Any sport that competes is one that's guaranteed to work for self-defense (sans the ones that compete for style points ofc). If you're not looking for anything in specific I'd recommend finding your local MMA gym and seeing which styles they teach there. You'll usually find a gym with a single specialty and then a roster of rotating coaches who all teach their own style on some days
Oh I didn't mean point sparring. I was referring to the, usually east asian, traditional arts that still do exhibitions with point systems but are more akin to gymnastics than an actual martial art. They're usually spin offs of old weapons fighting systems that lost the sword/spear somewhere along the way. Aikido is probably the most famous example
Point sparring is great, safe practice though any system that only does point competition like some of the karate styles is imo too limited to be a good base for self-defense
Any sport that competes is one that's guaranteed to work for self-defense (sans the ones that compete for style points ofc). If you're not looking for anything in specific I'd recommend finding your local MMA gym and seeing which styles they teach there. You'll usually find a gym with a single specialty and then a roster of rotating coaches who all teach their own style on some days
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Oh I didn't mean point sparring. I was referring to the, usually east asian, traditional arts that still do exhibitions with point systems but are more akin to gymnastics than an actual martial art. They're usually spin offs of old weapons fighting systems that lost the sword/spear somewhere along the way. Aikido is probably the most famous example
Point sparring is great, safe practice though any system that only does point competition like some of the karate styles is imo too limited to be a good base for self-defense
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