What is the best martial art for a tall person to learn?

When thinking of martial arts, it’s fair to say that certain styles match certain body types. In other words, if you’re short and stocky – you’ll want to play to your strengths and perhaps opt for something like grappling which will work nicely for you. By a similar token, it’s a good idea if you’re tall to mostly avoid grappling. Whilst there may be some good, taller grapplers out there – it’s also true that there are better suited martial arts to pursue if you’re tall and rangy. Specifically, these martial arts are based on distance management and using your long limbs to your advantage.

At the same time, it’s universally accepted that most martial arts can be pursued by most people and size doesn’t matter too much. Of course, there are also some things in life such as height which can be turned into an advantage when it comes to fighting. In other words, there are certain martial arts out there to suit taller people – and these are as follows:

Kickboxing is great for tall people

Kickboxing is great if you’re tall and have long limbs for obvious reasons. The reasons behind these are as follows: firstly you can potentially kick people without getting hit due to distance. Secondly, you also keep distance which plays into your hands and avoids any grappling exchanges. A classic example of a modern day kickboxer was Carlos Condit. Here, he would often keep away from his opponents and wait to strike, literally.

Certain MMA fights were over with a single kick to the head which says it all. Perhaps the best part of this style is that if your reach is significantly longer than your opponent then you can avoid damage. For example, even though BJJ is a great martial art, often it requires taking hits even if you end up winning the fight. This is often the nature of grappling, whereas if you can keep distance whilst picking them off with kicks is a great strategy.

The beauty of kickboxing is that unlike certain other striking martial arts, it also has a big emphasis on regular boxing and adds punches and strikes into the mix as well. Because of this, it’s fairly well rounded as far as pure striking goes.

Taekwondo is great for tall people

Another martial art that is beneficial for taller people is Taekwondo. The Korean art probably has the biggest fascination with kicking out there and is great for those who want to learn how to kick. The benefit of this is that in TKD, a lot of the kicks are done from distance and this is key. Having said this, some particularly flexible Taekwondo practitioners can even land head kicks from a very close range.

This requires great flexibility and is not possible for everyone. Nonetheless, it shows the possibilities of what are available if you work on your flexibility. Taekwondo does have some punches and bits of grappling but like many Korean martial arts is big on kicks. Due to its competitive sports background, TKD is also trained to avoid getting hit which is also pretty useful for self defense purposes.

As well as this, it’s arguably the most flashy looking martial art out there, with a variety of its moves looking straight out of a video game. With stuff like split kicks and spinning roundhouse kicks, this one is not only ideal for those with long limbs, but also for those that want to fight in style and look good at the same time.

Karate is great for tall people

As you may have figured by now, martial arts that involve kicking people are great if you have long limbs. In that sense, Karate is no different. However, Karate is a little different compared to the previous examples. The reason for this is that Karate also involves elements of grappling too. Dependent on what type of Karate you train, they all have different techniques and styles. Basically, whilst all styles of Karate have kicks and punches, some also involve certain takedowns and submissions which may be tempting if you’re into that sort of stuff.

Generally though, due to having a lot in common with TKD, it’s fair to say that Karate is great for those with range and long legs. Often, the main difference between the two though, is that Karate is based less on kicks and is a little more rounded. Similarly, its kicks can be described as a mixture of those used both in TKD and in kickboxing.

Summary

As mentioned earlier, generally grappling based martial arts aren’t ideal for bigger people. In fairness, that doesn’t mean you can’t grapple if you’re tall. The likes of legendary Judoka and Olympic Champion is 6’6 feet tall, whilst BJJ GOAT Roger Gracie is also 6’3 feet tall. Nonetheless, if you look at generalizations, it’s probably better to be stocky as a wrestler or BJJ practitioner as this doesn’t put you at the same disadvantage that being that shape or size would whilst trying Karate or kickboxing.

Similarly, if you train the likes of Hapkido, there are very few advantages to be gained by being taller and even Wing Chun isn’t much better as a lot of the striking is done from a close range, meaning your long limbs cannot be used advantageously. Because of this, the good news is that if you’re tall, you can do practically any martial art going. However, if you really want to capitalize on your size then martial arts that utilize kicks are probably a good place to start.

So, what is best?

One thing that should be added for full disclosure is that sometimes the likes of Taekwondo and Karate can also get a bad reputation compared to conventional kickboxing. The reasons for this is that in some places, TKD and Karate have sadly been watered down and genuine techniques have been replaced for the desire to profit from unscrupulous business owners. Thankfully, this culture isn’t as prevalent in kickboxing so if you do train kickboxing, the chances are you will find a more legitimate gym.

Having said this, you can still find excellent TKD and Karate gyms, so long as you do your research before hand and check out what the classes are to make sure they’re not teaching McDojo nonsense.

In summary, if you’ve got long legs and arms then use them to your advantage by fighting with your reach in mind. With this in mind, you can definitely take advantage of your genetics and look into various kicking-based martial art to make sure that size does matter when thinking about fighting and martial arts.