I sometimes get asked questions by friends or other people who know that I’ve done martial arts for many years.  Usually the questions relate to what the best art is, what they should do or how they can get started and the like.  I’ve decided to put together some of the answers I usually give into a single narrative.  The following is information that I’d recommend to anyone interested in the martial arts become familiar with before embarking on it.

These are some starting points to think about regarding MA in general.  Please note that everything that I will be writing is *my* opinion and views, and you’re welcome to challenge them and question them at your discretion.

  1. First of all, there is no such thing as the best martial art.  I know this is a question that’s gonna come up in every new student’s mind, but really, there is no such thing.  If it has any history to it – that is, if it has some history that stretches into the pre-modern era, then by virtue of it having survived to this day I think it’s be safe to say that it is probably an effective system.  How it is being taught now is another story, but the system itself is probably fine.  My answer to any question of “what is the best/most powerful/most effective/deadliest/etc martial art” is this:  it’s the one you like.  This isn’t as simple or sexy as a single pat answer, but the reason for this answer is that if you don’t like the art, then you’re not gonna practice it, and all the deadliness in the world isn’t going to be worth squat.  The best art in the world *for you* is the one that *you* like and therefore are gonna want to practice all the time and get good at it.
  2. The most important thing to look for in finding a school is not the studio space, not the equipment, not the belts or awards or trophies or any of that.  It’s the teacher/instructor.  You’re essentially entrusting a person to teach you physical exercises and drills that’s *supposed* to impart some kind of defensive skill to you.  You are also entrusting that person to impart some amount of discipline onto you and therefore you are entrusting him some amount of your self-determination.  Not to mention your hard earned money, irreplaceable time, and your health and physical well being.  Therefore, if you do not have a good gut-level feeling about the person, male or female, then the teacher and the school are not for you.  A good teacher is the most difficult thing to find, seconded only by finding a good student.  If you need to go and check out fifty schools and spend months looking until you find the right one, then that’s time well spent doing that homework.  One thing you want to keep in mind is that nowadays, realistically, don’t look for a Yoda, a Master Po, or a Mr.Miyagi.  What you want to look for is a person who is competent and knowledgeable, honest and upfront what he/she teaches and know and (sometimes more importantly) what he doesn’t teach or know, even tempered and self-disciplined.  And on top of that if he’s a good human being, then that’s just a bonus.
  3. Martial arts nowadays are going to fall under one or more of the following categories.  You need to keep this in mind when you evaluate different schools and arts.  The categories are:  exhibition, health and exercise, tradition-holding and recreational, competitive, self-defense, and combat.  Let me explain a little bit of what I mean.

Exhibition refers to arts, systems, and schools where the *primary* focus is performance and demonstrations, often displaying high degrees of athleticism and showmanship.  Whether this is for special events, competitions, movies and entertainment, etc, the main mission is to put on a good, cool show that’s interesting and exciting to watch.  Many American TaeKwonDo, Karate, and Wushu schools have this emphasis with their amazing high kicks, acrobatics, and stunts.

The second type, health and exercise, are systems and schools where the *primary* focus is that of personal physical well being.  They provide either high or low impact exercises and the emphasis is not on any martial or demonstrative effect per se, but mostly as a form of exercise.  Many forms of Taijiquan (as taught nowadays in the West) and kickboxing fall in this category.

The third type, tradition-holding and recreational, are martial arts and schools where the *primary* focus is on the propagation of an old lineage, of perpetuating a specific art form regardless of its exact utility in the modern world, and also providing the practitioner a way to immerse himself/herself into a different world (the world of the samurai, the shaolin monk, the medieval knight, etc).  Many schools of swordsmanship and weaponcraft fall in this category.

The fourth type, competitive, can be called sport martial arts, or martial sports.  They are usually arts and schools that train in a system that have roots in old-school fighting systems, but have been modified for full-on resistive training and competitive fighting.  Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, full contact karate, Sanshou all fall in this category.

The fifth and sixth categories, self-defense and combat, are often paradoxically the most difficult to explain because although it may be intuitive to assume all martial arts train this, the way it’s done is going to be very different from school to school.  By self-defense, I am referring to civilian self-defense, and although most MA schools will include this in their curriculum, many will focus on self-defense *techniques*, not necessarily self-defense methods.  The former refers to simply the physical movements, the latter to a holistic way to thinking about personal protection that includes the physical movements.  The physical techniques that are taught may be purported to be deadly this and dangerous that – but the true efficacy of such techniques taught in a civilian context need to be carefully considered, especially as per the legal ramifications – for example,  learning to crush a person’s windpipe with a leopard strike.  Combat refers to things taught to professionals in the field – law enforcement and military, who have entirely different needs and prerogatives when it comes to fighting.  In fact, the emphasis is not on fighting at all, but *eliminating* the threat or taking down the perp and everything that those words imply.  The training emphasis will be different and certain details in the instructional material will be a little different from the civilian counterparts.

Now, having said all this in this long winded rant, almost all schools of martial arts have some to all of these categories embodied in their curriculum…to a certain extent.  The reason that I had placed the word *primary* above in bold-italics is that every school will have a specialization, and although they may claim that they cover many to all of the above, they simply can’t.  No one has the time and money to do that anymore – and people and schools have to specialize.  So when you look for a school, you need to think about what you want out of your martial arts training.

For example, let me tell you what I look for.  My primary interest is self-defense/combat.  My secondary interest is tradition-holding/recreational.  My tertiary interest is health/exercise.  And my remaining interests are evenly divided up between exhibition and competitive.  And as much as I’d like to say that I https://buycbdproducts.com love to be a bad-ass and be “the deadliest” – I can’t because realistically, I can’t devote that much time to train and I want to have a life to live as well.  But I make the training a part of my life and try to incorporate it as much as I can into it.  So therefore, as much as I’d love to be as deadly as a Navy SEAL or a ninja assassin, I am interested in their aspects on an academic basis and my primary focus is on fighting from a civilian context.  Secondly I am interested in the history and tradition that these arts represent, and I have fun practicing with swords and spears and the like.  And I know that good health is always a side-benefit to good training stemming from proper body mechanics, focused exercises that work certain tissue groups, etc – so I pay attention to that.  And any sportive aspects and demonstrative aspects are purely for entertainment value for me and I don’t place them as the end all and be all of training.  Anybody who really wants to get into the martial arts will have to come to a self-understanding of this type at some point in their path down the martial road.

In terms of the nitty gritty of picking a school, this is a personal preference, but I’d recommend that you avoid schools that insist on you signing a long term contract.  Let me start by adding this caveat – it’s difficult to make a living doing martial arts.  The only real avenues for revenue is in entertainment, competition, and teaching, in that order, and the chances for a revenue stream decrease geometrically as you go down the line.  However, having said that, I personally dislike contracts as such because it locks you in into a situation that you may not like or be comfortable with.  Think of it like a gym membership.  Unless you know that you want to be a member, joining for the long haul under a contract is too much induced commitment.  Also be aware of cult-like behavior and the MA mystique.  Tune your BS meter on high because martial arts, for some reason, seem to cause people to lose their critical thinking skills and allow themselves to be suckered in by a lot of frauds and hucksters.  Be aware of Sifu/Sensei/master/teacher worship where the instructor can say/do no wrong.  Excessive disciplining and kowtowing is also a red flag – after all, we’re all adults here and not a bunch of 8 year olds, and we’re also not in medieval Japan so there’s no excuse for such behavior in the US.  The respect for traditions and the teacher should be comparable to how you would show respect to your favorite boss, or your favorite professor, or your favorite grandfather.

A few additional pointers for when first starting out in the martial arts.  Once you find some schools that interest you, I recommend that you go check it out, preferably with someone who has experience if you can snag someone like that, but even if not, go watch at least one full class.  Look at the instructors and their teaching style, the beginning and advanced students.  The beginning student is what you will be for a while – are they being taught well?  And the advanced students are what you will aspire to be – are they people, in terms of skill and character, that you’d like to emulate?  And ask lots of questions.  Write them down beforehand and take them with you.  Any teacher worth his salt will expect you to ask him/her questions, and if they demur or refuse to answer, that’s a red flag.  If you can get a free trial class, try them out and see if you like it.  If you can’t get a trial class, then ask if you can come and watch another class before you make up your mind on a different day of the week and a different time – usually schools space out their beginner/advanced classes to different days and times, and also different classes will cover different material.  Last thing is that the martial arts are like music.  Every culture in the world has a tradition of it, and there are so many different kinds for all kinds of body types, temperaments, and emphasis – that even if you don’t find one that you like on the first search, you are bound to find something that piques your interest eventually.  Keep searching, and welcome to the long journey.

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