Very New; Trying to avoid "McDojos"

1Weedhopper · White Belt

I would ask around and do your research of the area. Sometimes the best instructors are not even commercially listed in the phone book. Thats how I found my first Sensei. I was working at the golf course and was talking with him and he said he had trained and would teach me if I really wanted to learn. He only charged $30 dollars a month for two days every week. He was old school and trained me hard. A lot of days I questioned wether or not to go to class because I knew he was going to put me in some pain. But with that kind of training you learn that it really works and is practical. McDojo's will not push you like that. The guy I just found this week only charges $5 dollars a night. Both of these guys have dojo's built next to their house. I wish you the best finding one that will teach you right

mal103 · Purple Belt

The best training you will ever get is to end the night in a soaked Gi, a few bruises and only a few quid/dollars lighter. The "Sensei" would have had as much fun training/teaching you that you had learning/teaching them.

I have 25 odd students, most are wanting to be the next Bruce Lee with no effort, some are just waiting for their excuse to give up but the few left are worth all the effort in teaching and will be life long students of the arts and better people, they will teach me and inspire me to show them what I have learnt so far.

Keep looking, a good Shotokan school would be my recommend, but only if they step outside the box - seek what your past masters sought and don't just replicate there standard syllabus.

1Weedhopper · White Belt

I totally agree with mal103. You need to be pushed to exhaustion when you train. One thing I will never forget that I was taught was that the way you train is the way you will fight. If you just go through the motions and barely break a sweat then when you have to fight you will not know how to flip the switch. But if you are used to throwing every punch and kick as if you were punching through a concrete wall then when you have to fight it will be easy to do the same because thats all you know. Also if you are not getting sufficient conditioning (aka geating beat on) then you will not know how to deal with getting hit in a fight. But if you are getting hit on in class then when you get hit in a fight it want be so bad. You will have built up that tolerance and endurance for pain.

Harkon72 · Black Belt

Yes I agree, as I posted on the Karate thread; the harder you go in training the easier the fight will be when it matters. Your Spirit will carry you further than your Mind knows. A good Sensei can measure the effort he needs from you, they know your limit and your mental barriers; beyond these is where the true Art begins.
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guird · Orange Belt

The MMA place seems very expensive, I get access to 15 different martial arts and unlimited fitness centre access for a full year for that price.

not that the others you mentioned are much cheaper.
if money is no object I'd go for the MMA gym, you'll learn a balanced fighting method, and though it's a lot a month it's still more options and more hours for your money than the others. Plus, MMA gyms are like pizza, even when they're bad, they're still pretty good.

Kyokushin is also pretty unlikely to be bad. If they fight full-contact like other kyokushin gyms, any training there will give you a sizeable advantage over average joe.

As for bjj, you should study it (or maybe judo) at some point in your MA journey, you never know what kind of situation you might end up defending yourself in, so you need to have at least a basic understanding of the groundwork/grappling aspects of combat. you don't need to start there though.

Also, are you looking for something more competition-directed, self-defense directed, or performance directed? something more traditional or modern? something adrenaline-fueled or with a calmer, zen-like atmosphere.

tamaro · White Belt

From what I understood there are two main things one should consider:
1) It's your starting martial art
2) You want martial arts for self-defense and not sport

From combination of 1) and 2) I would say you should either choose a striking art (wadoryu karate, shotokan, muay thai, sanda, etc) or mixed art (mma, japanese or german jujutsu, sambo, krav maga, etc) first, instead of a grappling art. Grappling is essential in 1 on 1 fights, but schools that focus alone on grappling techniques aren't too proper for self-defense scenarios because of the reason you correctly pointed.

From 2) alone I'd say you look for a martial art that's not too focused on sport combat with too many limitations and that keeps it real. Kyokushin training is really though, but the sparring doesn't involve striking with hands to the face, which is perhaps the worse thing you can do to distance your training from self-defense reality.

-> Krav maga is likely the best choice you can possibly make, considering you objectives. Other than that, martial arts that focus on self-defense, but don't neglect the importance of sparring are what you need.

As for contracts. I would never get into 1 year contracts. Imagine after a few lessons you notice the instructor sucks? A good instructor won't try to make you sign such a contract after watching just one lesson. To me, that seems to be the action of someone who needs to find a business strategy to compensate his lack of instruction quality.

Leaving you with tips I generally give to people looking to start in martial arts (hope you find them useful):

1) Choose a school where there are a lot of older students (in age and grade). That usually means the instructor is a nice, honest person. Otherwise, people wouldn't be around him for too long.

2) Look at the best student, learn how much time it took him to get his current skill and think whether that's something you find impressive. If so, that usually means training quality is within your expectations.

3) If you see a lot of children with black belt running around, I recommend staying alert to any unfair commercial practices by the school owner. Most academies will charge students some sort of grading fee. Since many academies are businesses, faster grading through lower grading standards will result in more profit. This incorrect practice is the main reason for an academy to prematurely grade underage students to black belt.

4) See as many as 6 training sessions. Just one session is never enough to know if the instruction has the necessary quality.

5) If you see a high percentage of injured students training, stay away from that place! A good Instructor understands the importance of safety in physical training and should have the knowledge to keep a low injury rate at his academy.

6) A good instructor doesn't train while teaching. He dedicates all his attention in helping his students.

7) An instructor without any physical condition may also be a sign of a school that stopped its evolution the day his/her instructor stopped training.

An Instructor should have the required certification and follow the country's regulations for sport/martial arts practice.

9) Martial arts training should have realistic self-defense training. Stay away from crazy fairyland schools where the instructor teaches white belts on how to disarm a gun from 2 meters away...

Good luck.
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sensei8 · KF Sensei

tamaro · White Belt

Thanks!
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T. Amaro

My martial arts blog: http://martialarts.telmoamaro.com
(martial arts related articles, ebooks and apps)

bushido_man96 · KF Sensei

There are grappling schools out there that might have a self-defense focus, and could provide good self-defense training. There are grappling schools out there that will focus on improving position and getting out of a situation, which is great training if you wind up on the ground (which is where a lot of people end up). Don't discount a grappling school.
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