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Choosing a Martial Art

Eddie Dane

Philosopher
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
6,681
NOTICE: I first posted this in the sports forum. But since there is so little traffic over there, I'm reposting it here. Sorry if it doesn't quite fit the description of the forum.

Hi,

My wife and children have forced me into a lifestyle of healthy food, regular sleep and no alcohol binges.

I have taken up running and I reckon I'm in reasonably good shape for a guy who's pushing forty.

In my teens I did Shotokan Karate.
In my twenties I challenged myself by doing kickboxing for two years. I was not good at it as I have a strong panic reflex when people start to hit me. Can't help but close my eyes when under attack. I specifically took up the sport to see if I could learn to control this reflex.

As you may have guessed, I'm not exceptionally tough.

Now I'm thinking of doing some martial arts again.

My criteria are:
  • A practical art that could help me in self-defence situation. But I cannot stomach getting clobbered by football-hooligans twice a week. I've done that and I'm too old for it. (I'm referring to the lessons here, I don't get in fights usually)
  • No formalised crap; There is something deeply wrong about learning reflexes that don't work in real life. In hindsight I did myself a disservice with the Shotokan.
  • Woo free. You know what I mean.

So, next week I'm going boxing with a friend. See how I like it. I suspect that I will like focusing on punching (karate has turned me into a kicking machine, punching always remained weak). But I also know that I will eventually think it too restricted.

A colleague of mine is starting Krav Maga. I like the idea, but suspect it is a "self defence" course. And with my little experience in MA, you don't learn to fight from such a course. Does anybody here have experience with KM?

And last but not least I've been looking at BJJ. It is tought in my hometown and after spending two nights watching youtube video's about it, I'm getting interested.

Is this something you can start from scratch at my age? I think I can only go to class once a week. (job, kids, you know).

What say you, JREF experts?
 
Most Kenpo classes are Woo free. I'd recommend observing several classes to get a feel. Shop around before committing.
 
Those of us with some background always recommending first deciding what you want out of an art or school of instruction. Looks like you have good ideas on that, and that's a good first step.
Then, you might look around as to what's actually available in your area, and check out the various schools. Most legit places will let you observe a class or two, and you can get an idea if the instructor knows what he/she is doing.
You can look for warning signs that the guy is suspect; do all the students refer to him as "master"? Does he allow a free exchange of ideas? That sort of thing.

As to actual practical styles.... Kenpo as listed tends to be good. The various flavors of "Mixed Martial Art" and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as well, but watch for a tendency to favor training for competition. Krav Maga, the Israeli-derived art, is meant to be utterly practical. Likewise Jeet Kun Do, (Bruce Lee's synthesized style) if you can find a legit instructor. The various forms of Filipino-derived arts are practical as well, with a strong emphasis on weapons.
There are so many different styles and arts now it's difficult to keep track, and anyone can string together some Asian-sounding syllables and hang out a shingle...
Kajukenshorinbo-ryu or some such nonsense.
 
Bikewer is right. You need to shop around - in many cases, the specific dojo or instructor can be more important than the specific styles. While some styles have advantages over others (for example, BJJ is good for ground work & grappling, boxing is good for punching, while judo/aikido/ju-jitsu is good for joint locks & throws), one thing all styles suffer from - to one degree or another - is incompetent instructors who hang out a shingle and call themselves "master".

I've been practicing martial arts for over 20 years - I started with karate, TKD, and kung fu, and now I've been doing aikido for many years. I also have a bit of BJJ training as well, so I'm pretty well-rounded. In all that time, I have seen many good & bad instructors, and some who were downright woo-ish.

So, essentially, buyer beware.
 
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What say you, JREF experts?

Check out Aikido. It's mostly blocks and throws, you won't get a beating during practice (you'll get thrown a lot, but part of the training is learning to roll so the throws don't hurt). If you're hoping on defending yourself in a real fight there's probably no substitute for practices in which you actually get beaten, but if you're mostly looking for a way to keep fit, it'll certainly do the job. Lessons usually begin with stretching exercises, which is particularly useful if you're not a spring chicken.
 
Aikido is not very practical AFAIK. A lot of the techniques like intercepting strikes and turning them into throws are only realistic when you know exactly what the other guy is going to do. Then again there's probably some good aspects to it too...

(first response was a joke btw!)
 
Now I'm thinking of doing some martial arts again.

My criteria are:
  • A practical art that could help me in self-defence situation.


Well, that rules out 2-handed greatswords, a jabbing polearm device that made people master of the battlefield, coupled with a short sword should you make a major league goof and let somebody within the end of the sword.
 
Aikido is not very practical AFAIK. A lot of the techniques like intercepting strikes and turning them into throws are only realistic when you know exactly what the other guy is going to do. Then again there's probably some good aspects to it too...

(first response was a joke btw!)

Well, aikido can be practical, just as pretty much any martial art can be practical if practiced properly - but then again, any martial art can be taught very poorly and give the student a false sense of security. I've seen this happen with people in karate, TKD, judo, aikido, BJJ... you name it.

One more thing: one should not confuse "martial art" with "self defense". The two are often conflated when they shouldn't be.
 
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Well, that rules out 2-handed greatswords, a jabbing polearm device that made people master of the battlefield, coupled with a short sword should you make a major league goof and let somebody within the end of the sword.

Don't forget this guy.

Had to do it before JoeyDonuts beat me to it :)
 
I currently have a brown belt in Ju Jitsu. Like you, I'm not a particularly strong puncher, etc., and I have slower reflexes than most. However, I compensate by having a better memory.

From what I can tell, Ju Jitsu one of the most 'practical' martial arts out there.... covers a wide range of things (including throws, grappling, sparring, and locks), and is described by my instructor as "street fighting" (seems nothing is taboo... there are even techniques where you can use head buts and biting...). Of course, there's no guarantee that, confronted by any attacker that you'd actually be of the mind to actually use the techniques...

We don't do any 'woo' in the class (Well, there are formalities like bowing before and after a session, but we don't discuss Qi).

It can be rather rough. (The throws can be tough to handle when you get dropped a couple of dozen times in a class.)
 
I did Hapkido for about 7 years in my adolescence, and looking back, it was OK. It shared a lot with Aikido (at my school they taught that as well) but like another poster already said, not much in the way of practicality. I didn't find trying to intercept a punch at full-speed, then turning it into a joint lock and then throwing someone very practical. Also, a lot reminded me of a scene from Napoleon Dynamite: Grab my arm. Other arm -- MY other arm.

One of my best friends competes in professional MMA, and takes kickboxing and BJJ. I've sat in on some BJJ classes and found them to be really practical. Also very good for staying in shape. It may be a little rough though. Boxing also is good; it can be limiting, but you will learn how to punch, you will learn footwork, and you will get a work out from class. Overall, I definitely recommend sitting in on a class and getting a feel for any place which you're thinking about attending.
 
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Boxing is always a good starting point but if you don't like taking punches and panic then I'm afraid that you're going to suffer. Krav Maga is a very practically focussed scystem, if it works they use it. I've trained with a few KM practitioners (I have a lot of jewish friends) and the training tends to be taken pretty seriously, not formal but you train as realistically as possible. It's not a pretty art but if you're looking for effective combat it's pretty good.
Aikido can be awesome, had the privilege to train with an exceptional teacher a few years ago, however it is a very technical art and it takes a long time to get up to what I would call a 'street effective' level. In recent years there has been a large influx of people who have put a lot of woo in it. Some of the softer styles are genuine but it can be difficult to tell them apart sometimes from the 'I throw you with me Chi' types. Yoshinkan style is very effective though, my police self defence training incorporated a lot of Yoshinkan techniques and I can tell you from experience that they work.
Jiu Jitsu is another good art, lots of good strikes and locks but also a lot of good groundwork that is missing from many arts. And it is true that an awful lot of fights will end up on the ground. The only problem with its ground work is that it tends to assume you're against a single opponent, using both arms and legs to get an arm bar on them is powerful but not good while their mates are kicking you in the head.
MMA does tend to be competition focused as most of the attention it has gained has come from cage fighting/UFC etc. Still a decent grounding in a wide variety of techniques.
There are too many arts to mention really, see what's local and try a few lessons, the quality of the teacher is often far more important than the actual art. In the end there are only so many way that the body can move and you do tend to find that at high enough levels the difference between a lot of arts starts to blur.
 
I'd recommend BJJ based on your somewhat self-depricating description, as the entire format was originally designed to allow a smaller or less powerful individual defeat a larger opponent. The issue with choosing a specialty, is that there is no one that is perfectly we rounded and will allow you to defeat someone regardless of how things go down. As for the most successful method I've seen in regards to being a pure specialists, it would, odddly enough, be collegiate-style wrestling. This is based on performance under the rules (which don't apply in a street fight) of professional MMA. Wrestling simply teaches speed and control and if you have to learn somehting first, this allows you to avoid getting smashed early on the learning curve. You won't send anyone home crying to their Momma with it, but you will prevent them from injuring you or others. And once you have the fundamentals of that down, you can mix in some boxing/kickboxing/Muay Thai for stand-up proficiency and take some basic BJJ classes to learn to finish someone on the ground. I'm not an expert in any of these practices, just an observer of styles and the wrestling base has the generally best performance, plus it shouldn't be hard to find a school in your area that can teach it to you. Also, when it comes to the course, as people have said, it comes down to the instructors, if they are staunch purists who dismiss any other style, they likely will be blind to weaknesses in their own practice, so take them with a grain of salt. I took a course for several months and what made it great was the instructor had a general fascination with all styles, so he would indulge any kind of defense or attack you thought may work and would attempt to integrate it as part of his lesson. I wish you all the best, and if you take any kind of submission based class, always tap when you're caught, there's no reward for getting a dislocated joint in practice, and passing out is over rated. Good luck.
 
My criteria are:
  • A practical art that could help me in self-defence situation. But I cannot stomach getting clobbered by football-hooligans twice a week. I've done that and I'm too old for it. (I'm referring to the lessons here, I don't get in fights usually)
  • No formalised crap; There is something deeply wrong about learning reflexes that don't work in real life. In hindsight I did myself a disservice with the Shotokan.
  • Woo free. You know what I mean.

I think I feel compelled to point out that "woo" is a function of the teacher and not of the art. I have studied the neijia (Chinese martial arts) for a number of years. Normally, these arts -- especially taiji -- are wickedly, wickedly woo-heavy ("if you hold this position for ten years, you'll glow green and become bulletproof"), but I had the good fortune to study under a Marine who studied them for their combat effectiveness and had no tolerance for BS at all.

And they are/were astonishingly effective; I found out just how effective the reflexes are/were in real life when I was auditing a hard-as-nails kung fu class a few years later, and the teacher startled me and found himself sailing through the air in the general direction of Mecca.

So I would actually recommend any martial art at all as long as you like the specific teacher's approach.
 
My wife and children have forced me into a lifestyle of healthy food, regular sleep and no alcohol binges.

My condolences.

Seriously, though, I concur with those who are saying to shop around, figure out what you want out of an instructor/school, and that a lot of the woo is going to depend more on an instructor than it will the martial art in many cases.

That said: you might want to check out some basic boxing for some initial training, but be aware that you'll eventually be training full-contact (with pads) but it won't be immediate in most training I'm aware of. Someone mentioned Jeet Kun Do in an earlier post, and that is predominantly a "practical application" martial art when taught by legitimate instructors. You'll also find a lot of basis for JKD in Wing Chun Kung Fu classes, and you'll likely be more able to find a legitimate instructor for that. If you're looking for more likely to be found for a good workout, Kenpo or Aikido are both good options. Evaluate the instructor by sitting in a class if they'll let you, or ask if you can observe a class.
 
Well, aikido can be practical, just as pretty much any martial art can be practical if practiced properly - but then again, any martial art can be taught very poorly and give the student a false sense of security. I've seen this happen with people in karate, TKD, judo, aikido, BJJ... you name it.

Um I disagree. You can practice certain martial arts techniques ("properly") all day long and they still wont be practical or realistic. It's not very useful to say that any martial art "can be practical if practiced properly", because, while there may be a little truth to it, there are still huge differences. BJJ is more practical than Tai Chi, I don't care how good the instructors are.

But yeah, a good training environment and good instructors do make a big difference.
 
I've been practicing a variety of martial arts for about 9 years now. I started with Tae Kwon Do, primarily because it really helped me with my weak points (flexibility, kicking, distance fighting). I also had an incredibly good instructor who was an expert at a wide range of self defense and grappling arts. So let me add to what the other folks are saying; 50% of what you get out of the martial arts is the instructor, not the letters on the sign out front. The other 50% is your commitment to training. Style is of very little importance. With the appropriate instructor, Hapkido can also be extremely effective, although it will take several years to develop real-world defense skills. Some HKD instructors just teach watered down TKD techniques, while others teach only wrist throws (which are pretty, but useless). Find the right instructor. Also, because it hasn't been mentioned, the most fun you'll have in a martial art is in Capoeria. Of course, it's an utterly useless martial art, but the flips, jumps and rolls are a lot of fun to do.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far.

I'm getting pretty psyched. next Monday I'm going boxing with my buddy Mohamed.
If I like it I'll keep at it for a couple of months. I'm still determined to learn to punch properly and deal with my annoying flinching.

In a few months a new KM course will start and I will go there with my colleague Shlomo.

In short, my agenda in the foreseeable future consist of punching Muslims and chocking Jews.:D

In between I'll pop into a BJJ class, but I knew a guy who did JJ and I remember a lot of complicated arm locks and such ( he was showing off). With my limited free time, I'll go for simple and effective.

By all means, keep the info coming. My hometown offers quite a variety of styles and I'm willing to follow advise and shop around. It's fun, after all.
 
We're recycling content from old martial arts threads anyway, so here goes. The core of all martial arts woo is the claim that you can learn to fight without actually fighting. You can't.

Every time people fight with cameras running, people who do not regularly train with full speed and power against resisting opponents comprehensively fail to make their "skills" work.

Judo people wrestle with full speed and power against resisting opponents every class. Same with BJJ, sambo, greco-roman wrestling and so on. Boxers, muay thai people, kyokushinkai karate people, san shou people and so on similarly make hitting each other a regular part of their training. All of these groups have proven that they can make their stuff work with cameras rolling.

No other group ever has.

Woo-woos get very threatened when you point this out, and come up with all sorts of hilarious and purely theoretical reasons why they think their training methods might work better under specific scenarios, or anecdotes about this one time when they totally owned someone, but the bottom line is that evidence of effectiveness isn't there. The day someone uses aikido, neijia, Japanese jujitsu or whatever on a competently resisting opponent with cameras rolling I'll sit up and take notice but until then the available evidence say that they are all woo.

So Point #1 is: It's how you train. You can limit the moves allowed and still develop effective skills if you train with full speed and power against a resisting opponent - judo and BJJ prove that. However if you never or almost never train with full speed and power against a resisting opponent the available evidence says that you suck.

Point #2 is: Once you train properly, you converge on a fairly small and consistent set of techniques that work. Silly martial arts techniques like flying triple kicks, standing wrist lock throws or pretending to be a monkey don't survive competition, but they thrive in environments where looking cool is more important than being able to fight.

Point #3 is: If they have to come up with excuses as to why they don't enter tournaments where techniques are used with full speed and power on resisting opponents, they are woo-woos.

Conclusion: Boxing is an excellent choice, although it may be too rough for you at your age once you get to the stage of hitting each other. BJJ is also an excellent choice, and possibly a better fit for you given your age and fitness. Krav Maga is one of those styles where every time you get to actually see it, it's total woo, but lots of people are convinced that around the corner or in Israel or somewhere there is the Real Krav Maga that works. If they don't train with full speed and power against resisting opponents then walk away, and they almost certainly won't.
 
Krav Maga is one of those styles where every time you get to actually see it, it's total woo, but lots of people are convinced that around the corner or in Israel or somewhere there is the Real Krav Maga that works.

Agreed with almost everything you say except I'm interested in what makes you think the quoted bit above. There is no mention of magic, mysticism, ki, chi, spirit or anything else in Krav Maga as far as I'm aware. About the only principle in KM is 'Use whatever technique leaves you standing and your assailants incapable of attacking you again'. It has no other purpose, it doesn't claim to make you a better person, teach you secrets of the universe or make invulnerable. Just wondering where you got the 'woo factor' from as in my experience it's the least woo art I've encountered (apart from perhaps boxing).
 
Kajukenshorinbo-ryu or some such nonsense.

Hey! I've got a mauve belt with purple rhinestone accents in Kajukenshorinbo-ryu. ;)
That makes me a Gold Eagle Woo Woo - the second highest rank.
It is rumoured that Richard Simmons is the highest ranking living practitioner.
My Master says I will earn the Glittering Tiara of a Thousand Hidden Dragons if I practice hard for another week or two at $1250.00 per lesson. :p
 
I'm going to be silly and suggest glima. Your chance of finding an instructor is practically null, and the only one of your criteria it fits is being free of woo, but -- hey, in what other martial arts can you be a bona fide king?
 
Personally I admire the art form of the Thompson Submachine gun.

the Classic M1921 and the M1928 models are my favorites.

As far and unarmed martial arts are concerned, I think it matters less what the style is and more how you feel about it.
 
Judo people wrestle with full speed and power against resisting opponents every class. Same with BJJ, sambo, greco-roman wrestling and so on. Boxers, muay thai people, kyokushinkai karate people, san shou people and so on similarly make hitting each other a regular part of their training.
One issue is though... are the type of hits (or other actions) that they do in greco-roman wrestling or boxing the most effective ones you need in a "real fight". Boxing and wrestling have rules of conduct. You might get experience in being able to punch and/or take a punch, but in general they frown on things like head butts, groin kicks, etc. that would be more effective.

That reminds me of an episode of "King of the Hill"... Hank wanted his son Bobby to learn to box, but the only course that was available was a "women's self defense" course. Hank doesn't learn this until he tries boxing with Bobby, and Bobby yells "That's not your purse!" and kicks his father in the groin.

The day someone uses aikido, neijia, Japanese jujitsu or whatever on a competently resisting opponent with cameras rolling I'll sit up and take notice but until then the available evidence say that they are all woo.
Not sure if all Ju Jitsu instruction is the same, but the class I'm taking contains elements of boxing and wrestling in it. And, in fact there are actually Ju Jitsu competitions as well.

(In fact, I believe Judo is actually an offshoot of Ju Jitsu, with basically some of the more 'dangerous' elements removed.)

Point #3 is: If they have to come up with excuses as to why they don't enter tournaments where techniques are used with full speed and power on resisting opponents, they are woo-woos.
I agree that there are 'woo' martial artists. But on the other hand, it is possible that in some cases techniques cannot be done with full speed/power because they could cause significant damage.

As I said, my Ju Jitsu course covers wrestling/grappling and sparing. Some of this is done following something resembling "competition". On the other hand, we also cover techniques such as head butts, punches to the groin, eye-gouging, even biting. Granted, we may not have any definitive proof that kicking someone in the groin would work as a defensive tactic, but suspect it would. Trouble is, there's no easy way to simulate that with "full speed and power", so in many cases we have to effectively "pull our punches".
 
I think I’ll second the boxing suggestion. The essence of good self defense is to keep things simple and stay on your feet.

Ground fighting is a nice addition, but I’d suggest not confusing combat/mma style fighting with self defense. One on one someone with lots of ground fighting experience will usually beat someone with little experience, but you can’t count on a one on one fight in self defense situations. Experience in avoiding takedowns will be the biggest thing you get from groundfighting. It’s important to have some idea what to do on the ground, but mostly you should be looking to get back on your feat asap.


We're recycling content from old martial arts threads anyway, so here goes. The core of all martial arts woo is the claim that you can learn to fight without actually fighting. You can't.

Every time people fight with cameras running, people who do not regularly train with full speed and power against resisting opponents comprehensively fail to make their "skills" work.


This is certainly part of the truth, but not the entire story. No matter what martial art you train in you need to balance realism with injury. To this end most styles will either limit how hard you can do your techniques or which techniques you can use in sparing. You should probably get a combination of both, but even that is no substitute for experience in real fights. Grappling techniques typically have a comparative advantage on this front because they allow you to go full power with relatively few restrictions on technique and rely on you to tap out before getting hurt.
 
Agreed with almost everything you say except I'm interested in what makes you think the quoted bit above. There is no mention of magic, mysticism, ki, chi, spirit or anything else in Krav Maga as far as I'm aware. About the only principle in KM is 'Use whatever technique leaves you standing and your assailants incapable of attacking you again'. It has no other purpose, it doesn't claim to make you a better person, teach you secrets of the universe or make invulnerable. Just wondering where you got the 'woo factor' from as in my experience it's the least woo art I've encountered (apart from perhaps boxing).

It's their training methods that are woo, in most cases. They never train their "deadly" moves with full speed and power against a resisting opponent, thus they aren't going to be able to make them work in the heat of an actual fight.

That said, I believe they also place a great deal of faith in low-percentage moves like eye and groin attacks, which are great if they work but which require the kind of precise muscle control that is the first thing to go out the window when adrenaline hits.

A popular conceit amongst woos is that what a martial art is "designed for" matters. It doesn't. Judo was designed to be a safe sport, and I'd back a judoka over someone who wasted their time on krav maga. What matters is how you train first and foremost. Good training rapidly weeds out bad techniques.

One issue is though... are the type of hits (or other actions) that they do in greco-roman wrestling or boxing the most effective ones you need in a "real fight". Boxing and wrestling have rules of conduct. You might get experience in being able to punch and/or take a punch, but in general they frown on things like head butts, groin kicks, etc. that would be more effective.

The problem is that if you don't train with full speed and power against a resisting opponent your training is mostly useless, so I'd question whether they are actually more effective ways to spend you training time.

Not sure if all Ju Jitsu instruction is the same, but the class I'm taking contains elements of boxing and wrestling in it. And, in fact there are actually Ju Jitsu competitions as well.

(In fact, I believe Judo is actually an offshoot of Ju Jitsu, with basically some of the more 'dangerous' elements removed.)

That's exactly right. Judo is jujitsu with the dangerous elements removed or defanged, but because it's been defanged you can train it with full speed and power against a resisting opponent.

I agree that there are 'woo' martial artists. But on the other hand, it is possible that in some cases techniques cannot be done with full speed/power because they could cause significant damage.

Oh absolutely. There are tonnes of techniques which are far more immediately effective than judo throws. The problem is that until we create robot training partners we can't train those techniques properly, so the guy who spends all day practising a jujitsu technique which would break someone's arm is going to get reamed by the guy who spends all day practising a judo technique that just slams him into the mat.

As I said, my Ju Jitsu course covers wrestling/grappling and sparing. Some of this is done following something resembling "competition". On the other hand, we also cover techniques such as head butts, punches to the groin, eye-gouging, even biting. Granted, we may not have any definitive proof that kicking someone in the groin would work as a defensive tactic, but suspect it would. Trouble is, there's no easy way to simulate that with "full speed and power", so in many cases we have to effectively "pull our punches".

Yep, it's not fighting at that point, it's live action role-playing. Or martial-looking ballroom dancing. Sadly you cannot learn to fight without actually fighting.

I've said before that I really, really wish that live-action roleplaying with compliant partners gave you functional fighting skills. I'd much rather dance around in silk tai chi pyjamas than get teabagged by sweaty weightlifters who want to rip my limbs off. I'd also love to develop functional stand-up fighting skills without getting my legs kicked in by kickboxers and/or my nose pushed in by boxers. However the unfortunate reality is that if you don't train a given skill with full speed and power against a resisting opponent, you simply don't develop the skill.
 
With your hair? Darling, please! Accessorize with earings, I think.

I am not eligible for the earings until I recruit another 6 people to the dojo.
If they each recruit another six people - I get diamond earings.
Master says I need to buy some self-improvement tapes soon though... :)
 
nice Capoeria knockout here, btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oiADjOdFg
(not disagreeing that it's far from the most practical style)

This one is nice as well:



:p

I've seen some pretty nice Capoeira demonstrations before, but as a martial art is seems to be very much an "art" as a focus. That isn't a bad thing, and for someone who wants a top-notch cardio workout Capoeira is probably a stellar style to look into. The exercise and general fitness of martial arts training tends to be a central question I look at for offering my opinion on a style someone should look into. I tend to discourage "I want something that enables me to beat people up" mentality, because for the most part that's a poor reason to get into any martial art.
 
I've seen some pretty nice Capoeira demonstrations before, but as a martial art is seems to be very much an "art" as a focus. That isn't a bad thing, and for someone who wants a top-notch cardio workout Capoeira is probably a stellar style to look into. The exercise and general fitness of martial arts training tends to be a central question I look at for offering my opinion on a style someone should look into. I tend to discourage "I want something that enables me to beat people up" mentality, because for the most part that's a poor reason to get into any martial art.

I've said as much before. Living as I do the odds of my ever needing martial arts skills to defend myself or the people I care about are close to zero, and if I was genuinely concerned about my safety I'd move house rather than train up.

However the fact is that for whatever screwed-up psychological reason, be it irrational fear or insecurity, a lot of people do want to train in something that will allow them to defend themselves effectively. While the reasons for that desire may be irrational, if you do happen to have that desire it's not irrational to look at the available evidence to see what kind of training actually works.

The other side of the coin, however, is that if all you want to do is get fit then a general gym workout is far more effective than MA training. Working on weights and exercise machines for an hour and a half beats the hell out of doing kata and crap for an hour and a half. Do aerobics if you want to be able to move. If you want to do MA, it's for a reason other than simple fitness. My guess is that more often than not it's because you want to be able to beat someone up.
 

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