Violence in society is pandemic.

Geoff Thompson wrote in 2010  

Violence in society is pandemic: punch ups, muggings and even fatalities are frighteningly common in a society that is bulging at the waist with unsolicited assaults. Due to astonishing growth-rate of violent crime in Britain, skills in self-defence are almost a pre-requisite if you want to get from the cinema to the Chinese and home again in one piece. 

But what is self-defense?
And does the martial art that you are taught in the dojo or gym and sold through the media, magazines etc. really work when the mat is concrete, uneven and your opponent does not know the rules?
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One of the many things I have learned in my forty years of martial arts training, from working with masters and from following the deity of my own experience hard won is that self defence and martial arts are not the same thing.

 Sport MA and self defence are not the same thing either. 

And recreational training – twice a week at the local sports hall – certainly does not constitute a serious investment in real self protection.
When people talk about  martial art they think that they are automatically talking self defence, but they are not. And when they talk self defence they believe that it is synonymous with martial art. Again, it is not. The two are very different, and they should be separated and taught as such.
There is nothing wrong with sport martial art, and recreational training, is better than no training at all. 

But if people are ever to survive a violent encounter on the pavement arena, it is imperative that they learn to distinguish between the two.