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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kail" data-source="post: 669343" data-attributes="member: 8851">Ok, back from a very long day of work and losing and Ebay bid on the LotR RPG, man what a day.    Ok, zdanboy, down to karte/jujitsu and kickboxing is it sir?  Well, what I've experienced in kickboxing I've laid out for you previously.  Others have chimed in as well, so I guess I'll continue with the thread.  Someone smack me around if I start sounding too full of myself, its easy to do with something you enjoy the way I enjoy the fighting arts.    I'll start with jujitsu then.  As others have said, check out the school, see if they are teaching a competition oriented style.  What you want to look for is a form of jujitsu that is still well rounded.  The Gracie family, for all their fame, concentrate far too much on ground work to be practical in a self defense situtation.  Too much time on the ground is too much time in an encounter where you are not really in control.  The selling point of many schools the emphasis ground work to the detriment of other aspects of the art is that the vast majority of fights end up on the ground.  This may be true, but the vast majority of people in fights are completely at a loss for how to maintain their balance.  If the style taught does not still include some hand strikes, the three primary kicks{front, back and side} and limb manipulation while standing you are being shorted of it's full value as a fighting art.  It is an excellent arts to study, with strengths in unbalancing, thrwoing and join locking.  It was ment to quickly escape from holds, render oponents unable to fight and keep you alive until you got your hands on another weapon.  Karate has the good and the bad as well.  The bad is that it can be as bad as TKD for commericalization.  Check out the school, if they are claiming to be a non-competition oriented school and don't have several of the following, your being cheated of the full potential of the art.  Their training should include basic techniques, body and limb conditioning, contact sparing, self-defense drilling{both fixed and spontaneous{SP}}, and forms training.  A note on kata, or forms, while others see little or no value in them other than cardiovascular conditioning, they are the treasure of classical martial arts for a reason.  That reason is not about promoting or looking cool or competing.  Kata, when properly taught with bunkai{bad spelling of the term used for application} they give examples of how movements are to be used in sequence and just how the bodies movments can be put together effectively.  It takes a good teacher who will know and give more than the "this block is a down block for a kick" explaination, when in fact it may be a representation of an arm bar after a punch has been parried.  It is from this format that you learn the depth of Karate and all the various things that it encompasses, with circular movments, angled attacks and join manipulation appearing as if out of no where.  When masters were said to have hidden their styles from others, kata/forms were one of the key tools for this.  The Chinese arts have done the same thing, and systems such as the much famed Sholin and White Crane forms are reported to have had a major impact on the developement of Okinawan Karate.  The implimentation of sparring and self-defense drills will also be important.  Both should occure regularly and not be closed off or limited too strictly.  Ask about these sorts of things, do so politely, but expect very honest and strait forward answers in return.  My personal experience has been with an Okinawan form of Shorin Ryu.  My traditional training has served me well when training with a professional kickboxer, Aikido/Aikijujitsu stylists, Sholin Kung Fu folks, altercations at my place of work and handling angry, armed drunks.  I attriubte that too a good instructor and literally lots of blood, sweat and tears.    As Darius 101 has said, most decient schools will let you come in for a trial class or two.  Its good manors and good business sense to do so.  Those who won't let you set through a class or train once or twice fore free, I would worry about.   Fourecks,  I'm sorry you haven't had a chnace to continue your training in traditional karate.  Its a worth while endevor with plenty of practical reqards.   Darius 101,  Some dangerous generalizations you make there about Hwa Rang Do and Kempo.  Hwa Rang Do is not TKD.  They relate about the same way boxing and slap fighting do, barely at all.  Hwa Rang Do is an old warriors art, covering a full range of fighting techniques. TKD, while able to be effective in a fight is very may times sprot oriented, and usually is so up front.  Kempo folks having a false sense of security, sounds more like a bad school than the poor art your seem to be pointing toward.  It is also related to Wing Chung the same way Judo is to Kenjitsu, as in originating in the same country, unless your talking Shorinji Kempo, which is Japanese.  Flase sense os security come not from styles, but bad instructors and lazy parctitioners.  Bad instructors fill you with their hot air and set you up to be hurt no matter how hard you train.  Lazy practitioners set themselves up for a fall inspite of what an instructor might be doing.  Enough for now, another horridly long day at work awaits me in a few more hours, but after that we have class!Night all,  Kail</blockquote>

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