Which Martial Arts School

That leads on to the next question:

How often can you realistically train?

Be honest with yourself on this one, and ask the instructor(s) what they think your progress is likely to be. The answer will always include something like 'not as fast as if you attended more classes', but they should be able to give an indication based upon their ranking system.

Listen to them and make sure you will be happy with that rate of progress, especially if you can only train once or twice a week as at that level you are likely to be 'overtaken' by new students who can train more often.

This may not be a deal breaker for some, but people can get frustrated in seeing new starters not just making more progress than them, but then becoming 'better' in skill and/or rank.

Last question:

Is the school a McDojo?

Is it a belt factory/meat grinder, or a school started by a practitioner who's decided their own blend/interpretation is best? There are websites that try and maintain a list of known McDojo and McDojo instructors and many websites and lists on identifying them - shameless plug for my list here

A few questions to get answered - either by phone or through the website.

1. Call around and get prices and how many days available the school is open for training, and write them down.

2. If the school has a website, go and read all of it. Wait a day or two and read it again. Does anything sound fishy? Does it sound good? How old do the photographs seem? (this could just be a media quiet school, or they focus photos on a private FB group or similar, but photographs should be new enough to appear crisp and not from the 90's)

3. See if there are online reviews that are NOT hosted on the school's website (Google listing, local online message boards and the like).

4. Try the school out. Most places offer at least the first lesson free. Are there children with black belts? (this not a great sign) How many students are there? Does the instructor personally work with the students or do higher level students do all the work? Do they spar? If so, how do they spar, what is the setup and focus? Does it look like they pressure test their techniques?

5. Ask questions. Ask how long on average it takes to reach black belt or its equivalent level, what's the average training time in between testings, what type of testing & association fees they have, how often they spar and what contact level to they use, etc..

6. If you hear any of these phrases (or something similar) to your questions, do take note and be concerned:

• "We don't believe pain or getting hurt is necessary to learning how to fight (or train)"
• "Sparring with contact means you have no control"
• "It's harder to throw a kick and stop it inches from someone's face than just actually hit them"
• "If you can throw an attack and pull it without hitting someone during sparring, you can throw an attack and hit an attacker on the street easily"
• "We have advanced training that allows us to promote faster than other martial arts"
• "We have a guaranteed black belt/fast track class" (Separate senior students class is fine, but anything with guaranteed result is a red flag for the school)
• "We have anti-grappling techniques that can stop any grappler"
• "Our martial art comes from [insert asian country] and is over 5000 years old."
• "We believe in upholding the noble principles of the Samurai & their code of Bushido"
• "With our sophisticated training, you can become a black belt within 2 years"
• "We charge more than other schools because we offer world class training, we've even had winners at national or world tournaments"
• "If a child can do all the same requirements as an adult to become black belt, then why shouldn't he be given a black belt?" (An adjusted syllabus for children is fine, as long as it is not immediately transferable to the full syllabus without going through at least one adult test/grading first)

What if the school isn't for me?

Talk to instructor as you get concerns. Don't leave them to fester and grow. Your instructor may have some instant answers for you, or may ask for a couple of days to formulate a proper response.

It could be that the instruction style has changed, or you have found out there's something shady higher up in the system, or it just wasn't as good of a fit as you initially thought.

Do note that your instructor is very unlikely to pander to your every whim (and if they do, then leave as they'll do this with all other student's whims as well). Your instructor may be able to work on your concerns without detracting from their style, or give you a structured reason for what they are doing and why.

If you don't get the answer you are after then you need to consider if that concern is a deal-breaker, if cross-training another style would help you, or if you are happy to continue with the school regardless. In any of those scenarios do not rush the action, and bare in mind that the decision not have to be permanent.

Don't be afraid to change schools or even leave your current school if it doesn't agree with you, regardless of the amount of time and/or money you have put into your training! - although please DO let your instructor know that you are leaving and why (in a polite, professional manner).

If you do leave a school and are subsequently asked about it, be honest and polite.

The only times you should not be polite about a previous school is if you suspect abuse (which must be reported to the police, regardless of evidence), or if you are 100% certain it is a scam school (proper evidence that the instructor has lied about their martial history, or a repeated and documented school history of putting the school's profit margin above it's martial training - see McDojos).

Very Generic List of styles and intents

So here I'm going to list a few common martial art styles, and include a comment regarding my interpretation of its focus. This is not saying one martial art is better than another, just that most have different goals and different methods of achieving those goals.

A lot of these systems have been around for dozens of years and through many generations of practitioners. If they were completely useless for everything then they would have died out by now. (n.b. - repeating that this is for the COMMON styles out there. There are going to be uncommon styles and new styles that may very well be not just worthless, but flat out dangerous to think that they work. These fake arts DO include anything that focuses on "no touch" or mystical energy based styles)

I have included 'kung fu' multiple times because it is both uncontrolled and a general catch-all for most Chinese boxing systems, and there are too many to both name and catatorise. Most will fit into self defence, performance or body control (or a mix).

I have also decided not to put anything specific into 'self defence' as that has other requirements. Most notably for the instructor to pressure test the style with his/her students and for the style to admit its limitations.

Any martial art that pressure tests in even a small way will be helpful for self defence. Any instructor can artificially limit the real pressure testing of their style, especially if they only spar against people proficient in their own style.

You may (will) see videos online of one style's practitioner fighting/sparring against another style's practitioner. This is almost never indicative of if one style is superior, and almost alway indicative of the individual practitioner's skill. i.e. if the winner had trained in a different style, s/he would still most likely have won due to how they personally approach training.

Footnote 2: Traditional Chinese Martial Arts (kung fu, tai chi etc.)

Most kung fu styles are a personal blending from that style's generation of Grandmaster, taking into account his or her personal martial arts history before accepting discipleship of one particular system. This by definition makes most kung fu styles 'Mixed Martial Arts', even though most of the mixing is from different Chinese styles rather than a global mixing.

Bare in mind TCMA's were effectively hamstrung by the PRC when it came into power in China, 1949 (after having used TCMA masters to help back their rise to power). The 'teeth' behind all styles were effectively removed by government order, masters only permitted to teach aesthetically pleasing choreographic routines and NONE of the combative intent behind it - the PRC leadership enjoyed watching the performances. This includes everything from the Shaolin Temple.

Masters who attempted to continue teach effective, combative martial arts were harshly punished or worse. Of those who survived the PRC's rise and solidification of power, many were then humiliated, imprisoned, tortured, and killed during an official government sanctioned purge on many historic Chinese traditions between 1966 and 1976.

Some masters left China to carry on teaching. These systems are more likely to have retained their effective martial edge.

The few masters who remained and survived were generally too old to teach combative methods by the time the government rescinded their limitations placed on teaching, and in most cases TCMAs taught in China have not recovered and are not ever likely to. Due to global travel becoming cheaper and more prevalent these performance martial art styles spread through Europe and America, overtaking through sheer indomitable numbers the masters who had escaped and retained their style's full skill-set.

This is where a lot of the modern controversy regarding TCMA vs. the like of MMA have come into play and made a spectacle online. Most of the current masters in China have very little pressure tested experience, but have been taught by those who did (or may be a second generation down from that). That gives them false confidence when it comes to free-sparring, and shows the importance of pressure testing.

There are a minority of masters that hid their continued training. These masters have on occasion sparred with practitioners of modern martial arts, including MMA, and despite their age held their ground incredibly well (Ramsey Dewey, ex-MMA fighter talks through his experience against an aging Tai Chi master on his YouTube channel. The tai chi master repeatedly bested him, even when Dewey put proper effort into the sparring!).

This begs the question of how good would the TCMA styles be if they had not been artificially limited by their government? Before the PRC limitations on martial arts all of the common styles in China had gone through pressure testing, either through the local branch of the military or police, or through citizens developing the systems to protect their village from raiders. It is, in my opinion, that TCMAs would be high competition against MMA and pretty much every major system.

It is a tragedy that this skill has been for the most part, lost. If you find a rare case of a TCMA school that still pressure tests, that survived intact through the PRC purge, then that school should go to the top of your list of styles to try out as it would be a near unique martial arts experience.

That was a long footnote.