Considerations:
1. What is my intention in studying martial art?
2. Which martial art suits me best?
3. What is the instructor's general attitude?
4. How are students of the martial art school behaving?
5. What is the philosophy of the martial art style?
6. What is the safety level during training session?
7. What are my physical limitations and which martial art style suits my physical best?
8. How much are you paying for the martial art lessons?
1. What is my intention in studying martial art?
To study martial art, you must first ask yourself the above question.
Is it for self-defense? Healthy mind, body and soul? Learning about culture and art? building self-confidence, self-discipline and self-control? As a hobby? If you answer most these questions yes, you are in the right direction and you will gain the good benefit of every martial art lesson you'll learn.
Or it is for revenge? fighting with others? bullying? showing-off to your girlfriend or bragging about your power? If you answer even on of these questions yes, you are in the wrong direction and I assure you that you will be frustrated, stressed and despaired because you will not go anywhere in acquiring martial art skills!
The conclusion is, even before you decide to learn a martial art, check your intention - right intention will produce right attitude with right mentality. We need good people to study martial arts to make the world a better place. We do not want bad people to study martial art who will make this world more miserable.
2. Which martial art suits me best?
Sometimes, it takes some try and error to study different martial art styles before we can find one that suits us best. I would suggest you to do some homework first - get information from the internet about different styles (visit my website again and again? :) ), or perhaps read some books at the library, ask friends who have studied certain martial arts, attend and observe few training sessions, and I would recommend you to consider the succeeding questions.
I personally have studied different martial arts - Silat Gayong, Goju-Ryu Karate, Shotokan Karate and Hapkido - I found that each martial art has its own uniqueness and strength. Keeping this idea in mind makes me more open and flexible to various lesson from any martial art. Because of this also, my spirit to learn martial art is consistently renewed, I gain the benefit of studying different techniques, skills and aspect of martial arts and all these makes me feel more excited and confidence. Remember, "each martial art has its own uniqueness and strength".
3. What is the instructor's general attitude?
I personally dislike instructor who thinks that his martial art school is the best, or only his style is worth studying! This is one of my biggest turn-off. Stay away from those kind of instructors as your knowledge and skill will not go far!
Most martial art style promotes inner peace, discipline, self-control, respect and honesty. If a particular martial art instructor does not behave in such a way that he/she promotes or practices those good qualities, most likely he/she has not fully understand the essence of martial art - implying the he/she is not a good martial art instructor. He/she will fail in guing you to discover the best in you! You will be frustrated. You will waste your time (and money too).
A Malay proverb says,"Be like paddy stalks, the more paddy grows, the more it bows (because it gets heavier)". The proverbs means that the more knowledge and skill a wise man acquires, he will become more humble (and not more arrogant!).
4. How are students of the martial art school behaving?
Again, most martial art style promotes inner peace, discipline, self-control, respect and honesty. If a particular martial art students (especially the senior students or the "sempai" as it is called in karate), do not behave in such a way that he/she promotes or practices those good qualities - you are not in a good environment to start your journey in martial art study. Of course, out of 10, there will be 2-3 people who are bad, but if most of them are bad, leave the class! You may be putting yourself in danger!
How do I define bad attitude / behavior in martial arts students? Bad students if they are arrogant, like to "try" new technique on you, give you some "accidental" bruises here and there, do not have self-control, emotional, always like to fight, brag about themselves, always feel like they are the best and look down on other people.
5. What is the philosophy of the martial art?
My brother told me before that he attended a martial art school, which had an evil philosopy and motto that was, "To kill or to be killed"!!!
Nevertheless, I was not surprised by this. They are alway bad people out there. We just need to be extra careful to choose people or group of people whom we are going to be associated with.
Many good martial arts with beautiful philosophy out there. From time to time, I will discuss various martial arts philosophy in my website. Please do come again :)!
Or you can always find good information on the internet!
6. What is the safety level during training session?
Another important factor to consider is the safety level during training sessions. Since most of us are not martial artist by profession, we do not want to go to a martial art training session and return with broken arms and legs that the next day we cannot go to work or school.
Some people say that if you do learn how to resist or accept a punch or kick, you wouldn't know how it feels and thus you cannot defense yourself in real situation. Or if you don't punch someone during training, how do you know that your punch is powerful and your technique is correct? This are just some reasons for some people to find ways to kick your ass.
Well, there are ways to know how powerful you are without kicking someone's ass such as using punching bags or 'makiwara'. There are also ways to train in a control environment such that you will know how painful it will get if you do certain techniques on someone or if the techniques are done onto you.
So, be safe. Find a martial art school that stresses safety. Afterall, most of us do martial arts to be healthy and safe. Not to be sick and unsafe.
7. What are my physical limitations and which martial art style suits my physical best?
We need to identify and know what is our physical limitation. I cannot deny that different martial arts have different techniques and capabilities, and some work on some people and don't work on others.
If you are small, you may not want to learn resistance-based martial arts, which resist energy with energy e.g. blocking a kick or punch like karate or taekwando because you may be of disadvantage when opposing a much bigger and taller opponent. In this case, you may want to choose energy-diverting-based martial art like hapkido or aikido. Or you can also optimise your potential by studying fast-moves martial arts like silat, kungfu, karate etc.
If you are big, heavy and not very flexible, it is not a good idea to learn a martial art that teaches a lot faster moves, jumping and rolling, and requires high flexibility such as capoeira as you may create problems to your joints, muscle etc. Instead, you may want to choose martial art like Sumo or wrestling. Or you can also study a more general martial arts which teach various techniques applicable to people of different sizes such as karate, silat, kungfu etc.
Another important factor is to find an instructor who will guide you the correct way of doing a technique, without giving you health problems in the long-term such as joints problem, back pain, muscle strain or tear etc.
If you feel like the martial art training is giving you more problem, better seek advice from your doctor and discuss with your instructor - it may be that you are not doing the technique correctly or perhaps the instructor teaches you wrong technique.
7. Is it practical to defend ourselves?
This is a difficult question to answer but you would not know until you are in a situation when you need to defend yourself.
But, I am a strong believer that the more you practice certain techniques by repetitive training, the more you'll develop a good reflex. It is reflex, more than the techniques itself, that usually help someone to get out of a dangerous situation.
With more repetitive training of certain techniques, your muscles would sort of store a memory called a "muscle memory" in your limbs. When this muscle memory has been stored, you do not have to think anymore on how to react to various attacks. Your body just subconsciously reacts automatically when you are attacked. You will only realize it after you have blocked a knife strike from an attacker, broke his elbow and knock him down.
So, again i strongly think that every martial art has its own uniqueness and strength. They are all practical if we practice various techniques consistently and repetetively up to a point when the techniques have become our second nature.
8. How much are you paying for the martial art lessons?
Well, I think knowledge should be shared with others for free :)
Nevertheless, I like martial art practicioners who voluntarily teach what they know for free and I kind of hesitate with people who teach martial art to be rich and famous.
But, there is nothing free in the world eh? But, only pay a reasonable prize! :)
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