Martial arts to turn my body into a weapon?

[Josh107]

I'm at the uni of Bristol.

You'll probably be OK then, not the guy I was thinking of. I've got a six inch scar down the inside of my right forearm largely thanks to the MMA teacher at my uni (a former Royal Marine) mucking up the teaching of a technique.

Not much info on those pages, the boxing club seems well established and they mention professional coaching. Surprising amount of people in the ju-jitsu photo as well, although the martial art isn't for me the club must have some merit if that many people turn up regularly.

 

[McBain]

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is incredible for fitness, not sure how useful it would be in an actual street fight, considering I can't remember the last time I got in a fight and even back in the day it was always out on the pop so technique tends to go out of the window, replaced by windmilling.

Cracking community though

 

[Warbie]

boxing, judo etc.. might not be very exotic but they're widely available and very effective

I'd argue more so as you spend more time in these disciplines actually full on sparring - as opposed to the staged practising that takes up the majority of time in everything else I've tried

 

[Chandler_90]

I currently do classes in Kick Boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.. Both are very good for fitness and self defence, I'd give Ju Jitsu the edge on self defence as if someone who hasn't trained gets taken down then its only going to end one way.

From the list you have submitted I'd probably incorporate Boxing and/or Wing Chun

Boxing will help with movement.. and again is good for fitness.

So in short:

Kick boxing (Muay Thai)
Brazilian Ju Jitsu
Boxing and/or Wing Chun

 

[Arcane]

How fit are you presently? If you've got terrible core strength and bad flexibility I'd advise against just turning up at a Martial Arts class and assuming it'll all come together eventually. Nothing wrong with trying a few out however. Most martial arts gyms tend to concentrate on technique and sparring rather than the fitness & flexibility elements (mainly due to time constraints) and leave you to do that on your own.

Boxing is one where you more than likely can just start (as there's no kicking involved) you'd be less likely to get injured, (lower back, hips or knees). I personally think you if you go the martial arts route you should get to a state where you can do the basic moves effectively before properly going for it. That means extra gym work.

This is based on personal experience btw, I have a black Belt in Shotokan Karate and a brown belt in Kickboxing (Paragon Gym). I never really concentrated on the stretching and strength stuff and paid for it eventually by having to have my hip resurfaced.

 

[howler]

I wouldn't bother with an MMA gym unless you specifically want to do MMA fights. You'll just take a pasting week in week out and may get a bit fitter

You need to decide what you want out of it

I train Taekwondo, Kickboxing and BJJ. The first two are fairly similar but kickboxing is a little more sparring focused

Although all the competitions I do are actually in Taekwondo, I get that some people think TKD is just a load of funny dance moves but it does have its place in sparring. Teaches you to understand you body movements so you can translate that into power for sparring

Our TKD club is very sparring focused too which is great for me, I know that some do little or no sparring which probably gives a bad impression

I love BJJ, only been training about a year but there is so much to learn and so many different ways of doing things. I actually got to go to Marcelo Garcia's Academy in NYC last month to train which was cool

If you want something for self defence TKD is good if you get a good school, you get all the stand up stuff plus there is actually self defence written into the syllabus. Whether that school teaches it well is another matter of course

BJJ has its place in self defence and was originally designed for self defence against larger opponents. It does have it's place on the streets and I know people who've used it to effect in the real world. Most BJJ clubs are more focused on sport based Jiu Jitsu though these days

 

[NickK]

Experience from doing kickboxing for almost 3 years.

1. Generic 'Kickboxing" varies in style and each gym has their own "right" way. The form I learnt was heavily influenced by the fact that the teacher was a long term heavy weight TaeKwondo competitor, he still taught taekwondo but also competed in kickboxing and later boxing. Switching club showed the difference - their form was lighter, more about speed rather than power and actually sacrificed some 'style form' for speed.

2. You will be spending most of your evenings down the dojo - for the hour beginner lessons initially, then for the longer intermediate lessons & sparring, you'll then start using the beginner lessons as exercise and to begin helping/teaching, then for the advanced - with beginner/intermediate for teaching.
Initially it was sun, tues, thurs then it became sun, mon, tues, wed, thurs. In the beginners sessions, I used to be front right (most senior student) if a blackbelt didn't attend, acted as demo punch bag and was partnered with the off-the-street trial lesson bruisers that thought they were 'hard' and appropriately punched the pad as hard as they could.. then it was my turn - showed the form, showed the speed with control and then warned them that next punches put that together to develop power (I used about 1/2). The looks on their faces being on the padded receiving end Also I'd get partnered with the beginner girls due to the control, however I remember getting my ass handed to me during sparring by a 2nd Dan when I accidentally made contact with her butt a bit harder than normal sparring should.

3. You will get injured at higher levels - as you spar internally initially it's all straight forward but as you get to brown/black you will be sparring with other club members. Then something stupid happens with those that just start club sparring - people forget they're sparring a human, they see the club and their own clan members as human and you as meat. This subsides as you start fighting the more advanced members.
If you job involves meeting people, clients etc you may find that you need to explain the odd bruise, broken toe or injuries.

4. 3 minutes - that the average length of sparring round, so you will find that your fitness becomes rooted in explosive short bursts of high intensity activity with the lessons also providing shortish periods of activity. So you will need to couple it with a decent run or bike ride to ensure you have a longer, lower intensity fitness too. On the good side - you end up naturally getting a good work out better than any simple gym weights session. In fact the upper belts required the student to train in a manner for competition - including diet and overall fitness.

 

[FishFluff]

Ju Jitsu is great but maybe I only think that as the class I used to go to wasn't run by 'The Jitsu Foundation'. Every session would end with sparring (with mma style gloves and boxing headgear) and when we learned punches we actually hit pads rather than just waving our arms in the air. It got me super fit when I did it twice a week.