Which Martial Art to Choose?

Question

Hi! I'm a 14 year-old girl recently convinced from an Avatar craze and realizations of my weakness to take up some kind of self defense class. I'm pretty small (petite sounds so much nicer) and skinny, and lacking in upper arm strength. I can run for a bit but I'm not really in shape at all. I'm looking for an art that I'll be able to defend myself in real life and have fun with in fighting for practices, though the latter of these I'm willing to forsake. If anyone could help me choose which form to take, I'd be very grateful towards them.

Answer 1

Depends on your interests too. if just for self defence, choose the one that widely available in your area and didn't use weapons since you're just 14 years girl.

Answer 2

judo is pretty good, from there you can take up jui jutsu after if you want to get real serious with martial arts.

Answer 3

FIRST: Find out what is taught in your area.

SECOND: Visit the schools and sit in on at least one class per school.

THIRD: Investigate the martial arts that are available to you.

FOURTH: Pick one.

Answer 4

take aikido,

it takes paitence, but pretty much any sort of preson can take it up, its very defenseive, and it compent on the streets.

it about using the oppenents force and diverting it,  so you dont need to exert massive pysical strengh.

The moves are actually very gentle movements, that have a destructive effect.

Answer 5

Good ones to learn that may be fun to you:

Krav Maga

Judo

Kickboxing/Thai Boxing

Jiujitsu(Japanese or Brazilian)

be sure to do your research on all these and any other martial art that would pique your interest( a google search on any of those names is all the research you need) and if you can find a school, attend a trial class to see if you like it. most martial arts focus on the technique and not necessary the person's physical ability.

hope this helps

Answer 6

hap ki do,  is a art that alot of asian women take .  it is a totally defensive art . there are no offensive moves.     aikido is a very complete art.    or escrima is used by the green berets.

Answer 7

Take krav maga. Dont take martial arts to defend yourself, you will only waste lots of money and time.

Martial arts is NOT self defense.

It is sport and cultural training, and not lethal techniques.

I have experience myself with martial arts, take a self defense art like krav maga that focuses on self defense.

Answer 8

krav maga is a good self defence art but i do not no much of ur ways and it may not suit your perasonality also jeet kune do will work or perhaps u want to try hapkido it is great for self defence

Answer 9

While I agree that Krav Maga is a good art why not learn one of the Arts that the Bending in Avatar is based on.

Water- Yang Style Tai Chi

Fire- Northern Shaolin with some aspects of Northern Seven Star Praying Mantis

Earth-Hung Gar and Toph also uses Southern Praying Mantis Kung-Fu

Air-Ba Gua

Besides the art to get fit for martial arts go here (it's not bad)

http://rosstraining.com/

This is Ross Enamait's site where you can find his manuals and a lot of tips and articles for fight related strength and conditioning. I reccomend Never Gymless to start as well as Full Throttle Conditioning, when you can get access to dumbells, sandbags and other equipment you should get Infinite Intensity. Their all awesome manuals, and they will help you get fit specifically for martial arts. Also you may want to get a Gymboss timer so you can do conditioning drills with 20 second burst and 10 second rest for say, three to four continous minutes and than do a couple of rounds like that. Follow the routines of professional fighters as they have to be very strong and fit. Look at Bruce lee's story, he was an extremely good martial artist but when he had to fight off a group of challengers he found he was easily winded in real combat and also not as strong as he thought, he than started paying attention to the training regimens of all amnner of athletes that would help himmas a martial artist, like wiegth lifters, runnersm swimmers and such. He than developed his body to physical excellence. Good luck.

Also out of the arts used in the Avatar series (my favorite show can't wait untill tommorrow night's movie)

Northern Shaolin is the most self defense  applicable I would guess. Krav Maga, JKD, and Hapkido are all very good arts for self defense. For pure Self Defense I would have to gravitate towards one of these arts. All three are pretty similar , finding a good teaher is probably the most important thing in reference to technique. Also having someone to help you train physically is very important. Ross's manuals are the best and training how you fight is important in regards to conditioning. For a young girl, I would say if you are attacked tommorrow, poke their eyes, crush or strike their groing, strike to throat temple nose, with fists, elbows or chops. If you are being choked you can press very hard into the dimple at the bottom of throat. Press down and very hard. You can also try to dig into eye if you have to. If you grab a t******e try to rip t******e from attaching nerve. jeans make this hard but if they atre wearing seats than this will do the trick. The temple is the indentation at the side of each eye. Elbow here very hard. Also stomp on the fragile bones on the top of foot.  If you can fish hooking with both hands in thwe cheek also works . Don't get bit though, and if you must like if they are trying to choke or force fimngers into muth bite as hard as you can. Pull hair if applicable and do whatever you can to get away and find help. That is one reason why sprintitng is better than jogging besides the fact that in a situation like this sprint conditioning is much better than slow jogging. Do sprint intervals with only wlaking abck to finish line as rest. At fourteen I reccomend 50 meter sprints. Once again get Never Gymless and Full Throttle Conditioning for how to get fit specifically for fighting. Other than that Krav Maga is a very serious self defense art.  HAve no mecryc when someone is trying to hrut you but never pick figths and always avoid confrontation even if you ahve to run out of the mall screaming.  If you have to though figth them to completely destroy and disable them. Unless of course it is sport combat (duh). Sport combat will help you very much with confidence and conditioning however.Wrestlers and boxers are famous for their strength and conditioning, MMA is starting to be too. Anyways, I would go with something you will do for life and you cna always practise more self defense oriented moves on your own, if you enjoy Air Bending than take some Ba Gua and stay with it. Tai Chi is also a beaituful art but is completely inneffective as far as I am concerned but than again who knows. The purpose of slow movement is to become completely in control and self aware. After 22 years which is how long it takes to be the equivalent of a black belt, you are moving very fast and have practised technique perfectly. I would go with Earth Bending or Fire Bending. But do whatever you wnat, I think Hapkido and Krav Maga reperesents fire very well and Bruce Lee always said to be like water and that should show through his art Jeet Kune Do. Earth could be a very rooted art or perhaps the bone crushing Muay Thai. I think Muay Thai is very earthy as well as some grappling arts. Air could perhap be best reperesented by arts that really focus on abdominal breath control and channel the air power into their strikes, Like Kyokushin Karate for example. I also think that Aikido and Jiu-Jitsu are very water like as they flow with the opponent.Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu as a sport is almost useless when encountering more than one opponent which is more prevalent in the ever increasing wanna be gangster hip-hop society that is destroying our people. anyways Answers won't let me answer anymore so I am going back and adding a whole bunch to all my answers. So good luck.