Your Martial Arts Experiences...

[Great Sage]

How did we all start? Where did certain training begin?

One of my best memories is how I got started in grappling arts & BJJ.

A few years ago in college, we had a martial arts club set up in the gym. It was mostly comprised of karate and TKD guys. I remember this new guy showed up and watched a session. We ended up talking a lot about martial arts. He had trained in BJJ and was a one-stripe white belt. Since I did a little wrestling, we started to work out together whenever there was time.

I remember I didn't know how to defend against submission holds – especially chokes. I was really impressed with how BJJ teaches one to maintain position and react accordingly. During our meetings, we only drilled "no gi" techniques, but it was a very insightful experience that lasted for a semester and a half.

Since then, I have been training BJJ (with the gi) and loving it.

[cakegirl]

My karate story:

I hated all sport, had no interest in martial arts, and was a hippy (hated violence) as a teenager. My dad heard about a female karate instructor from a friend of his - she was supposed to be really good at karate, and also really good at teaching non-sporty, hippy, teenaged girls. So he asked if I wanted to try it. And I said "HELL NO". And he asked again a month or so later, and I said "Why would I want to do karate, that's stupid!" And a month or so after that, he asked again, etc. Eventually I I got sick of telling my dad to get lost, so I went "just to look", and was surprised that it didn't look too much like sport, people were having fun, and there was no all-in-brawl. There were also some teenaged girls like me there. And the teacher was fantastic (on the Australian team). So I started training. Many years later, with a total of 7 years off from training due to injuries, and time spent doing another karate style while living in the US, starting back at white belt not once but twice, I'm now preparing for my black belt grading. (And I'm a karate teacher.)

My BJJ story:

Because of karate, I read martial arts magazines, and I kept reading about the success of BJJ in MMA competitions, the Gracies, etc. I was interested in it, but there was nowhere I could do it in my town. Then my karate instructor moved our school into a bigger building last year, and the new school has two training areas. She then set about finding good instructors from other martial arts/sporty activities, and offering them the use of one of the training areas (renting the space to them, in order to make the building a martial arts centre). So the school got Kung Fu, Aikido, BJJ, Capoiera, Tai Chi, Pilates, etc. The BJJ instructor was from another city nearby, and he travelled to my town twice a week to teach. I think he offered a free class or something, and I thought "What the hell" and tried it and liked it. I was pretty nervous because there were no other girls, and I did come up against some problems because of that (still do sometimes). But I enjoyed it a lot, and have since convinced some of my karate friends to join and train with me. Since I started, the teacher has changed to the guy (whose teaching style agrees with me better)who used to come down with the main teacher to help out in class, and somewhere along the way, I think we stopped doing Machado and started doing Gracie (due to the addition of a member of the Gracie family to the school).

Cakegirl

[cakegirl]

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[gracilva]

started out in tkd at the age of 7 under a korean master (tough as nails type)for about 4 or 5 yrs.
joined traditional ju-jitsu for about a year but the school closed down.
trained in boxing for a while but quit due to a football injury and then got slack all together and gave it a rest for a couple of yrs.
i then discovered bjj through the u.f.c and seeing as i was ready to get back into some type of training again, i thought i would try a few free classes, fell in love lol, and now i am training under john will of machado jj, who got his black belt off rigan machado.
he is also a bb in shootfighting so i'm going to get into that too.

[Cain]

not to be rude, but shootfighting doesen't use belts.. or grades.. :P

anyway, i started off with some boxing at 12-13, but then they closed the gym down, and i started tkd since that was the last martial art in the town.. (small town) , did that for 4-5 years, I moved to attend to uni, then i started trying bjj and shootfighting and found that shootfighting was more my thing.. and now i do krav maga and shootfighting.. and i love it! lots of action and a very nice group.

[huey]

i was 15 years old and staying with relatives in monterey california. the stay was to be permanent but didn't end that way. i had joined a kenpo karate school near the house. i had been there about 3 months and had to leave. when i got back home i got a job and moved out. my new roomate was an old friend that had been in martial arts for ten years to that point. he asked me if i wanted to join in and so i did. i really just wanted to learn how to beat the hell out of people a lot easier than i already did. i found my demeanor changing (which was really poor at that time) and the need to test myself and others vanished. the training challenged me and allowed me to switch from my now calm self to the other guy that used to be me all the time (i wouldn't go looking for trouble but had a knack for letting it find me). been moving right along ever since, even met my wife there and have been married for twelve years, both my kids are in it with us, it has been a huge blessing. i have crossed trained in bjj and judo (a friend of mine that is a bb in judo has switched over to and is a world champ two years in a rowin bjj). cross trained also in tai chi, shuai chaio but my main focus is shou shu from the moore family in california.

[gracilva]

not to be rude, back at ya, but yes there are belts, gradings and tournaments for shootfighting, in Australia anyway

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Started out in Judo because my dad was a Judo instructor, then made switch to karate 25 years ago
did several things on the side like TKD, Savate, Kick/thaiboxing
some traditional japanese arts like Iaido and Jodo
had a sebatical of about 4 years and now started doing MMA recently

[Cain]

well, if they use belts, it isn't shootfighting..
or atleast not http://www.shootersinternational.org/

but ofcourse, it can be another affiliation/organization. we start to sound like tkd now.. :P

[gracilva]

yeah cain, it must be a different org. this one is called john.b.will shootfighting. it does have belts and rankings and i heard its really, really hard to achieve bb, he also won gold in silat, at the time the only non indonesian to have done so.
here is the link to his web site:

http://www.bjj.com.au/johnwill.html

[greyfox13]

well back in grade 9 i talked to a guy in one of my classes who did karate, and he told me about it, so i became interested. he mentioned that they were moving the dojo more south(closer to my house). so one day, while on the bus going to school, i saw this place he'd been talkin about, in the front there was a sign that said"open house" so i said to myself, what the hell, why not. that was back in january. now im a yellow belt, i love my art, they also teach us Ju jitsu(my sensei trains with the rickson gracie organization, so i guess its brazilian Jiu jitsu then) also about once a month i go to my friends judo dojo and totally kick his ass when we do groundwork

[kh_s]

I saw Bloodsport and Bloodsport II

[Edits post to add something ]

It was the part when the two Thai fighters were going at it...

[greyfox13]

SO THERE IS A BLOODSPORT 2!! IM NOT CRAZY AFTER ALL!! i knew i remebered part of it

[IPON]

gracilva - I checked the link and it doesn't say anything about shootfighting....this john wills looks like he is dedicated to Machado BJJ.......am I missing something on the home page??

[gracilva]

yeah sorry IPON, the site links off to students, belt ranks etc.
one student of john will named john simon has achieved a bb in bjj,tkd and shootfighting, here is the link:

http://www.bjj.com.au/simon_profile.htm