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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 660295" data-attributes="member: 5171">Allow me to politely play Devil's Advocate here.  Anyone who says that martial arts won't help you on the street falls into one of three categories:1) Non-martial artist.2) Former martial artist from lousy school.3) Lazy former martial artist from good school who didn't bother to do those "silly" katas and forms enough times to get muscle memory working.Kendo might not help you a ton on the street.  Judo might only help you a bit.  They're still better than nothing, but in general, anything ending in "-do" is the sport version of something that used to end in "jitsu", which was meant to be a practical martial art.  (Kenjitsu uses moves that are illegal in Kendo because they can't be done safely in a sparring environment, and Judo doesn't make use of all the nasty Jujitsu holds.)IF you go to a school with an emphasis on practical self-defense, training diligently will help you. Practical self-defnese includes not being afraid to do things that make people go "Eww", like raking across the eyes or grabbing the groin or putting your thumb into their throat. And really, it's a matter of waiting.  In most schools, folks, they don't teach you the deadly stuff until:a) they've given you a firm foundation in knowing how to step, how to block, and how to generally move intelligently -- ie, until they've taught you the alphabet that allows you to learn the martial arts languageb) they've determined that you aren't a jerk.  Anyone who claims to have taken a martial art but found it useless on the street either found themselves a lousy school, of which there are many --  or else they failed either a) or b), above.Fourecks: Madness and wild abandon will work extremely well against someone with no training.  In fact, most early training at my school consists of getting people to do SOMETHING when attacked -- teaching them to overcome the rabbitlike "freeze" response some people seem to have.  So what you're saying is definitely true.  If you can add a martial art to it, so much the better.Paladin: Sounds like you've seen lousy schools.  Traditional does not mean Flashy, and it does not mean Pointless.  I've seen schools that teach Pointless movements and Flashy movements.  Some of them billed themselves as traditional, while others claimed to be the fusion of many new arts, usually mouthing the three lines they actually understood from Bruce Lee's book.And I consider it sad that you have never found practical combat application in katas.  Perhaps no one ever told you that you aren't supposed to, you know, DO the kata when attacked?  You're actually just supposed to do individual moves from the kata.  The kata is a training device.  It CAN have a downside, in that it can grow too stagnant -- it's good to have training in how to spontaneously alter techniques when the attacker doesn't respond the way you'd planned -- but  on the whole, it's usually considered better to have the student practice self-defense techniques than not.  If you're still practicing self-defense techniques but aren't doing katas, then all you've done is re-invent the wheel -- minus the transitional movements between individual techniques, most of which are designed to teach you how to move from one stance to another in a protected fashion.Or, you know, you've seen lousy schools.   One of the two.-TackyEDIT: While getting all vituperative, I forgot to actually answer the question -- although everyone else's answers were pretty good.  Basically, find an art with an emphasis on the practical, practice it a bunch, and commit to taking time to make it useful.  You won't be terribly effective terribly quickly, but you WILL develop better confidence, just from knowing how to move.  More often than not, confidence, along with a better awareness of your surroundings, will get you out of more fights than an inverted spear-hand to the throat will.</blockquote>

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