Hey. I’ve been out of the MA game for a long while.
I started doing MA at around age 14, trained a style of Kung-fu (it was a very new style, it had tournaments against TKD, and some Karate schools IIRC). I went through some more effective training in my army years, which really made me see how bad I was at something that resembled a real fight, with few rules.
After that I did around 4 years of Kenjutsu and Aikido, before taking a break.
Now, I want to learn something effective that’s useful in a real fight. I’m not aiming at competing with this, just for real life situations, and self-defence.
I’ve been considering Muay Thai, or BJJ. There’s also a Krav Maga class not far from where I live.
Now, it might be that I have a bad impression of TKD from my competition matches with Macdojo TKD practicioners many years ago, so I just wanted to ask. Are there actual kicks in TKD that are effective in real fights? I have several friends who’ve practiced TKD for almost 10 years, so getting some off-training with them shouldn’t be a problem. Is this something that’s worth my time investing in, to supplement say Muay Thai training?
Well, I practice krav & love it, so naturally I’m going to recommend that, especially as it is specifically designed for real world self defense, which is what you say you want.
However, you mention kicking a couple of times, so if working with your legs really intrests you, then maybe you really should go with muay thai. Those guys have some devastating kicks!
BJJ is awesome, but it can be so technical that it takes a while to transfer that knowledge into practical self defense, so maybe that would be a better secondary (but very important) skill to pursue.
You should absolutely train informally with your TKD friends. Even if you decide that none of their techniques are for you, you will have expanded your knowledge about the arts, no? Plus you’ll have fun.
I once took a few classes from a classical Japanese swordfighter guy. While I’m not going to pursue that, I got to look at the practice of movement & balance from a different angle. Plus, I got to play with real swords!
I say don’t just read the menu - stick your finger in every pie & see which tastes best to you.
Suffice to say, doing 5-6 days of lifting didn’t work this week, especially with university starting up. On the first Thai lesson, I’d done a weight session right before (stupid, I know. No legs though). It went decent but I think I survived the class just by being in generally way better shape than most of the other beginners. The second Thai lesson this week was with a different trainer, and it was just brutal. No breaks, not even for water.
However I did pretty good due to being in good shape, it was just a general fucking pain in the ass to keep my guard up for such long extended times, really killed my shoulders.
I started MT in April. For now I’m lifting later in the day on MT days, but my class is early in the AM. That gives me 40 hours to recover before the next class. I didn’t have any problems with shoulders and keeping my guard up, but I did manage to merge into the MT class at a time when they were focused on kicks, teeps and basically doing everything on their toes, which crippled my calves. I spent about three weeks soaking in Epsom salts and cursing stairs. I’m just thankful I didn’t have any other major adjustments to make at the time.
I’m now starting BJJ and finding each sport has it’s own unique physical break-in period, no matter how good of shape you’re in. With BJJ (depending on what we do) I’m feeling a bit beat up (overall) for about 20-24 hours after.
I was pretty pleased to discover my conditioning was above average, but eventually you’ll have a class where all you do is spar (or roll) the entire class with minimal breaks between rounds. Then you’ll find out what you’re really made of!
I also think it’s more about application of the kick ie you’re not likely to use an aerial kick or a high kick in a real life situation. I’d think you’d be more likely to use a sidekick to the knee or a roundhouse (not tournament style roundhouse, the breaking style with the toes curled back) and front snapkick - maybe a crescent or axkick, etc, etc…
Just my thoughts - I’m studying TKD now and the instructor is very clear about the differences in tournament fighting and street fighting.
Another thought would be Combat Hapkido - it’s all about self-defense (breaking grabs, headlocks, wristlocks, etc, etc).
Well at my current gym they teach both MT and BJJ + Combat Submission Wrestling, BUT my Thai trainer said they’d like new beginners to start with one thing, get good at it, then move on to another, to cover their MMA bases, as they gym has had alot of experience with new begginers doing a few thai classes then a few bjj then back and forth never really becoming good at any. Since very few people have the time (and will) to train both at the same time in an efficient manner, he recommended building a solid base with stand up game, from Thai, then moving on to submission and ground game later.
I’m shifting my training more over to pure strength compared to before were I was doing more BB style training, and I’m going to work more on flexibility and conditioning. When I’m flexible enough that I feel I can do controlled high kicks, I’ll ask a friend to teach me some of the TKD kicks.
[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
Well, I practice krav & love it, so naturally I’m going to recommend that, especially as it is specifically designed for real world self defense, which is what you say you want.
However, you mention kicking a couple of times, so if working with your legs really intrests you, then maybe you really should go with muay thai. Those guys have some devastating kicks!
BJJ is awesome, but it can be so technical that it takes a while to transfer that knowledge into practical self defense, so maybe that would be a better secondary (but very important) skill to pursue.
You should absolutely train informally with your TKD friends. Even if you decide that none of their techniques are for you, you will have expanded your knowledge about the arts, no? Plus you’ll have fun.
I once took a few classes from a classical Japanese swordfighter guy. While I’m not going to pursue that, I got to look at the practice of movement & balance from a different angle. Plus, I got to play with real swords!
I say don’t just read the menu - stick your finger in every pie & see which tastes best to you.[/quote]
I agree. If you’re looking for self defense techniques, take what you can from anywhere. Informal training is just as good as training in a dojo… oftentimes I think it’s even better because the people you’re training with don’t claim to be God like some instructors will.
I’ve learned the basics of BJJ informally, as well as the basics of boxing. I’m looking to get into Krav Maga as soon as my shoulder decides it’s done being on strike.