kickboxing?

rachel

I'd like to try something to get fit, tone up and learn some form of self defence in the process.

I'm thinking along the lines of something like kickboxing or any alternative, I'm quite clueless on subjects like this so I need some guidance as to which would be the best choice.

It also needs to be something that is available in Dublin city centre and preferably run during the evenings.

thanks.

Jak

Kickboxing is a fairly useful sport for improving flexibility, general fitness and coordination alright. I did it for a few years, but eventually found the competition side a bit weak, and also in retrospect the training, while excellent for flexibility was not really ground breaking for improving fitness and did very little for strength.

Personally I moved to Boxing after and found it to be far and away the best fitness and conditioning training I had done next to the rowing/weight lifting combo which I still think is the ideal. In addition the competition side of boxing as well as what you learn is far more practical/enjoyable than anything I experienced in Kickboxing.

However ...

Kickboxing has many different branches and styles, on top of this, individual clubs and instructors will play a massive role in the quality of your training and what you get out of it. Try a few clubs for sessions, most will have beginner nights where you can stand in.

I would say don't limit yourself to kickboxing (although it has acquired a kind of flashy cred) - look about for any karate, boxing, kickboxing .. hell even tai chi or if nothing else, Tae Kwan Do clubs. You will get out what you put in, and while personally for practical self defence etc. I think nothing can compare to Judo/Wrestling or Boxing, you will get some benefit in that regard also.

JAK.

rachel

thanks for the reply

I assume this is a complete misconception but when I think of boxing broken teeth, fractured skulls & black eyes come to mind.

What are the starting level classes like? I figure you don't just jump into a ring but I can imagine myself getting creamed when it came down to one on one. Is it possible to ignore the competitive side completely?

And also is there any governing body or some such organisation that lists classes so if I do go for it, I don't want to end up in some dodgy fight club type set up. (which I could manage )

Jak

Boxing can be as you described, but while I chose to spar a lot, it was by no means enforced.

The ladies section of the club (albeit 3 of them) simply did the training, circuit style. They did not compete, and although they did spar, amateur boxers are wearing headgear mostly and the worst you get is maybe a few bruises or cut gums - but it's all quite friendly mostly. The only problem is that, joining out of the blue with no other martial training may be a bit of a plunge and clubs have very high drop out rates.

Irish boxing is still under www.IABA.ie as far as I know and they should have affiliated clubs there if you are interested.

Personally, I think you should think of Judo. Having gone through a few of them, this is the next one I plan to try next year, and I have high hopes for it.

JAK.

Rolo Tomasi

or if nothing else, Tae Kwan Do clubs

why the TKD bashing? Would you advise something like karate or Aikido? I really want to take up a martial art but I'm confused to say the least.

Jak

Yah I had a year of Karate at the outset and all, but yah I forgot Aikido, not much experience of it, but have heard good things and it seems to be an interesting martial art.

Again your individual club and your effort will be what makes the difference in all cases.

Personally I just don't really rate Tae Kwon Do very highly. I'm not bashing it so to speak, but given something has to go at the bottom of the ladder I would put Tae Kwon Do there.

I know a few people heavily involved with it, and they are great people and decent martial artists, but *my experience* of the average student was that it was fairly poor fast track training/belt giving.

One thing to bear in mind is that martial arts belts and grades and so on do not always transfer too well into "fighting ability or self defence". They are an indicator, but the variance in skill of 2 same grade people in a given martial art can be huge in my experience.

If you are really interested in self defence, I genuinely don't believe the non or semi contact style martial arts training is the way to go, they are flashy and good for fitness, flexibility, but if you really want to learn to look after yourself you need heavy contact training and practical skills such as those taught in boxing, wrestling or Judo especially. The skills you learn in these 3 are what you will use (the others all teach them to a degree, but these are the primary colours of martial arts in my view) in a 'situation'.

Another thing to bear in mind is size, while all these sports take skill and there are levels, there are also weight categories which don't apply when being mugged. So a little weight training might be a good compliment as a good big guy will always beat the good little guy.

Anyhows, starting to ramble, but in any case a knife in the back would do for most of us, so generally the best self defence is common sense.

To conclude, go Judo

Man U babe

Well.......I've been involved in martial arts since i was a chiddler, I'm 7 years doing kenpo (I'm a junior black belt and have been for 2 years) and 8 weeks doing TKD. To be honest, most martial arts will get you fit, depends on what club ya go to. My kenpo instructor wasnt big into fitness training but there was lots of self-defence and sparring(FUN!). The TKD training in UCD is very based on fitness training and sparring, which suits me. I've gone from a size 14 down to a 12 since I started. Kickboxing places a great emphasis on sparring and fitness training, and very little on doing kata/forms/patterns, which are more prevalent in the Japanese and Chinese martial arts. Judo/aikido? well I wouldnt really be into them, but if you want to learn close quarters combat, they might suit you. I personally wouldnt go for boxing because you dont get much legwork and I like to get some strretching into my training, but if you like REALLY hard training.....
Well that's just my opinions, which you can completely ignore if you so wish. I'm not going to direct you.

dubhthach

I'm a 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo (here in NUIG) being training for about 3 years. Now i wouldn't call are contact level light, i've seen noises broken in sparring. The rules however are that you can't use excessive force ie. knock your oppent out. Sparring is mostly based around kicking, especially if you do full contact wtf (olympic style) TKD. As regards TKD uses for self defense, well as part of training we usally spend about 30 mins out of our 2hour doing self-defense techniques, joint manipulation etc. we also do ground fighting classes.
I use to do Aikido for about 6 months it's good especially the weapons training (which i do in TKD as well) . But it's not something that'll you get a major work out in. One of the things i like about my training at the moment apart from the sparring and breaking (just boards at moment!) is "ki patterns" that we learn. Basically same story as Tai Chi, it's one of the best ways i've found to relax all my muscles after a hard training session.

paddyc

Rachel

check out the club i train at we have about 15 girlies at the minute traning with us

www.bridgestonemuaythai.com

Based in D1 5 mins from O'Connell st.

paddy

Rolo Tomasi

hi dubhthach , which style of TKD do you do ,ITF or WTF?

dubhthach

Well i do ITF style but my club is not a member of the ITF, the problem with Taekwondo is their is way to much politcs. i did my Grading under Master Karel von Orseaw of the UTI. We do ITF tuls as well as patterns involving the Dang Bong (korean baton) the Jung Bong (short stick, like a jo) and a dagger pattern. There are 2 dang bong patterns 1 each for 1st and 2nd Dan, the Jung Bong pattern is for the 3rd Dan and the dagger pattern is done for the 4th Dan. We also do Ki patterns for Dan gradings as well as 2 on 1 sparring.

Rolo Tomasi

The Ki patterns sound very interesting, and in all my reading have never head them mentioned. Do you know of there are detailed in the TKD encyclopedia?

Also you might be able to help me here, I have heard there are as many hand techniques in TKD as Karate. True?

xx

I've been doing judo for about 9 weeks now and I swear to god, I've never been this fit in my life. Not only that, but I'm seriously building up muscle too. I do 2 hours of judo, twice a week, and then one or two days in the gym for good measure. Sometimes, me and the others guys in the team get together for impromtu sparring too. And for self defense, its fab.

Musashi

Jak,
I don't mean to disrespect you but have u tried Tae Kwon Do?
If I were to put anything on the bottom rung it would be Shotokan Karate.I know I'll get flamed for this but I beat Shotokan black belts when I was a mid level trainee.TKD has a sports side and a very serious martial side.Marines learn TKD, it's a true "Martial" art.I was weak in mid range 'til I learnt to box but after,TKD and boxing are super!I learnt some(lots) of grappling and joint work but highly skill and moment biased.A punch is a Punch!
Again, I'm biased,but ask Niall to go toe to toe and see what he'll use :-)
Best of luck

Jak

It is only based on personal experience of sparring matches against TKD people pal, and also just from my experience, I met a number of TKD people who were full of ****.

As I said, individual and club will make the difference, and also as I mentioned I did not want to bash any art in particular - but as most people I form opinions on my experiences.

That said, two of the most competent people I knew were of TKD backgrounds.

As for going toe to toe with Niall ... he can use whatever he likes

JAK.

logic1

Originally posted by Jak

As for going toe to toe with Niall ... he can use whatever he likes

JAK.

I prefer to use a 12 inch dildo, a fierce weapon in the right hands.

.logic.