LOOKING TO START A MARTIAL ART

[italian_guy]

I think that if your main goal is self-defence, I would restrict my choice to MA optimized for self defence. I mean all arts are great but some teach you to defend yourself earlier then others. When you reach black belt level (or let's say after 4-5 years of training) every art is effective but some arts are more efficient and get to the point earlier (and this is payed by losing some other benefits).

My (probably incomplete) list of these arts are:

Muay Thay, JKD, Krav Maga, BJJ, JJJ, Karate (any full contact style), Wing Tsun (if done with full contact sparring).

[Why_Worry]

If you ask me you should try karate (just not a franchise or commercial school). You have to find a good school. The reason is that karate has a philosophical aspect, the defense aspect of it is to maintain control in close quarters. You also learn releases for just about every situation (some of which seem to be to get away from the police ((like the wrist grab from behind)) ) I would recomend Wado Ryu karate because even though all karate class you will most likely eventually learn how to defend against a weapon, wado ryu has alot of moving out of the way so eventually stepping out of the way becomes natural in blocking which could help against say a knife or just about any weapon attack. Although it can take a while to become efficiently good at it, its worth it if you become very good. ALso you will learn skills and talents and things like humility self confidence which is basically you dont need to fight to prove yourself. You have nothing to prove so why fight. It can help you with peacefulness.

Just as a note: I am kind of biased against karate since i practice it.

krav maga is another good one but thats purely self defense, but if what you want is something that can provide you with good self defense fairly quick, you might wnat ot go with that.

I would recomend staying away from most Chinese martial arts for your fourth reason because alot of chinese martial arts are very flower and while amazing to watch and very effect even in close quarters if you master them, you might not have enough room.

[JusticeZero]

4-And which is good in closed areas, such as clubs and bars?

I just wanted to mention something here that I tell to my students.

If you're in a club or bar, it isn't self defense. Self defense means you took at least some reasonable precautions to avoid the situation. Anything you want to learn in order to go to a club or bar with, you want to learn so that you can jump into pointless fights.

[Jay]

The first lesson you may have to learn is patience. If you want thoughful, helpful answers you may have to wait a little while. We can give you opinions, but they don't mean a thing if you can't garner access to the martial art we suggest. They also won't mean anything if the instructor of the martial art we suggest is terrible. You need to follow the advice of White Warlock and start looking around for yourself. Another thing, just because JKD was started by Bruce Lee doesn't make it the best thing on earth. Those schools are restriced by the same laws that govern every other school. For it to be good, it must have a good instructor, a good infrastructure, and willing participants.

my thioughts exactly i think you should pik the rite martial art for you if you like it do it

i didnt pick shotokan becuase i wanted to fight against multiply opponents i did it so i could defend myself if i neded to and i enjoyed it. If you enjoy it do it.

[b3n]

I would always reccommend Kyokushin to anyone looking for a MA.

[y2_sub]

I would always reccommend Kyokushin to anyone looking for a MA.

I'll second that , kyokushin is great for infighting ( closed areas) , kyokushin contain self defense against weapons techniques , kyokushin was developed with street fight in mind and kyokushin is good against multiple opponents , that's what kyokushin offers , it's up to you to train hard and to maintain your nerves in real confrontation .

[Jay]

id agree with that as well

[Pralgo]

AS some mentioned earlier, it isn't only the style, but the school as well Kyokoshin is very good. Master Oyama was a genious.

Goju-Kai (Yamaguchi style Goju-ryu) is a very street oriented art. It is considered the gutter style of GOJU.

If you really want to learn for the street, stay away from any school that has a buch of trophies in the front window. Tournament fighting for points is not the real thing, and will cause bad habits. Tournament fighters are not street fighters. Also stay away from schools, that every color of rank that you can think of.