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Bruce Lee taught that if you maintain a 10 ft. radius of safety around you, no one can hurt you in a fight (barring a gun of course). Knowing what to say and do to avoid a fight or end it quickly if you can't avoid it is the best self defense. In college I took a self defense course from a former British Commando who taught dirty street fighting. How to grab the wrist holding a weapon and use your knee and leverage to break the arm at the elbow, how to strike the side of a knee to break the leg, how to apply a choke hold, gouging out an eyeball, crushing the windpipe, fighting with pugil sticks to learn to absorb blows, grabbing an opponent by the arms and falling on your back and using your feet to launch the opponent over you, running full speed at an opponent and launching yourself in the air and kicking the opponent in the chest with both feet, adding the power of your coiled legs to the momentum of the running jump. I think this type of training is the best. Martial arts training can be good exercise, but in a street fight, dirty wins. The biggest win is avoiding the fight in the first place. I knew a champion Karate master and asked him what is the best self defense. He said a gun. I said aren't you vulnerable to a gun. He said no, I would avoid being shot.
Bruce Lee taught that if you maintain a 10 ft. radius of safety around you, no one can hurt you in a fight (barring a gun of course). Knowing what to say and do to avoid a fight or end it quickly if you can't avoid it is the best self defense. In college I took a self defense course from a former British Commando who taught dirty street fighting. How to grab the wrist holding a weapon and use your knee and leverage to break the arm at the elbow, how to strike the side of a knee to break the leg, how to apply a choke hold, gouging out an eyeball, crushing the windpipe, fighting with pugil sticks to learn to absorb blows, grabbing an opponent by the arms and falling on your back and using your feet to launch the opponent over you, running full speed at an opponent and launching yourself in the air and kicking the opponent in the chest with both feet, adding the power of your coiled legs to the momentum of the running jump. I think this type of training is the best. Martial arts training can be good exercise, but in a street fight, dirty wins. The biggest win is avoiding the fight in the first place. I knew a champion Karate master and asked him what is the best self defense. He said a gun. I said aren't you vulnerable to a gun. He said no, I would avoid being shot.
As Randy Couture said in a recent interview, “a good run is better than a bad stand any day of the week.”
At the judo dojo where I train the techniques and instruction are focused on competition judo. This is important because it teaches how to perfect the fundamentals, and this is an important baseline. We do periodically have instruction that focusses on how the techniques translate into self defense, with an emphasis on awareness that the conditions will not be what we're used to seeing in competition. Specifically there is no mat to land on safely, and your assailant will not be wearing a gi, may have multiple assailants, and there may be weapons involved. With this in mind, most self defense techniques taught, especially to the young ladies in the class, focus on buying enough time to remove themselves from a dangerous situation.
Another emphasis is on avoiding submissions in self defense. This is because in the time it takes to submit an assailant he may have a buddy coming off the top rope and it'll be lights out. Best bet: if an assailant gets into a gripping fight, there are a couple throws that are relatively easy to do without the gi and that would be devastating to an assailant. As soon as he's neutralized, GTFO of there and notify authorities.
Another aspect to consider is augmenting traditional judo techniques with other strikes and blows if the situation dictates. I'm in the Marine Corps, and our in-house martial arts program does a decent job of this. Now our martial arts are not for competition and there is some deserved skepticism about a black belt in our program and the knowledge and skills as opposed to a judo black belt with at least 10 or so years of experience. With that said, the Marine Corps incorporates a lot of judo techniques into the standing-to-ground portion of its program, with some tweaks. In judo you're not trying to hurt anyone. In the Marine Corps program you kind of are. I can do a decent osoto gari in judo. Because I've done judo and practiced that throw as much as I have, if I have to execute it in self defense, and knowing the tweaks I've learned in the Marine Corps, it would literally be a life changing experience for the assailant.
As for criminal prosecution, it's a shame we even have to go there. In a self defense situation the assailant has no rights. His choice has rendered him outside the protection of the law. Pull a knife on someone and if they have a gun and send you off into eternity...well you shouldn't have pulled a knife on them. Try to mug someone in the movie theater parking lot late and night and they know how to use judo or some other martial art in self defense and they put you on the pavement in such a way it leaves you with TBI...too bad. When it come to self defense the risk of prosecution or a civil lawsuit is furthest from my mind. A person has a fundamental right to self defense and should be able to do so without fear of legal ramifications.
Back in the 80s, the LAPD used to use chokeholds. It was very controversial at the time. But it was stopped by policy back in the early 90s. Shortly afterwards, the Rodney King beating occurred with mostly batons. One retired cop went back to that video (in modern times) and noted that the beating most likely would not have occurred if the cops had still been allowed to use chokeholds which were quick in submission without major injury (unless overused). I thought that was an interesting observation. I defer to the judo experts on that one. I took judo as a hobby in college and learned some of the basics. It was great for a full-body workout. My only complaint with sports like judo and wrestling is that the advantage goes to those who learn it very, very early in youth (e.g. earning black belt by end of HS). Someone who starts far later is at a disadvantage - say pairing up a 20 year old who just barely started learning versus someone the same age who had studied it since the age of 6. In those tournaments it's often not an even level of preparation until you get to the elite levels where many have the same number of years of training dating to early childhood.
It can but you have to get pretty close to someone to use judo, which can be problematic if they have a weapon, or if they're bigger/stronger than you. Jui jitsu is good self defense if you get tackled to the ground, but you don't want that in a street altercation if there's someone else who may get involved. The striking arts like boxing/kickboxing are probably best if you have no choice.
IMO, you need a mix. A fight is pretty much no holds bar.. A person can use any discipline and there is no referee. Being able to know how to use your fist, knees and kicks while standing and knowing how to use leverage, locks, holds, etc on the ground.
Back in the 80s, the LAPD used to use chokeholds. It was very controversial at the time. But it was stopped by policy back in the early 90s. Shortly afterwards, the Rodney King beating occurred with mostly batons. One retired cop went back to that video (in modern times) and noted that the beating most likely would not have occurred if the cops had still been allowed to use chokeholds which were quick in submission without major injury (unless overused). I thought that was an interesting observation. I defer to the judo experts on that one. I took judo as a hobby in college and learned some of the basics. It was great for a full-body workout. My only complaint with sports like judo and wrestling is that the advantage goes to those who learn it very, very early in youth (e.g. earning black belt by end of HS). Someone who starts far later is at a disadvantage - say pairing up a 20 year old who just barely started learning versus someone the same age who had studied it since the age of 6. In those tournaments it's often not an even level of preparation until you get to the elite levels where many have the same number of years of training dating to early childhood.
I have been doing Judo for almost 3 years now. I was just shy of my 37th birthday when I started. Not many guys my age take up this sport AND compete in it. I do, though I will probably withdraw from competing for a while as I transition out of the military.
There are ways to get around the skill advantage of someone who's been training from a younger age. Most larger tournaments have veteran's divisions where you fight generally within your age group. The skill level can be anywhere from novice to advanced. I've fought black belts in veteran's divisions and most of the time when you get a black belt fighting in a veteran's division it's typically because he still wants to compete but not in the more elite divisions where most of the black belts are fighting.
The other approach I take is I fight in novice divisions where the skill levels are restricted to lower belts. Usually this means anything below the rank of brown belt. This is good because most of the players are beginners or have under 4 or so years of training. The trade off here is I am typically the oldest fighter in the division by a long shot. I was in a tournament out in Dallas last November. I'm 39, and there were 11 other fighters in the bracket. The second oldest guy was 25. With that said, I'll pit my conditioning against younger guys at my skill level over going against guys who I know are far more skilled than I am. I feel that's a more accurate metric of where I am and how far I come. In the remaining few tournaments I may do I'll probably look to get into a more advanced division, but I'll make that decision based on how my training is going, conditioning, injuries, etc.
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