You think back to every snippet or random suggestion you've received from your parents, your peers or from random self-defense discussions you've heard over the years. Do you poke them in the eye, do you knee them in the groin, do you try to stab them with your keys?

While all of these things could potentially work in a self-defense situation the unfortunate reality is there are no Magic Bullets. 

No one technique will guarantee you get out of the situation safely, and any self defense instructor worth their value will tell you that, except of course the best technique to not be there in the first place or run away if you can!

However, the repetitive stress testing involved in many martial arts, (drilling your body and mind to react, defend and attack in different dangerous but controlled settings) gives clear and proven benefits for any self-defense situation. 

Drilling your body, through repetition, to become comfortable with uncomfortable situations, such as being punched in the face or choked until you tap out.  Over time allows your body to keep cortisol and adrenaline levels in a much more manageable range. Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, especially in conditions of stress, increasing rates of blood circulation, breathing, and carbohydrate metabolism and preparing muscles for exertion. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone, increasing sugar, also called glucose, in the bloodstream, enhancing the brain's use of glucose and increasing the availability of substances in the body that repair tissues. Cortisol also slows functions that would be unessential or harmful in a Fight or Flight situation, such as digestion. 

Fun fact if you're ever nervous, try chewing gum, as it will trick your body into thinking you're eating and you can't be eating and fighting so it will lower your cortisol and your body will relax a bit.

The difficulty comes in managing both of these fight or flight hormones. Doing so will give you a much better ability to respond to threats and in a much more productive manner than any one technique or set of techniques.

Though most of us have heard of the Fight or Flight physical response to outside threats or dangers. Most of us have no idea what actually happens both physically and psychologically while you're in the state. The Fight or Flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. The perception of a threat activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. This response enhances certain systems in your body to best be able to manage the threat, either to fight it or flee from it, such as narrowing your vision, slowing down your processing of time, enhancing your muscle reaction speeds, enhancing your pain tolerance and so many more.

Hence, while there might not be a magic bullet or one technique to keep you safe, understanding how your body moves and how to capitalize on the Fight or Flight physiological reaction and how to use it as a weapon is your best bet to survive.

I can not reiterate enough that that doesn't mean you won't be scared or that what you do will work. It only means it will allow you to be in the best position to make the best decisions and react in the best way to keep yourself safe.

Now that you understand a little of the benefit of martial arts training for self defense and decided to start training, the difficult question becomes; which one should you choose to best equip you for self defense?

There's a broad spectrum of self-defense classes and curriculums out there and they all have different techniques and outlooks. I am asked all the time what is the best for protecting oneself; is it Krav Magraw, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling etc? 

For starters none is perfect and all have the pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses. Again there are no magic bullets that will help you with all of it, so learning as many as you can and taking what's useful from each is advisable if possible but I'm also aware there is only so much time in each day.

The sad but honest truth is that human beings have gotten really good at beating and killing each other over our entire evolution and the human body only moves in certain ways, hence there are some recurring techniques and ideas across the ages, cultures and martial arts that have a tendency to be the most effective. We will get to what I believe are the best later.

As I've continually mentioned and will again and again, there are no magic bullets in self defense but in its simplest terms I believe, through my extensive training and research. The three most basic keys to self-defense are: Awareness, Reaction, and Viciousness.

Awareness is by far the most beneficial skill a person can use in a self-defense situation.

By being aware of your surroundings; what's going on, who's there, where the exits are etc. You are better able to extradite yourself from a bad situation before it even begins, which is the only technique that works perfectly, not being in the situation at all or being able to escape it before it begins to get physical or dangerous.

Paying attention to dangerous situations that are evolving around you makes you a less attractive target also.

At the end of the day human beings are just animals, though we don't like to think so. Assailants like predators in the wild will go after the easiest victims. The young, the weak, the small and those not paying attention to their surroundings or developing situations; i.e, being on your phone or other electronic device, daydreaming or just not being aware of your environment. These are the human equivalents of a sick or baby wildebeest to a lion. 

Just being aware of your surroundings not only gives you the ability to exit any situation before most others understand what's even happening. You also make yourself a much more risky target by showing the predator you see them and are aware of their intentions. 

Secondly and more importantly, it gives your hormones and body added time to prepare for the dangerous situation. This allows it to maintain a healthier level of cortisol and allows for the adrenaline to stay in a more controlled range, better able to take advantage of all the benefits of Fight or Flight, such as your muscles firing at a maximum level allowing you almost superhuman, at least for you, levels of strength and speed needed to “fight your lion”.

Reaction, is the second most important. This relates to the moment you're aware of a situation arising that could be potentially dangerous to you and what your first instincts will be. Do you have the skills and the training to quickly and effectively react, hopefully providing the best possible outcome for whatever the situation should necessitate. In the moment your body will go on autopilot because your brain will be too slow to process everything that is happening in the split seconds a situation like this takes.

This could mean something as simple as leaving the situation before it begins, or running away as soon as it happens. These are ALWAYS the best choices and any self defense class that doesn't teach you that first and foremost should be avoided! Martial Artists and animals both know that even in the best outcome a physical altercation has the risk of serious injury. Just look at the faces of some winning boxers after a fight, you rarely come away completely untouched and particularly when your life's on the line you want to ensure you minimize your risks as much as possible, by not being in the situation to begin with you do just that.

However, if you must use the Fight, in Fight or Flight, this is where your martial arts training will come into play and your ability to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, through continued stress testing (i.e. sparring, drilling, and competitions) in martial arts. This allows your mind and body to react to the situation in the most optimal manner thus providing you with the necessary tools to keep your composure and put yourself in the best possible position to avoid injury or death. 

Interestingly, a lesser known fact of the Fight or Flight reactions in humans is that most people assume there are only two reactions when in reality there are four ways animals and humans react in Flight or Flight mode. 

Posturing is another, think a guy puffing out his chest, trying to look bigger, challenging another person and talking smack, it's a way to intimate the other person without risking injury. You can observe this in animals in the wild, think of a gorilla beating it's chest to a challenger. Both are the same and a good strategy if it helps you avoid the fight and the risk of injury, however it can potentially escalate the situation also.

The other, and worst reaction, is Freezing. When your body gets so scared and the adrenaline rushes so high that you lose control of your bodily functions and just freeze. We've all felt that experience once in our life, being so scared that you can't move, you can barely breathe. It's a terrifying place to be especially when your life is actually on the line and the place you never want to be in if you're fighting for your life. Thus repetitively training your body, particularly by getting hit, putting yourself in those uncomfortable but controlled situations. Is what will allow your body when a dangerous moment forces you to react, to not let your adrenaline go so high that it paralyzes your ability to react, or Freezes you.

Finally, the third most important part of self-defense is the determination of who will be more Vicious. 

Again we are similar to animals, though we hate to admit it, and it is the animal that is willing to inflict more damage and can inflict more damage in the survival situation that will usually prevail. 

If you have been drilling in a stress tested martial art or self-defense curriculum, where you are being repeatedly attacked and learning how to defend yourself as well as learning the best possible tools, kicks punches, elbows, knees, etc, to inflict the most damage you will already be at a substantial advantage in any self-defense situation.

Think of any boring activity you do on autopilot, brushing your teeth, tying your shoes, walking, even driving. You don't have to think about doing any of these and even in something like driving you aren't constantly paying active attention only reacting to difficult situations because you've done them so many times your body reflexively does them. 

Self defense ideally should be the same, though it will obviously be more scary and difficult, think hectic traffic or bad weather conditions to continue the driving analogy. When you are attacked you want your body to go into autopilot for the majority of the self defense, calculating your distance from your attacker, setting your feet right, breathing, blocking any strikes and using your own weapons effectively. All while allowing your more cerebral conscious part of the brain to be adapting and reacting in real time. Though in reality what I've observed in my experience is the conscious part of your brain will most likely be panicking and coming to terms with the situation.

The most common misunderstanding of martial arts for self-defense I always hear is "That wouldn't work in the street because there are rules in martial arts and ring sports". To which I say yes, that is correct. There are rules in martial arts to protect each fighter, for the exact reason these techniques are dangerous. But that also doesn't take into account that the reality is the underlying goal of any ring sport is to inflict as much damage as possible to your opponent in order to get them to submit. Boxing has rules but you're still trying to knock the other person out. 

So the person who has years of training in a sport where the intention is to inflict as much physical damage as possible will definitely have a clear advantage to someone who has no training or only limited training in the street. Especially, when there are no rules to protect their opponent and the martial artist can use all of the tools they've learned as well as the additional dangerous strikes they are told not to for safety in the ring, (i.e. eye pokes, fish hooks, groin shots etc) It only makes the martial artist even more dangerous.

Years of training getting hit and being in uncomfortable and dangerous situations, or what the body feels to be dangerous also allows your body to better adapt to the adrenaline spikes and other physical processes your body goes through when it's in Fight or Flight mode, as discussed previously. The more trained you are, the more likely you're able to manage your cortisol and adrenaline levels. This will better allow the martial artist to react in the most positive way to keep themselves safe.

So now that we know the benefits of martial arts in self defense, if you were to take one martial art for self defense what would it be? As previously mentioned, all have pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses. But I believe it is Muay Thai,  while slightly biased, that has the edge for the reasons I will express below.

One, Muay Thai has scientifically and through competition proven the best martial art for producing powerful strikes regardless of the size of the fighter, studies show that Nak Muays, Muay Thai Boxers, generate the most pound for pound power of any martial art, generating equal power to much heavier practitioners in karate or taekwondo (Kavagan & Sayers, 2017). 

This is obviously important for self defense because you will not know the size of the person attacking you and generally those of smaller stature are the most likely to be attacked. As mentioned deep down we are animals and just like lions attacking the young and the sick, human predators tend to attack those they perceive to be the easiest to successfully target. Do you think the one hundred and twenty pound, fifty year old  woman or the twenty eight year old, two hundred and fifteen pound male is more likely to be mugged? 

To give you an example of the power created in Muay Thai, tests have shown that the impact of a Muay Thai knee strike is like being hit by a thirty five mile per hour car! This coupled with elbow strikes, and the clinch, a version of standing Greco-Roman Wrestling with knee and elbow strikes allowed. The combination of these specific tools I believe put you in the best position to protect yourself from the most obvious self defense attacks; strikes, chokes and takedowns, while also providing the most dangerous tools to use against your opponent. 

Muay Thai also doesn't advance it's partitioners through a belt system similar to BJJ, Karate or Taekwondo. Skill is only determined by your fight record, and even then there are many fights where a fighter with a much smaller record prevails over a much more experienced fighter. 

This is important for self defense training because the implied lesson is two fold: it teaches outward humility in that you don't have to prove your ability, that is between you and your Kru, Thai for teacher, and you and your opponent. Not to mention it never hurts to not let people know what you know in self defense so that you're not a target because of your experience or lack there of.

It also teaches you humility to never assume you know what an opponent is capable of, forcing the fighter to begin every interaction, in the ring and outside it, with a healthy respect and curiosity of anyone they meet. 

This constant humility and curiosity is the main reason you don't see many professional fighters out starting street fights, they know the serious risks of injury any fight can produce and they know they can never assume the ability of anyone they meet on the street.

To summarize training martial arts on a regular basis is the best possible way to prepare yourself for any self defense situation because it trains the mind and the body to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and through continued drilling and stress testing, maximizes your ability to be aware of your environment and react as quickly and viciously as possible to ensure you are in the best possible position to prevail.

And Muay Thai is the best martial art to train as it uses the most powerful strikes, elbows and knees coupled with standing grappling and take down defense to provide one system with the most effective tools needed for any self defense situation.

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