Almost every martial art has something to offer in terms of realistic applications; some much more than others.
The main problem in a lot of traditional and exotic martial arts is that they don’t practice against real resistance but claim their techniques will work during a real life scenario. It makes little sense logically. If one never practices against real resistance, how do you know it works against real resistance?
“My techniques are too deadly for the cage.” – This is a classic line. Biting, headbutting, eye gouging, pressure point attacks, and strikes to the groin are the usual ingredients. As if skilled fighters cannot bite, headbutt, eye gouge, or attack the groin, too.
Students must spend time striking and wrestling with other humans, getting hit and wrestled, and learning to avoid these things. And this training must be against completely uncooperative, fully resisting opponents. Cooperative training, no matter how hard, will not prepare a student for the chaos of a real attack.
Here’s a list of the five least effective martial arts out there:
5) Wing Chun
Wing Chun starts our list off as the sixth least effective martial art in the universe. When you see Wing Chun losing on Youtube, there will inevitably be 1,000 comments on the video saying this is not the real Wing Chun! Pure, unmodified Wing Chun has, to the best of my knowledge, never won in any multi-discipline full-contact tournament and never will, because its concepts are simply impractical.
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4) McDojo
McDojo is a pejorative term used by some Western martial artists to describe a martial arts school where image or profit is of a higher importance than technical standards.
While using the term McDojo primarily indicates judgment of a school’s financial or marketing practices, it also implies that the teaching standards of such school are much lower than that of other martial arts schools, or that the school presents non-martial arts training as martial arts. Sometimes, a McDojo’s practices may border on fraud, which is sometimes called the practice of Bullshido. McDojo sets in at the number 4 least effective martial art.
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3) Aikido
The third least effective martial art on our list. The problem here is the theory and main principle of Aikido that is “using your opponent’s strength and aggression against them”… This is complete horse s***, and highly dangerous to try in reality. Most of the training is done with little resistance, as practitioners learn not to apply force and to go with the flow… hence why the techniques appear to be magical.
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2) Dillman’s no-touch
The #2 least effective martial art. Every time this “Martial Art” style is tested outside of an instructor’s own dojo with anyone who is not a student of the style, the result is always the same. Nothing happens. These masters fail time and time again. Essentially this is because the whole system is based on suggestion, meaning that if someone believes it to work, then they will be susceptible to it. It´s unlikely that Jedi mind trick powers work in real life.
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1) Yellow bamboo
Yellow bamboo takes the number one slot as the least effective martial art on the planet.
This is a Balinese martial art that uses psychic energy. This style is kind of like a worse version of Dillman’s system. At least pressure point fighting involves some degree of physical contact sometimes. In Yellow Bamboo, they literally think they’re sorcerers. If there are any filmmakers reading this, I’d highly recommend profiling a Yellow Bamboo club in a documentary about self-deception. That would be legitimately fascinating.
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Honorable mentions list for the least effective martial arts
Ninjutsu –
If you intend to take up Ninjutsu, I have to assume the style’s mystical/cinematic allure is at least partly responsible for what drew you to the art. But what do you actually expect to learn? Methods of assassination? Lethal sai throwing? Invisibility?
A guy I talked to told me: “I’d like to train in Ninjutsu because the style teaches you how to fight in the dark. And that’s when most fights take place… At night.”
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Tai Chi –
The idea here is that a practitioner utilizes their body’s own dynamic resistance, going through a snail’s pace series of katas to prepare themselves for a real-time confrontation. The problem is, since they have no real-time experience, they can easily be overcome with, you know, actual resistance.
Tai chi advocates will say they employ their opponents’ energy against them with little effort – the classic McDojo defense – without ever acknowledging that they have no idea how to implement that when being attacked by someone both violent and prepared.
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