Take our test to find out! And along the way, you’ll understand the main benefits of practicing martial arts in general, and the key attributes of each featured style.
Question 1) Why do you want to practice martial arts?
For each option, select between the following possible answers:
- Yes, very much.
- Yes, somewhat.
- No, not much.
- No, not at all.
a) For socialising / making friends
- Try Capoeira, as it has great music and lots of group huddles (if you’re athletic, flexible and have great stamina, or aim to be that way).
- Try anything below with a physical, mental or spiritual challenge, as they all encourage comradery.
- Consider a traditional style, for increased sense of allegiance.
b) For physicial challenge
- Try an energetic hard style (if you want your stamina challenged) like:
- Taekwondo (if you like using your legs for complicated manoeuvres, with lots of jumping and high kicks, and have high stamina, and are not very concerned with practicality for combat)
- Try a muscular strength based style (if you want your muscles challenged) like:
- Wrestling
c) For intellectual challenge
Try a technical style, like:
- Wrestling (if you like using muscular strength with your techniques, and love rolling around on the floor)
- Judo (if you like using competitive speed and a bit of muscular strength with your techniques, and love rolling around on the floor)
- Wing Chun (if you’d like a combination of speed and technique, without the requirement for muscular strength, and prefer to stay on your feet at all times)
- Aikido (if you like pure technique with grace, and don’t mind rolling around on the floor)
- Tai Chi (if you don’t mind a large helping of airy-fairy mystics with your technique, and prefer to stay on your feet)
- Ninjutsu (if you’re happy to fixate on a particular set of Ninja poses when doing your techniques, and don’t mind a little rolling, flipping and diving)
d) For spiritual challenge
Try:
- A deeply soft style, like:
- Tai Chi
- Aikido
- Wing Chun’s Chi Sau
- A lifestyle-sculpting style, like:
- Ninjutsu (learning to be discrete)
- Shaolin (learning to be physically enduring)
- Any of the above deeply soft styles.
- A free-minded style, that shuns unhelpful tradition, in favour of genuinity and most efficient personal development. For example:
- Jeet Kune Do.
e) For combat ability
Try:
- A highly technical style, with mildly competitive training exercises, like:
- Wing Chun (with plenty of Chi Sau (sticking hands) practice)
- Tai Chi, if taught with attention to detail and unbiased logic behind each detail (lack of practical skill by the teacher usually gets in the way of this) (with plenty of Tui Shou (pushing hands) practice)
- Aikido, if taught with permission for genuine attempts to escape from manouvres during demonstrations (traditional courtesy usually gets in the way of this) (with plenty of untelegraphed Body Art)
- A heavily competitive style, where you’re likely to get at least slightly hurt regularly in training, like:
- Boxing
- Muay Thai
- Jujitsu
- Wrestling
- Full contact street fighting / bare knuckle boxing / cage fighting (if you don’t mind getting a black eye, broken nose and popped kneecap in the course of training)
f) For reputation
Focus on the options above to find a style that suits your purer goals, so that you can genuinely excel, then your bragging will be far more credible and you may realise you don’t need to brag at all.