Warning: This is a stupidly in depth and pointless analysis and the number of self replies required to fit this mess may be disturbing to sensitive viewers. Reader discretion is advised. Also, please reply to the main post directly or things will get... messy...

Some people I hang out with asked me to do a detailed write up on martial arts, their techniques, and who should take them. And because they knew how to work me and flattered my ego, I have been suckered into actually doing it. So here goes.

A primer on martial arts:

Martial arts in SR have a history of being overpowered, lackluster, confusing, and overly simplified. In 4e, martial arts were mostly known for letting assholes like me make SONIC PUNCHUUUUU characters who totally ignored armor with elemental fist and gain insane damage boosts with boxing and critical strike.

In 5e, they lost most of the innate passive benefits and now focus exclusively on their originally lesser used facet, their techniques.

Martial arts in SR are, mechanically, mostly just a collection of techniques that knowledge of the martial art allows you to purchase. You are technically also allowed to buy a martial art as a specialty for specific weapon skills, which provides the specialty bonus when using that martial art's techniques with that skill, but that is, at surface level, their only thematic interaction with skills.

That said, martial artists are still skill defined. Any martial artist can utilize gymnastics to become a fearsome fighter, where as unarmed, blades, clubs, throwing weapons, and firearms of all stripes can also can heavily benefit from martial arts if your character already practices them.

So to really understand martial arts, we first need to look at the techniques, which fall into four broad categories that I totally just made up in order to help people understand what they are getting: Transformative new actions, situational bonuses, specialized new actions, and ­1 penalty reductions.

Transformative new actions are the most important martial art techniques to understand, because they define the builds they are in, and allow you to undertake new actions that you will consistently be using. They aren't necessarily the strongest techniques for every character, but if your character needs one of these they NEED them.

Situational bonuses give significant rewards for specific scenarios, or otherwise reward a normally substandard choice. They often boost damage, or allow you to deal damage when you normally wouldn't be allowed to. Because they often layer onto powerful non­damaging effects, these are some of the best techniques to learn if you are already blasting people down or slicing them up, and almost every serious conventional combatant probably should know one of these abilities. Some of these are Technically new actions, but in reality they just modify the attack with more damage.

New actions are just something I made up to be distinct from transformative new actions. Sue me. They are new things you can do that range from neat to worthless, but aren't things that you tend to define your character around. These actions generally aren't going to be your bread and butter, you can't do these things every turn either because, you now, you need to get stuff done and the action doesn't advance the fight, or because the situation the action is not one you can always preform anyway. These are still good to learn, but unless you have specific needs its best to learn them from a martial art you already want to take for its situational bonus or for its transformative actions.

Finally, there are the penalty negating techniques. These are the least impactful in general, and do very little to actually help your character compared to other things you probably could buy. It's not a total waste to grab these, especially if your already are rank 6, have a specialty, and the penalty is a common thing you are going to do like a vitals called shot, but you should never go into a martial art just to get these.

Now that the totally arbitrary (well, mostly arbitrary) categories have been laid out, lets get to a rundown of the techniques that are worth mentioning. I am not going to go into every little technique, because there are a lot and I am pretty sure that is a fair use violation. I shouldn't need to tell you that grasping vines is utterly not worth your time. I will only mention unusually good techniques, ones with aspects most people miss, or ones that are unusually overrated. Average is average, and bad is bad.

Transformative techniques:

Clinch: Clinch is a game­changer of a technique because it allows you to easily control a target's movement, while also providing extreme penalties to ranged weapon usage in the engagement above and beyond the relatively minor ­3 that close quarters combat provides. Clinch makes being in a knife fight armed with a pistol terrifying, which is the dream of every melee martial artist in SR. You now actually have the advantage in close quarters combat unless you either bomb your clinch roll or your opponent somehow can afford to do a long full auto burst without taking recoil penalties. As a bonus, it sets up perhaps the most transformative technique in the game... Throw: Throw does it all. It functions as a counter­attack, letting you deal damage off turn. But it also allows you to attack, harm, and temporarily disable targets with an attack that doesn't really use strength. You need some amount of strength to throw your opponent, but it's a lot less strength than what you need to be able to strike to kill. This means many PCs who are helpless without a gun and don't have the super­human strength able to rend flesh can easily learn how to toss gangers around the room like rag dolls. The ability to forcefully move your opponent is also nearly unique to this technique, which can either mean nothing, or mean a bonfire or 50 stories downwards worth of something. Even if you can't toss someone in a meat grinder, sometimes out a one story drop is enough to temporarily remove them from a fight, making this technique almost on par with petrify or turn to goo in some situations. Throw in many ways is the martial art technique, it is something worth delving into the system exclusively for, because it suddenly makes people who are very bad at unarmed combat very good at it. If you don't know what technique to take on your unarmed combatant, grab throw and clinch.

Sweep: Sweep does a lot for what seems to be a simple modifier to the knockdown called shot. It controls enemy movement, sets you up for a bonus on your next attack if you move before your opponent, and eats an enemy action at worst and forcibly keeps them on the ground at best. But the biggest change sweep makes is that it allows you to make non­lethal attacks with blades, clubs, and implant weaponry, which can matter a lot at some tables. Suddenly drawing a claymore or your bio­claws when you need to take someone alive isn't the act of a psycho, but probably your best chance at capturing someone, and many Gms like it when people don't leave a body trail. It also forces enemies to stay in close combat with you, and you always should remember that people who are prone need to make a roll to stand up if they are injured, which may outright take someone out of a fight.

Pin: Pin is exclusive to throwing and archery, but it is a doozy of a technique that limits your target's movement (notice a theme?) and boosts your damage. If you are an extremely accurate fighter (and both of these weapon types reward extreme accuracy) you can create a scenario where your target can't help but either remain still or take un­resisted physical damage equal to your net hits. This is no martial art for dabblers, it requires dedication, but it makes your arrows and knives terrifying tools rather than simple alternatives to bullets. And don't forget synergy, check out mono­tipped barbed arrows if you are an archer, and hand grenades if you are into throwing.

Situational bonuses:

Crushing Jaws, Constrictors crush: Subdual combat gets a raw deal in SR, most people don't understand how simple and good it is because of the history of RPGs to run grappling in the most insane unstreamlined way in an attempt to simulate every detail. These techniques make subdual combat more threatening, which matters for beefy troll and ork types. Crushing jaws lets you rip apart drones while you dog pile them, so don't let the fact you don't want to kill people scare you off.

Jiao Di: Generally is a +1 to DV the first time you attack a given target. You almost always charge anyway, right? If you have perfect time (and you should!) it lets you stack up to 5 DV on top of your base attack with a charging pouncing dragon!

Pouncing dragon: If you are an agile ninja parkour type but have insane strength and like causing massive physical harm to people, this is your technique. You ever want to reenact the dive­bomb kills from Assassins Creed, this is how you do it. If you are super­humanly agile and have good gymnastics you can get a lot of mileage out of this.

Kick attack is the Swiss army knife of situational bonuses. +1 reach is generally a +1 bonus to attacking and defending in close combat, so it basically just makes you a better fighter over all. However reach also technically lets you strike further away from yourself, which is helpful. Combos well with bio­claws on the feet.

Monkey Climb: This is pretty much the only technique unique to parkour that is worth taking, as it allows you to very quickly climb around a story and a half without any prep time. While most of the parkour exclusives techniques don't do... anything really, this may really save your bacon.

Knuckle­breaker: Fire­bringer help us! They created a monster! Knuckle­breaker is a terrifying technique that transforms blast out of hands into an “I win” button for many characters who almost never miss anyway. If your shot doesn't kill them, the fact they now are disarmed is going to make all but the most fanatical fighter try to run, surrender, or enter the fetal position.

Ti Khao: If you are going to be using throw, this is just +1 to DV most of the time, and for many martial artists this is still a significant boon to damage if you clinch your target first, which you should do on anyone who is threatening enough to potentially last more than one pass anyway.

Two weapon style attack/defense: These are actually pretty significant buffs, a +2 to defense in close combat isn't anything to laugh at if that shows up a lot in play. A +1 to DV makes monoswords very deadly, and +1 to accuracy helps make up for the loss of your katana. As a bonus, this plays very well with your concealed weapons such as your combat knives.

Flying kick: It has none of the defensive bonuses of kick attack, but provides an extra +1 to your attack roll in exchange for potentially lowering your defense roll. I wouldn't seek it out.

Half sword: This technique is terrible... until you learn Iaijutsu. Then it just flat out becomes +2 to AP for most skilled swordsmen. New actions:

Shadow Block: Shadow­block mostly does two things. It lets you make a kind of half hearted attempt to reduce someone's dodge (not defense, specifically dodge) action, and it lets you stop people from withdrawing from you. It isn't really as good at clinch as the second thing, but it can be useful to do it from surprise or when you want a martial art like parkour instead of one that provides clinch.

Called shot entanglement: Entanglement plays really well with ambidexterity if, and only if, you are allowed to use it with a monowhip. Otherwise, skip.

Counter strike, riposte: Both of these techniques are OK, but suffer from serious over­hype. Especially counter strike. In general, on most dedicated combat characters, your defense pool with a full defense is going to be higher, often much higher, than your agility+weapon skill. Worse, you can't make called shots or other special attacks with the counter attack. And to top things off these cost 7 initiative each meaning you almost always are sacrificing a turn for less than a turn of attack. What these techniques are good at is front­loading your turns if you have more than one turn on your opponent, which may have value in a fight where you want to end things as soon as possible for reasons outside personal threats against you. However in general its almost always better to have more turns after anyone else has acted, than to act more at the start of combat, because it lets you stack a lot of actions on people without ever giving people a chance to react to them. Furthermore, throw exists, which has offensive applications compared to counter strike, and all this depends on your targets attacking you first with a close combat attack anyway!

Finishing move: If you take anything from this guide... take this... This technique is one of the most deceptive, overpriced, over­hyped pieces of garbage in the game. For the price of an entire turn and an edge you get one conditional attack IF your first attack hits with a bonus of +4 against the same target as your first attack. Why would you ever want to do this? Most melee combatants can easily down or disable a target in one hit anyway, and against harder targets your edge is better used to ensure a hit for a disarm or disable rather than wasted on this, as a re­roll is going to be a lot more dice than +4. You can't combine it with many good damage boosts like pouncing dragon or a charge. And it front loads your combat passes at the expense of the ones that will happen later in the turn, which reduces the end of turn smack­down. It is hard to imagine a situation where this maddeningly bad technique is worth it, but because the writing hypes it up so much, people constantly take it because it seems OK It is fluffy, but its so aggressively bad that you have better options even for a pure fluff technique to be an insane bad­ass I recommend haymaker.

Kip up: Getting knocked down in SR happens more than most people think, mostly because people forget the knockdown rules. This will save your bacon if your physical limit is low, and lets you make simple action close combat attacks as well as devastating ambushes when no one really expects it... and combos really well with another technique...

Sacrificial throw: This is like throw, but weirder, and borderline requires you to have kip up to work. It also can only be used defensively, but it almost guarantees you will be tossing anything smaller than a road­master over your shoulder if you use it. Its an amazing technique to use if your turn is coming up, because suddenly your target is down and you hop to your feet and throw an attack out with the opponent prone bonus. Don't learn it before throw, it's not transformative for the builds that need throw, but its a great surprise. Penalty reductions:

Close quarters firearms: This is a situational ­1 penalty reduction for a penalty noted by most theorists of being laughably small in the first place. Most firearms users do not struggle to hit their targets, even with a ­3 to hit. And because the scenario forces you to be in a situation where your opponent chose to engage you, it rarely comes up. While penalty reductions are usually about things you want to happen, this mostly aids you in situations you will work actively to prevent. Too many people see this as the end goal. Its only good in firefight because firefight actively seeks to use firearms in close quarters by stacking penalties on others, and even then its not very good, just an acceptable use of resources.

Called shot reductions: These are mostly meh, but you should consider them after you get the 2­3 things you went into the martial art for. If its a called shot you will almost always be taking, its basically a floating +1 bonus, which isn't half bad for 7 karma. Tricking: Weaponizing the face... any martial art with tricking is one that naturally attracts faces, along with anyone with good intimidation, which is not hard to get with voice mods and tailored pheromones these days. You basically are allowed to convert your attack dice into an assist roll on intimidation dice, and tricking makes that easier. It's not going to be useful in a fight, but pulling a revolver ocelot while threatening people is a good idea. Its not a big bonus, but its the only martial arts technique that overly gives a bonus to social dice, even if its only one tenth of a success on average... Terrible until you finish getting 6 intimidation with a specialty and max charisma, then its the only place to dump 7 karma in for a boost. Don't go into a martial art for this, but keep it in mind. Now that you generally understand the big techniques people go into martial arts for, you can figure out if you really want to learn the martial art you have been eyeing. But it still is worth pointing the martial arts worth keeping an eye on, or that do really weird things, so I will give a brief rundown of the list.

52 blocks: A fantastic martial art for strikers. It doesn't do a lot for people trying to do fancy stuff, besides giving you disarm, but with pouncing dragon, kick attack, and randori (dirty trick) it allows you to leap off buildings to kick people in the genitalia. A top tier art with 4 techniques worth taking.

Aikido: Aikido is weird because it has some great techniques, but no real internal synergy. Throw and counter strike compete in the same action space as a reaction, and without clinch its hard to pull off a throw without subduing your target... but if you subdue them you also want to hold them in a constrictor's crush for that extra damage... its just so confused, but it may be a good secondary for someone who got clinch from a striking martial art somewhere else?

Arnis De Mano: With two weapon attack and defense, this sets up two weapon fighters rather well. Randori Vitals rewards you with extra damage at a reduced penalty, which is also nice. Works well at what it does, a good two weapon fighter martial art for pure damage with absolutely nothing else special.

Bartitsu: With disarm, kick attack, riposte, and sweep, this martial art has a weird internal anti­synergy that encourages you to use lethal weapons with clubs or blades... and requires unarmed for its best feature of disarm. However, disarm and kick on the same martial art is no joke, as kick increases your defense and disarm helps neutralize threats without having to damage them. And if you have good strength or your targets have low physical limit, you can use sweep to get some damage in while knocking people down with unarmed as well. Its overall better than it looks on first blush but probably is mostly going to be a fluff pick that just happens to be good.

Boxing (brawler): Clinch and haymaker are two powerful ways to lay in on people not expecting it, and the called shot shakeup is amazing enough to allow stagger to see consistent use. This is the martial art you take if you wanna grab someone and start punching them for massive damage straight in the initiative score.

Boxing (classic): The sweet science needs to go back to school. This martial art provides you nothing remotely worth your time save for the haymaker technique. I honestly can't see how anyone would think this accurately represented boxing in the fist place... nothing really helps you in the ring save for dime a dozen dodge and block bonuses that are strictly inferior to full defense anyway.

Boxing (swarmer style): almost identical to classic boxing, but worse because it trades out the at least nominally useful defensive boosts for two headed snake. You know, the minor +1 boost to a called shot that most martial arts toss in as an afterthought, to the worst called shot in the game.

Capoeira: This takes the natural synergy faces have with unarmed combat and runs with it in my opinion, but its a solid martial art regardless. Feint is garbage of course, but kip up is good on everyone, kick attack gives you a defensive boost, and sweep lets you hamper your opponent while damaging them. Tricking, along with kip­up, is where this martial art really gets into face territory. While the tricking bonus is minor, it is a trick that doesn't require you to shoot a loud gun, which is nice. But kip up plays insanely well with playing possum, a lesser known run faster action that any face should be aware of. Play dead, then suddenly spring up for a simple action attack on someone with no defense test possible!

Carromeleg: What a mess... Counter attack and riposte on the same art? And Iaijutsu on top, which is OK but doesn't really flow with the rest of the school. Its like it wants to allow you to defend yourself unarmed but also suddenly become armed at any time to defend yourself then. The only noteworthy thing is that shadowblock and imposing stone play alright together, but 3 interrupt actions with no offensive capabilities on one school is a death sentence, even with the magic of stagger in play. Its decent as a bodyguard martial art though, because even if you burn through your own initiative faster than your opponent, you can still negate a lot of harm.

Chakram fighting: With Pin and knuckle­breaker you can seriously mess up people's abilities to defend themselves at all with throwing. Disarm them, keep them from moving, be a sick puppy who gets off on terrorizing now helpless corpsec. Close quarters firearms is OK to get late if you have a ton of karma burning a hole in your pocket and need to hit people outside your fight, but Ti Khao is just a downright weird technique on an art that lacks clinch at all... but if you get clinch, combos alright with close quarters firearms, though most throwing characters also know melee combat anyway... so I don't see the point of a bonus to hit the person you are clinching. Overall a top tier art, especially with double called shots using perfect time.

Drunken boxing: It appears most boxing martial arts are destined to suck, as drunken boxing focuses way too much on feints and reversals, both of which are some of the most worthless actions you can take. Full offense is also the worst variation of the reckless attack possible.

Fiore Dei Liberi: An alternative two weapon school, this trades out the focus on vitals called shots for a focus on riposte. Riposte is going to come up less often, but will deal more damage when it does, and the bonus to called shots from randori is small, which makes this the primary two weapon school.

Firefight: Firefight is a really weird firearm martial art that encourages you to stack massive penalties on your own attacks in order to give an opponent a penalty two worse than yours. That said, in SR you often are vastly superior to your target, and that means firefight can let you render an opponent harmless while also blasting away at them with your superior accuracy. Total gimmick martial art, decide if you want to buy in.

Gun Kata: This is not the martial art to make it so you can slap people with firearms. That martial art doesn't exist, because of how pistol whipping and melee hardening both are non­functional mechanics. This also doesn't work off clubs, it works off unarmed and pistols, which is weird and goes against the thematics... But its really good regardless, due to containing kip up, tricking, and especially stagger. Its not as good as cowboy way, but its great for shooting people in the initiative while looking stylish. Again, a face martial art due to the tricking effects on intimidation, and the kip up maneuvers crossover with playing possum.

Jeet Kune Do: This martial art is for people who want to kick people in the soul, with kick, randori vitals, and counterstrike, you will smash people around in close combat. Do remember you can't called shot someone on a counterstrike however.

Jogo du pau: This basically does almost nothing. Even herding is exemplary in its ability to do way less than throw person. It only has pouncing dragon going for it, and for real, there are better places to get it.

Jujitsu: This is the ultimate martial art. It may not fit every build, but every single technique save for Chin Na is worth taking. It contains the almighty clinch­throw techniques that allow any samurai to go from zero to hero in unarmed combat, as well as sweep and disarm for those who want to go all the way in unarmed combat on top of that. If you don't know what art to take and have gymnastics, strongly consider this.

Karate: This isn't your mall Karate. This is actual Karate. The kind that is all about learning how to hurt people, not how to waste time while your parental unit hangs out and has a day to themselves for once. Sweep allows for deadly implant weapon attacks to be not so deadly, while counter strike and kick help keep you save and dish out hurt. And it has kip up. If you have good strength and want to just get better at your unarmed/implant combat, learn Karate.

Kenjutsu: This only offers Iaijutsu as a serious technique. Don't be distracted by how awesome it would be to say something in Japanese and pull off an Iaijutsu finishing move. It's not allowed and wouldn't be good even if it was mechanically legal.

Knight Errant Tactical: NPC martial art. It offers almost nothing of serious value save for some abilities that make escaping from close combat with you ever so slightly harder. Carromeleg is actively better than this, and Carromeleg is merely OK

Krav Maga: A surprisingly cuddly rendition of this martial art that literally teaches you to gouge out people's eyes and stomp on their genitalia repeatedly when they are already down. This is really good at protecting people, preventing enemies from escaping with clinch, removing their guns, and smacking them a couple of times with Ti khao or constrictor's crush makes this a good art for people who want to hug people to death.

Kunst Des Fechtens: If you have to have riposte and want to cleave people in half with your great sword when leaping from a rooftop, then you can do worse than this art. Do note that until you learn Iaijutsu you should only use half sword when you know it will win you the fight.

Kyujutsu: A truly terrifying art, that contains knuckle­blaster supported by hammer­fist and pin supported by soaring shackles. Even its toss ins, tricking and close quarters firearms are acceptable. It really is an all in one archery package. That lets a bowman just devastate people's abilities to fight back, much like Chakram fighting. La Verdadera Destraza: Listen, there is a reason real historical millitary fencing used two weapons. This martial art provides very little actual benefit to a fencer, only really granting riposte as a powerful technique. The only other rare high impact technique is Ballestara, and that is high impact in the sense that it does nothing but get you killed!

Lone Star Tactical: Like KE tactical, an NPC art that makes you more resistant to weird called shots that are unlikely to frequently come up or actually successfully land on you, rather than helping you, you know, do anything. Muay Thai: Ignore the finishing move! This art has clinch, Ti Khao, and Kick in one art, meaning you can grab someone and start kneeing their face in very easily for tons of damage!

Ninjutsu: Counterstrike is a solid if over­hyped technique, and with both kicks this does let you go on a surprisingly long reached offensive attack. Dirty trick is strong enough to be your standard called shot, and tricking is nice but a weird thematic mix with being a ninja unless you are like... a ninja in Kung Pow or something. Goodish, far from great.

Okichitaw: I know not of what sort of anarchy and chaos could cause an art ​ this so convoluted to pop out of the writing room. Perhaps its a bet by Raven ​ against Chaos to see if how many skills they could fit into one art... So you got sweep, which benefits melee weapons more than anything and can't be used in range. Pin, which only works with throwing and bow weapons, counter strike, which is unarmed only, hard technique for parry, which doesn't work with counter strike and requires a melee weapon, and then shadow block, because we may as well throw gymnastics as a skill too... Seriously... what?

Parkour: Parkour has quite a few exclusive techniques, but only monkey climb is really good unless you have a freakishly low jumping limit, tend to fall an insane amount from weirdly specific heights your armor can't soak, or have way too many jumping dice and for some reason aren't an adept. It is super weird thematically parkour adepts can't actually learn parkour to good effect overall. However, this has monkey climb, which is good in a chase, kip up, and shadow block, which also is good in a chase and has combat potential. Overall verdict is that you should take this if you want monkey climb.

Pentjak­Silat: The only thing special about this martial art is its combination of Jiao­Di and Charge. If you want to scream at the top of your lungs surging towards your foes in order to stab at their hearts, and I know you do, this is an OK way to do it.

Quarterstaff fighting: With sweep and stagger this is an OK fluffy combination that lets you thwap people in the initiative while they are down, but its not really anything to write home, or to reddit, about.

Sangre Y Acero: The fighting pits of Aztlan WOULD be the only place where making a finishing move purely to look cool is a good idea. Clinch is of course, amazing, and combos well with pouncing dragon. Crushing Jaws is weird thematically as nominally everyone fighting in the pits has cyberweapons already to stab each other lethally with, but I guess you need to tear off a head somehow. And tricking is nice for intimidating the rest of your opponents after ripping off said head.

Tae Kwon Do: A personal favorite of mine due to its combination of kick, sweep, flying kick, and counterstrike. Its in most ways worse than karate, due to lacking kip up, but its still perfectly serviceable and good if you have a soul and enjoy things for the purpose of enjoying them.

The Cowboy Way: Praise be to Firebringer you can now gun down everyone ​ forever. Entanglement may be amazing or terrible depending on if your able ​ to use a monowhip with it, but the real draw is the combo of stagger and knuckle­breaker for blast out of hands. With this combo you can shoot people's guns out of their hand, and shoot the time out of their soul. So they are trapped in high noon... forever. With special ammo that initiative loss easily could be a full pass. Possibly the best shooter martial art. Oh... and Haymaker is good too, if you happen to know how to punch.

Turkish Archery: Weirdly both great and terrible, simply because Kyujutsu exists. Close quarters defense against firearms is super strange for what is normally a sniper's weapon, and Hammer­fist is a much smaller boost to blast out of hands than knuckle­breaker is. Silken storm is pretty bad for something that has so many fantastic non­lethal options as well, forget about the fact that for 90% of weapons sweep is better anyway.

Whip Fighting: Entanglement has to work with monowhips, right? Even if it did, this is still a really bad martial art to get it from. Why tame a lion when you can shout at people that it is almost 12 PM? Almost nothing to be gained cowboy way doesn't do better.

Wildcat: Ignoring the finishing move, the Ti Khao Clinch combo is there, but it gives up the value of kick from Muay Thai for counter strike, which is a questionable trade.

Wrestling (Sport style): With clinch, throw, and sweep, this competes with Jujitsu for being amazing, but it gives up sacrificial throw for a bonus to knock down attacks and to subdual. Better for higher str characters who want to focus more on smacking people than tossing them, but Jujitsu beats it out for low strength ones.

Wrestling (Sumo): Offering almost nothing not better obtained somewhere else, Sumo still has throw person and clinch, so its not the end of the world if you take it for fluff reasons on a weak gymnastics character... but... seriously, what is their story?

Wrestling (Professional style): This is a weird martial art filled with great techniques that have the flavor of synergy without being quite all there. Clinch is nice, but has no combo with sacrificial throw. Jiao Di is great but feels out of place as well. But it has tricking, and you may need it as part of a backstory. Its just... not good though.

Wrestling (MMA style): Kick, clinch, and pouncing dragon round out this style for devastating smack­downs, but unlike its other clinch­smackdown arts, this also brings subdual combat to the table. This is a great martial art for unarmed and bio­weapon duelists Wudang Sword: Ballestra and finishing move? Wudang you spoil me. Hammer fist lacks its best complement, and flying kick serves no real purpose in a martial art that utilizes blades.

Closing words:

Understand what you are good at. Too many people want to play low strength characters but still utilize striking martial arts, and are upset when people caution against this tactic. But its important to remember that you are going up against mostly armored opponents with firearms, and in real life the average person in that scenario would be better off attempting to disarm or disable such an opponent rather than knock them out with a single strike, which is essentially impossible if you aren't superhuman.

You can still be a close combat bad­ass while being weak, but you need to accept that you won't be doing awesome chain punches, you will be fighting like a real modern martial artist who wants to use a practical, realistic martial art to survive and defeat people trying to hurt them, or you will be playing a deluded idiot who has watched too many trideos about teenagers with attitude in shiny spandex suits who is going to get seriously hurt one day.

Low strength characters benefit from techniques that don't key off of strength directly to disable an opponent, or at all, such as throw, and to a lesser extent subduing, disarm, and knockdown.

If you want to strike, stab, or clobber in the 2070's, you need to be superhuman or going up against truly destitute opponents unable to afford easily available firearms and armor. Remember, guns are common enough to be marketed now towards children, and almost everyone goes outside in at least armored clothing. If your strike can't beat a light pistol someone bought for 200 nuyen you need to reconsider your tactics. Also remember that unarmed martial arts don't end at open palm techniques. The name of the skill is misleading, and can include weapons like knuckles, steel toe boots, and even cyber and bio­weapons such as claws and spurs. Nothing much is more terrifying than a master of Tae Kwon Do with razor feet and super human strength kicking someone from 4 meters away on a flying kick. Take any advantage you can.

Finally, for melee martial artists especially, remember many skills, items, and abilities indirectly play into your martial arts and make them better. Kip up works great with con tests to play dead, where as stealth and gymnastics allow a melee character to more easily move close to their foes and, in return, melee is silent for those ninja types. And not much helps win a fist fight more than having ultrasound in your mask and firing off thermal smoke.