Fastest or Easiest

[TKDTony2179]

As martial artist we all say that there isn't a best martial art, just the person themselves. Now here is a question. What would be the fastest or the easiest martial art to learn?


Why and how?

My thoughts so far is Boxing, Krav maga, and Basic Karate(not focusing on a particular style). Boxing just focus on hand to eye corrdination, foot work, and of course just your hands. Karate has proven itself to be good self defense. Also it brings more weapons to the table like knees and elbows. Krav Maga as a hybrid fighting art gives you everthing from strikes to grappling and even ground defensive fighting. No special joint locks or submission moves to learn. Basic and simple.

 

[Cyriacus]

Well, the fastest martial art to learn would be to get someone to tune up your body mechanics, and youre good to go within about an hour. Now just multiply the effect for every hour after.

 

[TKDTony2179]

Well, the fastest martial art to learn would be to get someone to tune up your body mechanics, and youre good to go within about an hour. Now just multiply the effect for every hour after.

Can you explain it more about tuning up the body mechanics? Maybe I am missing what you are saying.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Easiest to learn would be Run-Fu...

 

[RTKDCMB]

This one:

You don't need any particular skill to do it - even at the highest levels of it.

 

[Cyriacus]

Can you explain it more about tuning up the body mechanics? Maybe I am missing what you are saying.

Learning to use your body more effectively. Body mechanics is a point against which you compare, not something you compare to other things. You know how all force and power in striking comes from weight transfer? Its learning to do that irrespective of your choice of 'technique'. And theres more than one way to do it.

 

[arnisador]

You can get pretty solid at boxing pretty quickly--if you can do it several hours a day for a few months. But then at that pace you could make progress in a lot of things quickly.

In some of the classical Japanese weapons arts that focus on just one weapon you can move along pretty quickly.

The Filipino arts allow a relatively quick progression as precision is form is often not as emphasized as in other arts.

 

[WaterGal]

When you talk about "fastest to learn", what's the goal that you're trying to achieve?

I mean, if you're trying to learn to defend yourself quickly, I think striking/hard arts are going to help you with that more quickly than grappling arts. Kicking and punching are very intuitive - an adult can usually manage to do at least basic strikes with good power within a couple months. Something like Hapkido, in my experience, takes a lot longer to learn how to do intuitively, but in the long run gives you more tools.

If your goal is to get a black belt quickly, Taekwondo is a good bet. TKD considers first degree black belt as a sign you've mastered the basics, rather than being reserved for very senior practitioners, so an adult can usually get a black belt in two years.

If your goal is to get really fit quickly, MMA guys training to be fighters seem to focus a lot on that, so that might be the way to go.

 

[TKDTony2179]

This one:

don't need any particular skill to do it - even at the highest levels of it.

Now that was just crazy. LOL

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

As martial artist we all say that there isn't a best martial art, just the person themselves. Now here is a question. What would be the fastest or the easiest martial art to learn?


Why and how?

My thoughts so far is Boxing, Krav maga, and Basic Karate(not focusing on a particular style). Boxing just focus on hand to eye corrdination, foot work, and of course just your hands. Karate has proven itself to be good self defense. Also it brings more weapons to the table like knees and elbows. Krav Maga as a hybrid fighting art gives you everthing from strikes to grappling and even ground defensive fighting. No special joint locks or submission moves to learn. Basic and simple.

Please qualify what you mean by fastest or easiest to learn: do you mean the fastest and easiest to learn the full curriculum or fastest and easiest to get good at?

Learning the full curriculum of kendo is pretty fast. Getting good at it is not.
It takes longer to learn the full curriculum of taekwondo, but you can get good at it pretty quickly.

I also think that different people pick up certain types of arts more easily than they do others due to either body type, teaching pedagogy, natural skill in a particular area, etc.

Some people learn more easily in a gym environment than a dojo environment. The teaching pedagogy is different from one to the other, so it isn't necesarilly a reflection of the art. Also, the individual teacher can make a difference as well; a great teacher can make a complex art fun and easy to learn while a bad teacher can make a simple art a true bear to learn.

 

[TKDTony2179]

Please qualify what you mean by fastest or easiest to learn: do you mean the fastest and easiest to learn the full curriculum or fastest and easiest to get good at?Learning the full curriculum of kendo is pretty fast. Getting good at it is not.It takes longer to learn the full curriculum of taekwondo, but you can get good at it pretty quickly.I also think that different people pick up certain types of arts more easily than they do others due to either body type, teaching pedagogy, natural skill in a particular area, etc.Some people learn more easily in a gym environment than a dojo environment. The teaching pedagogy is different from one to the other, so it isn't necesarilly a reflection of the art. Also, the individual teacher can make a difference as well; a great teacher can make a complex art fun and easy to learn while a bad teacher can make a simple art a true bear to learn.

I mean what would you say to someone that have never did martial arts and the wanted something easy and yet fast to learn. I do think TKD is kinda is if you are not a clumsy as heck but the jump spin kick even give people trouble. But if someone wanted to learn to protect themselves and didn't want to spend years training would you suggest. Like I said people tend to ask what is the best but never ask what is the easiest. You can explain to me why and how which art curriculum would be easy or which is the fastest to learn.

Yes every one is different and some will be faster or better at an art than others.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I mean what would you say to someone that have never did martial arts and the wanted something easy and yet fast to learn. I do think TKD is kinda is if you are not a clumsy as heck but the jump spin kick even give people trouble. But if someone wanted to learn to protect themselves and didn't want to spend years training would you suggest. Like I said people tend to ask what is the best but never ask what is the easiest.

Thanks for the qualifier.

If someone wanted to learn to protect themselves quickly without years of training, I'd suggest a self defense course rather than a martial art. Martial art training is different by design from simply learning self defense, though by the time you learn the martial art, you'll have some very helpful self defense skills.

Self defense courses tend to be designed to take a student from 0-60 fairly quickly and generally focus on a much smaller technical set than a martial art will. They also tend to focus on practical self defense matters (things that are likely to happen to you) and less on tradition and form (by form, I mean quality of movement and technique, not kata/hyeong).

You can explain to me why and how which art curriculum would be easy or which is the fastest to learn.

I don't know which would be the fastest, but generally, the fewer techniques one needs to learn, and less complex they are, the faster it will be to learn the skill set. Kendo has relatively few techniques compared to an art like taekwondo; the number of strikes in taekwondo far exceeds the number in kendo. All of the kendo kata could be performed in less time than it takes to perform one T'ai Chi form.

Taekwondo, on the other hand, has eight forms from what to black belt, plus one form for each dan grade, probably twenty times the number of strikes, maybe more, plus a variety of unique defenses and special moves. There simply is more of it.

As unarmed arts go, taekwondo is also hardly the most complex. Hapkido actually has more kicks that taekwondo, just as many hand strikes, unique defenses, and special moves, plus a full grappling/throwing curriculum.