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This blog is for my family and for my martial arts friends. This is also for families who loves bonding and having a good time with their children while doing something fun and sometimes crazy stuffs.

WARNING about our videos (located on your right): We train in the traditional way and our practice vids may be a bit hard or rough to many. If you are following the "modern way or art", we are just following our tradition and have no quarrel with yours... Many thanks and ENJOY!!!


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

How to find a good Martial Arts School.

Finding a good martial art school can be difficult not only to people who are very new to martial arts, people who have some experience or to advance practitioners who are looking for a new art to study.

For beginners, the student must know what he likes to learn and must know (even a bit) on what he is good at. If he likes punching and kicking or throwing and grappling or if he likes to learn weaponry or if he likes all. Is he big, fat, slim, tall, short, muscular, thin or has a normal body built. Body mass and built is not really a problem and anybody can learn any martial art regardless of his size but it is best if you can make full use of what you have. A 45 kgs. man will have lot of difficulties with sumo wrestling and a 250 kgs. guy will have difficulties studying an art that concentrates more on kicks (unless he wants to lose weight)...


Someone who has some martial arts experience basically knows what he is looking for and so are the advance practitioners but it still can be difficult to find a new school. There will always be a comparison between the old school where he use to train and the new school that he plans to join. Some people likes to train soft and some hard (with real heavy body hits or just light hits), some loves katas (forms) and some loves full contact. Some loves the old traditional style with lots of bowing, seniority, different belt levels, manners, etc. and some hates them. Some likes rigid styles and some likes hybrid styles. Most of the schools are good but this doesn't mean that you may like a certain school instantly because everybody has a different character. For example, there may be 10 schools that teaches Karate but their style may be different from each other. One school may be very rigid and another school may be very friendly. No one can really tell what school is good for you and the best way to find one is to join trial lessons in all of them and decide which is best suited for yourself.

I also had the same problem with my son. My son is 15 yrs. old and holds 3 black belts (Judo, CQC, Arnis) and wanted to study Karate. First he wanted to study full contact and self defense Karate but also wants to learn traditional Karate. There are lots of styles to chose from but he knows what he wants so we have limited our search based on his goal. First he entered a school that he soon got bored because they are too stiff. My son found them to be very proud... He is an advance practitioner and was treated like a real total beginner which got my son to get really pissed. The search was on again... While searching the web, we found a school that looks promising (lots of champions) and looks very friendly. The next day my son took a trial lesson and knew instantly that this is the school that he was looking for. The staffs are nice, the instructors are great and the students are skilled but what got my son to like the school is that they are all friendly. The main sensei asked my son if he has any martial art experience and my son said Judo-CQC-Arnis, got him to change to his gi, was instructed to do some stretching then was called to join in the training. First it was kicks and punching, then to the punching/kicking mitts, then went directly to full contact!!! White against all belt colors... yes!!! Grabbing and throwing was permitted and this is what my son was really looking for. I am sure that he was only allowed to dive-in because he is a veteran practitioner but I'm sure that a total beginner will not be allowed to spar and will have to take very basic lessons first...

Though he was a beginner in Karate, he was never given a high-hat treatment but was constantly been watched and guided and given advice and instructions on how to effectively punch and kick plus the right timing when to use his grabbing skills (my son shines in grappling). After the lesson, all I can see in my son was happiness and enjoyment. When we got home, he had so many fun stories for mom and it took us over midnight listening how he really like the school.

Now my son is still practicing Judo at his old dojo, practices CQC-Arnis with me, and goes to Karate. Everyday is like martial arts for him, lol!

Studying martial arts is good but if you find the right school for you, you will be having lots of fun :)
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The school's name is on the next post...

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