Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Favorite Martial Arts Styles

Personally I feel that Muay Thai and Brazilian Jujitsu are two of the best martial arts styles. Muay Thai provides techniques that will allow the user to quickly and forcefully eliminate distance between the opponent and themself. Muay Thai techniques focus on powerful kicks from the shin used as checks. Flying knee strikes and elbow strikes to the solar plexus and skull respectively. Once the user is close to their opponent Brazilian Jujitsu techniques will allow the user to take their opponent to the ground using take down techniques, putting them in various submission holds or just having a physical advantage over them.

Other martial arts styles I appreciate are Drunken Boxing and Eskrima. Drunken Boxing is fun to watch people use, the techniques are often strange to watch but highly effective while intoxicated. Eskrima generally uses the opponents body against themselves. A proficient eskrima user can take control of their opponents bodies when they strike and use various counter strikes to destroy their opponents. Eskrima fighters also use Kali Sticks to fight. Kali sticks are about half the length of a Louisville Slugger and are a little thinner than nunchaku.

Capoeira is another interesting martial art that looks a lot like break dancing. It was developed in Brazil by slaves from Africa. It is very cool to watch and has gained popularity in the past decade.

Top Five Martial Artists

My top 5 Martial Artists (in the film industry) are:

1. Bruce Lee
2. Tony Jaa
3. Jet Li
4. Jackie Chan
5. Steven Segal

Number one is obvious, Bruce Lee = "Greatest fighter of ALL time!" He is fast, strong, and had a natural talent for being able to fight. If you have ever seen any of his demonstration videos you can see the raw power and martial arts skills that he brought to the big screen were not just special effects or choreographed. Bruce Lee's best movie in my opinion is Enter the Dragon.

Number two is an up and coming martial arts star who has already proven to me in just three movies that he should be number two, Tony Jaa. In his first two movies Tony Jaa uses Muay Thai, a very brutal and exciting martial art to watch. Tony Jaa also does all of his own crazy stunts. In his third and most recent movie, Ong Bak 2, Tony Jaa expands his martial arts repetoire to include multiple weapons, several kung fu styles, some MMA or brazilian jujitsu, and even drunken boxing. This movie is easily his best and the fight scenes just show how incredible a martial artist he is. I can not wait to see his later stuff.

Jet Li, master of many martial arts, fast, strong, also knows how to make an incredible martial arts movie. Hero and Fearless are both great movies with great stories that have great fight scenes in them. Jet Li has mastered 11 different martial art styles. Jet Li's best movie is Fist of Legend, a remake of Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection. Jet Li is explosively fast in this movie using a variation of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do.

Good Ol' Jackie Chan is up at number four. Although Jackie Chan is known for his daring stunts and comedic martial arts, he has done some incredible martial arts movies. Jackie Chan's number one martial arts movie is Legend of Drunken Master. Not only is this movie humerous but Chan is fast using a martial art style, Drunken Boxing, that is not common on the big screen making Legend of Drunken Master a diamond in the rough.

Steven Segal... I do not really know what to say here, number five could have been a number of martial artists including Chuck Norris. The reason I picked Steven Segal is that he can move pretty fast and he takes no prisoners. I would not want to tell him to his face that he is not a good martial artist because I value my life. Steven Segal's best movie is Exit Wounds because he teams up with none other than... DMX!