Weapon based martial arts?

Question

Right, here's my situation, I'm looking to learn Krav Maga but the place near me that trains it requires me to be 18 and I'm 15 (I will be 16 in less than 2 months). Basically, I want to take up a martial art in the mean time, one that is weapon based and therefor will teach me to protect myself from armed attackers.

Can anyone tell me some good weapon based martial arts that will not require me to be 18 to start? Preferably one that will be of use to me when I am old enough to start Krav Maga.

Cheers.

Answer 1

Most Kung Fu systems that I am familiar with will start you on weaponry work from about 6-12months of training.

Answer 2

Mordern Arnis.

Kendo.

Answer 3

There are several weapon based martial arts some of them are more traditional while others are made more for modern combat.  Here is a small list of weapon based martial arts

Kendo- translates to the way of the sword it uses the Japanese katana as your defense tool. The sparring in it usually has you ware an armor like suit to prevent damage to practitioners.

Kobudo- this martial uses multiple weapons such as the bo staff, nun-chucks, kama (sickle), sai, and tonfa. if you want to use many different weapons this art will be great.

Wushu- while this art is very acrobatic it uses many weapons, but many times these weapons can be very flimsy and made mostly for show.

Karate- most of karate is hand-to-hand combat but many karate schools have weapons at higher levels.

Hankumdo- is a Korean martial art that like kendo mainly uses the sword just it doesn't use the armor the way kendo does.

Hwarangdo- This martial art is based off of the fighting system of the hwarang warriors of Korea, while it also has hand to hand combat it uses over one-hundred weapons.

Fencing- is a sword based martial art, however what sets it apart from kendo and hankumdo is not only the fact that the sword is completley straight but the fact that all of its strikes are much different then the other sword martial arts.

Eskrima- is stick fighting it uses the sticks in a sword like fashion through its swings and thrust.

Kyudo- if you like bows then you could try this art.

There are many more weapon based martial arts but if i tried to list them it would take forever.

Answer 4

Japanese jiu-jitsu which includes kobudo which is weapon training here in the uk you can do kobudo at 16.

if your not in the uk sorry but I'd enquire where ever your from as you may be lucky enough to be allowed.

Good luck and best wishes :)***