What's the best way to learn to fight?

Question

Should you go to martial arts or boxing classes or learn from real-life experience? Which method makes you a better fighter? Answers from academy-trained and street-trained fighters, please.

Answer 1

Full contact is the best way if you intend to actually get into fights (which is a really bad idea).

You could learn all you want about fighting but until somebody actually hits you it is worthless

Answer 2

First you need to figure out what your definition is as a good fighter. Do you mean you just want to be really good at beating people up on the street?

To be a good fighter, you actually need to learn more than one style because each style of fighting has its own pros and cons.  A winning fighter will need to be smart, in great shape, good techniques, and also lots of sparring experiences.

You will need to do everything in order to be good. Classes will help you learn the techniques(not just attacks, but defenses and weapons.) But you should also spend some time practice sparring w/ other(get lots of fight time.) Oh, don't forget physical training. It's soooo important. You need to learn how to be beat up before you become really good.

Answer 3

this is pretty good.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A36HDEmT... presents a training procedure I have discovered at one or two gyms.

Answer 4

I don't know what reasons you want to fight for, but in my opinion go for full contact muay thai training. When i first started i nearly wanted to quit because Muay thai is a contact martial art and i was taking quite a few hits, but by the end of the four years i felt heaps confident and knew that i could handle any threat. My club included wing chun also, so i learnt some very useful defensive techniques.

Anyway, dont do it for the wrong reason.