Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

What's people's views on the best/most reliable form of practical self-defence? Without having to train for 7+ years or having to spend thousands on learning.

I've been doing boxing on/off for about 3-4 years, and since I became more serious about my health and general body fitness last year, I've got more into it. I've always been interested in learning a Martial Art but have been discouraged by people that have experience in Martial Arts who view it as impractical.. I have met some who view it as very practical, and I respect them for this. But like I said, I've never learnt any Martial Art just because I'm worried about not getting anything out of it.
A friend of our family's studied Takewondo, Karate and Boxing for over 15+years and still viewed Boxing as being the most practical in self-defence.
I have a colleague at work who has been studying Karate for over 15 years and is very proficient in it. But he said to me it took him a very long time to learn it. He showed me some of his moves, but they seemed highly impractical in many self-defence situations, unless you knew them back to front or practised them on a day to day basis.

I find boxing to be very practical in self-defence situations because of the footwork and hand work. (I must say I haven never used it in real life though, mostly because I believe in pacifism and see violence as a last resort only).

I really wanted to learn Krav Maga because of its emphasis on self-defence situations, but was discouraged by my work colleague who thought it would be inappropriate for any probable situations where we live...

I'm think I would really like to learn Taekwondo for the kicks, because I currently know no kicks.. But I don't want to learn Taekwondo for upper-body - which I have got from boxing.

Most Practical = Muay thai, Boxing, Krav Maga, Wing Chun(just pure wing chun, not mixed with any other kung fu style), Kyokushin Karate

These are highly agressive and highly practical martial arts.
I'm a Muay thai and Wing Chun fan. One year of REAL training will get you great results.

Forget about Taekwondo, it has evolved to be a form of art, using it as self defense it is not effective.

Here in the forum, Mugen trains Krav Maga, perhaps you could send him some messages ( viewtopic.php?f=48&t=35067 ).

Agreed. Most definitely Krav, Muay and Jujitsu.
Most fights end up on the ground, to ground game is crucial. Even some American Wrestling is good. Just half a year of ground game and half of year of good stand up like Muay or Krav and you'll be able to defend yourself fairly well.

Peace!

I do Muay Thai, and love it. its an execellent workout and very practical. Ive tried a few different martial arts over the years but Muay is by far the best.

I disagree with maybenot regarding taekwondo, I did it for a couple of years, the classes were mostly sparring and self defense with a small amount of the art. You can even do taekwondo entirely based on self defense and sparring including pressure point fighting. Obviously it depends on where you train but I would highly recommend checking it out, muay thai is cool aswell though

Unusual for modern taekwondo, you got lucky =)
Taekwondo nowadays seems to be focused on the olympics, so scoring points is worth more than defending yourself.

Itf and wtf taekwondo are like 2 completely seperate thing. Wtf is the olympic sporty kinda stuff, whereas itf is the proper fighting and the art

Here in Brazil I only see STF and WTF. I know these two, but even STF is more competition oriented. I really don`t know what ITF is =)
Nice to know that you still have a non-competition oriented taekwondo.

How do people find Muai Thai in terms of injuries? Is it easy to break bones? I'm just asking this because I've found some of the martial arts seem to entail a lot of injuries. I'm a strong person, I'm not a woose, but I don't want to do a martial art just to break a bone and then be unable to train for so long. My colleague at work talks about how people are always getting hurt(broken bones etc) at his Karate school. To me that just sounds stupid, sure take some bruises, cop some in your mouth on the odd occasion, but getting serious injuries just seems counter-intuitive to actually learning self-defence.

Where I go to the gym there are Muay Thai classes as well, people there fight all the time and don't get injured.
It all depends on the type of person that is giving the class, because it should always be safe to train.
You train to get tough, not injured.

Running - to be able to run 1km (0.62miles) below 4m30s will be sufficient to escape.

Having a gun is always handy, not legal here, dunno if it's legal in Down Under.

When I got into fights, I've mostly used san-shou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanshou) with locks and throws.

Muay thai and wrestling will stop you going to the ground and if you've done muay thai for a while they won't even get close to you... those leg kicks absolutely kill, even with a shield.
Learn Brazillian jiu jitsu and you will use your wrestling to take people to the ground just so you can have some fun (only relevant for 1v1). Bjj has changed the way I look at everything, I also do some wrestling, but I really see it as a means to getting people to the ground or stopping them taking me down. I've done boxing, the foot work will win you a street fight easily (if you're not drunk) and I've done a bit of muay thai, only enough to learn a low and mid leg kick.
At the end of the day any self defense training will probably lead you to win a fight against somebody who hasn't trained, if you do sparring, just because you learn to control your mind and body. I would probably recommend Krav Maga for somebody who is willing to kill if need be, Muay Thai and wrestling for somebody who is serious about self defense and would rather stay standing and BJJ for somebody who is a pacifist and would rather choke somebody out than KO them, or if you want to toy with them or rip their arm off