Which martial art is most effective for self defense?

I've got a black belt in Keepinitreal. It seems to work.

I understand the Isreali Krav Maga is a practical close-combat martial art. IIRC it is actually taught and utilized by the Isreali army.

It also deals with close-combat weapons like knives, which probably icnreases the real world value.

Muay Thai because no nonsense striking and fighting in "the clinch"

BJJ because almost every fight ends up on the ground and knowing how to fight on the ground and while on your back and using it to your advantage could possibly save your life if you end up in that situation.

Krav maga would be it... Allthough the training is a bit weird i've been told, as much of the strikes are intended to render the opponent unconsious or dead..

Anything that gets you to practice hitting people and getting hit in an alive training scenario where you and your partner have conflicting goals. It builds skills and confidence. Note that running is always the better option. If there isn't full contact sparring (I use the term here to describe sparring which is not overly limited to small areas of contact, not 100% force), then skip it.

add in another vote for krav. BTW did anyone see the Fight Quest Krav episode? It is on here now, awesome. If you havent seen it, you can watch it (in 5 parts I think) on Youtube. That woman is insane.

Eason, excellent way to put it.

I'd vote for krav.

basically, krav was designed to teach people, in the shortest possible time, to hurt people. you could probraby get to be a better fighter studying boxing, or bjj, or muay thai, but the effort involved will be greater. if you are investing X effort, and X< 6 hours a week over the next 2 years (as a wild estimate) the fastest way you can get to the point where you can actually fight would be with Krav.

almost nothing of krav technique was developed from scratch - the basic philosophy is to take the best from where ever it is found, as long as it is easy to teach and can realisticially hurt somebody. the training is usually very vigorous, and involves striking and ground work, in very realistic situations.

Y, I believe you are from chicago - there are two good krav schools in chicago (one better than the other). pm me and I can get you some info.

In my life I've (thankfully) had one serious run-in with violence. A teenager at a bustop late at night pulled a knife and wanted my wallet. I did what any well-trained real man would do, I ran!

Self defence is great but seriously, the most effective method, in order, is:
1)Don't put yourself in dumb situation (like me at an empty bus stop at 1am)
2)Run, and then call the police
3)give up your wallet, watch, whatever and realize that personal possessions aren't worth getting hurt/dying over.
3)Fight, and likely end up hurt, at best.

Maybe martial arts would be good if we lived in a society where men fought then shook hands but hey, nowerdays, you'll likely be ganged up on, stabbed or just plain shot.
Take martial arts for fittness, for gaining confidence and maybe a skill, but don't think that any "fighting style" will make you an outright winner when it comes down to the real thing.

i woulg go with whats said above. ive never studied krav, but im sure its effective. id go with Muay thai or boxing aswell. not BJJ, because when youre in a street fight, you DO NOT want to go to the ground. that wil get you head stomped by others much of the time. try to finish it standing up as quick as possible, and if your a heavy puncher, and have trained in muay thai or boxing, youll be able to end it quick. but in the end just try not to get into a fight, because anything can happen.

Your advice applies in your particular situation, but not in all situations. What would you do if someone took a swing at you in a bar? What would you do if someone was harrassing a woman that you were walking with? Run? What would you do if another father at a baseball game attacked your child? Wait for the police? Seriously.

You can't deal out some pain by running. Also, the last thing I'd want to do is turn my back on someone who is trying to injure or kill me. For a start running would give me under 50% odds and I wouldn't know just how fast the enemy could run.

I've been through... a lot of martial arts, for a lot of different reasons. My recommendation has been and will always be boxing, for at least six months. No one knows how to throw a punch or keep their balance anymore. I went to a Judo seminar run by two instructors, one brought four of his blackbelts, the other brought six. One of them could throw a swing with proper mechanics. It was absurd, and it always amazes me how incapable most "martial artists" are of throwing a punch without doing one or more of the following: (a) Angling or closing their hand incorrectly and putting themselves in a position to break it, (b) Aiming for the wrong part of a person and putting themselves in a position to break their hand, (c) Putting any force behind the swing without throwing themselves forward and off-balance, fucking up the trajectory and making it impossible for them to recover. If you find that boxing is not enough, and in my opinion it is, I'd look for a school that teaches submission grappling -- without gi's, in street clothes. Often this is going to be a school that also teaches either BJJ or Judo. At the end of the day, all that is relevant is the instructor. While TKD is generally considered, from small schools to the multinational federations, to be ultimately useless, I can say that I have seen a few TKD instructors who taught something much closer to Shotokan Karate. I've seen awful, just fucking horrendous Muay Thai and BJJ instructors. I trained under an amazing Hapkido instructor, who taught nothing resembling Aikido or TKD, and taught something that just ravaged me on a daily basis almost more than the time I spent in Muay Thai. Krav Maga is one of "those" arts, like Wushu (and Kung Fu in general), where 99% of the people who are teaching it are going to be obnoxious jack-offs who spent a few years training under obnoxious jack-offs and eventually got a blackbelt from the internet from some shell company in another country. Once you get through boxing, find some schools locally and visit Bullshido.com. Get some opinions, find out the reputations of some guys. It's the instructor, not the art. Almost impossible to find a good instructor, and the only weapon defense (especially knife) is called "running the fuck away." You find a way to get away from the situation without totally exposing your back. Escape, period. There is no knife defense that does not amount to grappling while trying to avoid getting fucking stabbed. Krav Maga is essentially useless if only because it cannot be learned, because you cannot find anyone to teach it to you. There is almost no standardization, it comes down to the experience of individual people. Some have spent years training in various arts, learning grappling, learning holds, they've been in the military, they've been in dangerous situations. It's a malleable martial art. I can recall, off-hand, two instructors in the United States I have heard the names of in a positive context, and I can't even remember what they were.

actually - this is very far from the truth, although I can see what you are trying to say.

krav is probrably the most teachable and the most standardized of martial arts. it may be the only martial art that was actually developed with its teaching method in mind. the "canon" of krav is quite small- it is meant to be tought to people in short courses, it wasn't developed to be tought indefinatly, 2 or 3 times a week for the rest of your life, it was developed to be tought in 2 week, or 6 week courses, and then you are done with the training.

the people who brought krav to the states actually made some very good training material, and made a very standardized system.

where you are right is that most people in the "krav" business have studied other martial arts, and bring that to the table. the krav instructors in the IDF have taken a 6 week course, and then another 12 week course, and that is it. and, they have to teach people a certain amount of knowledge, so they stick to the set guidelines. in the states, the teachers embellish with stuff they have learned from other places.