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Notes -
Anybody familiar with Systema? Looks like such a cool martial art.
As Crowstep mentionned, if your goal is min-maxxing fighting ability, then the answer is simple: MMA. Because if anything was found to be better than MMA, it would get integrated into MMA. But you might have a preference for sports, aesthetic, or for something that suits your body better for any reason, that's fine. Whatever the martial art, what matters most is that it trains with relatively free-form sparring against a resisting opponent. Martial arts with a significant sport scene tend to be better about this than most. Be wary of any school that doesn't spar or spars only with and against a heavily restricted moveset, because their techniques are "too deadly". Even if you are maximally charitable and assume that the technique was actually very deadly and actually useful, if you have never practiced it in sparring against a resisting opponent you cannot rely on it in self-defense.
And the likelihood of the maximally charitable scenario is low; you can be certain that people who made a living from knowing how to fight for real in the past found a way to spar to keep their skills sharp and relevant. The traditional martial arts scene was, in the 20th century, invaded by countless frauds, as there are reasonable sounding arguments as to why someone who supposedly knows how to fight might not be able to demonstrate that they, indeed, know how to fight. By now, these countless charlatans have their own "lineage" behind them, so credentialism has failed in that space. A black belt means essentially nothing without knowing what getting it meant.
But for the specifics of Systema, it has a bad reputation. It used to claim it was special forces HaRdCoRe training, but after MMA basically called everyone's bullshit, it seems most Systema schools rebranded themselves as something more soft and semi-meditative like Aikido to avoid the embarassment of admitting how little what they teach is relevant to fighting.
Are there any (effective) strategies that are banned on the basis of risking death or permanent injury? I'm pretty sure MMA has at least a few rules on sportsmanship that might lose in a true Thunderdome competition.
Oh, a bunch. Eye pokes are the big one, there are tons of circumstances where it's optimal to risk your fingers to threaten their eyes. Biting, gouging, small joint locks/breaks, attacking the throat, and using the clothing/hair round out the list. That's pretty much all of them though. If it isn't banned, and isn't done, you can kinda just assume it's not effective at scale. IE any head-kick that you're not already seeing generally doesn't pencil out the risk vs reward of a one shot knockout vs catching a nasty cross or overhand during your recovery.
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