Help me chose...

[CincoDeMayo]

I'm thinking of starting with some kind of martial art when the next training semester starts, but I'm having a hard time deciding what I should start with. Help me chose the most exciting, fun style to practice and perhaps also compete in as time progresses.

The styles I have to chose from are

Boxing
Brazilian Ju-Jutsu
Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu
Judo
Kyukushinkai Karate
MMA (not really one style, but whatever)
Taekwondo
Taido
Muay Thai

Now gimme your pros and cons with every style, I wanna know everything there is to know about the way they train, spar, eat, everything. It's great if you have practiced any of the styles and can tell me some more about it from your own point of view, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Do Muay Thai, that shit is badass. in Thailand they train by kicking trees. Watch the movie Ong-bak to get a taste of what the best are like.

 

[THEMILKMAN]

Not Tae Kwon Do, I took it for almost 2 years and what a rip-off. Most of the schools only care about your money not the quality of their education. However, it may be different if you could find an authentic school rather then one of those many crappy "Americanized" ones.

 

[Ambi]

I'd do mixed martial arts, I like to be well rounded.

 

[JRShield]

Bujinkan, the best of all Japanese martial arts.

 

[Vampire cat]

Which ever teaches you to run up walls and deflect bullets with your hands =3.

 

[MrNickster]

Boxing-I never found boxing to be very interesting (I only tried it twice though) and don't know much ab out it, so I'll skip over that

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu/Judo-I do Judo and it's very fun to do. Armbars, chokes, throws-all that good stuff. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is almost exactly like Judo, but with almost all the throws removed.

MMA-When people advertise 'MMA' it usually means Muay Thai or another kickboxing style with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu groundwork. If it's at a good price, go with that.

Taekwondo-I do Taekwondo as well. It can be a lot of fun to have a good full contact spar and learn the incredibly inpractical but undeniably awesome flying kicks, but be wary of McDojo's. Taekwondo is the most popular martial art in the world and it attracts a lot of people who teach their students nothing valuable and charge ridiculous prices.

I don't know anything about the others.

 

[Dark2003]

Boxing. good all around upper body strength which renders your legs weak to attack
Judo. good defensive style never seen much offense with this style, mostly throws parrys
Karate. you can take it more then, and give out much more then him
Taekwondo. strong kick supported by punches which are soon followed by strong kicks
Muay thai. very powerful style this one, which can attack with knees and elbows, but highly risky, since you could possibly damaged your joints

those are my impression of the style i've faced, sorry i only know what I can tell you from being an opponent of these styles

 

[Continuity]

get thee some Wushu *****.

Chinese > all other martial arts.

Period.

 

[MrNickster]

get thee some Wushu *****.

Chinese > all other martial arts.

Period.

Translation-I practice a Chinese martial art

 

[Evil the White]

Judo. It's fun to learn and quite easy to get into the competitive side, because competitions generally are a part of advancement for most dojos. It also helps you learn to adapt to situations and play your strengths more than other martial arts. If you have experiance with another martial art as well, like karate, then it helps you to be able to be a more rounded fighter in case you need to defend yourself.

However, I will warn you now that, as with all martial arts, you need to find a good dojo otherwise it's all for nought. And you're probably going to get hurt from bad landings ever now and again, but getting injured is a risk in any martial art. Plus, if there's no-one about your size to practice basic techique on, then it's harder to learn the throws properly, but shouldn't stop you if you care that much.

 

[CincoDeMayo]

Judo. It's fun to learn and quite easy to get into the competitive side, because competitions generally are a part of advancement for most dojos. It also helps you learn to adapt to situations and play your strengths more than other martial arts. If you have experiance with another martial art as well, like karate, then it helps you to be able to be a more rounded fighter in case you need to defend yourself.

However, I will warn you now that, as with all martial arts, you need to find a good dojo otherwise it's all for nought. And you're probably going to get hurt from bad landings ever now and again, but getting injured is a risk in any martial art. Plus, if there's no-one about your size to practice basic techique on, then it's harder to learn the throws properly, but shouldn't stop you if you care that much.

Would you mind filling me in on this: does Judo and Brazilian Ju-Jutsu have a lot in common, or would the two styles rather compensate each other? I know that both are ground fighting styles, but how far does Judo go compared to BJJ and vice versa?

It's funny that you mentioned Karate, because I used to practice Kyukushinkai in my earlier years, I did some 8 advancements before I quit.

 

[Akalistos]

I'm thinking of starting with some kind of martial art when the next training semester starts, but I'm having a hard time deciding what I should start with. Help me chose the most exciting, fun style to practice and perhaps also compete in as time progresses.

The styles I have to chose from are

Boxing
Brazilian Ju-Jutsu
Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu
Judo
Kyukushinkai Karate
MMA (not really one style, but whatever)
Taekwondo
Taido
Muay Thai

Now gimme your pros and cons with every style, I wanna know everything there is to know about the way they train, spar, eat, everything. It's great if you have practiced any of the styles and can tell me some more about it from your own point of view, I'd love to hear it.

Wing Chun... It was taught to Bruce Lee at the age of 13 and from that he developed Jeet-Kun-do, his famous martial arts style. Also, his master Yip Man was one of the biggest badass of Hong-Kong.

Wing Chun
See also: History of Wing Chun

The largest influence on Lee's martial arts development was his study of Wing Chun. Lee began training in Wing Chun at the age of 13 under the Wing Chun teacher Yip Man in 1954. Yip's regular classes generally consisted of the forms practice, chi sao (trapping hands) drills, wooden dummy techniques, and free-sparring.[19] There was no set pattern to the classes.[19] Yip tried to keep his students from fighting in the street gangs of Hong Kong by encouraging them to fight in organized competitions.[20]

After a year into his Wing Chun training, most of Yip Man's other students refused to train with Lee after they learnt of his ancestry (his mother was of half-German ancestry) as the Chinese generally were against teaching their martial arts techniques to non-Asians.[21] Lee's sparring partner, Hawkins Cheung states, "Probably fewer than six people in the whole Wing Chun clan were personally taught, or even partly taught, by Yip Man."[22] However, Lee showed a keen interest in Wing Chun, and continued to train privately with William Cheung and Wong Shun Leung in 1955.

As for Yip-man, there are movies around to see for yourself.

 

[Withall]

Aikido. Ultimate defensive martial art. You shouldn't have to attack. If someone attacks you, and you can defeat him by essentially lifting him away, he'll probably come to his senses pretty quick.

 

[CincoDeMayo]

Aikido. Ultimate defensive martial art. You shouldn't have to attack. If someone attacks you, and you can defeat him by essentially lifting him away, he'll probably come to his senses pretty quick.

I was thinking of Hapkido for a while, it's great for self defense and gives a feeling of controlling the fight without having to engage with 100%. I guess there are some similarities with Aikido?

 

[iLikeHippos]

Actually, you should go Freerunning. If you need protection, get a gun.

Now you can train on running up walls twice the size of yourself, jumping good distances and do some neat tricks.
And get a very good workout with it.

It's completely free, but if you go with a group (recommended) it might cost five dollars each season. No more.

 

[Berserker119]

I think Judo is the best option.

 

[Evil the White]

Judo. It's fun to learn and quite easy to get into the competitive side, because competitions generally are a part of advancement for most dojos. It also helps you learn to adapt to situations and play your strengths more than other martial arts. If you have experiance with another martial art as well, like karate, then it helps you to be able to be a more rounded fighter in case you need to defend yourself.

However, I will warn you now that, as with all martial arts, you need to find a good dojo otherwise it's all for nought. And you're probably going to get hurt from bad landings ever now and again, but getting injured is a risk in any martial art. Plus, if there's no-one about your size to practice basic techique on, then it's harder to learn the throws properly, but shouldn't stop you if you care that much.

Would you mind filling me in on this: does Judo and Brazilian Ju-Jutsu have a lot in common, or would the two styles rather compensate each other? I know that both are ground fighting styles, but how far does Judo go compared to BJJ and vice versa?

It's funny that you mentioned Karate, because I used to practice Kyukushinkai in my earlier years, I did some 8 advancements before I quit.

I'll be honest, I don't really have much experiance of BJJ, but from my five minutes of reasearch, it seems to be based around most of the same principles of judo and shares a lot of the basic technique, so I'd think that learning both may help improve general understanding of both styles and flexibility, but not actually do that much more for your technique (it may even cause a couple of problems because of you having to remember two separate sets of similar moves).

I was at my karete dojo for two years and had advanced to green belt before I quit. Shortly after that the guy running it had to stop doing so because there weren't enough people (because few knew about it, he was a bad teacher and people kept leaving). The only reason I seemed to learn to fight was to defend myself against some of the more violent teens who also went there, although doing judo did helo my general fighting technique and flexibility (it has been a good two years since I've done judo, but I can still remember more judo than karate).

 

[Withall]

I personally don't practice Aikido (even though I want to), but from what I can gather, it's you standing firm while you use your attackers' energy against them. Look up some Aikido clips on Youtube, and you'll get an idea on what to do.

 

[Radeonx]

Well, I know Muay Thai, BJJ, and Boxing, and I can say that the most fun I have is with BJJ.
You do tons of ground grappling, but submitting someone by bending one of their limbs in crazy angles is very, very, fun.