Want to Take Up Martial Arts Again, Please Help

[crzylou]

Can someone give me some advice please. I used to take Ishin Ryu Karate when I was about 12 years old. Right now I am 29, decent shape, I work out with weights 4 to 5 times a week. Cardio about 6 days a week. I am looking to take some form of Martial Arts again. I want to take a style where I can go into tournaments again(obviously with people at my same level.) Any suggestions? I would like a fast moving style. Please help. Thanks!!!

[Fat Donkey]

Definitely Muy Thai or MMA. I took 5 diff MA's before Muy Thai with a traditional master. It rocks! Plenty of hard training, plenty of full contact sparring and plenty of events, at all levels and ages. U can also cross compete in boxing and kickboxing. I'm going to start taking MMA also just so that I can develop the complete package and intergrate all my styles.

[G Money Slick]

Muay Thai is a very athletic and physically demanding sport MA. It's the national sport of Thailand and your basically a thai boxer or a farmer over there.

 

Hapkido is a great self defense and combat style which emphasizes joint locks and pressure point strikes with the hands and feet.

 

Karate is extremely effective as it is the most popular form of MA in the US along with TKD.

[Dijita]

If you want to do full contact martial arts... then go into MT, or Kyokushin Karate. I'm not sure of other full contact Martial arts.

 

If you want to be in a more "traditinal" martial arts environment, then Kyokushin. If you strickly want to learn to fight, and don't want to do things lke Kata's or forms, or self defense... then take MT.

 

I'd suggest more but like I said my knowledge of full contact MA's are limited.

 

Both would be good, and both would be demanding yet fun.

 

PS. I like Kyokushin becaues I don't like getting punched in the face.

[Gumbi]

Fast moving, strong, tournaments, people your level.....

 

I think you'd like either submission wrestling or BJJ. Natrually you're getting biased answers from everyone here.

 

Most strong guys dont like BJJ (fighting with the gi) because they can be more easily controlled than without the gi (submission wrestling). Submission wrestling tournaments are generally divided up according to age (18-29, 30-35, etc) weight (usually every 10 lbs) and then again by experience (less than 6 months, 6 mon-1 year, 1-2 years, 2-5 years, pro). BJJ tournaments have the same divisions, only instead of experience you're divided by your belt level. Its fast, physically demanding, and theres SO much to learn.

 

And if you're worried about whether or not you wrestling in high school/college these competitions take this into account. You cannot fight in divisions where skill level is less than 1 year if you wrestled high school or college. 4 years of wrestling is 4 years of grappling.

[delta1]

I want to take a style where I can go into tournaments again(obviously with people at my same level.) Any suggestions? I would like a fast moving style. Please help. Thanks!!!

 

If there is an American Kenpo school near you, check that out. Make sure the school trains the type of tournament skills you want, though. Some schools teach anything from point sparing to full contact NHB. Others don't do any tournament training. If they do the full contact venue, they'll probably have grappling as well- a good thing whether you want full contact or not.

 

If all you want is the no contact or limmited contact where you want to insure the judges see everything, Tae Kwon Do probably has the advantage, if you find the right school.

 

If you ant to do weapons tournament fighting, try the Fillipino Martial Arts. By far the most fun when actually fighting, but the pain can be intense.

 

I'd give BJJ the edge if all you want to do is NHB, provided you can combine it with a good striking art.

 

Gumbi is right, these answers are biased. But no more so than anyone elses. The bottom line is that the final decision is yours. What interests you? What do you want out of it? What is available in your area? Keep us advised about your search, and ask any specific questions as they come up. We'll all be happy to share our biases some more - but in all of it you'll find some decent advice. Most people here are into helping more than promoting their own style. Good luck!

[Dijita]

Hehe... sorry that my opinion is biased. I wish I could offer more advice but I do not have the knowledge of other styles. I just wanted to share what I like about my style.

 

I suppose I could also tell you about Kuk Sool Won which is a style that I used to do a long time ago, it might be much different then when I used to do it. I enjoyed that as well. Tournements are minimal contact. You wear full protection and are allowed light to medium contact. They also have a lot of variety in their tournements. They have forms, sparring, and self defense. Oh yeah, Kuk Sool Won is very heavy on self defense moves, but they also do a lot of the basic kicks and punches, plus a lot of break falling and forms. One thing I liked about Kuk Sool Won though is the variety of weapons that you learn. One neat weapon is the fan which I never got to learn cause it was for the higher belt levels, but it looks very nice.

 

Anyways, I hope that you find a school that you really enjoy... and I'm sure that this time around you will go the distance.

[delta1]

Dijita, that is what most people here do is talk about what we know, the styles we do or have come in contact with. One thing about this forum, there aren't many people here who try to fit everyone in the same mould. For the most part, we respect what everyone has to say. In the end, it's his decission, based on what he wants and likes. You should give him a link to those Kyokushin clips you posted so he can see that style in action. Who knows, that may be what interests him.

[Dijita]

Links can be found in the following thread:

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=13076