new to MA

[Rateh]

Do you live in salt lake city or in a surrounding city?

[ninjanurse]

Good discussion...moving to "Getting Started" forum to continue there.

[sperki]

Ninja Nurse, Sorry to put this in the wrong place, clearly I didn't read all of the the categories very well! Thanks for moving it.

Rateh - Yep, I'm in SLC; any good recommendations?

[bushido_man96]

Definitely expand your search, but not just because you think your body type might be whatever. Maybe there's a great Karate school in your area - or maybe all the Karate in your area is, because of random chance, horrible, but there's some amazingly capable Kung Fu teacher near you or something. Look into everything, you never know what sort of gems you might uncover.

I'll second this advise here. Make sure to look into whatever is available to you. Go for what you think will be most beneficial to you, and which you will likely enjoy the most. If it isn't fun for you, then it may not be worth doing.

Good luck, and welcome to the Forums.

[sperki]

Is there a good way to find good schools? The phone book includes all of the strip mall dojos, but it seems like some of the best places are a bit more hidden.

[JusticeZero]

Keep digging until you find a really good place.

Personally, I find my most effective methods to be...

1: Get off your duff and look for signs: Martial Art studios have a low return rate, so you usually find them in somewhat off the main drag spots. If you vary your trips as you travel the city, and keep your eyes out for things like hand painted signs on windows or whatnot, you often find a number of places that aren't in the phone book.

2: Look for art lists: When it's not something like TKD, there are often websites and lists that the community have put up that list some of the places to study. There's one of those for my art; most of the schools listed are defunct, but mine is on it. NONE of those appear on the phone book.

3: Play and ask: One scholar who studies martial arts stated that the technique they had found works best for them when entering a village where they suspected there was some exotic local martial art was to go into some open public place with moderate traffic and start doing forms and sparring. Sooner or later, someone would walk up to them saying "Hey, my uncle teaches some stuff kind've like that..." and a conversation or two later, they were off to talk to some key player in the local martial arts scene. I know that whenever -I- spend time practicing in, say, a park or a well trafficked parking lot or whatever, people walk up to me and start talking and I find out about any number of exotic martial art schools I wasn't aware of. Just be open minded and genuinely interested; sometimes your introduction will sound more like dismissiveness toward what you are practicing, such as a grappling artist sneering about how your stuff wouldn't work in a 'real fight' or whatever - but that might be because they know a really good Sombo school or something of the sort that you wouldn't have known of otherwise, and they just haven't learned enough to be open minded themselves, yet. If you don't find anything on a given day, at least you've gotten to work out some.

I remember that once there was a poster on here from this tiny town in Alaska, out of commuting range of the bigger cities. Their town had -one- martial arts studio, and it wasn't TKD or Karate, but rather some rare Vietnamese style. You really never know what sort of mix is around.

Edited April 21, 2009 by JusticeZero

[Rateh]

Ninja Nurse, Sorry to put this in the wrong place, clearly I didn't read all of the the categories very well! Thanks for moving it.

Rateh - Yep, I'm in SLC; any good recommendations?

Well, I haven't actually looked at this place, but I was considering adding it to my taekwondo training, after september.

http://www.arrowheadkenpo.com/why-train-here/

It's a kenpo school, that is only for adults.

[white owl]

I agree with justicezero there is a lot of good karate school that do not advertise and are not in the phone books, so you have to look around and ask around.

[bushido_man96]

3: Play and ask: One scholar who studies martial arts stated that the technique they had found works best for them when entering a village where they suspected there was some exotic local martial art was to go into some open public place with moderate traffic and start doing forms and sparring. Sooner or later, someone would walk up to them saying "Hey, my uncle teaches some stuff kind've like that..." and a conversation or two later, they were off to talk to some key player in the local martial arts scene. I know that whenever -I- spend time practicing in, say, a park or a well trafficked parking lot or whatever, people walk up to me and start talking and I find out about any number of exotic martial art schools I wasn't aware of. Just be open minded and genuinely interested; sometimes your introduction will sound more like dismissiveness toward what you are practicing, such as a grappling artist sneering about how your stuff wouldn't work in a 'real fight' or whatever - but that might be because they know a really good Sombo school or something of the sort that you wouldn't have known of otherwise, and they just haven't learned enough to be open minded themselves, yet. If you don't find anything on a given day, at least you've gotten to work out some.

That is a very good idea. It seems unorthodox, but it would get people to talking about it. Excellent suggestion. Just be careful about drawing the wrong kind of attention to yourself.

[sperki]

Yea, the play and ask idea is interesting, and I've seen people doing kata in a couple of local parks. Of course that would require me to remember more than just a front snap kick or an overhead block...at least I think it would be more effective if I was actually doing something.