Poll: Do you know self defense?

[Romidude]

Five years of Karate, never really got anywhere with it.

 

[BabySinclair]

I know to keep alert and avoid dangerous situations if at all possible (Self Defense 101)

Outside of that I've spent time learning Tae-Kwon-Do, Aikido, Rengen (Old school German wrestling), American wrestling, and Karate to various degrees, most for only a short time. Add in the sword, staff, and dagger training and I have a solid ground work which is more than most and my high pain tolerance and I think I'll be fine.

 

[Feralcentaur]

Five years of Karate, never really got anywhere with it.

Five years and you got nowhere at all? You must have learned one block or kick or something!

 

[Romidude]

Five years of Karate, never really got anywhere with it.

Five years and you got nowhere at all? You must have learned one block or kick or something!

Well, I learned lots of things and I can still do them, I just didn't make it anywhere.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

Four years of Karate earned me my black belt. I've also studied other martial arts on my own. I'll never start a fight, but fuck with me and I will fuck your shit up.

 

[commandersqwigly]

Third degree black belt in Tae-Kwon-do.

 

[Tanto-chan]

I took a hybrid martial arts class for about 14 years. not a black belt but was two belts away.

 

[Elephant Walker19]

White belt in TKD,but I'll kick anyone of your asses,just send me a PM saying the time and place.

 

[WOPR]

it's required at our school to take a course of self-defense your sophomore year in PE

 

[Aureli]

I don't know any martial arts, but I do know enough techniques in order to protect myself in a variety of situations.

 

[RelexCryo]

The Nike Defense is all you'll ever need.

It's nice to have the option to run away, but you don't always have that option. It is better to have both kung-fu and running shoes on your side. You don't have to pick just one, and violence is sometimes the only option.

 

[Yostbeef]

I choose the third option "I've got a great recipe for grilled cheese..."

Yes my fist is mighty but not quite as mighty as my grilled cheese.

Well I've got the munchies,guess what I'm about to do?

 

[RootbeerJello]

I took karate from ages 8-12 I think. Through black belt. I'm not exactly in practice, but it gave me good reflexes and a hell of a punch, and between black belt training and snowboarding I've developed something of a pain tolerance. So basically, I like to think I could maybe do some damage to an unarmed opponent around my size who isn't a god damn career fighter.

EDIT: Oh yeah, there's also the fact that I kick hard enough to use in a legitimate fight. Don't see that very often.

 

[BigCat91]

I have a fifth degree black belt in gun.

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

I know american Kempo. And i was taught by a crazy guy who lived in a trailer park. No joke. He often refered to other forms of fighting as ineffective and for losers. True story

 

[RootbeerJello]

I know american Kempo. And i was taught by a crazy guy who lived in a trailer park. No joke. He often refered to other forms of fighting as ineffective and for losers. True story

I thought of your kempo teacher before I realized it was you posting.

 

[PayneTrayne]

Wrestling, BJJ and Football have taught me the things I need to know.

 

[Master Taffer]

Yes. I study Krav Maga and I was a Master-At-Arms in the Navy for four years. I've taken down many drunk would-be ass kickers in my day.

One thing I always stress to people when it comes to fighting is that there is never such thing as a fair fight. "Dirty fighting" is the rule, not the exception. Get the idea of the "fair fight" out of your head. Fighting has nothing to do with any sort of honor, pride or courage. Fighting is about winning. You fight to win the fight or you go home.

 

[Warachia]

It's a pretty simple question.
I used to do Tae-Kwon-Do. I was a red-belt two-stripe.

snip.

snip.

I've now completely forgotten what my school was based under. I know it wasn't GTF because I've never heard of it before. Is ITF the one the Olympics use? Because I trained under the other system, WTF. I had a friend who trained under the ITF system and it seemed like her school was more geared towards fitness and tournaments than self defence. I'm not saying she couldn't have defended herself with what she learned, I'm just saying that wasn't the primary focus.
Frankly I think her school was somewhat dodgy. Her instructor didn't seem to report to any kind of higher authority and he kept on making his students all kinds of outrageous promises that he never fulfilled, like arranging exchange programs where his students would be able to train in Korea for 3 months or something like that.

Please note the above is not an indictment of all ITF-based schools... I just remembered all that and kind of started rambling.

Anyway, yeah. Our progression was White > Yellow > Blue Stripe > Blue > Red Stripe > Red > 1 black stripe > 2 black stripes > 3 black stripes > Bo Dan > 1st Dan Black > and so on... up to 9th dan I think.

I know other schools have purple, brown, orange etc. but I'm not familiar with those.

Each step, even if we were only adding a stripe, was considered a seperate grade and you had to perform and pass your grading to be permitted to add the stripe.

schools and teaching vary from instructor to instructor, how they treat their students, I wouldn't know, as well, I don't know if it is the one used in the olympics, and TaeKwon-Do (or at least the main versions) don't have purple, brown, etc. belts. All of the belts are supposed to symbolize something about the world in a colour, and those colours don't fit in with what General Choi chose.

Sometimes as well, the versions can differ depending on what province/state you are in, and in who runs the belts, testing, equipement, etc.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I put grilled cheese, not only because that sounds pretty tasty right now (until I decide to play amnesia and lose my appetite. "HIS JAW HAS FREAKING BEEN TORN OFF! I'M NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE.") Because I was a brown belt with a black stripe. I memorized the most important ones, as I took taekwando (or however you spell it) which was about half self defense and half art. Although my instructor looked exactly like Chuck Norris. I mean, seriously. He had the reddish brown hair, beard, pretty muscular, although his face was a bit less... whatever word you use to describe chuck norris' face.