The 3 Best Traditional Martial Arts that will Change your Life

Many people have many different reasons for practicing martial arts. Some people like to get fit. Some people wanna learn how to fight somebody. Some people want to learn more about the traditions that surround these types of arts. In this article, I’m gonna break it down for you, what martial arts that I’ve experienced are practical and interesting

    Just a little bit of my background. My name is Mike. I have been practicing martial arts for many years, on and off. Finally, I settled on traditional Japanese Aikido. I have been practicing this art for a year and a half in Taiwan. My teacher has been practicing traditional Japanese Aikido for 20 years.

I’m gonna do this list in no particular order, but based on my preference.

 

 Karate

     So the first martial art is karate. When I started my martial arts journey I started with karate. I think that karate is really good because it’s really good for self-discipline. Also, another benefit of karate is that you can start karate when you’re pretty young. For myself, I started karate when I was 17 years old. There’s a belt system, so you don’t have to just keep going all the way, and have no idea what level you are. As for me I probably got myself up to green belt, and I know that doesn’t mean anything for some people, but it means that you can do a bunch of different katas, forms, and maybe you can do a little bit of sparring. 

    Pros and cons. One of the pros of karate is that you can get in shape. You can also have some discipline. There are some karate forms that you can do, and they are useful because they demonstrate the art of karate. They are also useful because you can show people what karate is all about if you show the forms to people.

    Cons about karate. A lot of people would say that karate is not very useful. For example, if you were going to get into a real fight, and you start doing the karate forms, then you’ll probably get pummeled. To be honest with you I think that, if you have more experience with sparring, you might stand a better chance. Even so, if you are trying to spar with people and use that in a real fight, you will probably lose. The reason why is because, whenever you’re doing sparring, you’re sparring for points. When you fight in the street, obviously you’re fighting for your life.

    

    

Aikido

    The next martial art that I’m going to be talking about is Aikido. Aikido is a little bit different from karate because there’s no hitting sort of. With Aikido the theory of Aikido is to use the opponent's force against them. And in some ways, you have no ill will towards your opponent

    There are some joint locks and throws in Aikido. For people who like discipline, it’s great because you are practicing the movements. You are also practicing some things that maybe used in self-defense, but you will probably only know them in theory. Because Aikido doesn’t have any sparring or pressure testing, if you’re going to get into a fight with Aikido, it probably will end in your defeat.

    One of the pros of Aikido is that most Aikido arts are the same all over the world. So if you end up practicing Aikido for five years in your hometown, and then you move over to another country, then the Aikido is the same. That’s why I’m studying Aikido in Taiwan.

      

Kung fu

    The third martial art that I’m gonna be talking about is kung fu. The problem with kung fu is that it’s such a broad term. So if you were studying kung fu in some arbitrary place, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you know the same kung fu as the place far away from you. There are hundreds of different styles of kung fu. The one that I was studying for a while was called Shaolin white crane kung fu.

    One of the good parts about kung fu is that there is everything. You have striking, you have throws, and you might even have some joint locks. I don’t know any kung fu styles that have ground fighting, like in Brazilian jujitsu. However, if you just want to be a generalist in martial arts, then kung fu may be right up your alley

    Another thing about kung fu is that depending on what kind of kung fu you’re doing, it might not be good for real fighting or sparring. Some styles of kung fu don’t even do sparring at all. I have seen some wing Chun classes, where people are doing sparring, and I have no knowledge about that, but at the same time, I think it’s very useful.

    If you’re looking for a way to work out, become more disciplined, and maybe learn some history from different Asian countries, you might be interested in doing traditional martial arts. As far as learning how to beat someone up, depending on your training, you might be out of luck. To be honest with you I think that if you want to fight somebody, it might be better for you to do boxing, but that’s just my opinion