While the best self defence martial art for beginners is a contentious issue, there’s certainly some main contenders. Some martial arts are geared more towards sports and competition than practical self defence.
When I was looking for somewhere to train, I tried multiple schools and different arts. After starting with Karate and Taekwondo, I eventually found a Wing Chun class in 1993. I hadn’t heard of Wing Chun back then and I didn’t know that it was Bruce Lee’s original style.
I realised then that I had been looking for a more street oriented style of martial art – which was for practical self defence. Wing Chun’s approach fitted the bill because it was super practical.
Best Self Defence Martial Art For Beginners – Why Wing Chun?
So why do I recommend Wing Chun as the best self defence martial art for beginners? Well I’m obviously biased since I’ve trained in the style for over 30 years and I also teach Wing Chun! But that aside Wing Chun is based on efficiency and practicality. It’s principles are economy of motion and minimum movement. Why do 5 elaborate moves when a swift kick will do the job?!
Wing Chun is a concept based martial art based on low kicks and straight line strikes towards the opponent’s centreline. Wing Chun is also a style you can learn relatively quickly too. This is party because it uses hand contact as a means of training. Rather than reacting from what you see, you react based on touch. This allows a student to learn intuitively through kinesthetics, rather than hand/eye coordination.
Wing Chun uses an interactive “play” of chi sau, a sticking hands practice. This interactive drill allows you to learn instinctive movements based on repetition of movements which become instinctive.
Unless your reactions become intuitive and instinctive, under duress when your adrenalin kicks in, you default to fight or flight mode. Without an automatic response built in to your body, rehearsed routines become unhelpful.
Simple & Effective
Wing Chun is a simple martial art and as such it lets you learn quite quickly. It is designed for combat to end a confrontation very quickly. Wing Chun uses strikes to vulnerable areas such as the eyes, solar plexus, knees and groin. It is known as a style originally designed by a woman, for small people against bigger, stronger opponents.
During Chi Sau, both practitioners attempt to land a strike on the other, without compromising their defence. This interaction lets you understand centreline theory and simultaneous attack and counter.
During a self defence situation, the most common attack is to the head with a punch, usually a hook type punch from the right hand. In a crowd or busy area high kicks are often redundant and make you more vulnerable to a fall. You don’t really want to fight on the ground because there might more more than one attacker.
Wing Chun focuses on fast counterattacks which end the situation quickly with a devastating counter attack, such as an eye strike, or a kick to the knee. A long drawn out fight is definitely not what you want in a self defence situation. If it comes to a fight, end it quickly and escape.
Quality Over Quantity
While certain styles of martial arts can be flamboyant and exciting to look at Wing Chun definitely isn’t! In fact it’s boring and dull to watch chi sau, unless you understand what is happening.
Wing Chun gets to the nitty gritty of the situation and aims to attack to the centreline of the opponent in the least possible time. A pre-emptive strike might even be used if you believe you are under threat of a strike. This is the fastest way to disarm your opponent so you can escape. Of course it is far better not to have conflict if it can be avoided.
Wing Chun is for the person who doesn’t want to fight, but has the “ace” up their sleeve if it ever comes to it. Because a fight might end in devastating injury, prison or even death, for either you or your opponent, it’s not to be taken lightly.
The evasive movements of Wing Chun allow you to get comfortable being close to your opponent and attack and counter simultaneously. Chi Sau (sticky hands) is where you get to understand how. Chi sau is similar to putting a fight into a “game” experience. It allows you to play with positions, techniques and counterattacks with a “live” opponent in a safe situation.
Bruce Lee On “Gung Fu”
Bruce Lee was a Wing Chun devotee for many years before he founded his own style of Jeet Kune Do. If you skip to 6.15 you can see his take on why Wing Chun Kung Fu is relatively simple compared to more complicated styles with multiple moves in them:
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