Ok, I have seen people mention Martial Arts in certain threads but no actual MA thread, but please link me to it if we do have a Martial Arts thread. I thought this thread would be a good idea for people who are genuinely interested and/or do Martial Arts. When I was 8 years old, I started up Karate, then had to give it up since the instructor got injured and had to close down, then I went on to do Kung Fu for a few months, then I done ITA Taekwondo for 4 years, then had a 10+ year break in Martial Arts, then I got back into it by doing Shaolin (Variety of Chinese Martial Arts), then took up ITF Taekwon-Do and was doing both Shaolin and TKD, but then I had to give one of them up because financial situations and decided to just do Taekwon-Do and now I am a Blue Belt, but I also do an hour a week of Kickboxing too. Does anyone else do it? If so, what do they do?
^ What the ??? You can already call yourself a mixed martial artist. . But thats awesome. Taking different kinds of martial arts. You really want to get hurt do you?! I bet no one wants to mess with you. Im currently taking Kendo. I'm in my 5th month, rank 4th Kyu. Hopefully i can stay with this sport for the rest of my life. I really like this sport. Its all about yourself, how to improve yourself, Improving your skills,technique and also Kendo is a mind game. Not only its difficult physically but also mentally. Also when i started Kendo, i enrolled on a gym to prepare and condition my body for this sport. Im serious in this! At the end of the month i will be putting on my Bogu(armor) for advance level. My sensei already gave me the go signal. Im kinda worried about the basics. I told him im still lacking on the basics, he said its okay once you practice in advance level you can easily learn it there and more faster. The Catalunya champion also gave me approval to put on my armor. Spoiler Before i love basketball, but since its a team sport, team play is needed but sometimes your teamates dont trust you and wont pass the ball. That really pissed me!!! And decided to leave that sport. But Before i started Kendo i inquired in a Kyudo(way of the bow) club here. It was good. I saw how they perform. But time was the problem. It was only every Sunday 3hours. While Kendo is M-W-F-Sat 2hours. ALso its hard to buy Kyudo equipments. *oh and what inspired me to take Kyudo was Yui~
I did Wing Chun for a little while, but I got poorly and had to spend some hospital time. It's been a long time, but I'd like to get back into it, though I'm not sure if there are any instructors where I am now.
3 years of WTTU/ATA Taekwondo. 2nd Degree Black. Former semi-pro MMA competitor. 4 years of competitionThis included training in boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, judo, and oddly, kendo. Lifetime of fights in the streets/ alley/ bars/ you get the idea. Always was good with my hands. And feet. I no longer train regularly. But I still get in the gym every once in awhile when my buddy needs help training the guys.
I have a green belt in both Wado-ryu Karate and Judo Also tried Taekwondo and Aikido but poorly they weren't for me
Awesome to see a semi-pro MMA guy here. Which martial art did you find most useful on street fights btw?
For me. I've almost spent 2 years doing Muay Thai, around 3 months of boxing, and a little bit of JKD.
Since I trained in Taekwondo first, and at a such a young age, I used that mainly. Plus I just really liked kicking fools. By the time I got into MMA, I had started to clean up my act, so to speak. Combine that with my size and reputation, the amount of street fights I found myself in took an extreme drive. Lets say from 2-3 a month, to 1-2 a year. Everybody now-a-days likes to think that, because they watch UFC, they are experts in jujitsu. So a lot fights now are different than what would have happened ten-fifteen years ago. Basically, the more disciplines you know, and the faster you can recognize what your opponent is doing and how to counter, the better off you are. You will definitely want to learn how to fight on the ground though. Having fast strikes and movement also helps, alot. Lastly. Please refrain from double posting. Unless a day or so has passed with no responses, the edit function is a nice way to additional thoughts to a post, while keeping the threads looking a bit better(?).
The best part of my life when I started doing Muay Thai was go to Thailand. Then get the sh*t kick out of me by the trainers and the regulars that been doing this since birth. Yep, back in the days... there weren't that many gyms that did more than one discipline. For me back then there was Fairtex and then Gracie for Jits. Now that UFC exploded, more gyms have open with more than 2 disciples and UFC got their own him. The funny thing you bring up about street fights. Getting my ass kicked at the gym so many times, I do see the other guys if you get into a street fight with... how they stand, where their hands are and any other holes they got so you can counter them.
I practiced Taekwondo for 6 years before I stopped when I was a "candidate belt" (it's what we call a combination of red and black at my school - basically the mid-level between red belt and black belt). I didn't have the mentality nor the maturity to become a black belt back then. I haven't practiced any martial arts since then, but I am looking around for some self-defense classes right now.