Martial Arts

Take into account if you have any injuries or joint issues going on. If you do, you might be best off with the 'soft' martial arts - judo, jujitsu, aikido etc. Personally I really like muay thai and took some classes in it before. Might try krav maga one of these days too.

The place by my house is Judo - that's "soft" right?

I feel really (ridiculously) nervous about this, I have no idea why.

Softer... lots of throws and stuff but normally onto a nice soft mat on the floor.

No reason to be nervous. I've always done TKD and there are always new people coming and going. Most the time folks are especially friendly to the new people. It sounds dumb but the more new folks there are the cooler we look in our black belts, so we want to make sure you have fun and keep coming back.

So try it and see if it's a fit. FIrst few classes are always rough. A good school will NOT force you to sign a long contract. Within a month though you'll know if you enjoy it and the people there.

Love my Taekwondo! I have grading on Saturday. I started at the beginning of the year and never thought I'd be kicking above my head, doing flying kicks, or mastering patterns!~ It's so satisfying and it makes me want to do other exercise to get fitter, so I'm better

I've been training for almost eleven years now, in karate, taekwondo, and kendo.

Each form has it's own "thing." In Taekwondo, they do more kicks, and focus on speed and agility. You'll learn to use your hands and such as well, but it's not a big focus. In Karate, we focus on practicality and being well-rounded. You won't find a karate student jumping around the way you will in TKD, but their moves are strong. Neither of these forms traditionally teach grappling, which is fighting from the floor. For that sort of thing, you'd want Jujitsu. See what I mean?

As a hint, anything ending is "do" (aikido, karate-do, judo, etc,) is focused more on the art involved, while "jitsu" forms are more martial, focusing on the fighting side. If you don't see "jitsu" or "do", it's probably safe to assume it's a "jitsu" type of form, focusing on hurting people or not being hurt than looking pretty.

I did mostly Tae Kwon Do when I was in high school. I mean it was a mix of Karate and TKD. You know, the building say karate but we did a lot of TKD.

I liked it, I didn't practice it outside of the 2x a week then. I was in great then, granted I was also a high school kid so go figure. lol. Flexibility increases, i could do horse stance for hours, stuff like that.

MMA is big now. It may have what you're looking for. If you want something zen like, Tai Chi is your bet. Hit up the chinatown of your city. You'll find some community news/event for martial arts, sometimes at a great price. I know the vietnamese churches in my area offer the vietnamese martial arts, VoViNam. Some local churches offer TKD at reduced prices. Traditional chinese kung fu can be found near chinatown too.

I'd look into a place that is focused on teaching and educating. Hence I liked a lot more of the Asian community center or church type places (or even continuing ed at a local community college). My karate place stopped teaching us really and was geared towards tournaments and stuff, recruiting black belts from other places, and basically we put on our pads and became hitting bags and practice dummies for guys to prep for tournaments. it would have been okay if it was one or twice, but it started to drag that way for months. My blue collar dad took exception to that, he felt our money was better spent else where. So do watch out for the places that focus on tournaments, they might not give you the attention you'd like.

Yes, go do Tae Kwon Do. It's the best thing.