r/martialarts

To cut it short, wanted to do the olympics in Taekwondo 15ish years back. Missed my chance by missing a national qualification competition and being a stupid teenager who stopped 2 months right before my 1st dan belt. Same as for other sports I was doing at the time. I completely buchered my early 20s, and now late 20s have been very hard. I'm turning 30 next year and only since 2 years ago I have been able to start training again, still quite in shape... although, reality set in that this dream is now really just a dream. I did practice all these years but rarely competed anymore.

As Taekwondo evolved in the sport that it is today and not the original martial art derivated from old karate it was, it led me to search other martial arts. I know I could still compete national level on TKD but sparring got extremely boring, and poomsae could be an option.

I did a year of Kendo and Iaido, loved it. But got somewhat bored that it is only sword and sooooo bureaucratic schools around here.

Trying out kickboxing/Muay Thai, loving it.

Tried MMA, loved it, curious on BJJ but not sure how much damage my body can take on amateur level as my job depends on a strict medical certificate, where a single serious injury could potentially terminate my career. I don't think to compete in MMA for this reason.

I wonder on European level, are there leagues for the masters in these other disciplines post 30s?

I want to end up picking one sport and focus. Do something serious for an amateur over 30s, achieve something, aim somewhere. I just want to content my inner child ;P

I assume that kickboxing, MMA, BJJ, etc. are far more popular and there is probably also a lot more competition and it is a lot harder to achieve something. Probably it would be really hard to master and get somewhere, isn't it?

I kickboxing more specifically

tl;dr can I go to a class 1-2x a week and have it be effective?

*Background:* I have a black belt and was an instructor in one of these martial arts where you "do techniques, katas etc." with minimal-to-no sparring, and requires a semi-compliant attacker (think better than aikido, but worse than BJJ). I realised way too late my 1st Dan means nothing.

I've moved city and there is a local combat centre that does MMA, Muay Thai, BJJ (gi and no gi) , boxing and wrestling. Classes are 1h long, sometimes 1.5h.

I want join this place, but not waste my time/money if I can't go enough for it to be effective. I go to the gym to focus on my body 4x a week and do not want to change this.

I don't aspire to the level of competing seriously. I would just like better self defense and maybe even participate in a BJJ competition here and there (as this is required for belts right?), but not as my main focus.

I was looking to start a martial art(s) 1x a week and maybe bump it up to 2x a week. Ideally, I want grappling and striking (I would like BJJ and Muay Thai 1x a week each as opposed to MMA as I never really want to do an MMA fight, starting out with just BJJ 1x a week for a while).

So is going 1x a week enough? What about 2x? Should I just do MMA?

I’m a 30 year old female, I’ve been around mma my whole life, my dad was a fighter. How realistic is it for me to begin training and competing at my age? I never had the confidence when I was younger but recently lost 100lb and starting to really work on myself mentally and physically and would love to prove to myself I could do this. From an experienced training pov is it possible or have I missed the prime years to begin ?

I was just thinking about how the perception of martial arts in general seems to have changed over the years. There's just so much more information out there nowadays on what different arts are actually all about and even the fighting techniques used in action movies are often more realistic than let's say 25 years ago. When I was younger, I would get the question if I could do the splits quite regularly when I mentioned I trained martial arts. Nobody has asked me that in years. I mean, I can't, but it would be nice to be asked once in a while.

I’m a fit f28 with no prior material art experience. I’ve been curious about jiu jitsu for a while now and wanna try it. I was wondering who do you think is BJJ best suited for?

I’ve trained Gi Bjj for about 1.5 years now and I’m not saying I’m good but I definitely think I have more of an understanding, especially against people same skill level / untrained. I train 4-5x a week for BJJ.

Im thinking about starting MMA- I have 0 striking experience, never been into a fight, and have only trained in the gi for BJJ. I was wondering how difficult training MMA is like compared to BJJ. The first around 5-6 months of BJJ were like hell for me, which I’m okay with but what I’m wondering if I should expect the same for MMA - or if it’s a bit easier to pick up or even harder to?

Follow up question- at what point can I expect to get to where I am now at BJJ doing MMA, assuming I train the same amount of days / sessions per week ?

Rather than putting someone in a choke around their neck, could you just cover their nose and mouth to stop them from breathing? It is true that it takes longer for them to run out of breath that way and much longer for them to pass out, but would it actually work if you could keep holding on for that long, for argument's sake? And could it be an effective way to subdue someone in either a friendly bout or a serious street fight?

been watching old stadium fights, modern ONE Championship bouts, even gym sparring clips, and I keep coming back to one question.

At first glance, it looks simple: kicks, elbows, knees, clinch work. But the more you watch high-level fighters, the more it feels like there’s a hidden layer most people don’t see. I think the best guys don’t just throw techniques, they manage rhythm. They’ll pause exchanges without actually stopping them, draw reactions with small feints, and control distance in a way that makes their opponent feel like they’re always one step behind. Even in the clinch, it’s not just strength, it’s positioning, balance breaks, and timing that decides everything.What’s interesting is how different styles emerge within Muay Thai itself. Some fighters are pressure-heavy and walk opponents down. Others are almost surgical, picking shots and punishing mistakes. Yet both can be elite depending on how well they control the fight’s pace.

What am I on about with that headline? In all martial arts and combat sports, you drill techniques, which is boring, but very much necessary. In some martial arts, and all combat sports, you also spar in order to train for “real fights” or “the street”, because being able to act under pressure is necessary. But a lot of schools/gyms just assume that if you drill a technique enough, you will eventually be able to apply it under the pressure that exists in sparring or a fight.

However, I think that this is inefficient at best and wrong at worst. The reason being is that in such a fight situation, your brain is not able to think all that well, so you resort to a select few very simple techniques that you're very familiar with. So what you end up with is a fighter who knows a bunch of techniques well, but in the context of a fight, their brain is just unable to apply those techniques to the situation.

Of course, you can brute-force your way past that point by endlessly drilling a wide variety of combinations for the same technique, so you can do that technique very well and execute it starting from a wide variety of situations/positions, but I think it's more effective to train the thought process instead (or as well).

How would we do that? By soft/slow sparring. So instead of going into the round, giving it all you've got and trying your darndest to land as many hits as possible, calm down, both of you. When you need a moment to think, pause the situation. Allow your partner to pick up on openings, and use them. And because your partner does the same for you, you'll be able to stop and think for a moment: is that familiar technique you're about to attempt really a good option here, or is it something you'd have to use a lot of force for? (Specifically thinking about throws/takedowns and how, for example, it's very inefficient to try to throw your opponent backward by force when they're already hunched over forwards)

When you don't train your brain to think this way, don't be surprised that it can't think this way under pressure.

I'm not claiming I came up with this line of thought, I've seen it in discussions on Youtube and the like, but I do feel like it's something many schools/gyms haven't put into practice.

Personally, I do Jiu-jitsu (not the Brazilian kind), so that's just the background this is coming from. For people doing sports with less variety, the benefits may not be as pronounced. Also, I'm using “sparring” to refer to any kind of training where the techniques aren't pre-defined and the opponent is somewhat resisting, be it for grappling or striking arts. I decided against using the term “rolling” because we don't roll on the floor.

Hands down. Not even close.

Reasons:

1. You can't see us; we can see you. You can't hit what you can't see ;)

2. We have weapons. You guys only wear tight shorts

3. Ninja outfits were created to make us harder to dox online

4. We can make you involuntarily shit your pants before the fight starts

5. There's no movies or video games about MMA guys going on an adventure. There's no "MMA Gaiden"

6. MMA isn't even real. It's just stolen from other martial arts

Hi everyone,

I have a specific question for the Muslim practitioners here who train in striking arts like Boxing, Muay Thai, or MMA.

I want to learn striking purely for practical self-defense. I have no intention of going pro or competing in amateur bouts. However, in Islam, there is a clear hadith stating that we should avoid striking the face during a fight or training.

For those of you who strictly adhere to this rule, how do you manage your training and sparring sessions?

I know that during sparring, we wear a full set of protective gear: mouthguards, 16oz sparring gloves, shin guards, and sometimes facesaver headgear that completely protects the nose and face.

• Do you consider wearing this full protective gear sufficient to bypass the restriction (since you aren't directly damaging the face), or do you still strictly avoid headshots?
• If you still avoid headshots, do you only engage in body-sparring?
• Do you feel that hitting heavy bags and doing pad work with a coach is enough to prepare you for a real-life self-defense situation?
• How do you learn distance management, timing, and head movement if you aren't doing standard sparring with head strikes?
• Have you found good workarounds in your gyms, or do you eventually just gravitate towards grappling arts like BJJ or Judo to avoid the issue entirely?

I really want to learn how to defend myself properly, but I am struggling to see how I can become proficient without standard sparring. I would appreciate your practical insights and experiences!