Starting my glorious journey into martial arts

[Praesul]

Makes it sound nice, doesn't it?

Anyways these first few paragraphs are just a dumb little story of why I got interested in martial arts, feel free to skip this and go to the most important part of this thread, my question (Which you will notice because of the LOUD BLACK BOLD TEXT )

Anyways, sometime last year a friend of mine became interested in MMA fighting. He's not a fighter himself, just a big fan. And of course, somehow, somewhere along the way he managed to rope me in and then I got hooked too.

So this friend decided to start taking Muay Thai and BJJ lessons, and he wanted me to take some with him. I thought, why not? I need to get in shape, and it wouldn't hurt knowing how to defend myself, right?

Fast forward a bit to this year, and neither of us has started. Problems have popped up that have kept us from going at it, but now I think we're both fed up with waiting. I've decided I want to learn Judo as my first martial art, and I've looked for places in Las Vegas and as far as I knew there was only one place in Vegas that taught Judo. Fortunately I got in contact with some guy training for MMA fights and he recommended to me another place that teaches Judo, Team Mica jiu-jitsu. Apparently the instructor there has national Judo champs training under him. I haven't confirmed that for myself, but seeing as how Team Mica seems like it's MMA oriented it doesn't seem like a bad place to learn Judo, right?

I gave the instructor a call, he told me their location, and he told me they offer the first two weeks of classes for free, which I thought was great, you know, to give me time to see if it's what I really want to do. I'm going down there tomorrow to observe and see how it works there, get all the info I need and whatnot. I'm pretty sure that's the place I'm going to go with, though.

And now, on to my Karate question

I plan (keyword: plan) on sticking with Judo for good and never giving it up, but eventually I'd like to learn other martial arts too! I've decided that Karate will be the second martial art I want to learn. Here is where the problem arises.

I specifically want to learn Kyokushin Karate. Unfortunately there are no places here in Vegas that teach Kyokushin Karate. Should I go with a different style of Karate because I can't find a good place for Kyokushin or what? And if I DO eventually find a place that teaches it, I would have no experience on how to train in two martial arts. How do you go about it? Concentrating on both simultaneously, or separately? If that makes sense.

Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though.

Sorry for this post being a bit wordy. I don't particularly know too many people who have any experience with martial arts so this is one of the only places I have to go where I could get input.

[Kuma]

http://www.desertwindmartialarts.com/index.html

Kyokushin in Vegas.

Striking Unlimited in LV is another good option. Ken Hahn has a strong Enshin background.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Kuma

[Praesul]

Thanks, but as far as I know they don't offer Kyokushin anymore, they used to. Now they only teach Aikido.

[Kuma]

Give them a call, they might be able to send you in the right direction for someone else who doesn't advertise. That's how I found my instructor.

[Praesul]

Alright, I will. Hopefully I'll luck out and be able to take both Judo and Kyokushin without leaving the comfort of my state, eh?

[Patrick]

Welcome to our community, Praesul.