Are there any TDH'ers here who do Martial Arts?

InfraFett

Active Hunter
Hey all. In recent months, I've pushed myself to start working out and losing weight. I'm starting to go from a 3X shirt to 2X. I've given thought to learning some kind of Martial Art now. I've been reccomended a few ideas, and I just want opinions here. What about Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Choi Lei Fut, or others? And I'm not trying to sound silly or anything, yet what about some kind of Sword and/or Sai training too? any suggestions? Let me know.
 
ME ME!! I USED to do Chinese Wushu. Did it on and off for about 8 years. Got up to intermediate level and competed too. I was getting ready to test for advanced, but my joints couldn't handle all the jumping kicks. But I'm too old to keep up with it. I'm 38 now. And Wushu is not exactly the best thing to do if you have bad knees and ankles. I'm wanting to get back into training again. But I think I'm going to probably look into doing some Taiji Quan.

But honestly, I don't think any style will let you do anything with weapons until you at least get some basics down.

It all depends on what you want to accomplish and what you think you will enjoy. Study some of them on the net. Look through Youtube and watch some videos. That way you can get an idea of what you might be getting yourself into. There are lots of things to research. Soft vs. hard styles. Modern vs. traditional. Katas/forms vs. sparring. Stand up vs. ground. Eastern vs. western. Internal vs. external. So much to consider!! But 22ssplt offered a good suggestion. It's really good to get yourself into shape, and also good if you;re really wanting to know some good self defense and strategy.

Good luck!!!(y)
 
I used to own a couple of martial arts school. There are many things to take into consideration.
First and formost is teacher. any style can have a bad teacher who is only in it for the money or ego trip. a good sign of this is how often he demands or be called sir , sensei or whatever. That might fly in other countries but with most Americans this is a major turn off.
Second is your age and body.If your older karate, tae kwon Do and Mixed martial arts are out. They have a tendency to abuse your body and leave lasting injuries. Taichi some styles of Aikido are style that the older body can handle for years.

Third is competition. Some people are in it for trophies glory and medals. This is a life phase. Eventually your body will not be able to handle it as you are in reality looking for a fight. so make sure your chosen style is one you can do for health reason because almost all of them give you the benefit of being able to protect yourself
 
I'm 21. is that good? I'm looking for a little healthier living too, and Martial Arts helps in a lot of that, from what I've been told.

I'm not really looking for trophies, yet I don't mind competition.

Thanks to you three for the advice. I still want more opinions from anyone else, too.


I used to own a couple of martial arts school. There are many things to take into consideration.
First and formost is teacher. any style can have a bad teacher who is only in it for the money or ego trip. a good sign of this is how often he demands or be called sir , sensei or whatever. That might fly in other countries but with most Americans this is a major turn off.
Second is your age and body.If your older karate, tae kwon Do and Mixed martial arts are out. They have a tendency to abuse your body and leave lasting injuries. Taichi some styles of Aikido are style that the older body can handle for years.

Third is competition. Some people are in it for trophies glory and medals. This is a life phase. Eventually your body will not be able to handle it as you are in reality looking for a fight. so make sure your chosen style is one you can do for health reason because almost all of them give you the benefit of being able to protect yourself
 
I"m a blue-belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I'd say if you want the benefits of better health, weight loss, and still learning something that could save your *** in an actual street fight then there is no better art.

MMA is basicly adding bjj, wrestling, boxing, and Thai boxing together and you train in small fight shorts. In bjj, we train with a gi, or thick karate uniform, it takes a lot of the abuse that in MMA your skin would be taking. I've done both, I prefer training with the gi.
 
Hey! I love Martial Arts. I've been studying Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do... pretty awesome philosophy. Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation. I've also been studying Brazilian Jiujitsu and Muay Thai. I've not actually taken lessons, could not find a teacher to teach either but I read and I practice on my own. I find the Muay Thai very useful at delivering powerful blows while being able to take hits and the Jiujitsu dominates when it goes to the ground. Muay Thai uses everything, Feet, knees, elbows, fists... virtually making you a human weapon. My friend has his 1st degree black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu so he shows me a lot of great techniques. He is the only person that has ever gotten me into something I could not get out of haha.

El1te
 
there is only one true martial arts; Kyoukishinkai Karate, the strongest karate. there is no philosophy, only techniques that will improve your physical and mental condition and give you an opportunity to defend yourselves against anything. it focuses on a mix between long range and short range attacks, meaning that we use limb to fight with, from feet, to hands to elbows to the head. i have done this for about 9 years and im competing in cumite, or full contact, as often as i can.

but every martial art is based on teh same basic stands, and attacks so there really is no yes or no question as to which is best.;)
 
I did tae kwon do and some unarmed combat in the army
although I liked mixed styles, if u are doin it for fitness and are new - then u will have to find a style that suits you. As I am also gettin old and creaky joints with old dislocations, I find Tai Chi a nice balance of fitness and abuse of body.

sai training - only martial art that teaches that is karate IIRC

sword - several options; have u considered tai chi (chinese art), low impact, no joint crunchin moves, can be done with or w/o weapons. Or Iaido - japanese art of drawing and striking. Again, not really a combative style, but general fitness, balance and stance are important

one art I always wanted to try but never got round to do, is a MA with sticks (eg escrima) or staffs (wushu or karate bo's)

good luck bro

I agree Sgt Skirata - ur teacher and school are prob the most impt choices in addition to the style u wish to take up.
 
I´ve started at the age of 10 with Judo. Then I did a few years Hapki Do, followed by Tae Kwon Do and Kyokushinkai. I ended my "career" at the age of 29 after 5 Years of Kickboxing and Muay Thai.
IMO the workout of KB and MT is definetly the best.

I don´t like MA with colored belts. The only sense of a belt is to keep your trousers on (hope these are the right english words).
 
I'm on my 3rd year into Kung Fu with a major focus on Tai Chi. Primary focus is on Ba gua Zhang currently as it deals with fighting multiple opponents simultaneously. Combat style Tai Chi (not the **** in the park) is much more potent at higher levels than Fut Gar style Kung Fu. I prefer the more subtle arts as they become the most potent as you get to those higher levels, and I think the weapon movements are much more fluid. There are over 50 weapon arts in Kung Fu, and then 20 more "secret" weapons once you get to a certain level. Personally, the Ba gua Dao is my favorite. =)

Kung Fu is the father of just about all ancient and modern Asian martial arts.
 
I used to train Muay Thai kickboxing. Never really fought with it outside of class.

My parents own a Dojo and teach Kenpo, kickboxing, and arnis/escrima. It has a lot of forms which use weapons. My mother has a couple of Sai forms she is working on. It is also an effective martial art and not a 'sport' like Americanized Tae Kwon Do. (which is good for weightloss and is very pretty, but not an effective martial art)

It depends on what you are looking for. If you are in it for the weightloss and think of it as a sport and you arent looking for the traditional spiritual and body transformation as well, then you have many more options. Most MMA schools I have been exposed to are very very down on heavy people and have elitiest attitudes and do not carry over the spiritual, mental, and disciplinary aspects of the arts. The OLD dojo my parents worked at before they opened theirs didnt like MMA aspiring folks to train at the Dojo for many of those reasons, plus the ones that were allowed before were rude and thought they were better than everyone and were really really sore losers when they lost sparring matches to people they considered "ranked lower" than them

my parents new school is here: www.logansmartialarts.com so you can read up on the things they offer as far as Kenpo is concerned.

I've always wanted to do Kendo but I dont think that would be much help weightloss wise. But looks fun :)
 
I took Kajukenbo lessons/training about 15 years ago and I would've been purple belt but I got deployed out to sea and had to stop training. Anyway, the type of Kajukenbo that I was learning was Emperado's Method straight from the man who developed the art in Hawaii back in WWII. It is mainly a combination of Karate, Judo, Kenpo, Jiu-jitsu and Boxing designed for street fighting (one to multiple opponents). We were also trained in Jeet Kune Do which is a very powerful style developed by Bruce Lee. My Sifu carefully picked a dozen students who will only use the art for defense and not for offense (bullying others) otherwise he would not event consider you worthy as a student. I guess he can tell from one's character. This training is a very serious matter to him coz it can literally save your life. We don't really train to compete in tournaments, we train to save our lives or other's in a confrontation. My Sifu was trained by Dan Inosanto who was one of the original three of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do certified instructors.

We were trained in the traditional ways of Kajukenbo, from full contact to bleeding lips and such. This way, when we get hit in an actual confrontation, we wouldn't get shocked and lose our concentration. It was brutal training but it makes one ready/prepared for taking on multiple opponents and bring them down in one or two hits. We usually have bull-ring sessions where one student will be in the center of a ring of other students as his/her opponents. The center student would then get attacked (with rubber knives/guns, etc) from every direction and try to take them down with one or two hits. This was my favorite part of the training session. We also learned Kendo (Samurai Sword Fighting) and Arnis (Filipino stick fighting).

In my opinion, Kajukenbo is a well rounded fighting style that can benefit you in real life, especially in this day and age with gangs running amok in every city. But, Choi Lei Fut Kung Fu is also a great fighting style to learn. Good luck and Happy Holidays to you and your family! :)
 
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Kajukenbo is very similar to Kenpo, more grappling. My parents should probably classify the Kenpo style they teach as Kajukenbo. They focus more on grapling then their original lineage.

While my parents dont do the rough contact you did, I do recall many dragon circles (bull ring) and BOY do those make you HURT lol. ugh. memories. :cry
 
Kajukenbo is very similar to Kenpo, more grappling. My parents should probably classify the Kenpo style they teach as Kajukenbo. They focus more on grapling then their original lineage.

While my parents dont do the rough contact you did, I do recall many dragon circles (bull ring) and BOY do those make you HURT lol. ugh. memories. :cry

Yup! Lot's of bruises and sore muscles!:lol:
 
Here's me after my 7 sec KO victory.

I've trained with Miguel Angel Torres(if you don't know him, then you don't follow MMA) and I train a lot with Braulio Corral and Jared "The Spider" McMahnn.


me (2).jpg
 
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If you werent so far away Id come train man.

Here's me after my 7 sec KO victory.

I've trained with Miguel Angel Torres(if you don't know him, then you don't follow MMA) and I train a lot with Braulio Corral and Jared "The Spider" McMahnn.

 
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