What Martial Art?

If people aren't going to regularly dedicate three hours a week of their life to minimal exercise (and honestly, most people here are not going to do that), the idea that they're going to seriously study martial arts is kind of laughable.

I'd say just at least do some sparring as a starting point. I personally have very little experience beyond that... just some short army training of dubious usefullness.

I always read about martials arts, my opinion take some Biology/Health classes, get some good solid boxing conditioning, and while I'm not advocating hurting people, learn how to hurt people. Then maybe you can look into advance martials arts, if you can't handle a boxing class don't bother trying.

Few people treat Tai Chi as a Martial Art.
It remains the shortest way to get her started.
Starting people with defense instead of hitting is wiser.

Every other path is a minimum of a year to any viability.

Tai Chi will provide a good grounding for other styles.
Learning to slide out of the way by a few inches
helps a lot and is the ONLY thing that can be learned very quickly.


What I have found is that, once a person is on a path of martial arts, it never leaves their brains and, they tend to seek it out when ever they get elbow room for more training.

It is always prudent to consider self-defense as a long path and not a purchase-and-use tool

Sleepless, it is really easy to kick boxers.

For the ONE reason, I never recommend boxing unless
someone is WELL-versed in a style and ready for some fine-tuning of fists and blocks

Sleepless, also, I fully agree about Biology/Health classes!

After all my years and all the different styles..., when I took a very advanced anatomy class,
i got a whole new set of strike-points to file with my other knowledge!!

WHEW! Playing the neck like a piano is way danger-zone!

Flora V. Arbor wrote:

Sleepless, it is really easy to kick boxers.

For the ONE reason, I never recommend boxing unless
someone is WELL-versed in a style and ready for some fine-tuning of fists and blocks

One correction, it's easy to kick a BAD boxer, scenario 1 it's a front kick and I move out of the way, scenario 2 it's a side kick, I take it, and feed the guy his own teeth.

But I more so meant the conditioning, a good competitive trainer will tone you into the machine you never knew you could be.

Side kicks are never good except in the tertiary.

You'll have to see a front kick coming to know that it is there.
tee hee!
Boxers look up too much and leave their feet wide too often.


Do you see why I worry?


If you only use boxing as cardio, aerobics participants will ALWAYS kicka you rumpous.
WAAAHAAA!
I mow a lawn that is on a three angle hill.
THAT is WEEELY good cardio, chiln!

It depends on the program you're in most people only take the amateur class. I took the pro/competitive class, 2hours of straight running, running 20Km in under an hour or doing it again, trust me the competitive class works you harder then most aerobics classes.

That being said I'm sure that some aerobics classes that push harder, but the course I took included a 2 hour aerobic work out. Roughly coming to about 5 hours for nothing but cardio 3 times a week, and that doesn't even count the actually boxing training.

Not trying to start a pissing contest here, I'm just saying that certain programs work you harder then the rec-center style classes.

berry berry good, SleepHopper!
Few boxers do much but at three minutes at a time.
You might last against a gramma

Flora, I'm a boxer. We should spar and see what happens.

Gotta go with Zimmerman on this one. Boxers are some of the best conditioned fighters. Rounds may only be three minutes but fights can last fifteen rounds.

Zimmer wrote:

Flora, I'm a boxer. We should spar and see what happens.

I'm ready, son!!!


The idea of three-minutes-on/one-minute-off is as old-fashioned as
Jazzersize.

We out-grew that YEARS ago, children!

That IS one of the things that had to be addressed with Classic Hi-Lo Aerobics
AND Step Classes.

People just got too strong to keep stopping and catching their breath
and
they get MAD if we stop them!


WAAAHAAA, Zimmer-son!!

WAAAHAAA!
and,
like EON you are SKINNY and will run out of calories WAY before Gramma does!! WAAAAAHAAAAA!!

( Strutting in a jog - airborne airborne!!!! WAAAHAAA!)

You don't beat a well conditioned boxer with tai chi you followed from a youtube video.

I've hung around enough martial artists to know it's almost like religion, and it's easier to just be quiet when people talk about their styles...but that being said I've seen some Tai Chi and xyz-Do people fight people with modern combat training or something full contact like Muay Thai, and I haven't been shocked yet. The pretty stuff is usually the ineffective stuff.

Telling a young woman, who wants to learn something effective quickly,
to learn some Tai Chi,
is not a statement about what I have studied

I don't belive in systems, I belive in learning useful technices and principles. Any martial art can learn you something. Just have fun training something you find useful. Or spend your time discussing what system to train...

Learning any martial arts style is like learning to play notes and chords on a guitar.

You have all the pieces you need to play music but you've got to figure out how to write your own song with them.

And likewise you will have the knowledge you need to fight effectively but you need to figure out how to take tha knowledge to the streets and survive.

GREAT metaphor, C the C!

I appreciate the concern related to my safety in relation to learning Tai Chi, but I promise you that I can take hits rather well. I am much more interested in a defense-based martial system, as well as the systems that use people's force against them, rather than the full-contact and offense-based systems. I only want to learn how to defend myself. I've been in fights since I was a kid, I know how to street fight, and my body type is essentially a "tank" - denser bones than the normal and the ability to take quite a bit of punishment (if you'll pardon the D&D terminology for a moment, it's the only way I could figure out how to describe it).

"I can take hits rather well"

I hear this all the goddamn time. It goes right with the next sentence usually said which is "and I've designed my own style" or "I train myself in ______"

There's no such thing as defensive vs offensive martial arts. That's PR made up by the XYZ-Do's to stay in the game with seemingly more brutal training methods.

You can't just repeatedly block, duck, and weave until your attacker passes out in exhaustion. Self Defense is about protecting yourself from the initial aggression, and then immediately disabling your aggressor's ability to continue.

Look, learn what you want, but I've just seen this time and time again, and I wish someone had been this frank with me when I did a year of ninjutsu before finding Muay Thai. Within a few months I sparred my old instructor, and they were a complete joke.

Which is fine and all, unless your life is depending on self defense skills you assume are up to snuff.

Nemesis wrote:

"I can take hits rather well"
There's no such thing as defensive vs offensive martial arts. That's PR made up by the XYZ-Do's to stay in the game with seemingly more brutal training methods.

Actually I was responding based on comments from Judokens that I've known as well as comments from military personnel.

Nemesis wrote:

You can't just repeatedly block, duck, and weave until your attacker passes out in exhaustion. Self Defense is about protecting yourself from the initial aggression, and then immediately disabling your aggressor's ability to continue.

I realize this, which is why I want to learn Judo.

Nemesis wrote:

Look, learn what you want, but I've just seen this time and time again, and I wish someone had been this frank with me when I did a year of ninjutsu before finding Muay Thai. Within a few months I sparred my old instructor, and they were a complete joke.

I do appreciate your candor in looking out for my safety, I just disliked that the discussion had turned into a rather large argument.

Nemesis wrote:

Self defense is about ...immediately disabling your aggressor's ability to continue...

I agree with this part wholeheartedly.

Disabling the aggressor is an offense-solution and very true and viable
but
it is COMPLETELY true that ducking and weaving
and rolling out of the way until your aggressor is exhausted
will work too.

It is amazingly effective because VERY few people do enough cardio.

Tai Chi employs EXACTLY this technique and has for thousands of years.

The point of Aikido is all-defense too.

I have NEVER heard of an assault ending because the attacker got winded and the victim just walked away. If you think you can duck and weave through an entire fight and never ever worry about striking back, I contend you have never actually been in a fight.

Tai Chi has been enplying this tactic for thousands of years.
So has Aikido.

You, never having heard of it, does not constitute
irrefutable eveidence