Thuggish

forget karate, if its like most if not all schools you wont learn a whole lot of self defense. jiujitsu would be better, its for real fights on the street... and its grappling! if you can finda good bjj, do that.

okay, those fancy looking moves youre talking about- lets just say none of them work. what works is hard punching, kicking, elbowing, kneeing, tackling, bone breaking, etc. what you want to do is something like boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, bjj. grappling is really what id recommend for your situation, especially with your strong build. bjj would be great for ground fighting, and is one of if not the best real martial art (meaning actually useful on the street.) but boxing would be better if you have a really bad back like you said. if you really want to fight, do something hardcore like that- thats what will help you. you should not however go out looking for a fight, because you will get hurt. try to get away. and definitely contact some sort of authorities like luckyboxer said, you dont have to put up with that *. good luck.

i agree. most 'martial arts' have little to do with actual fighting, at least karate and tkd and kung fu and all that junk.

do BJJ

no such thing, youre like old women...

what are you kidding me? the ninjas and the samurai were never associated with one another, they were against one another. and to be a 'ninja' didnt mean you were even a warrior, it was an entire group of people.

i dont like gis, i prefer shorts and a t-shirt or wife beater or something

yea, and they occur in the stomache area, not the groin area.

thats a symptom, especially if it happens when youre not doing anything. go see doctor now!

sounds like a groin pull to me, but hernias are stomache things, not groin things. go really easy on it for a while.

you show me a tkd place that teaches you to fight better than a muay thai place, and ill show you one crappy * muay thai place. i say do it.

experience

sounds like anyone at that school can kick a tkd dudes *. i say go for it.

let me put it this way- boxers, and maybe kickboxers are the hardest hitters in the world. no one punches harder than them. they get that way by lifting weights and hitting a heavy bag.

i dunno it was whatever style kung fu- if you ask me all that stuff (karate, wing chun, tkd, etc) sucks and its0"fighting" and training has little basis in reality.

first, ignore that thing i just havent gotten around to changing it- and yea i did for a little while and was not impressed.

devilwhatever is right- for strength you need weights, if you want endurance you can train with weights as well, just do it differently. personally, i use weights for strength and my training for endurance, i.e. bagwork for half an hour or something.

couldnt say for TJJ, but a good BJJ school will teach you to fight on the street, and even take boxers and the likes if youre good enough.

tell your parents that less injuries occur in boxing than in other sports such as football, basketball (youd be amazed at the ankle injuries from jumping and landing)- yes youll get hit and all that, but the gear you wear and the nature of the sport is less dangerous than it would appear to people like your folks.

first of all, you do need to practice punching to get good at punching, so get a heavy bag. second, if you want power behind it, do weights. chest specifically, some sort of bench, with a barbell or dumbells really depends on you, cables can also build your chest huge... what you respond to etc. really depends on your body so youll have to find out yourself. do, however, use weights, pushups arent going to build muscle like weights will. but dont neglect the rest of the body, from legs to back to abs- it all matters, so you should do a full body routine.

at least old enough to know how to talk.

hell yea cups are required just like gloves are. and though its in different threads- yea, in san shou takedowns are where you get your points (at least in american san shou fights.) thats the biggest difference between it and muay thai.

didnt see the fight... but tko'd in the second round? didnt see that one coming....

shakespeare said 'kill all the lawyers' but i say get rid of all religions.

however you want to define it- today (meaning in the present) if you do "wushu" it means youre a gymnist acrobat typa person who does flashy cool stuff for movies, and nothign to do with real fighting.