks cool. Most schools will also train with wood swords (Aiki-ken) and short staffs (Aiki-bo). This all will be especially cool, if you’re into Japan, because Aikido is very much a traditional Japanese martial art, even though it is rather young, so we’re basically cosplaying as Samurai while training.

The best advice I can give you for selecting a martial art and gym is this:

• It is almost more important who you train with and under than what you are training. Try out every gym and see if you like the people and vibe there.
• Pick something that’s fun. Otherwise you will have trouble going regularly and making progress. If you don’t do it for fun, you will most likely quit the first time you encounter resistance or stop making fast progress
• Pick a gym that’s easy to get to, because having to travel a long time will make it harder to stick with it
• Prepare your training bag and put it besides your door so you just have to pick it up and go. This will make it much easier to go, when your motivation is low

I did wushu aka chinese kungfu, but not for self defence, but for athletic reason. I doubt anything that doesn’t involve sparring with a knife is helpful in real world situation, but it’s definitely helpful when it’s time to run.

I am not. I was doing a year of kick-boxing when I was young but yeah that was it.

But my daughter is doing it and she just got her black belt level 1 3 weeks ago!

Not for self defense (obviously) and due to personal reasons on hiatus currently (if all goes well I will start again next year) - but I do Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA).

It’s fencing, but mainly with longsword (tried sword&buckler and a bit of rapier), techniques recreated based on historical fencing books and manuals. Really fun!

BJJ might be accessible for you. I used to roll with a blind guy who fucked me up on the regular

Jiu Jitsu, a rather traditional method. I’ve practiced lots of things over the last 3 decades, and have now landed on this because there’s a lot of good people practicing it.

What I like:

• it has a bit of everything
• judo throws are fun

What I don’t like:

• wrestling / grappling, never liked or been good at that
• kicks are pretty practical, no fancy acrobatic stuff
• no traditional weapon (staff, sword, nunchaku, etc) techniques

I suck at martial arts, but I’ve done it for so long that I’m sometimes able to fool people into thinking I’m not bad.

I did Tae kwon-do as a kid, but quit due to other hobbies and a tight schedule.

My oldest kid joined Karate around 2016, and I had to admit it looked like fun. I eventually ended up joining the adult group, and stayed there until we all moved in 2020. After the move there wasn’t a club nearby that did the same style (wado ryo), so we both called it quits at green belt.

For quite a few years now I’ve practiced Capoeira!

I picked it because it was unique and interesting. Is it a fighting style? A dance? A game? Yes, actually! ;)

The philosophy of using it as a means to obtain freedom and an expression of such really resonated with me. Also, culturally, there’s just so much depth there.

…But also I like to tell people “It’s one of the only martial arts you can really show off at dance parties.” Lol

I actually teach it now. Most of my lifestyle involves a chair and glowing computer screen, so I wanted to look after my health and be able to move in really cool ways! :)

Capoeira for self defense: I’ll be the first to say, if you want the most efficient, quickest way to beat up a human being as soon as possible…this is probably not it.

BUT it’s quite a challenge on your cardiovascular system and you learn to move and flow in really neat tricky ways, which can be valuable to any martial artist or fighter. Over time, you almost learn to mind-read the other player, and even manipulate them into traps.

A Capoeirista with a solid grasp of the art knows when a movement is practical to defend themselves, vs. just for fun in a game, but a perk of training cartwheels and handstands is that “A capoeirista is never upside-down.” We can land on our hands and feet with equal confidence, and retaliate from many different awkward positions.

And I love how it’s a game too, and there’s even a music element to it. The kicks can be SCARY but we also place high value on demonstrating control to not incapacitate our training partners.

(This is why we separately practice contact work for practical scenarios outside the “roda” or circle of the game.)

It’s a lot of fun, and there’s so many nuanced layers to it. I am in agreement with a lot of posters here: “fighting” is a different skillset to martial arts, although martial arts helped.

I myself, thankfully, am not accustomed to violence, but I am always mentally training to spot and avoid trouble. I definitely have a leg up in a fight against the risks of a sedentary lifestyle though. 😆

Not me but my SO is a black belt judoka. He started as a kid and kept on practicing all the way through college where he managed to train and compete as a professional. Went to one edition of panamerican games and scored a first place.

My FIL is also a black belt judoka and at one time him and my SO taught classes for beginners and advanced students alike, they even had a class for little kids with some behavioral issues. They were beloved teachers by many students.

At one point they even had a student with impared vision and a student with impared hearing and that never stopped anyone from practicing judo safely and learning techniques.

Regarding your bit about using martial arts as self defense, I think it is more of a hollywood idea. Noone is faster than a bullet so good judgement is better than any martial art.

My SO has taught me that “It is better to be a warrior who can garden, than to be a gardener who has to go to war” and he is the most level headed, peaceful individual you can imagine.

He also says that judo is the discipline that has shapen his whole life through “Jita Kyoei” and “Seiryoku zenyo”: Mutual benefit and maximum efficiency.

I did Karate for 10 years and now I am training in Muay Thai. I made the switch because Karate focuses a lot on Kata and a lot of the Bunkai is pretty useless. Muay Thai is all about striking and timing.

I was forced into taekwondo, never got past the white belt. And frankly, I was never interested to get a new belt anyway.

The only skills I still remember from that isn’t even the self defense stuff, but it’s counting in Korean.

I did karate when I was real young but ended up trading it for gymnastics. Then as an early 20s adult I did BJJ. It was fun and great exercise. I have not done it in many years now but it (martial arts, and gymnastics for that matter) is great for developing knowledge of your body in space, made me a bit less of a clumsy person for sure

I trained in Tang Soo Do for almost 5 years in my 30s, before I hurt myself (an injury not related to martial arts training). I’ve been wanting to get back into it in the years since, but haven’t been able to for various reasons.

I really enjoyed the training. I kept in good shape, and became very close with the people in my school… I still talk to them occasionally today despite having moved out of the area some years back. I enjoyed practicing the various techniques, pushing myself to my limits… I would highly recommend structured martial arts training to anyone.

That being said: martial arts are a LAST defense… they are NOT the go-to defense.

If you’re attacked, especially by multiple assailants, RUNNING is what you’re looking to do. Your self-defense skills are primarily there to CREATE an opportunity to flee, if you don’t have one immediately available.

Life is not a 1960’s kung-fu movie, and you risk a lot by trying to stand your ground when you don’t have to, so fight is rarely the correct answer when presented with a fight-or-flight scenario. It’s better to not be in that mindset.

I did Judo as a kid. But it was more for health and fun. Never really needed to defend myself.