MMA will ONLY help you if you're fighting against 1 dude, say a troublemaker. If you try to take him to the ground (a large part of MMA) and he has "backup" (like most muggers do) they will most likely use your head as a soccer ball.
Judo will never work for self defense, sorry, unless you heavily modify it to be far more aggressive (including well placed punches and kicks) you will NEVER be able to throw anyone to the ground safely (as in safe for yourself) and again don't even think about grappling someone if he has a friend right besides him.
Things like Aikido require the full cooperation of the receiver, barely any aikido move will work against a real opponent.
As much cliche as it sounds: The best martial art for civilian self defense is Krav Maga.
Difficult to answer. Most martial arts are for self defense.
My personal feeling is that if the martial art relies on brute strength (a bit like mauy thai), it's not a good self defense art.
I'm not a huge fan of any art that getting to ground work is weak, you will need ground work if your attacker takes you down.
Arts like judo, jujitsu, kung fu (especially kung fu tactical training if you can find it), or anything that teaches you how to use internal strength (core) ...and grappling and also standing. Basically a well rounded martial art.
Learning martial arts for self defence is like teaching children how to roll over the bonnet of a car like a stuntman in case they get run over. You don’t do that, instead you teach them how to avoid getting run over in the first place. Self Defence is about avoiding situations in the first place, which is easily said, but how do you learn that. 95% of self defence is Threat and Awareness & Evaluation. 4 % is verbal and (non violent non contact) physical de-escalation and only 1% is "fighting" and then you only resort to physical techniques as a very last resort when everything else has failed and you are left with fight or flight and flight isn't an option.
If you check out the Suzy Lamplugh Trust website it gives fantastic self defence advise but hey teach not martial arts at all.
Also, if you want realistic/pragmatic self defence advice you need to read something like Dead or Alive by Geoff Thompson it will teach you The Fence, Threat & Awareness Evaluation, target hardening, verbal & Physical De-Escalation, Coopers Colour codes, pre-emptive strikes and The Rituals of violence. All of this will help you avoid situations in the first place, and if not will help you de escalate them before them ever get to the physical stage. Once you know these all you pretty much need on the physical side is a good string (pre-emptive) punch. (Violence in not nearly as complicated as martial artists would have you believe)
Martial art to avoid would be 1)MMA. Whilst MMA will teach you a good punch yes but it will not teach you how to deal with multiple opponents or how to deal with wepons. 2) BJJ. BJJ will teach you to fight on the ground, which is great in the cage as triangle choke your opponent there and hits submits. However triangle choke someone outside the chip shop and his mates will stomp your head flat. If you are going to learn about what to do on the ground for self defence, you need to concentrate solely on how to get back to your feet as quickly as possible.
As for martial arts, just try as many as you can and find the one that suits you best, we are all different shapes and sizes and we are all better/worse at different things. But don’t think that by learning martial arts you are learning self defence because you’re not. Martial Arts are about two trained fighters in a consensual test of skill in a contest with pre-determined rules and the winner is decided by judges. Self defence doesn’t happen between consenting parties, they are not always trained, and the winner isn’t decided by who scores the most points and goes home with a little plastic trophy. Self defence is about creating the opportunity to escape and get the hell out of their in one piece.
15, 6ft 1 UK Thanks
