James Smith
Yellow Belt
Warning: This is a long post.. I've never taken a martials arts class. I am very nervous about attending one and I always tell myself that I need to make my life more straightened out before I visit a school. I have a car, place to live, and a job but I always tell myself that I need to be better off before taking on something new. My social life is very bad (worst area of my life) since all but one of my friends are out of state and I mostly spend all my non-working time with video games or movies. I work from home so I don't have the ability to make any friends at my workplace. I tried weightlifting/working out but it was discouraging that I would put so much effort in but am still the weakest of my friends - some don't even work out. When I took my ex to various places, people would pick on me in front of her and I couldn't do anything about it so it was really embarrassing. My friends would always defend me but then the person/people would insult me if they ever saw me without my friends and always tried to start trouble.
I am a skinny build (5'10 155-160lbs.) and I want to start learning a system for self-defense and to build confidence that is designed for people who won't have to be extremely strong to benefit and do well in class. In my area, a suburb of Northeast Ohio, I have three choices: TKD, 7 Star Praying Mantis, or Wing Chun. From what I know about TKD it is more about sport than self defense. If anyone is familiar with any of those three systems can you tell me, which would work best for me?
My first interest is Wing Chun because, from what I've read in researching, it was developed by a woman to specifically defend yourself without trying to match force with the attacker. I really like that idea. I read about its concepts and they are very straightforward so it isn't hard for me to see how it applies in a self-defense situation. The downfall is that what I've seen on the internet about the school near me are very disheartening. An assistant/friend to the Sifu, Carl Dechiara, is very confrontational on internet forums and I've heard people describe the Sifu as a bully in his teaching style at his schools. There are videos of him on youtube doing trainings with his students almost more to show his superiority in the lesson by demeaning them and showing how easy it is for him to hit them rather than teach them and let them spare amongst each other. That makes me feel uncomfortable.
My next interest kind of hit me by surprise; I did not know there were any other schools besides TKD and WC in my area until someone told me about Akron Kung Fu (www.akronkungfu.com), which teaches 7 Star Praying Mantis. This school is much closer than the other two types of schools to my house. I haven't been able to find much information about the style itself but from what I've seen on the website, the school is very clean and nice-looking inside. The Sifu, Mike Biggie, seems to have a really nice reputation across internet forums and people speak highly of him. My problem is that the videos of the school's lessons/demonstrations on youtube make the style look like much more of an attacking style than defense and that the attacks, especially kicking in the videos I've seen would benefit more based on physical strength.
I don't want to learn martial arts to initiate an attack on someone but I want the confidence, if someone is picking on me, to be able to speak up and tell them to stop. I can't speak up now because if I do the next step would probably the person trying to hurt me more to inflate their ego and further embarrass me.
I hope this is not too detailed for me being a beginner. I figured this was the best place to ask since I was reading all of the other beginner stories.
I am a skinny build (5'10 155-160lbs.) and I want to start learning a system for self-defense and to build confidence that is designed for people who won't have to be extremely strong to benefit and do well in class. In my area, a suburb of Northeast Ohio, I have three choices: TKD, 7 Star Praying Mantis, or Wing Chun. From what I know about TKD it is more about sport than self defense. If anyone is familiar with any of those three systems can you tell me, which would work best for me?
My first interest is Wing Chun because, from what I've read in researching, it was developed by a woman to specifically defend yourself without trying to match force with the attacker. I really like that idea. I read about its concepts and they are very straightforward so it isn't hard for me to see how it applies in a self-defense situation. The downfall is that what I've seen on the internet about the school near me are very disheartening. An assistant/friend to the Sifu, Carl Dechiara, is very confrontational on internet forums and I've heard people describe the Sifu as a bully in his teaching style at his schools. There are videos of him on youtube doing trainings with his students almost more to show his superiority in the lesson by demeaning them and showing how easy it is for him to hit them rather than teach them and let them spare amongst each other. That makes me feel uncomfortable.
My next interest kind of hit me by surprise; I did not know there were any other schools besides TKD and WC in my area until someone told me about Akron Kung Fu (www.akronkungfu.com), which teaches 7 Star Praying Mantis. This school is much closer than the other two types of schools to my house. I haven't been able to find much information about the style itself but from what I've seen on the website, the school is very clean and nice-looking inside. The Sifu, Mike Biggie, seems to have a really nice reputation across internet forums and people speak highly of him. My problem is that the videos of the school's lessons/demonstrations on youtube make the style look like much more of an attacking style than defense and that the attacks, especially kicking in the videos I've seen would benefit more based on physical strength.
I don't want to learn martial arts to initiate an attack on someone but I want the confidence, if someone is picking on me, to be able to speak up and tell them to stop. I can't speak up now because if I do the next step would probably the person trying to hurt me more to inflate their ego and further embarrass me.
I hope this is not too detailed for me being a beginner. I figured this was the best place to ask since I was reading all of the other beginner stories.
