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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darius101" data-source="post: 577433" data-attributes="member: 9466">To martial art or not to martial artI have been a martial artist for about 20+yrs and I must say that #1 Picking the correct teacher is essential to success in your art. It is not the end all be all for getting in the door to the closed door schools however. That requires skill and a good teacher. #2 No martial art no matter what it is.....will help you in a street fight unless you yourself train to fight to the point that it is reflexive and reactive not just Dojo style going through the motions for competition. Cometition is different than real life. #3 Muay Tai is more of a sport - kinda like boxing or kick boxing. To me it was somewhat limiting in scope and that may have been my teachers fault for that I cannot say. About the groundfighting thing- the reason most fights end up on the ground is that many Americans grab and try to take you down to wrestle with you. My experience has been to not let it get to that point. None of my streetfights have ever gotten to the point where we were on the ground fighting. Part of this may also be because of my training. Ok out of the three martial art listed and asked about I would pick Gracie Ju-jitsu as the best for self defense here in America with Hung Gar a close second. I have met a number of people who teach that are not very trustworthy at all. One of the best elements you can look at is the lineage of the art that your teacher is teaching you. Where did he learn?  who was his teacher? And did he merely learn from seminars or actually live with his teacher for a time?  As far as the best martial art goes there is no martial art that is better or worse than any other it is the skill of the practioners that determines the level you can attain in the said martial art. To a much larger extent your atitude will determine what your teacher will teach you and how far you can go. Both of my teachers were 30+year practioners of the art. Both said not to limit yourself to one single style. You should never put limits on yourself no matter what you do. Both were Asian. Both were masters in their respective arts and one really didn't want to teach but we talked him into it as a friend. Most martial arts places are in it for the money not for the art, I wanted to learn the art and it took me about 1-2years of watching artists before I picked my teachers. I thouroughly checked out their credentials. Remember that most if not all martial arts today have their roots in the shaolin temple. Many of the grappling arts such as Hung gar and Juijitsu have the common root of Chin-na. Wing Chun was created to combat this art and those like it. Aikido is a derivitive (but different form of) Aikijitsu. Aikido is the soft side of it. Aikijitsu is what the samurai practiced for many years and Juijitsu became judo when Kano began that art in the late 19th century. I am not giving you a history lesson just pointing out that Martial arts are not all that different, they all came from the same tree at some point. There are a pletheroa of books I could tell you to read on these subjects but some of the best are: **Autum Lightening By Dave LoweryPerssimon Wind By Dave lowery**Akido in America By various Authors The Way of the Warrior by Howard ReedThe Tao of Tai-Chi Chuan by Jou, Tsung Hwa. **Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere by A. Westbrook and O. RattiAlso if you can find some of the works of Don Drager those are a great read and history lesson on the worlds martial arts. I would list what martial arts I took but that is unimportant to this disussion. My first blackbelt was obtained in 1991.  All a blackbelt means is that you have mastered the foundations and are now ready to learn your art. Chinese arts do not have belts you just learn them. Belts are a big part of American martial arts though.  Enjoy, Darius</blockquote>

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