Martial Arts: a few thoughts, suggestions
This page is here as an act of service to those who are thinking about getting into in martial arts or combat sports. It's for those who think that they ought to do it, and for those who think they need to, or are supposed to. And also for those who want to do it because they just want to do it. It's for women as well as men, and for teenagers as well as adults.
It isn't for older people, or people with serious health issues or suffering from significant infirmity. It isn't for people over forty. I wouldn't know what to suggest for that demographic I'm sorry. Even well before that age it's difficult to know exactly what's best for someone who is new. It's aimed at those aged 15-34.
Introduction to martial arts
If someone (under thirty) wanted to learn something about martial arts, and they didn't know anything, personally I would recommend a combination of judo and Muay Thai.
As an introduction to martial arts, I would suggest to them that they go to a judo class for about six months and then a Muay Thai class for about six months.
And I would suggest to them that they take a month off in the middle (or more, depending on when terms or classes start and finish). Take a month off after your six months of Judo and before your six months of Muay Thai.
And that's your introduction.
There are other martial arts (and combat sports) which can be fantastic and can be great options, such as wrestling, boxing or BJJ. And others such as karate which can be perfect for some people. But my recommendation is for Judo and Muay Thai.
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Fitness
If you're out of shape, or otherwise need to get in shape, then get a little bit fitter, or at least fit-ish, before going.
1. Do a little bit of cardio: do some jogging, cycling or walk-runs; a little goes a long way. Other types of cardio are fine too.
2. Make sure you can manage some strength movements (such as pushups, sit ups, bodyweight squats and planks) or that you can do some gym stuff like lifting weights and using machines.
3. For best results, make sure you have played a normal sport in the past like soccer, basketball, hockey, volleyball, netball or tennis
4. For best results, play a little sports (casual or otherwise) in the 8-12 weeks before showing up to your first martial arts class/session. Even if it's just soccer on Saturdays with friends, or a table tennis night at the local church hall.
As a bare minimum, you need to be able to do 3 sets of ten pushups (men's or women's depending on which you are), 3 sets of ten sit-ups, 3 sets of twenty squats, and jump rope for 2-3 minutes. And you should be able to touch your toes, or come fairly close to it (by the way, touching the ground in front of you is better than touching your actual toes, but you don't need to get all the way to the ground, just really close). You should be capable of playing at least one other sport, just in general, other than the martial art or combat sport that you intend to do. And lastly, you should be comfortable going for a run (or a "walk-run") and you should be comfortable with going for a 30 minute bike ride.
For example, you should be comfortable with going for 2-3 walk-runs a week, and be pretty capable of that (or just going jogging/running three times a week). And maybe a 30 minute bike ride if you felt like it.
Note: a walk-run is where you walk for a few minutes, run for a few minutes, walk for a few minutes and run for a few minutes. And you do this for 20-35 minutes. In many cases, it's better for beginners than steady state jogging is, because it feels less gruelling and instead feels more energising.
Note 2: In my opinion, if you're going for a short bike ride for the sake of fitness (30 minutes), then you don't have to make it a "steady state" ride. You can vary the intensity/speed. It works better that way. You bike with easy intensity for a bit, and then quicken the pace for slightly more intensity, and then slow down again. Or when you go up hill it's tougher, and down-hill it's easier. It's like a "sine wave". It's not interval training though, and you don't have to push yourself to the limits like you would with interval training. It's just... variation, peaks and troughs in intensity while exercising. I wouldn't recommend interval training on the bicycle for the sake of just basic, enjoyable fitness. As far as I'm concerned, this paragraph is just normal, basic advice.
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After the introduction
And then after your introduction (6 months of each), let things settle in for about 6-12 months before adding anything new, or trying to push things to the next level. Other than maybe buying a boxing bag.
Here is an example of a good bag (for a lightweight, 60kg):
Or at least I think it’s a good example.
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Connection to political ideology
If I had a specific political ideology that I was pushing...
Then I wouldn't tell people to do martial arts for it!
I'd suggest to them that they stay physically active in whatever way was most appropriate for them. And to be sensible about it.
Unless martial arts and combat sports are their hobby and they love martial arts (and/or combat sports), or they're passionate about it, or they have other good reasons for doing what they're doing. In which case, they should make whatever or whichever choices are best in their own eyes, within reason (and hopefully with a little advice from sensible friends). If it's your hobby, and you love it, then do it!
When it comes to fitness and exercise in general, I might tell people to avoid too much vanity, but that might not go down well.
I'd say though, that if they were looking for some basic fitness advice, that cycling is a good option for a lot of people. And that walking and table tennis are good too. And swimming is very popular. Those would be my best generic picks for ordinary, everyday people: cycling, walking, table tennis and swimming. That's just advice in general.
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Extra options and opinions:
In my opinion, a combination of judo and Muay Thai is the wisest option available for many people who are starting out. That combination. 6 months of each.
If you can only do one of those two, and only for six months, then do Muay Thai.
If you can only do one of those two, but you think you'll keep at it for more than six months, then do Judo. A year or more of judo could be exactly what a guy (or girl) needs.
Wrestling and boxing are awesome too.
But wrestling is tough! Judo is similar to wrestling, but it is a little more approachable, and much more beginner friendly. And it also is safer to practise and to compete in, and geared a little more to self defense.
And boxing is hard! It's tough to get good at boxing. You have to train hard! And you will take plenty of hits in sparring. There is cardio, strength, conditioning, shadow boxing, bag work, getting hit in the head. There's a lot of sweat and a little bit of blood. Strangely enough, Muay Thai is easier to learn, and they'll teach you better and faster than boxing will, in my opinion.
But boxing and wrestling are still amazing. And if you preferred boxing to Muay Thai, then that's okay. Or if you preferred wrestling to judo, then that's okay. But those are different roads to travel.
Sambo: it looks cool, but it's not always all that widely available. And besides, you can always just do judo + boxing of some kind. It's similar.
Karate: If you don't have judo or kickboxing in town. Or they're too challenging for you. Or you don't want to get thrown in judo, or the cardio in Muay Thai is too tough. Or if you don't like the clubs in town. And if boxing looks too hard (it is hard) or if wrestling looks too hard (it is hard) then it's okay to do karate.
Some people look down on karate. But actually it's good. For example, shotokan karate is okay and American kenpo is fine. You'll learn a lot, and you get hurt less in training for those than you will in training in some other things. And let's say you want to learn some stuff, but the other options seem too hard for you or you think you would get hurt in training. Well maybe karate is right for you. It might not make you as formidable as some of the other ones, or do it as quickly... but maybe you don't need to be the toughest person on earth. And when you weigh up the pros and the cons, maybe a year or two of karate is actually just what you need. There are cost-benefit ratios to consider, and when you take those into account, karate is still a fine option in my opinion.
I would suggest just adding in some extra grappling/wrestling/throws practise. Because they tend to be a little light on that. For example, you might train in BJJ, Judo or wrestling for a few months.
At least in karate you're less likely to get hurt! This is because you're not practising submissions, arm bars, chokes, heel hooks, and you're not punching one another in the face all day, and you're not slamming one another to the ground all of the time. Maybe I just don't want you getting hurt in training? Huh? Did you ever think of that?
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In the future
After 6-12 months off, during which period you should be doing a little light-moderate exercise and other light-moderate physical activity.
You can then look at doing some more training, starting with something like another year of judo or Muay Thai. Or perhaps you try out wrestling or boxing.
____Or you could do exactly 6 months more of judo and 6 months more of Muay Thai.____ -bold this
[[[bold me]]]
The world is your oyster.
Or you can just call it a day and say, "One year's worth of martial arts is enough."
"One year of education, practise, training and development in martial arts and training is plenty".
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Question: At what point have you done enough?
You might actually have accumulated enough experience and ability in your first year of training and practise to describe yourself as "having made an appropriate level of investment in martial arts training or in otherwise learning to fight". It might already be sufficient. Otherwise, use your own judgement. Maybe ask yourself, "am I a capable beginner, with some experience? Or am I genuinely crappy and inept?". Because if you are a healthy, intelligent capable man (or woman) and you went and trained and practised for 12 months and developed the skills and abilities that you were supposed to develop, and became fairly capable. Then you might have actually developed the sorts of skills and abilities that count as adequate preparation.
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Further in the future (you can skip this bit)
This page was supposed to just be advice for how to get started, but if you really like this martial arts stuff, then I have a few more ideas.
First of all, if you have decided that you really enjoy this martial arts stuff. Then by all means it's okay for you to keep doing it for quite a bit longer.
Secondly, if you have never done strength training in a dedicated manner, then you might consider doing that.
Some people have been doing strength training for years.
Some people haven't ever done strength training in a serious way.
And so if you haven't done it before, then please consider becoming a beginner weight lifter. And do some moderate strength training for a year. Be sensible, make good decisions. You will get stronger, build muscle and develop more power.
You will probably need to join a gym to do this. But you can do a lot of it at home. And some people even manage to do quite nicely with minimal equipment and a focus on using their own bodyweight along with things like pull up bars and dumbbells.
And while you are a beginner weight lifter and just learning the ropes, it might be wise to step back from martial arts training for a bit. You don't want to have too much on your plate at the same time if you're a normal guy with a normal life and a job. Many people might disagree with that idea. But it's okay. It's okay for people to have differences in opinions.
You might want to spend a year working on learning to lift weights; a year focusing on strength training and becoming a competent weightlifter. During this year, maybe you're not training in martial arts all that much, if at all. Maybe that takes a back seat.
And once you've made significant progress in weight lifting or strength training, then you might want to get back into training martial arts for a short stint of 4-5 months. After which you might call it a day. By that point you've accumulated nearly two and a half years of practise in classes and maybe 16 months strength training. Which is well and truly more than enough. Or, as I said, you can keep on training in martial arts long term.
It's okay to lift weights and train in martial arts simultaneously (of course it is!). But maybe while you're first
learning to lift, and you're a beginner weight lifter and still learning the ropes at the gym, just focus on the gym and strength training. But then after that you can do both.
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Finally, if you want to keep going, if you want to keep on training and practising, then get advice from better and wiser people! There are some good people out there, or so I have heard.
End.
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Tldr;
If you want to get into martial arts, combat sports, or otherwise want to learn to fight.
Then just do six months of judo and six months of Muay Thai, take six to twelve months off afterwards, and then figure out for yourself what your next steps are, if any. But before you start, make sure that you have some level of fitness first and that you've played a sport before at least at some point in your life.
Glhf
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Reread the next segment once too.
Then the whole thing is ready to post??
Or at least it is finished. And work in the rest of it.
I intend to write five or six short posts in this series:
Six posts:
Firstly, I have written a post giving people advice on introductory martial arts, a quick start guide
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Secondly, I hope to maybe write a post on why judo is so good and why training in Muay Thai is such a smart move.
[Why judo? It's "sportified", so it's safer to learn and practice, which means you can do more of it and therefore develop your general ability and capacity in fighting. I might write a post about why judo is the greatest! Also, you learn to fall well. I might also write a brief note about why Muay Thai training is so great (it's fun! And often the training is light on sparring, especially early on, and the Thai pad work is great pedagogy).]
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And thirdly, I hope maybe to write a post on how to "right size" your level of investment in training and martial arts.
There's an implied arms race in some parts of "the culture" or in media and propaganda. And there is more than one way to look at this. In my opinion, it's best to just get the level of skill, ability and capacity that makes sense for you. Don't give up because it's too hard to "keep up". But don't feel obliged to try to "keep up" with everyone, because there is always a bigger, tougher guy (or girl). And yeah, I just wanted to mention that there is a bit of an arms race, but it's up you to choose to avoid it (or not).
Are you following the scouts motto of "be prepared"? Or the Ash Ketchum mantra of "I wanna be the very best, Like no one ever was"?
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And fourthly, I want to write a brief post about what to do once you have moved on from training in martial arts, combat sports and otherwise learning to fight.
For example, you might learn and develop the skills that you want, and then you move on. And when you move on you do things like the following.
playing a sensible sport in moderation, remembering to enjoy it
doing some light-moderate cardio in a sustainable manner
maintaining your strength either at the gym or through moderate strength/resistance training at home
staying flexible by doing basic stretches, mostly conventional static stretching
Walking. Sometimes out in nature, and sometimes just around town or the mall
Maybe doing drills or some sort of moderate and appropriate practise relating to your martial art or combat sport long term. For example, in boxing you might do bag work once or twice a month, jump rope a few times a week, and shadow box a few times a week.
Or pad work with a friend once or twice a month if you do Muay Thai. Along with jumprope a few times a week (perhaps as part of a warm up) and some shadow boxing.
Or you do some drills appropriate for judo or wrestling. I don't know those ones though.
You do keep practising a bit, and you do some drills, but only a little bit. Mostly to keep yourself sharp. I do know that in boxing it kind of "primes the system" even to just jump rope and then get in your boxing stance and move around and bounce lightly on your feet, duck a few imaginary punches, and throw a few of your own.
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And fifthly, I want to talk about how "the culture" is encouraging people to become crueler and less compassionate and less sympathetic, and how martial arts and fighting sports are part of that.
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Sixthly, I hope to write a discussion on how "the culture" and "the media" give people bad advice and improper guidance when it comes to martial arts, combat sports, leaning to fight and getting some skills in self defense. And how it sometimes pushes martial arts in a way that might give you a suboptimal experience. Especially, the media might give you the wrong idea. And this includes web media and also it includes online propaganda. And it includes all manner of disinformation, propaganda, lies and misinformation of so many kinds. And in this post I intend to discuss how martial arts are sometimes pushed in a way that might take up more time and energy and years than is ideal, just to learn the skills. And how they expose you to more danger than they should, and cause you harm, in the process of helping you to learn what you need to learn. There can be quite a bit of wear and tear. Concepts like "alive practise" and realistic sparring and hard sparring. And it can chew up people's time learning martial arts and fighting as they do these things for years. As though people (a minority) need to be ready for an impromptu cage match or street fight at any point... and have the full repertoire of skills of an MMA, UFC, Pride or Vale Tudo fighter.
Basically, you might end up having to train longer than you should. Just to get something that should have been quicker and easier. And you might end up investing more into it than you should have needed. And endure more wear and tear than you should have. And might get something suboptimal for what you wanted. And then there are actually just some plain lies out there. And you might take more knocks and damage and take more injuries in the process of developing your skill set than you should. Also, some of this wear and tear and injuries can be expensive (hello dental work and nose repairs).
And as part of this post and this point, "the culture" makes it too complicated, and mystifies it too much. Or at least the media does. The culture is trying to mystify it and make it difficult and complicated. Ummm. Just make sure you can play a sport, run, do cardio, and do a few moves like pushups and situps, and then do 6 months of judo and 6 months of Muay Thai. There, problem solved. You now have some experience in these things, which helps you to build your understanding straight away (this includes building some understanding of what your next steps are, and what your next step in training might be, if any). We bypass many types of arguments and bickering, once you have a smidge of experience. You don't even know what you don't know until you get a little experience. Many people bicker, complain and argue about "which type of training and martial art is best, and for which purpose". Or perhaps they used to.
End.
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Tldr;
If you want to get into martial arts, combat sports, or otherwise want to learn to fight.
Then just do six months of judo and six months of Muay Thai, take six to twelve months off afterwards, and then figure out for yourself what your next steps are, if any. But before you start, make sure that you have some level of fitness first and that you've played a sport before at least at some point in your life.
Glhf
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Notes for David's writing.
Note 1
Maybe a little bit in there about "why" you would do it.
Survivability etc, borrow it from previous page. - this might go into the "right sizing investment post, and add in the "be prepared" motto from the scouts.
Note 2
One of the bonuses about Muay Thai and Judo is that they're really fun. Especially when you're just starting out. And if you do judo for 6 months of Muay Thai for 6 months, then you will probably have a blast. And at that level, it's just win-win all around. What's the downside? Now getting better at it takes work.
Note 3
American kickboxing is fine too. I think. - add this to the post about Muay Thai.
Note 4
The plan is to write the whole list of posts 2-6 and upload them all at once. I do kind of admit that the whole post is pretty basic. But sometimes a simple "going over" of basic things is fine. And if I get to the same quality of a readable forum post, then I would be happy. I feel that a post like this should be inside a thread with 40-70 other posts or something. Or more.
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