6 Best Martial Arts For Women To Learn

There is a whole host of reasons why a woman might be interested in martial arts.

It could be for the significant health benefits that come with taking up such a physical and demanding sport. Perhaps it is because it is a fairly social sport, that enables you to form close personal relationships with others.

Maybe it’s because you are looking to master the form of discipline and determination that is vital to master a martial art.

You might be trying to learn and test your limits, or even build more confidence within yourself. It could be that the sport has just always appealed to you and you cannot wait to gain new knowledge and master a brand new skill.

But more often than not, when you ask any woman why they are interested in taking up martial arts, it is because they want to learn to defend themselves against any potential danger.

Now, more than ever, society continues to become more and more dangerous and perilous for women, and having the knowledge of self-defense could be the difference between life and death.

And while there is certainly an element of attacking in the sport, it predominantly promotes self-defense.

Regardless of your reasoning though, you are here, reading this article because you want to learn more about martial arts and which martial arts would be best for you.

Throughout this article, we’ll go over some of the best martial arts for women to learn (see also ‘What Martial Arts Did Batman Learn?‘). So, let’s get straight to it.

Six Best Martial Arts For Women

1.   Krav Maga

Krav Maga is a martial art that uses a combat style. It’s a very popular martial art and is even still used within some military to this day.

So you can be sure that it is effective. Since this is a military combat style, the whole sport is designed around identifying life-threatening and incredibly dangerous situations.

This will give individuals the highest rate of survival in a warzone considering they are prepared for whatever may be thrown at them.

Because this art is more geared toward genuine life-or-death situations, it’s much more applicable to the real world.

The ugly side of our species – the violence, the cruelty, the destructiveness. This is no mere skill to learn to compete and showcase, it’s to protect you from life’s dangers.

This is why you’ll find there aren’t loads of illegal moves in Krav Maga. It is meant to bring you to a point where if you come across an aggressor determined to inflict pain and suffering, you would have the overall advantage against them.

However, it is very important to ensure that you are learning in a legitimate school or class for this martial art.

2.   MMA

MMA is arguably the newest and most modern option on the block in terms of martial arts. If you are looking for an overall skill set that MMA will work very well.

This is because it is regarded as almost a hybrid of martial arts, picking out random snippets of many different martial arts and cohesively bringing them together to create its very own style.

Rather than being a master of one martial art skill set, you’ll be somewhat of a jack of all trades, knowing how to successfully execute different moves from a wide variety of the arts. You’ll learn grappling, striking, ground game and so much more.

This option works really well for women as it means that you are pretty much prepared for any type of combat situation that could arise. And this will make you a much more effective and sufficient fighter.

3.   Judo

Judo is a long-standing martial art that has been practiced for well over 100 years. It is readily available for anyone who would like to pursue it and it is definitely one of the most popular options in the martial art world (see also ‘What Is The Oldest Martial Art In The World?‘).

The art focuses primarily on grappling and throws. It’s all about being able to use your momentum to destabilize your opponent and throwing and pinning them to the ground.

And as you can imagine, that is always a handy skill to have if you are ever walking home alone in the dark.

Another reason why many women will take up Judo is because most violent crimes that happen to women happen in close quarters. The female is often closed in by their attacker, leaving them with nowhere to escape.

A lot of martial arts are more effective from a little more distance or range between the victim and the attacker, but Judo does work for close-range striking.

If you think about it when an attacker is that close to the victim, it is when the victim is in the most danger. So it is a great option for women to learn how to defend themselves when striking is no longer a possibility but defense is imperative.

Judo moves will also work on opponents that are much larger than you which can make it an ideal skill for women to learn.

4.   Muay Thai (Kickboxing)

Now, you’ll hear many naysayers telling you that Muay Thai is way too rough for girls. But I don’t like being told what I can or cannot do by anyone. And isn’t that literally the entire point?

An attacker on the street is not going to take it easy on you because you are a woman.

Likely they are targeting you because they think that you are weak and easy to overpower. But that won’t be the case if you put yourself through the paces of Muay Thai.

I won’t lie, learning Muay Thai as a woman can be difficult, especially because it relies quite a lot on physical strength. But you will learn how to control and use all of your limbs in a way that can make you deadly to an attacker.

If you are up to the challenge of earning a very brutal and violent fighting skill then Muay Thai will be the option for you.

5.   Jiu-Jitsu

Jiu-Jitsu is a very popular martial art that gets a lot of hype that is fully deserved.

This is because there is such a focus on overcoming your opponent even when they are bigger or more powerful than you. And for women, this will often be the case, so it is a very useful self-defense skill to learn.

The only main issue with Jiu-Jitsu, which means it finds itself at the lower end of the list, is that a lot of the techniques involve finding yourself on the ground with your opponent.

And while there are ways to outperform bigger and stronger opponents, finding yourself on the ground fighting with an aggressive opponent in the real world does not bode well.

Despite this though, it is still a great skill to learn and you still never know when it may come in handy and save you from a potentially perilous situation.

6.   Karate

Everyone has heard of this martial art, it is incredibly popular and actually acts pretty good for a solid foundation to self-defense.

You may hear people say that it is somewhat lacking in certain skills, and this can be true, however, it does focus on strong attacks of both the arms and legs and this information can be invaluable to learn.

There are many different forms of Karate that can be learned, but all serve the common purpose of teaching you how to strike hard and fast. And these strikes can be the one thing that disables your attacker and thus keeps you safe or saves your life.

It takes last place on my list, though, not because it’s not effective. Because it definitely is. But rather, that for women who want to learn how to protect themselves, there are just other martial art forms that are simply much more effective.

Final Thoughts

There are many different martial arts, and you will learn so much from whichever skill you decide you would like to master.

And really, there is no wrong choice. If you like the look of a particular martial art sport, then sign up and see how you find it.

However, if you are looking to become better in self-defense as a woman, there are considerations to be made.

For example, Krav Maga is definitely going to help you prepare for real-life situations and will most likely be the most effective option.

Whereas something such as Jui-Jitsu might not be as applicable to real-life situations. But any martial art is going to keep you more prepared, and more of a threat to any attacker than not learning anything at all.

And if you’re not looking for self-defense skills as such and are just looking for a new sport that will be fun to learn, then the world is your oyster.

All of these sports will have great health benefits and are fun to practive too.