You don't need to add muscle "before" taking up martial arts. Chances are, you probably fight best at your natural body weight since that is the amount of weight your muscles and skeleton are used to supporting. You will probably develop toned, conditioned, sports specific, "fighting muscle" within a few weeks of training in martial arts, especially MMA.
I would advise against bulking up if you're going to do martial arts because heavy muscle slows down your punches and kicks, and reduces your flexibility. Heavy muscle also robs the body of oxygen while being bigger makes you an easy target for locks and chokes. Size and strength are better for bodyguards, bouncers, and offensive linemen than they are for ambitious martial artists.
check out what's available in your area; shop around, go to starter lesson.
see if the teacher is right for you - do you understand what s/he tells, do you learn new things? are they focused on self-defence or sport or health?
see the senior students - are they the kind of fighters you want to become?
after you've checked out half a dozen to a doze dojos - decide.
There is no best style.
They will all work as long as you train right and have a good instructor.
Your size, body type and sex have nothing to do with the style you want to choose. People that think that your size and body type determine the style know little to nothing about martial arts
styles are made to adapt to your body type
Most people will tell you there style is the best or they heard such and such is a great style,
The style is not important, what matters is how good your instructor is and how you train. The style is secondary, they all have there pro's and con's there are no superior styles.
If you have an instructor that can’t teach you how to fight, regardless of the style, what good would it do you?
Choose a school with a good instructor in the end that’s all that matters, that and how you train.
Its the person that has the ability to fight not the style
Do something that has both striking and grappling techniques.
Grappling.
Martial arts such as kung fu, etc relay on to many forms, thats why bruce lee changed, he said the same thing..
Look at MMO on TV. they don't relay on one style.
They are told to stand up more in MMO, but most fights end up on the ground and that is why grappling work.
I have boxing experience and MMO experience, not to much MMO, but enough to know.
any you can, they are all good aslong as you are good at them.
I've always wanted to take some form of Martial Arts, but I'm very ignorant about the whole thing. I'm going into to better my self defense skills, so if you have experience in this which form would be best for me? I'm not very built so I'm sure if I should add a few pounds of muscle before pursuing this.
