Joe Lewis Top 10 Martial Arts for SelfDefense

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by Joe Lewis February 3, 2014

This list is in no particular order. I could have put krav maga, haganah and others in there, but
when I got to 10, I stopped. This list will piss off many instructors, but they have to realize, for
example, that with a system like kyokushinkai, which came from goju-ryu and has many
descendants like asahara, enshin, yoshukai and zendokai, they were not left out. Krav maga, for
example, has nothing that the Okinawan, Japanese and kickboxing systems do not. If I were to
include all of them, the list would go into the hundreds.

Kyokushinkai Karate
Kyokushinkai has a great history of physical toughness and conditioning, as well as an arsenal of
leg kicks, sweeps and knee strikes from the outside and from the pocket. Most K-1 champions
come from this style. Its weak on ground maneuvers, though.

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Outlaw Tai Chi

It has an effective composition of quick strikes (cutting and tissue-ripping moves) to vital areas
like the eyes, ears, face, neck and groin. The emphasis in training is on pure nonclassical
maneuvers, as is seen in most other Chinese systems. However, outlaw tai chi is weak on
structure and ground maneuvers.

Bando
Although strictly a weapons-based style, bando lends itself to highly effective defensive
techniques (without weapons) from old-school monk tactics largely developed years ago in
Southeast Asia along trade routes. It contains bleeding techniques, head striking, low-level
flange kicks, drop kicks and farewell kicks not taught in other kickboxing styles.

Kajukenbo
Its a hybrid system that uses the best parts of other styles, from upright maneuvers to grappling.
It was designed strictly for self-defense instead of adhering to traditional rituals or sporting
competition. Its weaknesses are a lack of movements to control the horizontal relationship with
assailants like all styles and always using the hands as the primary means of defense.

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Chinese Kenpo
Chinese kenpo has a curriculum that encompasses all areas of self-defense. Practitioners learn a
range of attacking angles, realistic scenarios and methods for defending from any position with

any weapon. The main weakness is a lack of emphasis on ground maneuvers, along with limited
kicking and knee striking.

Okinawa-Te
The original system had a complete arsenal of weapon and non-weapon skills. It had the perfect
blend of old-school, pain-tolerance training with scientific skills that utilized the least amount of
effort and time to produce the maximum amount of damage. Its weaknesses are the amount of
time it takes to learn all the long animal forms (there are 36, with one having up to 500 moves)
and a lack of balanced ground maneuvers.

Judo
Although it was created along the lines of a non-jutsu activity which means it was designed
mainly for exercise and sport the best bouncers Ive ever worked with were judo black belts.
Because judoka spend most of their time doing tug-of-war-type drills with partners on the mat,
theyre very successful in reality combat, even with their limited striking ability.

Aikijutsu
Its tactics for off-balancing an opponent before leveraging him as opposed to jujutsu, which is
more concerned with straight leverage is a good system to bridge the gap between the
sport/exercise aspects of the old-school (read: hard-core) jutsu forms and the free-flowing sport
forms we see on TV. Beware of the consumer atmosphere found in some schools today and the
lack of effective striking skills when practicing self-defense drills.

Kickboxing
This style can offer the very best of realistic, upright striking skills, hands down. If you learn the
old muay boran knees, the head butt, the bleeding and cutting techniques, and the old-school
takedowns, this system cannot be beat. Its weakness is a lack of attention to self-defense as
opposed to sport. The conditioning drills taught at most authentic schools make up for any need
to practice purely self-defense scenarios.

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Boxing

Few martial arts teach these two defensive skills: Use the head to protect the head and the body
to protect the body. Instead, they use weapon-fighting tactics using the hands to protect the
head or the body. For self-defense from the pocket, it would be hard to defend against a good
boxer. Of course, boxings lack of elbow strikes, groin attacks and ground defense is limiting,
but for pain tolerance and conditioning, it cant be beat.

About the Author:

[Joe Lewis] was one of the most significant figures in the history of the American martial arts,
writes Mark Jacobs in his tribute to Lewis published in the December 2012 issue of Black Belt.
From his early advocacy of boxing to his creation of kickboxing to his analysis of key fighting
principles like critical distance and angles of attack, his influence was vast and his passing is a
loss to the martial arts world.