Which martial art sparring is closest to a street fight?

[Muay Thai Addict]

Which martial art sparring is closest to a street fight?

[Fighting Frog]

None of them, unless you offhand know of a martial art which allows multiple opponents; the use of broken bottles, knives and furniture; no rules about not gouging eyes, grabbing genitals, strangleholds and so on; an opponent who may be extra-strong and aggressive due to stimulants; an opponent(s) who is much taller, heavier and stronger than you; and in which the aim of the game is to kill you. :pinch:

Krav maga maybe? After all, that was designed to quickly kill or completely incapacitate the victim (and thereby allow you to shoot them dead at your leisure). But I should think that the KM taught in clubs etc is pretty watered-down from the original military version, and so is going to be correspondingly less effective in the street.

[Fighting Frog]

And come to think of it, street fighting is nothing like any form of sparring anyway. Street fights (generally speaking) are over in seconds - one or two hard punches/elbows/stabs and it's all over apart from possibly kicking any person who has been unfortunate enough to hit the deck. Anyone with any sense in a street fight will run for it at the first opportunity if they can (even the aggressor will generally run if the defender manages to get a good hit back). In sparring you don't generally leg it out of the gym after making the other guy reel. :smile:

[Biki]

I hope it's okay to reply to an old thread like this!

Anyway, krav maga does allow all that! But it differs a lot between schools, mine has a pretty military spirit. I see videos in youtube often and there's out of shape people with belts, or learning a forward roll in the green belt curriculum; that's definitely not how it's trained in other schools. Regardless, genital kicking, eye gouging, unequal fight set ups are (in theory) what krav maga builds itself on.

[Bemouh]

I hope it's okay to reply to an old thread like this!

Anyway, krav maga does allow all that! But it differs a lot between schools, mine has a pretty military spirit. I see videos in youtube often and there's out of shape people with belts, or learning a forward roll in the green belt curriculum; that's definitely not how it's trained in other schools. Regardless, genital kicking, eye gouging, unequal fight set ups are (in theory) what krav maga builds itself on.

 

I agree with you. Krav Maga is definitely very close to the real fight. You need to be prepared to it both physically and mentally for practicing it. I’ve just read a lot about it at http://www.thebaynet.com/community/family/martial-arts-for-self-defence-where-to-start.html