The town I'm moving to soon offers American Kickboxing, Wing Chun, and Shaolin Kung Fu. I'm leaning towards American Kickboxing at this point, but I was just wondering how good it is for self defense. And does anyone have experience with either of the others? Thanks.
I only have experience of one "American kickboxing" club that I attended for a while - and I know the term could apply to many things so take my advice with a pinch of salt. It sucked. I mean it really sucked. It sucked A LOT! Did I mention it sucked?
... obviously left a bad taste in Yoda's mouth If you're looking for self defense classes in Alabama (whatever city/town) ... check out this yellow page service that covers the Alabama area Martial Arts & Self Defense Instruction in Alabama Don't limit yourself until you check out a few schools in the area...
Here's a place I can heartily recommend... Straight Blast Gym Alabama Harry Powell 2615-C North Memorial Parkway 35810 tel# (256) 851-7121
The town I'll be moving to is Jasper. I'll probably just have to wait and check the different schools out when I get down there. Hopefully I can find a good place. I've been practicing hapkido in Missouri. I don't think I'll be lucky enough to find a hapkido school close by down there though.
check out the classes first. There hae been several schools that I checked out that the art was good yet the system and the teacher sucked. There were other arts on the other hand I wasn't really keen on yet I ended up enrolling since the system and the teacher is great
I think it would depend on your instructor, how you use the methods and whether it is a purely sport type of kickboxing. In sport, you usually fight with rules, however there are no rules on the street. Nevertheless, the skills you learn in the ring such as strikes, power, reflexes, stamina can all help you in the street. But if someone aims a knife at you, or sneak attacks you, none of those skills can really help you unless you feel maybe you are good enough to perhaps kick him before gets a chance to do something. The kickboxing I take is more of a mixed martial arts system and geared more towards self-defense. It teaches you things like locks and takedowns and even how to defend against a knife attack. However, if it came down to a good ol' one on one street fight, a kickboxer is a very dangerous foe to mess with. A good idea would be to take kickboxing for a while to build the power and reflexes and then maybe supplement it with another art such as judo or jujitsu to learn the more practical self-defense aspects. In short, any martial arts will help you with self-defense it just all depends on how you apply it. Even with sport kickboxing, which is more offensive. But sometimes, the best defense is offense!
