EpicMasterpiece

Hey everyone, I'm completely unpracticed in martial arts but have always wanted to learn, I now am finally in a position where I can afford the time and the cost to do so, but now I'm faced with the ultimate dillema: What to learn. From what I have found there are 2 primary styles of karate taugh in my area: Kempo and Ryukyu, and Shotokan a little out of my way. And I of course want to find the best fit for me, or atleast a good opinion on where to start. Now my reasons for wanting to learn are for discipline, to form a stronger body, and of course to defend myself. Now recently I was in a fight with a guy of equal size and shape and won by dodging a punch and cracking the guy in the side of the skull. What concerned me the most after the fight was the lack of any kind of form, it was very all over the place. I also ended up hurting my arm a little bit, possibly a hairline fracture, so I want to strengthen that Also I want to learn to control my power effectively, see when I hit the guy it knocked him out for about a minute, and the whole time I was freaking out that I had really hurt the guy. Now of course I want a style thats powerful when needed but has alternative methods to end a fight.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to narrow down the different styles available in my area to see which would suit me better on a general level before I got check out any schools. Now my reasons for wanting to learn martial arts are for the discipline, the strength training, and the self defense aspect. Now kung fu has always appealed to me and theres one school in my area that is highly respected. I always found Kung Fu interesting becaue of the spiritual aspect, the incredible discipline (especially those of the actual Shao Lin monks) and the flow of it all. Now I've seen several videos of friendly challenges from Kung Fu schools to karate schools, and in most the karate student seems to come out the winner. Basically the kung fu student would set up an elaborate punch or something and the karate student would just strike before the kung fu student could make a hit. Karate seems like a well rounded discipline keeping kicks and punches in good balance. Also I have a fairly large powerful build that seems would be more suitable to karate as opposed to the flexability that kung fu would require. Tae Kwon Do would be my last choice, as I usually prefer to stay towards the Chinese and Japanese martial arts, and I know that Tae Kwon Do focuses alot of kicking. Anyone have an opinion or advice?

Ok I do not have to time nor the money to regularly go to martial arts classes, so I'm looking for other ways. I was thinking about using Gichin Funakoshi's line of Karate-Do books. I know I would be missing the benefits of having a learned instructor but could I get a good grasp and be able to defend myself with frequent practice and exercise?

Thanks for giving an even better synopsis

Ok, Just all of a sudden I started stretching to try to be able to do the splits, Every mourning and night I've been doing the stretch for 30 seconds, but am thinking of bringing it up to a minute or more. Does this sound like a good plan?

OK first off I want to say that on this program I lost 25 pounds in 10 weeks, and still have two more weeks to go. It's all in a book called Body for Life, I don't remember the author's name I think its Brian something, but they have it at almost every bookstore in the fitness section. The program is 12 weeks in length. Rather than eating 3 large meals a day, you instead eat 6 small meals. It's rather ackward but you'll get used to it and you won't be as hungry as before. Now it requires that you excercise 6 days a week. One day you do and aerobic exercise like running for 20 minutes. (I like to run, and play Dance Dance Revolution) But rather than running for 20 minutes straight, there are intensity levels, so say your running you walk for 1 minute, then every minute bring it up a step, once you get a few steps up you go back to the first level, and walk again, then you just repeat until the 20 minutes is up. Then the next day lower-body weight-training, then the next day aerobics, then the next day upper-body weight-training. But one of the coolest things is you get an Off-Day, a day with no exercise, and you can eat what ever you want. With this program I lost 25 lbs and my brother lost even more because I didn't try as hard as I probably could have. So I thought I would spread the word. Also the book is a real quick read.

Ok I have desided that Kung Fu is the way to go. There are only two kung fu schools nearby, one teaches traditional shao-lin and the other teaches Bak Fu Pai (White Tiger) kung fu. My question is what are the differences and which is more effective? Thanks in advance.