I am getting out of high school and heading out to college. I have been wrestling for a long time and have loved it, but I don't plan on wrestling in college. Rather than wrestling in college what kind of martial art is out there that is fun to learn and will provide me with the same skills as wrestling? I think martial arts is a fun thing to do. I have a friend that is a black belt, but I could never be up to his skill.

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I'd be interested in this too - I need to get back into doing some kind of regular exercise, and I've always wanted to learn a bit of self-defence.

My brother used to do Wing Chun kung fu, and kickboxing...he found that he preferred the more physical kickboxing (except for the sparring!), but I think I'd prefer a less explosive martial art.

I heard good things about Hapkido, but nowhere near me does it...

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i, being haveing practiced martial arts my whole life, would say that you might enjoy mma (mixed martial arts) its the whole ufc thing, it incorporates boxing, kickboxing, grapling, wrestling, judo, jujitsu, and whatever other styles seem useful at the time... if you ever watch it, you'll notice the fighters are good, but the whole thing its self is rather ... bland. everyone, despite what they say fight in the same 3 ways. striking, grapling and ground fighting. good stuff i'd say, but the whole wwwf feel is kind of lame.

if you want something a bit more martial ART like... i'd suggest learning karate, just the basics- and practice those basics like your life depended on it... cause it kinda does. that and its just a good startign point. eventualy when you feel you can fight with karate go learn a more advanced style like wing chun, muay thai, or mayb jujitsu, if you wanna keep in with your wrestling habits. then once you've gotten a good ability with that, maybe after a year or 2 leave and learn a soft style martial art. such as aikido, snake style kung fu or something that incorporates powerfull effects with little effort put out.

by this time you'll notice someting, that being that most all asian martial art style movements are very closely related, and are only seperated by aplication of movement and strategy. by this time it also ought to be incredebly obvious what kind of style fits both your habbits, style and body type. this is when you start getting really serious about martial arts, study a wide array of them and you'll eventualy find a styl that fits who you are. if you dont then you must pull a bruce lee and invent your own type of jeet kun do. ppl might not get it at first but anyone who knows martial arts will b able to see the effectivenss of your style. they wont be able to mock you then.

along the way it would be a good idea to take up other physical recreations, such as parkour, dance, capoeria, gymnastics...

and if you ever get a chance to take some ninjitsu, ninpo, or kungfu be absolutely sure to do research on the person and who their line of masters were. they should in most cases have some sort of document and be abl to say, back in china or japan there was this master, he established the style and he taught this perosn who taught this person and so on and so on untill they get t a name of maybe some american guy at which point they'll say "and he taught my teacher, who trained me". if they cant do this, take a damn good look at what they do and how they fight, and always ask yourself if what you're being taught will actualy work. try sparring with the person too, and see if you have someting to learn from that person.

its a good idea to visit martial arts clubs too, and see if you can spar with a wide variety of people.

 

 

 

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I would suggest you to use and train Karate it is really good skill to know and it has been in fact basic start for many other martial arts in fact it has been basic for most of them. If you check out historically also, I would like to point out that Karate is basic for the martial arts comming from the Japan and China not the India and South East Asia. This might be important thing if some of the trap 17 members find this as an insult.

Also my suggestion would be that you keep up with training wrestling.

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Hmm, judging by my friends' experiences in the martial arts, I'm pretty certain that there are multiple forms of Karate. You can't necessarily insinuate that Karate is just Karate, you'd be surprised to find out the exact name of the self defense one claims is Karate.

Anyways...just a little background check.

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It really depends on what you need it for, or what you want it for. Many take BJJ becuase they actually want to throw punches at people, and kick *bottom*. Others take it becuase they live in a hostile area, and are attacked by strong attackers. A Combo of BJJ and Judo, can make a deadly weapon. Judo is an advanced form of self defence taught to all chiniese policemen because they are not allowed to carry firearms. i've seen judo take down almost every other martial art. and it keeps the "No Striking" Rule pretty tight as to were you can just throw people around useing techniques. BJJ is more of an attacking, hardcore, streniouse work out type deal. And if your just looking for a little less of a class, go with karate, hell, all it is really is forms, which dont really teach you HOW to fight, rather than moves to perfrorm when fighting. But Its not as fast or painfull as BJJ or Judo.

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I do ALOT, since my main is Nijistu (Or however its spells)(The Art of The Ninja) but I also have done Karate and others, just to help out my Hand-To-Hand fighting, and I also do Tanto-jitsu (Knife Art)(Throwing Knives) since well Thats a HUGE part of Nijistu, but anyway back to the Point I suggest you do Karate or somthing to get starting out DONT START BIG IS MY MAIN ADVICE!

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Get some Taekwondo lessons

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Try Jujitsu do:) The art of grappling & bone-breaking if neccessary, It's awesome, I love it:)

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A very interesting question, and indeed, for someone who knows little or nothing about it, it can turn into a bit of an enigma.
While I do understand that some people here do, without hesitating, recommend whatever sport or style they do, I think it is not as simple as that.

They might well be good at what they do, and as a result, enjoy it very much, but that does not mean to say their sport/style is automatically going to suit other people.

I myself do Shotokan Karate, and I am quite happy with it, but that does not mean that automatically goes for every Tom, *BLEEP* and Harry.

The best thing I can advise is: shop around, do a bit of homework.
Contact some clubs of different martial arts, ask them if you can visit them during a training session, some even offer a or some free training sessions for beginners (so called taster sessions).
Think for yourself what you expect from whatever you want to do, and try to find which one best suits your needs.
Of course, there is also the aspect of "How much do they charge?" and "How far away from where I live are they?", after all, no one would want to go bankrupt trying to pay for their hobby, or no one would like to travel 3 hours to go to a 45 min - 1 hour training session.
So, get looking, look on the net for clubs in your neighbourhood, go and see them, have a try yourself, and then weigh up all the pros and cons, also things like, "Am I going to be able to keep this up physically?" "Am I going to be able to cope with the trainig, commitment, exams etc.?".
All questions you need to ask yourself, and in the long run, you might save yourself a lot of disappoint ment and even money.

Hope that helps.

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