RICH WILD

I think this has been said previously but it's not so much the art that's important, as the teacher themselves. There are good and bad schools of ALL martial arts.

I've been doing various martial arts now for the past 25 years and again, as has already been said, there is no "all conquering" one. Hence why MMA has become so popular.

All have their limitations.

TKD for example is excellent for fitness and long range fighting and is entertaining to watch but as has already been said it has limitations against the grappling arts. Unless the TKD practitioner could dispose of the grappler at long range fairly quickly it would soon end up on the ground and it would be game over.

Likewise,any of the grappling arts, including Ju Jitsu usually don't spend much time training the striking side of things and consequently a good solid puncher or kicker will cream the average BJJ practitioner long before they've had chance to get to the grappling range.

For practical self defence you need an amalgamation of several arts. You need to be good with stood up striking and also grappling and groundwork.

Choose a good school first and foremost with a disciplined instructor. Not TOO disciplined as I've seen places where it goes the other way and the guys are like pocket Hitlers and produce bad students (remember the baddies in the frightful Karate Kid movies?) but try somewhere with a smaller class so more attention can be devoted to your child individually.

Also avoid places that are too synthetic. Learning 20 techniques a week and getting belts like smarties is all well and good but if none of it works in the real world, then it's pretty pointless as self defence.

I've seen some clubs where students don't even fight freestyle/spar til brown belt! That's like learning to rally drive from a book!

Some degree of full/semi contact is essential. It's becoming increasingly rare in this day and age of health and safety obsessives, but I've seen so many times high graded martial artists who've never taken a real punch before and when it "kicks off" in town they get leathered.

I like Muay Thai and western boxing for this as practitioners always learn to take a punch and learn to defend well. I've seen many Karate/Ju Jitsu etc practitioners from bad schools leave their chins wide open as they've never had to worry about a "real" punch.

Enough waffle from me anyway, I could go on all day, but basically choose a good fairly well disciplined school with a reasonable class size and an emphasis on realism, not belt collecting, and "ideally" one that does a combination of striking and grappling (although you could always do 2 different arts, one of each)

Ray_li

Jeet Kune Do > All round fighting. have a read of this http://www.impactjkd.co.uk/

NeilT

I would disagree with this - many of the original, 'traditional' arts ARE all conquering, but take years, if not decades to get to that level, (for example, read Gichin Funokoshi's (the father of modern day Karate Do)autobiography. He commited his life to Karate, and his biography talks of many encounters. The Karate he developed and promoted taught body conditioning, tight ground work and a highly effective stand up form of defence. Most people these days haven't got the time or patience for this sort of commitment, hence the reason for the simpler (actually simpler is probably the wrong word here), more quickly learnt MA.

Theres many reasons for studying a martial art, if its just to quickly improve your self defence skills, then some of the more recently developed styles are probably better suited to you, as you can see results faster. However, if you're looking for a deeper, more meaningful aspect to the martial arts (and its there) together with a very effective form of defence the traditional martial arts such as Karate and Gung Fu are possibly the only route. For me the latter is the goal.

Any MA will provide an excellent cardio workout (or at least it should if done properly)

All IMHO of course.

Neil

The Chief

To be honest mate TAGB can differ from club to club, we were encouraged to see other clubs as they're instructor tended to have a different style compared to Mr Lawrence, as he used to tell me what used to work for him may not work for others (he is tall and lankey)

I once trained at a self defence seminar under Dave Oliver and did a sparring seminar under Ron Sergiew - now he simply blew me away!!!! totally different to what i had been taught.

Some clubs compared to ours were very poor - but i would say that 'cos i am biased

I really miss TKD

Hol

iTrader: (1)

My eldest son, 8yrs has been training with my old Shotokan sensie since he was just 5. I even got the buzz back myself and started it up gain 18months ago.
My youngest will start on his 5th birthday.

My Sensei is very old fashioned about respect for others and standards (adults turn up late = multiple press-ups+). He makes the kids recite and understand a five line KUN every lesson about respecting others and refraining from violence.
Grades are not handed out, just for turning up,... like some clubs I know of.....

My son does extremely well at school, because he is programmed to pay attention and has huge confidence in his abilities.

Having said all that we often have exchanges with sensie from other disciplines and I have to say I was very impressed with some of the TKD moves we learn from them. (Especially, after i couldn't shake hands for two days )

I think it all comes down to the instructor, rather than the discipline, as they set the rules and the standard.

We have a good one.

pslewis

Forget all this GayBoy slapstick .................

Get them some real streetfighting techniques ..................

Any StreetFighter will take the KickBoxing GayBoyz and twist their backsides inside-out ............. as for girlie Karate, Huw Dung Twooo or whatever - well they wouldn't have even got ready

Pete

Hol

iTrader: (1)

Have you been watching the Goodies 'Eckie-Thump' sketch again???

BTW.. Any predefined reflex reaction is better than waiting to be hit first.