2. The basic styles are Japanese and Chinese.
3. There is no "best." If there was, there would be only one style. But since your son is a gymnast, Tae Kwon Do may be a best for him. Wing Chun kung fu may be a best for him.
4. Pugilism is a fine sport. Be sure to augment it with Greco Roman wrestling at high school. This caveat applies to Tae Kwon Do as well.
The best thing to do is shop around. Take your son, and sit and watch a few classes. Don't get suckered into the free lessons. You are there to observe. If they won't let you watch, leave.
Ask for credentials. All of the senior instructors will be certified by the governing body of that art. It will probably be proudly framed and displayed in the office.
Symptoms of a McDojo are sloppy technique from the senior belts. Contracts. High testing fees. black belts issued in under two years. Lack of discipline.
Sit in on a few lessons, you can spot flaws after youv'e seen a few different schools practice.
Keep your kid in gymnastics. Goodness, considering how hard it can be for kids to keep themselves committed to something, the last thing they need is their parents pulling them in and out of activities. If he likes gymnastics, that's a good place to be. Nothing wrong with being the only boy in class. If he's good at it he can get a scholarship and compete in college. You can't do that with martial arts.
Hmmm i dont know how to gauge this question since you seem to have made an assumption yet you admit you dont know what you are talking about.
Firstly let me say this. No style of martial art is useless if you find a quality instructor and you train with dedication. You have this opinion that the martial arts in the U.S are poor well i would say that is because you are looking at schools which encourage poor methods. Avoid any place that allows a person under 15 or 16 to attain a black belt. they are places you do not want to go to in my opinion.
No style is better than another style. All have their strengths and weaknesses and all will provide you with some quality tools to use for self defense. It all comes down to the practitioner not the style. As for your son being strong, that means absolutely nothing in the world of martial arts. I am a 5'6 120lb woman and have easily defeated trained men more than a foot taller than me and nearly triple my weight.
Boxing is a very good style to learn. great speed and hand eye co-ordination. Powerful punches. Useless to you if you end up on the ground or someone grabbing hold of you.
Honestly i will not steer you in any direction. I believe you should make the choice for yourself. I do find that very young children have a great time in the grappling arts though. give him a chance to try out a few of the reputable martial arts in your area, do your research and let your son choose the one they enjoy the most. Firstly this makes them feel like they had a choice in which one and secondly a happy child is one who will train hard and be more enthusiastic to keep going. Forcing a style he doesn't want will eventually backfire.
One of the best fighters I have ever met was a gymnast. Do not take your son out of gymnastics.
But----one of the worst I also met was a gymnast. He was bad because he was closed off to learning anything new.
The "one of the best" guys learned his Boxing from his father. That means a lot of hands on, one on one attention, from someone who cared. It is the time and attention that makes the difference, regardless of style. That, and the effort of the individual student.
Instead of style, look for martial arts schools or clubs that are understanding of your busy schedule. It is easier to find that at a rec center or YMCA than at a storefront where they need to put you in a contract to pay the bills, and have testing fees to pay the bills. (Note to storefronts: I have NOTHING against that. I understand Economics).
You ultimately have to trust your gut on where to send your child. Some of us say competition is bad, but you and your child may like that. And visa versa. Keep in mind that you are already paying for gymnastics lessons, so cost may be a factor for you as well. Don't worry about "child black belts" either. A 6 year old black belt is one thing. A 13 or 14 year old black belt can hurt an adult.
Also look at the atmosphere that the instructor is creating. Is he realisticaly talking about self defense and martial arts without turning your child into a pit bull or callous killer robot?
I would tell you that if he is enjoying gymnastics you might not want to take him out of it but could add a martial art for him. There is really no bad or good style it is all in the school. When looking for somewhere to train avoid chains, terms like the biggest, most recognized, reality based, ultimate, anything that sounds like a marketing term is just that. Make sure it is a place where your child feels safe and wants to go to but also where you can tell the teacher is legit.
Ask where their licensing comes from if they are from a 40 year old 10th dan they are not reputable.
Look at what is around your home and try a few free lessons. Avoid contracts and ask what you have to pay for besides the lessons.
Don't get hung up on styles so much,
What's important is how good the instructor is, styles don't fight people do. It's the persons abilitystjat determine how good they are not the style.
Find a good instructor in your area, since on the end that's what really matters
Your correct that a large number of schools in the US r jokes, usually called McDojos by people who r able to recognize them. Also how old is ur son? If hes at an age where he cant really pay attention (i say elementary school) then i suggest you wait just a little so that hes old enough to actually understand what hes learning. As for style, no style is necessarily better then the others at self defence, but u can see which styles you would want your son to be using in school if he gets bullied, etc. I wouldnt recommend boxing, a lot would disagree with me but i dont see how your son could beat someones head in legally. Especially if its a against someone at school, they r good sports but unless u want ur kid to be beat someones face in then i suggest an art that has some grappling. Theres loads of grappling arts and all you have to do is find out which schools r in ur area, find out what they teach and do research on the arts. If your research matches what the school looks like then
The different martial art types are generally centered on cultural background. So kung fu would be Chinese in that it uses Chinese gestures and language, sometimes. Karate, would be more Japanese. Hybrids are mostly English, using combinations of different cultures.
Korea is associated with Tae Kwon Do, or TKD.
As for best, that's generally a cost, time, and distance issue. For physical education and health, you want a place that has low injury rates, all of them have insurance. You don't need quality war arts to just exercise the kid, after all.
If your primary interest is in a child learning to defend himself, then there are some particular instructors that focus on this. They are generally available online, not locally.
Tim Larkin. Rory Miller. Marc MacYoung. Their programs are mostly adult orientated. Most families have an authority figure that knows this stuff, and it just naturally flows down to the kids as they spend time together. But for outsourcing, it's much more difficult to find the right instructor and curriculum.
A kid normally would be better served by using escape and evasion methods. There are several ways to escape being tackled by enemies and put in a van, that doesn't use speed, size, or strength.
As for where martial arts are, most of them are located in cities like SF or Atlanta. If you don't live in a city, then I suggest you either use the internet to get information or to learn it yourself and then teach it to the kid. Both are rather time consuming.
Well you seem to have quite a reading here from all the answers, but I'll try to throw in my 2 cents in more layman terms if I can.
Most children martial arts program isn't designed to necessarily get them ready for a fight. From what I understand many parents tend to us martial arts school like a semi daycare. The kids are therefore trained more to learn discipline, get some exercise, and get the basic fundamentals of the techniques so that when they decide to really devote themselves later they will already know what the technique is supposed to be like. They usually don't focus on get them in tip top fighting shape, because many parents would be scared of the possible injuries that would come from such training and possible violence that kid may unleash in schools and such.
I can't describe all the styles out there for you because there are hundreds of styles of martial arts out there. What I can do is tell you that martial arts tends to break into few categories. There are styles that focus on one or few of these areas of combat. These areas of combat are striking, stand up grappling, and ground fighting. Striking is like boxing, karate, or kick boxing where they hit people to win. Stand up grappling could include some striking as well, but they are usually the styles that would throw people around to the ground to damage them. Example for these styles are judo, wrestling, and aikido. Then there is the ground fighting arts which focuses on throwing people to the ground and then finishing them on the ground where most people don't know how to fight from. Mainly Brazilian juijitsu dominates this area, but judo, sambo, and few other arts also learns to fight in this area. These are the main category divisions for empty handed martial arts.
Now these arts can be divided even farther into sportive or traditional. For example boxing is a sportive martial art where learning to win in the ring comes before the learning to win in the streets. There are many of these styles and quite a few of them are in the middle ground between sportive and traditional. And example of that would be Tae Kwon Do, where it tries to be traditional but it also has international Olympic sport presence. Lastly the traditional is styles that keeps to the traditional methods of training and try not to focus on winning in a sportive context. An example of this might be kung fu where they usually don't have a set sparring method and will train using traditional methods passed down.
If you want to see your kid be able to fight quickly then I would probably suggest sportive martial arts. The sportive arts tends to have tournaments for kids as well and they will train the kids in fighting methods right away to train them for such competitions. Sportive martial arts are boxing, kick boxing, muay thai, judo, wrestling, sanda, sambo, and brazilian juijitsu(bjj) just to name a few.
First off, finding a good school is about like finding love. You have to kiss a lot of frogs. The difference between martial art styles are not as important as you're making it out to be. It's the teacher that makes the difference in the end, not the style. But to answer your question, styles are different in where they come from, their theory and their strategy. Some use the strategy of ground techniques and grappling. Others use the theory of striking. In a good school, they will all come out about the same in the end, and the differences are really superficial.
Now that I've answered your question, how about you answer mine? Why are you taking him out of gymnastics for your benefit not his? Yes, you are. I'm betting you're a father. And you made it a point to state he's the only boy in his gymnastics. That fact should have been immaterial to your question if your motives were to help him learn to defend himself. Hell, the fact he's in gymnastics should have been immaterial. This only leads to the conclusion that you want him out to become more of a man, learning to fight. Men like you suck.
Sorry to point out the truth.
My son's in gymnastics. He's the only boy in the group, however I feel it's actually made him physically stronger than the boys his age and he's in very good shape. I want to take him out now so he can use his strength to defend himself. I was thinking marital arts or something, however in the USA it seems to be sort of a joke. (So I've heard and from what I've seen) Those children would definitely get hurt bad in a real fight.
Also, I'm extremely confused about differentiating between the types of martial arts and what would be best. For example, there's karate, kung fu, taekwondo, ect. I'm ignorant to it all.
I've also thought about putting him in boxing, since I know he'll be learning to fight for real, but it almost seems too violent. I really don't know...
I have a few questions/request here.
1. Are there good martial arts in united states that aren't jokes and where would they be located?
2. Help me out by briefly explaining/differentiating the martial arts to me?
3. Which would be best?
4. Should I just put him in boxing?
5. Are their other suggestions or methods I can use to help him learn to defend himself?
I know there's a lot in here, but I would really appreciate your feedback. Thank you in advance.
