Tell me about your experience with martial arts
As life slowly returns to normal in the UK, I've felt the need to look after my fitness more. I lacked discipline throughout lockdown to workout at home and keep my fitness. As a result I've got a nice COVID-gut, and my endurance and strength are shot. I swam regularly before quarantine hit, at least 4 times a week, and I'm keen to get back into that. But I'm also looking at picking up a martial art, for a more intense workout and fitness, as well as just to pick up a new skill. However I have no idea where to begin with martial arts, so I figured I'd start a thread for some inspiration, and go from there.
So are any tilderen martial artists? If so, tell me about it!
What do you practice?
How long have you done it?
How does it benefit you?
Do you attend classes or practice solo?
Would you recommend your martial art to a beginner?
I did Jiu-Jitsu for about six months, right up until everything shut down for COVID-19. It's an intense workout. I only did it once a week, but that alone halted weight gain. I was awfully close to passing out (not choking out) from the intensity on one occasion. I enjoyed learning how to fight; it built confidence. On the down side, I was pretty constantly injured. I'm in my forties, though, so if you're younger the injury issue won't be as bad. I will start back up once I feel safe from COVID-19.....well, safer.
If you do take BJJ, go to a gym that's pretty laid back. My gym is run by a black belt who runs the gym so he has people to spar with, not as an ego thing or even, really, as a business. Also, go as often as you can. Once a week really isn't enough.
Once you're over 30 I've found that more than twice a week gets hard just because of recovery time. If you train consistently that will improve and you'll be good with it, but it takes time to build up.
I haven't been able to train more than once a week yet, but based off how my aging body feels, I trust that you're 100% right about this.
I practiced Tae Kwon Do when I was young (elementary and middle school), and then again in college. Tae Kwon Do is largely taught by three different schools: World Tae Kwon Do Federation (WTF, this is the current standard and what’s practiced in the olympics), International Tae Kwon Do Federation (ITF, this is more traditional and practical), and, in America, American Tae Kwon Do Federation (ATF).
Unfortunately, when I started learning Tae Kwon Do as a kid, I learned at an ATF school. Watching videos now, it was a bizarre appropriative act: my white, American teacher used vaguely Korean sounding commands that, as far as I can tell, don’t map to any real Korean words. I was a black belt by the time I was 13, which was completely meaningless: my forms were alright for a 13 year old, and I certainly wasn’t a capable sparrer. I was pretty decent at board breaks, which is something that ATF seems to put a lot of weight in.
I didn’t pick up Tae Kwon Do again until college, when I joined our school’s club team. We competed in the Northeast club league, which was incredibly competitive, and frequently sent people to national competitions. We trained like a varsity team, but with no budget, and we only had access to our coach (an outstanding seventh-dan Tae Kwon Do instructor) for four hours on Saturdays, which we had to pay for.
I was solidly middle-of-the-pack; over three years I made my way from white belt back up to blue belt, and I won some sparring matches and lost some. I got much better at poomsae, Tae Kwon Do forms. But we also practiced kick boxing and grappling, which got me into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is now one of my favorite athletic activities. I’ve never done it at a BJJ school (and in my very limited experience, those schools are sometimes heavily attended by giant shredded men that aren’t all that fun to train with as a beginner), but I did attend some classes at my last job hosted by one of my coworkers, and it was awesome.
BJJ is like a fast paced, physical chess game. I like it for a lot of the reasons I like rock climbing; it requires complex problem solving, persistence, and patience, but also physical ability. It has practical uses (most real world fights end up on the ground after a punch of two), but it doesn’t feel like a clobberfest. Definitely would recommend!
Outside of doing karate as a kid, my first exposure to martial arts was the summer after high school. I did very traditional Kung Fu (Jiaomen Changquan, or Islamic Long Fist, a distilled version of Chaquan) for three summers while I was in college, then off and on for about three years afterwards.
My most recent involvement in the martial arts was taking almost two years of Sanda.
I also have about six months of experience in judo, and have taken a few odd MMA classes.
Traditional Kung Fu: good for balance, relaxation, understanding how to strike/move with power, general health and fitness. My first coach was decent at teaching realistic fighting applications; my second coach was not.
Sanda: taught me how to actually function in the context of standup fighting. Timing, distance management, and chaining sequences of techniques only really started to click for me after starting training in Sanda. Sanda also gave me a very thorough understanding of fundamental boxing, kicking, and throwing techniques.
Judo: taught me how to survive on the ground, which was completely new territory for me. It's difficult to overstate how absolutely powerful groundfighting is, especially against people who don't know what they're doing on the floor. Also helped me a bunch with throwing techniques, footsweeps, and reading opponents through touch.
Traditional Kung Fu: with my first coach, I learned one-on-one. My second coach taught classes, usually between 3-6 students.
Everything Else: classes
Keep in mind that I am writing for the beginner who wants to learn how to fight. If one's goal is more in line with fitness or learning about another culture, then these recs won't necessarily hold.
Traditional Kung Fu: In most cases, no. To not waste your time with Traditional Chinese Martial Arts takes an exceptional coach who knows not only the proper technique but also how to apply it. Kung Fu as a whole is rife with people who may have learned to move correctly, but have absolutely no clue what it means to apply a technique against a resisting opponent, much less one who has an inkling of how to fight. Good Shuai Jiao practitioners are an exception; most of them have plenty of experience trying to toss folks who don't want to be tossed.
Sanda: if you can find a good coach (more on this in a sec), I would absolutely recommend Sanda to anyone who's willing to take some hits to the head. It teaches one of the most comprehensive systems of standup fighting around--the only things close are Muay Thai, MMA and other hybrid arts.
Judo: gets a special recommendation from me--if you are worried about the head trauma from [kick]boxing arts but still want something useful, take some Judo. Most people are completely unequipped to deal with someone who knows how to throw them to the floor and fight them on the ground. The judo gyms I have experience with were very serious about conditioning, too, and would whip you into shape.
More generally, my advice to beginners is to find a good coach/gym. Some hallmarks of good trainers and environments:
Conversely, some things that will help in spotting bad gyms:
By virtue of training traditions, some styles are more likely to have a good coach/training environment than others. You can still find a good coach in styles that are not known for great quality control, but it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
A short and incomplete list of styles known for combat efficiency and a high degree of quality control: MMA, Judo, BJJ, Boxing, Wrestling (Folkstyle/Greco/Freestyle), Sanda, Shuai Jiao, Knockdown Karate (Kyokushin etc.), Muay Thai, Dutch Kickboxing, Sambo, Savate
A short and incomplete list of styles known for poor quality control/useless training methods: traditional Kung Fu, Aikido, Systema, non-competitive Taekwondo/Karate, non-competitive Japanese Jujutsu
I hope this helps. I miss training like crazy.
I was about to click submit on a mention of San Da when this post came across. My daughter did San Da for about a year when she was 8 or 9. She eventually stopped because she wasn't all that gung ho about full contact combat sports, but I found it really interesting to watch the practices. @scissortail describes the nature of the sport pretty well, and I would just agree that it seems like one of the most practical fighting methods I've seen taught. In fact, the location where my daughter was taking lessons frequently used an exercise that was essentially "here comes a bully who isn't going to back down until you put up your fists. what are you going to do?!". I also liked that the back of the studio was mats and punching dummies while the front was olympic weights and practical strength training equipment.
I did Tae Kwon Do from the ages of 14 to 18, and then picked it up again from 21 to 22 after college. I stopped in grad school. Then a few years after I started doing Muay Thai and have been at it since 2010, only taking a year off half way when I busted my knee in an unrelated white water rafting accident.
The TKD was useful as a young man for learning body mechanics and rhythm, training flexibility and balance, developing a sense of proprioception, and cultivating the discipline to be push and breathe through challenges. That was all before UFC and Mixed Martial Arts, though, so in terms of actually being a useful combat art it was never that useful. General athleticism, training yourself to hit hard instead of subconsciously pulling punches, and keeping your wits about you after being punched in the face actually count for a lot in a fight. And TKD does some of it, but there are much better ways to develop all of the above.
Muay Thai was completely different. I will note, I train in an actual Muay Thai gym (rather than an MMA gym that draws striking from M uay Thai techniques) which means it has some pedigree in the art, tradition, and culture of Muay Thai. This was important to me as the general Tapout-shirt wearing, hyper-masculine MMA bro culture is something I find deeply obnoxious. But MT still feels to me like a martial art that hasn't lost sight of the essence behind what we're learning to do there, which is learning to fight. Obviously we don't want to fight, but if we're doing a martial art, it was important to me to actually be somewhat martial about it.
Sparring in Muay Thai was a very different experience that was rewarding in a different way. When I said TKD taught me to breathe through challenges I used that word deliberately instead of pain. Because until I started sparring in Muay Thai I never actually made myself fight through real pain. The body mechanics and flexibility I developed from TKD, though, put me way ahead of a lot of other people I trained with though. And to this day (10 years later), many of my kicks are still stronger than those of people I've been training with for 10ish years.
In terms of my MT journey, I went through various degrees of intensity. I haven't trained since the pandemic so for about 5 months now I've been doing nothing. Even prior to that, I'd say for the past 4 or 5 years it's been little better than a hobby. I've trained about 2 hours a week on good weeks and often take time off. I'm not particularly happy about it, but the combination of getting older (looong recovery times and takes longer to rebuild cardio and strength) plus family obligations have made it hard to carve out time. Prior to that, I was much more serious training 2 to 3 times a week, doing a cross-fit style conditioning class once a week, and running a 5k once a week for cardio. Muay Thai was pretty crucial for my fitness level in those days, and I wish I better appreciated how fit my body was when I had it (at the time I still thought I was a chonker even though I realize, in hindsight, that I was legitimately quite athletic. It's just that my basis for comparison was all aspiring professional fighters)!
It wasn't just the Muay Thai encouraging fitness either. I've never been good at motivating myself to lift heavier weights or run longer distance faster. Metrics based performance was never fun for me, I really just like to win so sports is the only way to motivate me. I ran because I wanted better cardio in the ring. I lifted because I wanted to hit harder. Those things made me much more motivated to work out as an end in itself moreso than aesthetic motivations ever could.
IMO a solo martial art is just dancing. A big part of it is learning how to interact and react to the energy and movement of another person. I'm not generally a traditional martial arts hater. I think they can be useful as meditative disciplines, but I still think martial arts that don't incorporate some form of sparring are indulging in malpractice. Shadow boxing, forms, and bag work are all useful tools. They are ways to explore the kinesthetics, feel how combinations of techniques flow together (or don't), build muscle memory, and just feel out how you're feeling and moving today. But without actually executing them, under pressure with a threat bearing down on you it doesn't do anything. It's a factor in how a martial art loses sight of the essence behind what it's trying to accomplish.
Absolutely. But it is important to start slow. Focus on fundamentals and don't worry about going fast or hitting hard until you've been training for 6 months to a year. Speed and power come with technique and the stronger you get on those the more controlled and effective everything will get.
Also remember to hydrate and stretch before and after each workout. And don't forget the R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation).
I've been doing a mix of boxing and Muy Thai for about 5 years now. I agree with pretty much everything said here but really wanted to hammer home one point that was a big issue for me:
This was a huge problem for me for a while. My gym didn't have sparring as a part of the classes, they did separate sparring sessions that were optional but suggested. In my mind I always planned on sparring eventually but wanted to have really good technique down before I did because I was afraid of getting my ass handed to me. Everyone there who went to sparring classes kept trying to get me to go to sparring saying no amount of technique classes were going to help me prep for sparring, and they were 1000% right. Practicing combos, practicing blocking, all that is good and all, but it doesn't mean anything until you're in a pressure situation. Its easy to weave under a hook with perfect form when you know the hook is coming. Its a whole different thing when you don't know its coming and you're trying to come up with a combo to throw while also making sure you don't get taken down and your adrenaline is rushing (its called fight-or-flight response for a reason). I haven't ever gone to one of the bro-y tapout gyms so I can't say what it is like there. You should be able to tell the coach and the person you're sparring "hey, I'm super new at this, please don't kill me" and they'll respect it. That doesn't mean they wont hit you, and it doesn't mean it wont be painful, but they should make a point to not destroy you. If that's not the case, I'd honestly consider a different gym. Trust in your sparring partner is key IMO. Sparring is fighting, yeah, but it isn't a tournament. The goal is to get better, not to KO your opponent. But to get back to my original point: there is never going to be a perfect first time to spar. You're always going to be nervous, you're always going to have flaws. You won't know what you don't know until you spar. Talk to the coaches to make sure they think you're ready, and then just go and do it.
That makes me think of this clip where Carlos Condit is sparring with some soldier dude. I believe he's responding to soldier dude's inquiry as to how hard they should go. The response being a succinct and effective "hit me as hard as you want to get hit." Soldier dude was in over his head, tho. Tried to go too hard and got punished. Much to the amusement of his comrades.
This is almost every young man's first day at sparring in a nutshell.
One of the things sparring also teaches you to do is to have you be driven by a rational determination of how much force is needed when you strike. If all you do is pad-work, where the emphasis is on going hard, it's very easy to let yourself get into the habit of being driven solely by what I'll call "exuberance" (which is that sense of "Fuck yeah bro! Hit that shit! Harder! HARDER!")
I'm not sure if this counts as a martial art but I "taught myself" how to box over the course of a year or so back when I was in college. And then I fucked my wrist up hitting a bag WAY too hard while showing off to a friend...... ugh. Am I proficient? No, probably not. Can I throw a proper punch? Again, probably not. Or at least, maybe better than someone with NO experience, but not "correct" by any means I'm sure. Was it a fantastic workout, and did I meet some other people through it? Hell yea.
I haven't done a boxing workout in a while at this point, but I'd like to get back into it. They're a lot of fun AND they'll leave you on the floor if you do em right. I still have my wraps and gloves but no bag to wail on, so I gotta wait to find a gym with one.
Boxing is a lot of fun (coming from someones who's never sparred yet either, keep that in mind lol) so I would recommend it, with the catch being: Try very hard to get a teacher, and learn proper form. You don't wanna fuck your wrist(s) up cuz you were feeling yourself one day ._.
On mobile so hopefully I copied it right but here on the fitness thread I posted about how I box at home and how it comes with access to a bunch of YouTube videos with workouts and technique classes. It’s not perfect but i think it would be great for someone with your experience level of “know enough to be dangerous”
My experience is mostly traditional Japanese martial arts. I like them a lot. I will use masculine as the default gender because my mother tongue is French.
Some terms you may or not be familiar that I use because I don't want to stretch the English language.:
Kata: solo choreography. Used as a technique compendium, technique demonstrator, inspirator, and examination subject.
Uke: the role of the poor bloke who "receive" the technique. Often attack first.
Since you present yourself as a total beginner, I may over-explain stuff.
Aikido, 1 year when I was a child.
Karate (Shotokan), 4-5 year in my teenage years
Iaido+Jodo (weird style I will expand on on demand), 13 years and counting; with some aikido workshop here and there (Nishio style), and a minimal amount of Judo
Additional notes:
Aikido: a self-defense martial arts / philosophy. Lots of joint lock, but also some weapons (sword, short stick) later on. I find that high-level practitioner have a graceful flow that's really neat to see. "Efficacy" is disputed due to the over-compliance of the uke; in my experience and readings it's a misunderstanding of how it was done back in the day in Japan. Uke is indeed supposed to be compliant, but that's because he's usually a senior student (or at least a sufficiently proficient student) who tries to guide the junior through the technique and then gradually increase the resistance. However sometime it's hard to find proficient student, leading to beginners practicing together and bad habits forming. As for the mythical question "but is this works in the street", I would opt by saying it would be much more cost effective to have pepper spray anyway, or even a Singaporean or Luxenbourger passport, and opt out even farther by saying that at some level, pure efficacy is not the thing you seek.
I would not recommend this as a first martial arts, but as a second one this can bring some cool perspectives.
Karate: Punch ! Kick ! Kata ! Sparring ! I really "got" what martial arts were about with this striking art (as in: something more than a glorified childcare) . It was a good way for my geeky teenage body to have at least some exercise (you need to develop strength, endurance, flexibility and precision at the same time). Nowadays I find high-level practitioner a bit too "square" (I was going to use the word "stiff" but that's not like it), but I'm glad I did this as a first starting point.
Iaido: it's the samurai real deal ! Play with katanas ! Mostly wooden, sometime metal, sometime even sharp metal ! "I studied the blade" meme notwithstanding, it's a good window into how Japanese people can push a craft to its extreme. In my school, it's only kata, no sparring (paired kata at best). Some schools/style actually get to test cut with a bona fide katana and/or practice kata with them. In all case, there's a lots of repetition, but boy do you know the minutiae of every millimeter and detail of a given technique at the end. You learn that even for simple movements, you can have total control over yourself and perform very deliberate of just about every part of your body because everything is important.
Iaido can be confused with Kendo, whose meat'n'potatoes is fencing in armored gear with a bamboo sword. And shouts. Lots of shouts. Too much shouts for me.
Physical: I live a mostly sedentary life, so moving at least a little bit is good. Iaido is far from being cardio heavy and I would have a far better work around by practicing karate, but I think it still somewhat count this as physical exercise.
Mental 1: I sparred and/or was being thrown around (aikido, judo) the dojo enough time to develop a good resilience and cool headedness under stress (yes, this project due to tomorrow is stressful, but having that brick of a guy wanting to punch you in the face was probably more stressful)
Mental 2: It's also comforting to know that this or that obnoxious guy you know would probably not fare well in a sparring session.
Mental 3: When you enter the dojo and don the uniform, you effectively shut yourself out of the world for one hour or two. No social media, no politics, only the technique and/or your partner. I find having this kind of safe space super soothing for my general well-being.
Social: having practiced more than 10 years at the same place, I developed some solid friendship. I think everyone needs some feeling of belonging, and I prefer to be attached to my dojo rather than some other social group.
Spiritual: My teacher is deep into philosophy (also comparative philosophy) and often briefly discuss before class about some cultural of philosophical point of interest (whether Western, Eastern, or some of his own).
Class. As explained above, I value the sense of belonging in my dojo. But more than that, I think mentoring and being mentored is the best way to progress in martial arts
(iaido:) I don't know. Try it and maybe you will stick. There's (surprisingly) a lot of people in my dojo who began iaido as total beginner and stuck for at least several years.
The term "Martial arts" span a wide range of practice, from esotheric-and-spiritual Kyudo to the very elbow-in-your-face Muay Thai and everything in between.
My main advice would be to look for people first, martial arts second.
You may practice the BestArtOftheWorld(tm), if the dojo is lead by a dudebro obsessed by his clique and the amount of medal the dojo got in the last competition (I fortunately don't think this kind of place exists outside of fiction) you are going to have a terrible time.
How is the atmosphere when a class is given ? Laid-back, fearful, overly attached on protocol and etiquete ? I would look a place where there's a serious and focused training, but not tense. Good natured jokes may come here and there and are appreciated. How's the male/female ratio ? How is the teacher ? Is he a "do as I say no as I do" type ? How does he teach ? Is it more like a "I show a technique, please parrot" or is it more in-depth ? Does he ever put down a student ?
I'm completely inexperienced in performing any martial art (besides school-grade backyard wrestling), though I do enjoy watching them in a competitive atmosphere.
Once I lock-down a job and figure out my finances (and gyms are cleared for opening), I'd like to join a boxing and/or BJJ gym around here. I'm a little worried about training BJJ with regards to my ligaments, and stuff... as I have a bit of a bum right shoulder (it's not too bad, but it's not 100%). Don't think it'd be much of a problem, though.
I did boxing a bit as a kid, and took up Taekwondo for a couple of months at my university. Boxing is cool but I really wasn't a fan of Taekwondo, I prefer to use my hands when fighting.