MARTIAL ART / SELF DEFENSE STYLE COMPARISON CHART "What's the best martial art system for me?"

**NOTE: Every school is unique and may teach differently regardless of what is typical or currently popular for a particular style!

ATTRIBUTE	ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGE	EMPHASIZED IN GUIDED CHAOS?	EMPHASIZED IN OTHER ARTS?
Forms ("kata", etc.) training	Increases discipline, tradition, concentration, athletic condition, memorization of specific techniques	Programs your nervous system to react roboticly to true chaotic violence with patterned responses ("the way you train is the way you fight") resulting in freeze ups and inappropriate defense/offense for any given moment	Never	Most
Closed fist strikes (excluding hammerfists)	Breaks bones, crushes soft tissue	Inadequate vs large attackers, can cause injury to hand when striking large bones, skull, requires perfect form or risks wrist injuries	Some, where appropriate	Most
Open hand strikes	Breaks bones, crushes soft tissue; safe for hitting large bones, skull; greater defensive sensitivity; penetrates enemy defenses better	None	Absolutely	Some
Ripping, tearing, shredding, gouging strikes	Easily applied, almost impossible to defend	None offensively. Requires special training to defend AGAINST	Absolutely	Offensively: few. Defense against: none that we know of.
Head butts, biting	Easily applied, difficult to defend	Head butting is usually taught incorrectly in many arts and can hurt you more than the enemy	Absolutely	Few
Short range low kicking and stomping	Easily applied, almost impossible to defend	None	Absolutely	Some
Internal or "soft" style techniques	Doesn't require an Olympian's body to work. Virtually only way to defeat a much larger, stronger, skilled enemy	Almost never taught as pure combat anymore. Practitioners often divorced from true forensic reality of violence	Absolutely, but taught differently from traditional "soft" internal styles such as aikido, tai chi, bagua, hsing i	see note on left
External or "hard" style techniques	Rewards those with superior physical attributes with limited increases in hitting power	Less useful for smaller, weaker individuals and exposes them to more danger. External training often decreases balance, sensitivity,  looseness and adaptivity.	Guided Chaos teaches you to be 99% soft (yin) and only 1% hard (yang) at the moment you make impact then become soft (unavailable) again.	Hard styles make up the majority of martial arts systems in the world.
Intensive balance training	Hit, defend, counter-attack, survive and recover during wild fighting	Must be taught dynamically and appropriately to the chaos of combat	Absolutely	Virtually none that we know
Body unity training for power	Utilize full plyometric power of entire body mass and strength while maintaining looseness	If taught incorrectly creates, tight, slow, weak and clumsy responses	Absolutely	In some internal arts, usually incorrectly within a patterned form with no chaotic combat application
Looseness training to avoid and survive impacts, find openings	Ability to keep on fighting and go home	None	Absolutely	Virtually none that we know of; sometimes in boxers, wrestlers and internal styles, usually misdirected and incompletely
Sensitivity training	Ability to sense openings and incoming attacks before your eyes can	None	Absolutely	Supposed to be taught in internal styles, almost always incorrectly. Sometimes found in elite grapplers
Awareness and fear-focusing training	Avoid violence before it happens; channel adrenaline	Can create rigidity and paranoia if done improperly	Absolutely	Some
Modified Native American groundfighting (Guided Chaos Groundfighting)	You never know if you'll end up on the ground; allows you to strike and remain free of entanglement. No relation to MMA or submission grappling	None. Difficult for BJJ, MMA practitioners to learn since they are usually taught: 1-sportively with rules to "win" instead of disable and escape. 2-continuous entanglement with bigger, stronger enemies; also makes you vulnerable to multiple attackers	Absolutely	Virtually none that we know
Knife, stick and gun fighting	A supreme advantage--maybe	Knife and stick usually taught with complex, flowery flourishes incompatible with life-and-death combat. 99% of gun fighting taught unrealistically as depicted in movies & TV. Disarms taught are usually nonsense.	Absolutely	Virtually none that we know
Proven in War (True WWII Combatives)	Basic, quick striking methodology used in thousands of bloody, documented engagements in World War II by U.S. soldiers. Simple, practical, no-nonsense, reality based, survival techniques for ending a fight and going home	Politically incorrect. Popularly taught today in watered-down, emasculated versions bearing little resemblance to the original.	Absolutely	A few, if that
Total Adaptivity, Improvisation and Spontaneity in the face of Real Violence	Real violence is chaos and constantly changes. No two fights look exactly the same. What happens if your counter-attack doesn't work? You need to adapt to survive.	Almost impossible to learn with traditional martial art/self-defense teaching methods.	That's all we do!	None that we know of as standard practice. Sometimes acquired by elite, super-trained individuals who are able to dissolve everything they've ever learned into fluid, spontaneous responses.

Thanks to Stefan for the idea.