What’s the best martial art for you?
Learning martial arts is no walk in the park, even if you actually know what you're looking for. Some people are interested in martial arts for the fitness aspect, some want to improve their self-defense techniques, some are interested in combat sports, and some just love the idea of "feeling like a ninja." No matter your point of entry, there is a martial art for you!
The Best Styles for Fitness
Fitness is an essential aspect of most martial arts, even those that look less flashy in action. Here are the top three martial arts to consider if you're looking to get fit!
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
The best in many categories, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu martial arts outscores its opponents in the fitness arena. BJJ's sparring rounds or "rolls" often last about five minutes, with little rest between a series of low- and high-intensity aerobic workouts. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gives you a full-body workout, requiring both upper and lower body movements.
Wrestling
Wrestling is similar to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in that it helps increase general endurance and build overall strength. Specifically, wrestling helps to improve the core, shoulders, and legs in the six minutes of non-stop action a wrestler must fight through. Those who enroll for complete martial arts and fitness will also find their lung capacity increases!
Muay Thai
Muay Thai increases strength and endurance thanks to the various motions it requires. The use of all the limbs by its fighters—fists, elbows, feet, and knees—combined with its propensity for timing movements provides a fighter with a mix of aerobic and anaerobic workouts. Many credit Muay Thai as a great weight loss tool and a great method of body sculpting.
Boxing
Boxing is aerobic and is an excellent art for those looking for strength training. Boxing exercises use many muscles in quick succession and target muscles in the back, arms, shoulders, legs, pecs, and core. Many people claim that boxing is the ultimate cardio workout, available to you even if you don't have a ready partner.
The Best Styles for Self Defense
Fitness is great, but martial arts can be practical in other ways as well. Being strong won't stop an attacker from getting the best of you, after all. Learning self-defense is often a major reason people get into martial arts, so here are the two best martial arts for such a useful skill.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Jiu-Jitsu wins in the category of self-defense because it teaches a variety of ways to help you overcome your opponent. At a jiu-jitsu martial arts gym, you will learn how to restrain your opponent, how to survive on the ground, and how to perform submissions that successfully immobilize joints or even render an opponent unconscious! The many methods that BJJ martial arts teaches makes it an excellent choice if what you're after is more security and safety.
Krav Maga
As a hybrid of various martial arts self-defense techniques, Krav Maga is a relatively new martial art entirely focused on getting you safe as quickly as possible. Students learning Krav Maga will first master stances, strikes, and defenses against common attacks, such as a headlock or choke. Krav Maga is taught to FBI and SWAT teams, but many martial arts gyms teach it to civilians because of its practicality and universal effectiveness.
The Best Styles for MMA
Looking for a fight? No, but if you're interested in combat sports and facing others in mixed martial arts no matter their base, you'll want the best of the bases to have under your belt. Martial arts are not created equal, especially in this regard, so choose one of these three to learn if mixed martial arts is the sport you're looking into.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
BJJ martial arts is best in this case, yet again. The submission skills you learn in this martial art put the opponent down more times than not. It's been a fact for a long time and has yet to change.
Muay Thai
Muay Thai is another contender for the best martial arts to prepare you for MMA, and that's primarily because of its striking and throwing power. At a martial arts school, Muay Thai teaches you to utilize your elbows and knees, as well as kicks. These attacks are incredibly powerful and damaging, making this martial art a very vicious base in an MMA fight.
Wrestling
Though the previously mentioned martial arts are popularly the best for MMA, wrestling still makes it into this category for how translatable it is into the rules of the combat sport. In fact, the sport is scored by the effectiveness of grappling or striking, aggression, and cage control—all things a base in wrestling teaches you. Really, what comes most naturally to you ends up being the things that often give you points, so wrestling is a very solid choice overall.
The Best Styles to Make You Feel Like a Ninja
Okay, but what about looking cool? If you're considering martial arts for the ninja factor, there's still a place for you. The flashy, technical, and beautiful components of martial arts can be found in disciplines such as these.
Kung Fu / WuShu
It's not like you won't learn practical and even brutal skills in Kung Fu, like grappling, striking, or qigong. But while you do so, you'll also look pretty epic. Though there are hundreds of kung fu styles, they are all styles, meaning the forms require specific footwork and memorization of stances. You'll get stronger with practice, but you'll also definitely feel cool learning them!
Gymnastics
If you're trying to wow the crowd, you'll like the many routines and styles found in gymnastics. Scoring is based on the difficulty of your routine as well as the execution, making the martial art primarily an aesthetical one. Though you'll definitely get a lot of muscle from gymnastics, you won't get much skill for self-defense or fighting—you'll get to show off a lot, though!
Shotokan Karate
This karate style is an interesting one—more focused on tradition and aesthetics than the practicality of a good stance, for instance. Basically, you'll look like an expert karate practitioner, but your groin and upper body are pretty vulnerable. Overall, Shotokan is more artistic than practical, so pick this one if you're more interested in looking like a ninja!
The Best Styles Overall
The votes are in, and you're probably wondering what, overall, is the best choice for you among so many options. Martial arts provide many benefits, but if you're looking for all of them, look no further! After assessing from the best, here is the reigning champion.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
In all categories except "feeling like a ninja," Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the best, both in reality and in the professional opinion of most martial arts schools. BJJ martial arts focus less on kicks and striking than on strategic things like distance control, submissions, leverage, and position when fighting an opponent. It teaches self-discipline, self-defense, and self-esteem. You'll be more athletic and also more mentally focused in any high-stress situation. For these reasons and more, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu takes the cake.
Now that you know the ins and outs of various martial arts, you may consider looking for martial arts in SLC or near your location. If you're still unsure which martial art is best for you, try a few introductory courses. In the end, you can gain many benefits from practicing martial arts!