Systema has a good thing: heavy hands, from their contact with internal martial arts.
But I´d never recommend that kind of disciplines if the goal is self-defense, improve fighting skills or similar.
If the objective is learning to fight there´s only a way: lot of sparring.
A good self-defense oriented BJJ school can definitely help. You would be able to spar with a fair variety of training partners will less chance of injury than sparring in something like full contact boxing. The sparring would help with the confidence, even if you “lose” a lot by getting submitted, because you would eventually learn various ways to escape from being held on the ground.
Unfortunately, there are several BJJ schools in my area that have a bad reputation of being too sport-oriented - they pressure students to join competitions as soon as possible, don’t teach basic standup self defense (eg. defense from bear hug, defense from standing rear choke, etc.), teach mainly competition techniques that have questionable value for real self-defense, etc. So watch out for those schools.
Actually, the best self defense is to be aware of your surroundings and avoid putting yourself in a bad situation. A distant second is to have the conditioning and agility to escape ASAP from trouble.
There´s definitely a lot of Systema in there. Like any other style it all depends on the person who practices it when it comes to effectiveness. But I agree on the staged demos, they do nothing for me either. But I´m sure that instructors like Vladimir Vasiliev can use it effectively since he has a military background (if I´m not mistaken even special forces). Systema is the most attractive style to me at the moment because of the “softness” and breathing techniques. Both can be crucial in a dangerous situation, everyone who has done some sparring knows how it is when nothing works and you get all tensed up and forget everything you learned because you caught a few punches/kicks. This inner tension is sucking out your energy faster than anything else in these situations.
Other than that I think Bruce Lee figured it out long time ago: look at all styles and take out of each what works for you and eliminate everything that doesn´t and make it uniquely your own. And like @Grumo said a lot of sparring will do the rest but preferably also with practitioners from various styles. And light sparring in a playful way will teach you more than when you practice with someone who can´t control his power and just wants to f*ck you up.
@GovernorSilver Thanks a lot for the links!
One thing/style hasn´t been mentioned yet when it comes to pure self defense: Krav Maga. No fancy movements or anything, straight to the point and developed from a military perspective. Lots of similar techniques to Wing Chun from what I´ve seen so far but also very dangerous. A lot of these techniques might bring you straight to jail because they´re designed for one porpuse only: destroy the enemy.
Yes, porting military hand to hand tactics to a civilian setting can be problematic. It was a similar issue with the Indonesian Kuntao system taught by a sheriff whose class I attended briefly in Florida. He couldn’t use Kuntao on the job due to the killing aspects - at best he would have gotten in trouble for excessive force (leaving out the whole messy issue of police vs. the public relations).
He had to use civilian-appropriate tactics - designed to subdue and control, not kill - when he had to make an arrest, and those were not from his Kuntao system.
Choosing a martial style to study is very personal and for sure it’s “effectiveness” depends so much on the practitioner but my personal experience is that full sparring with protections is unavoidable.
My very brief experience with Systema is that there is indeed a lot of emphasis on selective tension, which imo is a more accurate description than “moving as relaxed as possible”, because if you are truly 100% relaxed, 0% tension in the body, you would be lying on the ground doing nothing. Force is delivered as a “wave” traveling to the extremities. Strength training is done by doing slow pushups, slow squats… “slow” as in taking as much as one full minute to do ONE rep.
I like the slow-motion sparring too, though the temptation to cheat by speeding up to normal speed is quite strong. I’m glad though there was teacher to supervise, especially when sparring with training knives or other weapons.
A lot of interesting ideas though about body usage, and there seems to be some crossover to Scott Sonnon’s CST/RMax health-fitness system (Sonnon studied Systema with a different lineage - Kadochnikov I think). I did a seminar weekend with Sonnon and his crew that focused on Prasara Yoga Saturday and Rmax Flow Fighting Sunday. The most fun part was the multiple attacker playfighting… when it was my turn to be the victim, I’d be on the mat surrounded by other folks trying to kick me and whatever. There were similar principles to what I observed in the Vasiliev/Ryabko Systema - take any kicks with shock-absorption (exhalation upon being kicked, etc.), maintain a calm mind and look for opportunities to snag an attacker with arms/legs and bring him down so that he becomes the new “victim”. The purpose of this game was not to train to be a badass who can beat up 10 guys at once, but to cultivate a relaxed mindset and responses to that situation. There was one guy who was really excited about the chance to practice shock absorption with us, so he kept leaving out a leg or something on purpose to be easily grabbed and taken down… he played Victim more than anyone else in our group. He kept yelling at us to kick harder and whatnot.
Agreed! Also, the concept of “effectiveness” differs from martial art to martial art (and the respective philosophy).
This is why I feel confident saying that Capoeira is an effective form of self-defense. Because in the philosophy of Capoeira, the best way to win a fight is to strike before it starts or better yet, to recognise when shit is about to hit the fan and avoid it altogether. It’s all about perceptiveness and situational awareness to gain some sort of situational advantage that can then be converted into a “martial” advantage.
From the point of view of dominating in direct confrontation, this could hardly be considered effective (and neither would be the movements common in Capoeira), but from within the cosmology of Capoeira, it’s the most effective manner to deal with confrontation period.
I started Gracie Jiu Jitsu a few months ago and it’s been one of the hardest, most challenging and also rewarding things I’ve ever done. There’s lots to learn, it’s a fantastic workout, super addictive and I feel amazing afterwards. Can’t recommend it enough.
An occasional „reality check“ in form of full contact sparring is indeed unavoidable, basically what has been said in the Joe Rogan clip I posted before. You can’t learn swimming without going into the water 
actually, Yoga is considered the root of all martial arts…
Oh, really? I didn’t know this!
Got to learn more about yoga culture. No physical activity has ever brought me this well-being.
My Lineage
Judo in youth
Aikidio in early 20s (got BB)
Boxing for about a year or two
MMA for about 5 years with a solid concentraion of wrestling side with some Muai Thai Skills
Now BJJ but I’m too old to be seriously competitive
Considering giving up BJJ to spend more time playing guitar in the evenings
I don´t agree at all, there are martial arts around the globe and Yoga is not a martial art at all nor have any connection with most of them.
It was said the same about Kalaripayattu but I think there are so many foundational myths around martial arts origins and each one will be claiming to be the original, most effective, pure lineage and whatever.
Bodhidharma seems to have spread indian meditation to China, developing a set of exercises for the weak monks of Shaolin, but only gymnastics as far as I know.
Anyway very interesting concepts and sensations from meditation, in my case I studied Ba Duan Jing, Zhan Zhuang and so for some years, and I think they can be very useful for health and power. I´d like to see a modern destilation of traditional workouts and being used in actual sports, and without all the repeated things which only sense is tradition and were never updated.
I thought the root of all martial arts was, kill the other guy…
no, it’s not ! at all …
Yoga means “to unify” or “to bind together”, and it can be said that yoga is any process that leads to unification within an individual. The word yoga has the same root as the word yoke in the english language. When oxen are yoked they are bound together to draw a cart in unison. In the same way the practice of yoga is a process of unification on many levels. On the physical level it means the unification of the physiological processes of the body - things that are disjointed are joined together, things that are misaligned are brought into alignment, and processes working against each other are brought into balance and harmony. Through the effort of training a yogi strives to unify his/her body. A body that is unified has the ability to be at its optimum power in action, and to be truly quiet at rest. The process of unification extends to many other levels, but in the end all levels become one, all becomes one. These other levels may include notions such as unity of body, mind and spirit, unity of consciousness with the present moment, unity of masculine and feminine energies, unity the human and the environment, unity of mankind and the universe, or of unity of mankind and the divine.
The Vedic discipline of yoga is an ancient root of most martial arts known today. The oldest martial art in the world is the Indian art called kalari payat, which is basically a pure expression of martial yoga. Kalari Payat or a related form of martial yoga extended into China through the buddhist monk Bodhidharma (5th/6th century CE), who founded both the disciplines of shaolin kung fu and zen (chan) buddhism. Both these disciplines were extremely influential in the evolution of the martial arts as they are known today.
I really doubt Bodhidharma had anything to do with martial arts, only meditation and physical conditioning, but who knows.
Only my opinion, but martial arts (that are not only Asian, you can find them everywhere) and their spiritual or philosophical sides are developed after.
The origin of every martial art is war and combat: kill and survive. If you want someone to be capable to fight, the first is basic physical conditioning and weapons, the longer possible the first. So spears, arches and things like that are the most useful to give to untrained people to go to war. And shields. Maybe some kind of swords, but not very easy to make, or cheap, and being closer is more dangerous. So, first a method with simple techniques to have a bunch of people repeating them.
Grappling is the most natural way of fighting, then hitting somehow (with your body or with a tool), biting, scratching, you know, things to survive. But this is natural fighting, not enough to a real combat, where you need weapons and a way to avoid the new warriors being killed too soon.
The only spiritual or philosophical element here is the mindset you need the warrior to have to face its death and kill other people. Zen Buddhism approach is very useful ´cause somehow there are no ego, there´s not me handling a sword, I´m only a channel, and killing it´s easier this way.
Then, with the time, the “art” aspect is being built, oftenly as a way to justify itself and its particularities. There are a romantic vision of killing arts but they are, were or should be far more pragmatic.
Nowadays what we call martial arts are a different thing in most cases, and pragmatism and effectiveness don´t have to be the goal. The tradition, philosophy, development of specific skills, etc. are good enough reasons to respect and practice them. But people should be aware of the romantic explanations of each one´s history and supposed effectiveness if they are interested in the martial side, ´cause reality hurts, and sometimes it can be a serious thing if you think you are prepared for something you really aren´t. It took me more than 12 years to fully comprehend that what I felt was a false sense of security and that I wasn´t prepared to fight.
For those who are not interested in fighting, studying a martial art is of course respectable, and there can be so many reasons to do it, but it´s better if they´re conscious of what is a fight and what is not.
I have just spent some time doing some research.
Apparently Yoga and martial arts have a common root, that would be Qi gong… But indeed, yoga is not a martial art.
Martial arts would integrate the knowledge developed with Qi gong to understand how the body works and where to find its weaknesses, while the other side would use the same knowledge to heal.
By the way, there are martial arts such as judo or aikido whose aim is not to kill but to disarm and bring peace.
Quite a bit of controversy about Yoga history. One argument out there is that it originated as British gymnastics, imported into India during the British occupation.
It’s kind of like karate and aikido got imported into Korea from Japan, then morphing into today’s Korean martial arts with some stories of how both have histories spanning thousands of years in Korea. Evidence suggests that Choi Yong-sul, the founder of hapkido, had the same teacher as Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of Aikido in Japan, and introduced hapkido to Korea as an art very similar to aikido. It was later that various teacher added high kicks, jumping kicks, etc. then started saying it was Korean in origin.
Taijiquan as it’s practiced today is traceable to the Chen family in Chen Village, China. Where the historical controversy lies is in who taught the Chen family. Zhang Sanfeng is believed by some to be the creator of this art, but to the serious practitioners he seems to be a mythological figure and thus hardly any of them really believe in him any more than the Japanese truly believe their Emperor is the descendant of the gods.