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Not All Martial Arts are a Good Basis for Self-Defense

For those of us who grew up watching a lot of action movies, the art of self defense looks enticing. On the movie screen, martial arts are usually depicted as artful affairs full of sleek moves and amazing high kicks. In real life, martial arts can take years of practice before you can even begin to approximate the amazing moves that you see on the movie screen.

Although martial arts is a great way to practice discipline, get in touch with your body, improve your overall strength and get exercise, practicing martial arts is not always the ideal basis for learning self defense. Why is this so? Here are some reasons why you may not want to consider learning martial arts in order to use them as your primary means of self-defense.

Why martial arts may not be your best bet when first learning self defense skills

When it comes to learning self defense, many people automatically seem to equate self defense with martial arts. Why is this so? The link between martial arts and self defense has largely been a product of the movies. Dozens of year's worth of movie myth-making have elevated the status of martial arts and presented it as the ideal discipline, especially in the realm of personal self defense. But the truth is that if your primary goal is to learn the art of self defense, you may not be doing yourself the biggest favor by signing up for classes at your local martial arts center. Why is this so?

Martial arts is not necessarily be the most natural route towards self defense

The reason that martial arts may not initially be your best bet when it comes to self defense is that many kinds of martial arts are actually quite deliberate and even affected. That is, many kinds of martial arts and some classic martial arts moves are not very natural. They are deliberate skills and moves that must be learns and honed for years. Moreover, many martial arts moves are practiced in sequences, which make it difficult for the body to pick and choose at random for the most appropriate move in the case of a real-life attack. For the beginning martial arts student, the art of learning a specific kind of martial arts will, at least at first, be unnatural and require a lot of skillful practice.

Can learning martial arts hurt your chances of learning other forms of self defense?

No—learning martial arts can be an incredibly helpful endeavor if you wish to increase stamina, strength, and flexibility and learn the joys of practicing an ancient discipline. But if you are solely interested in self defense, you will definitely want to supplement your study of martial arts with other skills. Many self defense trainers have embraced the idea of natural movement in self defense training. Martial arts does not allow for much freedom of movement in some respects, which is what hinders it as a means for self defense.

Finding a balance between martial arts and self defense training

Fortunately, there are a lot of teachers who are not rigid about what they teach, and who are willing to integrate a series of motions and skills in order to put together the best training possible. When you are looking into self defense training, try to find a class that integrates as many different kinds of movement and self defense skills and techniques as possible. There are many self defense classes now that offer students a cross-section of self defense tricks, including traditional martial arts with other forms of movement and fight back.