Martial Arts

This is what I did in my life and my view on pros and cons

6 years of Judo: great foundation/ excellent in close range but only good at single aspect
5 years of WTF Tae Kwon Do: great condition/ excellent in long range but not practical on the street
7 years of Krav Maga : most practical fighting system but is hard to find a good school
4 years of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu/ no gi grappling: super fun/ not easy to get hurt but is not practical on the street
3 years of Muay Tai: powerful and tough but slow on its feet
3 years of Mixed Martial Art: super fun / tough / most complete sadly make you want to compete
4 months boxing: great foundation/ condition but only good at single aspect
6 months of 16 century Italian rapier: super fun / scientific but I can't carry a rapier around

feel free to ask my secrete to know so many fighting forms. 😳

feel free to ask my secrete to know so many fighting forms. 😳

So... what is your secret?

But I can carry my rapier like wit around. 🙂

feel free to ask my secrete to know so many fighting forms. 😳

So... what is your secret?

did not kiss a girl until I was 21 !! 😀

all those energy got to go somewhere

My martial arts background began in 1979 and since then I have taught several arts, and fought in Thailand and canada usa etc. I am alsop a former Special Service Forces soldier. I have fought and held national titles in Muay Thai since 1999 and have trained in it since 1985. I have owned a school since 1999 where I taught Muay Thai, wreslting, boxing, karate and unarmed combat non sport related ( more military style - not meant for sport )
I have trained 1 national champ under me, and several regional champs. Im also a fire fighter for the last 18 years, and am a actaing Captain. We do medical and I have taught many types of medical courses, and taken many others for general knowledge.

That is my background, so you knwo where my opinions come from. Althoguh I have trained and even medalled in various arts such as Kick boxing (NA style), Judo, JuJitsu, TKD and kung fu. I find the only ones really useful for this sort of defense would be Muay Thai, Wrestling and JJ or BJJ. Or military unarmed combat, but thats differnent I suppose.
MT you can destroy an opponent with minimal rosk and energy, and once in a clinch even the best MMA fighters and wrestlers hate being there and have extremely hard times breaking the clinch. Great for dealing with multiple fighters
Wreslting Fast and effecting throws to create space, or gain top mount.
JJ/BJJ great for restraining, ending a grapple, but leaves you defensless vs multiple opponents and terrain can drastically affect your movement and survival rate.
All arts have merrit, and I encouage you to dabble in many as you learn their style, and way of thinking. Also not every art is right for everyone, and same can be said about the instructor. You need to find an art that meshes with you and you personality and then an instructor that you can learn from . We are not all the same in teaching styles and not all learn the same way.

12 years in ITF Taekwon do- 1st dan

Fun, good family activity, easy to learn, Great for all ages, Confidence builder, Self Defence techniques, Great for Cardio,

Two years in Taekwondo many years ago when I was in my early 20s. Now taking karate at the age of 40 and loving it. Yellow belt at this point, but black belt is in my future. I could write a book on the benefits, but I just don't have time LOL. However, in general the benefits are the physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

I've just started Krav Maga. So far I like it. I think it's a realistic self defence system. I like how there are no competitions. Personally, as a woman, I would prefer to learn how to break someone's face and get away than to learn how to do fancy kicks and holds... It empowers me and gives me a sense confidence in my ability to take care of myself. I recommend it to everyone. 🙂

I don't have much formal training, and I don't have a black belt in anything.

Street fighting as a teenager helped teach me much, much more than any of my training. The martial arts are basically more efficient and methodical. My only formal training was 3 years of Taekwondo and 3 years of college wrestling. Other than street fights, I informally cross-trained with Judo, Aikido, Karate, and Muay Thai instructors for 2 years when I was in the air force.

I trained Taekwon do for a year and for me it helps a lot when it comes to self defense.

I've just started Krav Maga. So far I like it. I think it's a realistic self defence system. I like how there are no competitions. Personally, as a woman, I would prefer to learn how to break someone's face and get away than to learn how to do fancy kicks and holds... It empowers me and gives me a sense confidence in my ability to take care of myself. I recommend it to everyone. 🙂

who is your instructor and which federation ?

Krav Maga has been water down due to commercialization. Some schools are good ? some schools are just horrible.

I have looked at this thread a few times and wondered if I should respond. That is likely due to much of my fighting skills are unorthodox and often I've I been labelled a dirty fighter after having then just won. I did take Judo from the age of 11 to 16. I achieved a blue belt and felt it was a sport that often only was effectual against another in Judo. Kids my age overall were totally into Bruce Lee movies and scrapping was something we did alot just goofing around anyways.

My friends father had been a serious boxer for much of his life and thus raised his 5 boys in the school of kickass! These were my friends! I didn't seem to have the built in abilities to box as well as these friends and thus when I was taking a decent beating, I'd often resort to applying the nut kick as a survival reflex. This somehow evened the playing field and thus I could then win a round or two. Seems my philosophy therefore later became more about finding the weak link in my opponents armor and this initial discovery lead me down another path then many would not choose.

I joined the Military Police at 18 and was told I was the shortest MP they hired in many years at 5' 7". Once again I was considered the easy prey to many others and the majority therefore usually underestimated me which is what I preferred anyways. The MP training is designed to separate the weak from the pack and from a class of 40, 24 remained to graduate on my course. Many of these dropouts occur due to sustaining injury from dislocations of the arms at elbow or shoulder. The overall mindset in this training was to still be standing at the end of the class. To stay down was considered poor sportsmanship and often you were punished if you opted for that choice. We were constantly told that soldiers are trained fighters and thus we MP's had to be better trained to make them understand that there are still consequences for those who disobey...destroying an arm was often the way to quickly end a fight and thus we practiced doing such...alot!

I found that MP's did two things well, drink and fight! And if there was no one else to fight, we often then fought each other. This does not go well when you might have to rely upon that same person the following day in a bar brawl. We were so popular on base that we had to have our own bar to drink at as if we tried to enter the junior ranks bar off duty, it wouldn't be long before we were fighting for our lives and drastically outnumbered. I think most soldiers can testify to their love for the MP's!

I liked fighting probably because it is something I was good at. I sucked at hockey, baseball and all that other stuff. Fighting to me was sorta like a game of chess (with penalties). The trick is to plan a few moves ahead just as in chess. You can pick on a specific point such as the forward leg while of course keeping distance and pretending your focused elsewhere as you set up your opponent. A few strikes to the leg makes the opponent shift to another less comfortable stance and now you have your opponent fighting somewhat off balance to what their used to. As they try to protect such weak spots, you set them up where they expose critical strike points to take them down. This is how I played and often how to win!

Those who have a variety of martial arts training and not mix them up even while sparring seems dumb from my perspective. This is likely why I would never compete as I use all weapons in my arsenal, no matter the rules. No contact fighting teaches one to pull their punches and these inbred habits later interfere when you need it most. The folks I sparred with were serious fighters too and we often fought until blood was drawn or an injury occurred.

Ratts knew me back then too and sometimes socially sparred with me while just visiting. I say that in the politest sense as this is usually full contact sport so the social part is just slapping your opponent to show them their openings in their defenses. These are not gentle slaps and often they are aimed at ear drums to disable your balance as it screws with your equilibrium(dangerous too as you can blow the eardrum if enough force is used). No, we were not like "fight club" but you still shouldn't play if your not willing to pay! This is not something we did after a few drinks for courage. This is something we did to stay sharp for those times that you don't usually see things coming until your in it!

So would I suggest other folks to practice like this too? The aggressive part of me (now hiding in the shadows these days) still says "hell yes" while the logical controlled side I now try to draw upon says I should tell all of you instead to trust in God as we likely won't come out of this next battle unless HE intervenes anyways.

I'm now old enough that I can injure myself just from throwing some haymakers simply at nothing as my shoulder joints scream from such things now. My left hand is also suffering from arthritis from past broken fingers from poorly aimed shots. Dislocating ankles 3 times put a stop to spin kicks some 20 years back but for all those younger pups out there who want to experience a little MP training, just try doing a few pushups on your wrists with palms facing up as we had to do these in sets of 20 at a time in the army. They'd tell us it built up your wrist muscles for us practicing the wrist bends... I think it just built up one's endurance to pain! 😎

Hello friends

here is a video of my military Krav Maga instructor course -
I find Serbian really got their training done right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toeB6hAg8HE

I have looked at this thread a few times and wondered if I should respond. That is likely due to much of my fighting skills are unorthodox and often I've I been labelled a dirty fighter after having then just won. I did take Judo from the age of 11 to 16. I achieved a blue belt and felt it was a sport that often only was effectual against another in Judo. Kids my age overall were totally into Bruce Lee movies and scrapping was something we did alot just goofing around anyways.

My friends father had been a serious boxer for much of his life and thus raised his 5 boys in the school of kickass! These were my friends! I didn't seem to have the built in abilities to box as well as these friends and thus when I was taking a decent beating, I'd often resort to applying the nut kick as a survival reflex. This somehow evened the playing field and thus I could then win a round or two. Seems my philosophy therefore later became more about finding the weak link in my opponents armor and this initial discovery lead me down another path then many would not choose.

I joined the Military Police at 18 and was told I was the shortest MP they hired in many years at 5' 7". Once again I was considered the easy prey to many others and the majority therefore usually underestimated me which is what I preferred anyways. The MP training is designed to separate the weak from the pack and from a class of 40, 24 remained to graduate on my course. Many of these dropouts occur due to sustaining injury from dislocations of the arms at elbow or shoulder. The overall mindset in this training was to still be standing at the end of the class. To stay down was considered poor sportsmanship and often you were punished if you opted for that choice. We were constantly told that soldiers are trained fighters and thus we MP's had to be better trained to make them understand that there are still consequences for those who disobey...destroying an arm was often the way to quickly end a fight and thus we practiced doing such...alot!

I found that MP's did two things well, drink and fight! And if there was no one else to fight, we often then fought each other. This does not go well when you might have to rely upon that same person the following day in a bar brawl. We were so popular on base that we had to have our own bar to drink at as if we tried to enter the junior ranks bar off duty, it wouldn't be long before we were fighting for our lives and drastically outnumbered. I think most soldiers can testify to their love for the MP's!

I liked fighting probably because it is something I was good at. I sucked at hockey, baseball and all that other stuff. Fighting to me was sorta like a game of chess (with penalties). The trick is to plan a few moves ahead just as in chess. You can pick on a specific point such as the forward leg while of course keeping distance and pretending your focused elsewhere as you set up your opponent. A few strikes to the leg makes the opponent shift to another less comfortable stance and now you have your opponent fighting somewhat off balance to what their used to. As they try to protect such weak spots, you set them up where they expose critical strike points to take them down. This is how I played and often how to win!

Those who have a variety of martial arts training and not mix them up even while sparring seems dumb from my perspective. This is likely why I would never compete as I use all weapons in my arsenal, no matter the rules. No contact fighting teaches one to pull their punches and these inbred habits later interfere when you need it most. The folks I sparred with were serious fighters too and we often fought until blood was drawn or an injury occurred.

Ratts knew me back then too and sometimes socially sparred with me while just visiting. I say that in the politest sense as this is usually full contact sport so the social part is just slapping your opponent to show them their openings in their defenses. These are not gentle slaps and often they are aimed at ear drums to disable your balance as it screws with your equilibrium(dangerous too as you can blow the eardrum if enough force is used). No, we were not like "fight club" but you still shouldn't play if your not willing to pay! This is not something we did after a few drinks for courage. This is something we did to stay sharp for those times that you don't usually see things coming until your in it!

So would I suggest other folks to practice like this too? The aggressive part of me (now hiding in the shadows these days) still says "hell yes" while the logical controlled side I now try to draw upon says I should tell all of you instead to trust in God as we likely won't come out of this next battle unless HE intervenes anyways.

I'm now old enough that I can injure myself just from throwing some haymakers simply at nothing as my shoulder joints scream from such things now. My left hand is also suffering from arthritis from past broken fingers from poorly aimed shots. Dislocating ankles 3 times put a stop to spin kicks some 20 years back but for all those younger pups out there who want to experience a little MP training, just try doing a few pushups on your wrists with palms facing up as we had to do these in sets of 20 at a time in the army. They'd tell us it built up your wrist muscles for us practicing the wrist bends... I think it just built up one's endurance to pain! 😎

spend 12 years with the Army Reserve ( Artillery & Armor Reccee ) and Reg ( Artillery school ). All the senior NCOs are probably same age as you. Crusty, hard as F@ck. For whatever reason, they all build differently and fight differently. I think our generation ( I am 31 ) and newer generation got influenced too much by MMA and UFC......yes we are definitely more athletic and healthier but we don't know the meaning of cruel and brutality as the older generation.