# What Is best suited for me?



## Hidan (Mar 7, 2017)

Hello to everyone,

this is my first post on this forum and I hope that you all have some good advice for me.
I am a 22 year old university student from Germany. I really want to learn  martial arts.
There are a few decent gyms close to me but I feel really intimidated because I just do not know where to start.
They offer a wide variety of martial arts (BJJ, Luta Livre, Boxing, muay thai and a lot more).
The one I am most interested in is muay thai. However, a friend of mine has told me that in order to learn it one must have insane flexibiltiy and mobility. Unfortunately, I cannot even do splits and my mobility is worse than you might imagine.
I do not want make myself look like a fool when they want me to perform high kicks ... I cannot even get my leg high enough.

So, do you think I should try something else? I just do not know what is suited for me. I´d like to give it a shot because muay thai has always been a goal of mine.

What do you recommend me?

Best regards from Germany!


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## Steve (Mar 7, 2017)

It's really just about what you like and what sounds like the most fun.  Check your ego at the door and don't worry at all about what you look like or what you can or can't do.  Just go, have fun, and don't take yourself too seriously.


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## Danny T (Mar 7, 2017)

If you are interested in Muay Thai train in it.
Your friend is wrong on the flexibility and mobility. Unless you have a physical disability you will learn and your body will become conditioned for flexibility and mobility by the training. Muay Thai is an excellent martial art to train.


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## Hidan (Mar 7, 2017)

Thank you for the motivation. I think you are right. All my friends kept telling me that my flexibility is not good enough for Muay Thai. I will simply jump into the cold water and see what happens.


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## drop bear (Mar 7, 2017)




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## marques (Mar 7, 2017)

We know it is a difficult choice. But it is a personal choice. It is easier to help when there is a more direct question, rather than what is better for you (we don't know you, apart from your limited flexibility - by your standards). Try yourself.



Hidan said:


> The one I am most interested in is muay thai. However, a friend of mine has told me that in order to learn it one must have insane flexibility and mobility. Unfortunately, I cannot even do splits and my mobility is worse than you might imagine.
> I do not want make myself look like a fool when they want me to perform high kicks ... I cannot even get my leg high enough.



Regarding Muay Thai, flexibility is what you will acquire while training. You will start from the beginning, as everyone here (on Earth) did. At your age, you still have time to 1) "look like a fool" and 2) become an example for the next beginners. It applies to virtually all martial arts.

We train exactly to overcome our limitations.


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## Steve (Mar 7, 2017)

Truth is, you may never be all that great at Muay Thai.  Your lack of flexibility may limit how far you can go in your training.  But no matter how bad you are at it, you'll be better at it than if you didn't train at all. 

somewhere along the line, we (many of us, at least) stopped just doing things for the fun of it.  Now it seems many people avoid starting anything because they believe that they'll never be good at it.  I think there's value in doing things, even if you will never be better than mediocre at them, including any martial art style.


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## oftheherd1 (Mar 8, 2017)

No bad advice above.  Remember we all have to start learning things.  While some things we learn from such an early age we don't even realize we had to learn them, other things require first a desire to learn, and then mostly picking up things a little at a time, then perfecting them.  You would not believe how totally stupid and uncoordinated I felt when I started the two martial arts I have studied.

So if you are set on Muay Thai, go for it.  It almost sounds though, as if your friends have learned they can pull your legs, and are doing so.  You might want to go visit some of the other martial arts in your area to see if you might like them better.  Muay Thai, as well as western boxing, are good arts, but you tend to take a lot of hits to the head.  Not everyone is unaffected by that.

EDIT:  Forgot to welcome you to MT.  You might want to go to the Meet and Greet sub-forum and tell us a little more about yourself.


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## Hidan (Mar 8, 2017)

Thank you all for your warm words. You are right. I will go to the Meet and Greet sub-forum and tell you mroe about myself.

I have been fascinated for quite some time by Muay Thai. The only martial arts available to me are Muay Thai, Luta Livre, MMA, BJJ and Wrestling. That´s it. Other gyms are too far away from my place. Unfortunately martial arts is not really a big deal where I live (North Germany). Thus, I have limited options.

Yes, they keep telling me how difficult Muay Thai is, which is probably 100 % true but I have to start somewhere. They keep reminding me how bad my mobility is and that I cannot even perform high kicks due to my limited mobility.
I have been doing a lot of weight lifting which has given me great strength but has also limited my flexibility.


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## wingerjim (Mar 8, 2017)

Hidan said:


> Hello to everyone,
> 
> this is my first post on this forum and I hope that you all have some good advice for me.
> I am a 22 year old university student from Germany. I really want to learn  martial arts.
> ...


I would check them all out and then decide on where you felt you can learn...kind of the same thinking you used when choosing your university to study from.


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## Midnight-shadow (Mar 9, 2017)

Hidan said:


> Thank you all for your warm words. You are right. I will go to the Meet and Greet sub-forum and tell you mroe about myself.
> 
> I have been fascinated for quite some time by Muay Thai. The only martial arts available to me are Muay Thai, Luta Livre, MMA, BJJ and Wrestling. That´s it. Other gyms are too far away from my place. Unfortunately martial arts is not really a big deal where I live (North Germany). Thus, I have limited options.
> 
> ...



Performing high kicks isn't really that necessary unless you are doing a Wushu competition. In an actual fight, a strong kick to someone's leg or mid-section is just as effective (if not more effective) than a kick to the head. If you hit someone just above the knee cap with a strong front kick, they will know about it, and you don't need to be very flexible to do it. Yes, being more flexible will give you more options in a fight, but if Boxing has taught us anything it's that you can be an effective fighter using very few different techniques. After all, Boxers only really have 3 different techniques that they use (straight punch, hook and uppercut) but they practice those 3 techniques so much that they can use them in any situation and combination they like.

I feel that your biggest obstacle will not be your flexibility but your mobility, although not in the way you think. When you do weight lifting you tense your muscles and completely root your stance, which help you stay stable and lift more weight. The problem is that when you fight you need to be somewhat relaxed so that your muscles can move freely. If your muscles are tense it will be a lot harder to use your techniques, meaning they will be slower and take more effort. You want to be relaxed so your limbs can move faster. It's simple physics. Force=MassXAcceleration. In a fight you can't at will increase your mass (unless you are the Hulk, but that's unlikely) so the only thing that will give you more power is to increase your speed. The faster you can move, the more power you will generate.


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## KangTsai (Mar 9, 2017)

No... You train that stuff AS you learn. There's no prerequisite to starting, other than a beating heart and working limbs. Alles Klar?


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## KangTsai (Mar 9, 2017)

Hidan said:


> I have been doing a lot of weight lifting which has given me great strength but has also limited my flexibility.


Weightlifting doesn't limit flexibility per se, but a lot of groin flexibility and hip mobility may work against squats, since it's harder to get glute tension. This is my case.


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## Headhunter (Mar 9, 2017)

Hidan said:


> Hello to everyone,
> 
> this is my first post on this forum and I hope that you all have some good advice for me.
> I am a 22 year old university student from Germany. I really want to learn  martial arts.
> ...


Do Muay Thai...I think your friends been watching to many Bruce lee movies. Sure high kicks are there but they're not a requirement. Actually Muay Thai guys mainly kick to the legs so you don't need amazin flexibility. Anyway you'll go there as a beginner and if you have a coach who's any good he won't expect you to be throwing high kicks. Your flexibility will increase with time in training. You see all these guys throwing flashy kicks and cool looking stuff they couldn't naturally do that before they came in the gym they had to lewrn and train just like everyone. Sure some will be more naturally gifted than others but mainly everyone starts out not flexible. If you want to do it then do it.


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## Headhunter (Mar 9, 2017)

Hidan said:


> Thank you all for your warm words. You are right. I will go to the Meet and Greet sub-forum and tell you mroe about myself.
> 
> I have been fascinated for quite some time by Muay Thai. The only martial arts available to me are Muay Thai, Luta Livre, MMA, BJJ and Wrestling. That´s it. Other gyms are too far away from my place. Unfortunately martial arts is not really a big deal where I live (North Germany). Thus, I have limited options.
> 
> ...


Are these guys meant to be your friends? Well they're pretty awful friends telling you rubbish like that. You'll learn and get better as you go and even if you didn't then who cares, not everyone's going to be world champ. The majority just train for fun and general fitness. It's like in running you see guys in there 70s entering racing and they come last they don't care they just want to do it because they love it. No different to martial arts even if you don't become amazing at it (which there's no reason why you couldn't ) then you can still just have fun and get fit


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## kuniggety (Mar 10, 2017)

KangTsai said:


> Weightlifting doesn't limit flexibility per se, but a lot of groin flexibility and hip mobility may work against squats, since it's harder to get glute tension. This is my case.



I think it's the opposite. Guys with tight hips have difficulty getting deep enough in squats and they actually learn to open their hips more by squatting. A lot of guys can't do *** to grass on day one (not starting the argument which is better - *** to grass vs breaking 90).


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## KangTsai (Mar 10, 2017)

kuniggety said:


> I think it's the opposite. Guys with tight hips have difficulty getting deep enough in squats and they actually learn to open their hips more by squatting. A lot of guys can't do *** to grass on day one (not starting the argument which is better - *** to grass vs breaking 90).


There's a sweet spot in how mobile you are. Flexibile enough to hit just the right depth, but not flexible enough just enough to provide that extra tension. Whether or not injury may occur from this is dependent on how dumb the lifter chooses to be.


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## Langenschwert (Mar 12, 2017)

Just train what you like. No matter how good you are, there will some techniques that are good for your body type and others that are not so good. That's perfectly normal. Train in an art that you're passionate about, because that will drive you when you become frustrated. Here are some examples form my own competitive practice:

HEMA (longsword): as a lefty, some of the standard attacks don't work for me, so I have to adjust them to force my opponent to fight from their non-dominant side, often by drawing them out with a feint and then launch the "real" attack as a second intention, rather than a direct attack to an opening.

Judo: I'm 6 feet tall, so many of my opponents are shorter than I am. This makes hip throws and the like very difficult to do in randori (sparring). On the plus side, my legs are long so my foot sweeps tend to work well.

You will also find that some things just work better for you based on where your body is at on any given day.


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## crazydiamond (Mar 14, 2017)

While MT is a tough sport - in the sense of being tough as nails - I dont think its all that complicated to learn compared to many other MA's. I also think that at 22 you can develop some (maybe not complete) flexibility. There are yoga and other stretching routines specifically for helping kicks -  you can do on days you are not doing MT. You can start that yoga or stretching today - at home - before you even walk into a gym to sign up for MT


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## Martial_Kumite (Mar 14, 2017)

Hidan said:


> However, a friend of mine has told me that in order to learn it one must have insane flexibiltiy and mobility.


I am going to say this and it will probably get some hate (just the nature of the internet). No matter what type of martial art you take, whether it be Muay Thai, judo, wrestling, or anything else, you will stink at it. So join what you would love to do. Then when you mess up, think "Ok, I suck at this HOW CAN I GET BETTER." *NOT *"Ok, I can't do this." Realize your limitations, and then find a way to improve. You have bad flexibility, work on flexibility. You have bad footwork,  work on footwork. It might be a little, it might be a lot, but at least you try. You are only limited by what *you* think *you can't* do. I have seen too may people give up on an art because they THOUGHT they sucked instead of getting better.

Moral of the story: CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE APPART OF.


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