What is the MA Mecca of the USA?

[Joab]

NY tends to be a strong presence in almost everything. As a port city and major economic and cultural center, it has great diversity in culture, not to mention that it is one the places in the country that people move to specifically to 'make it big' in their endeavors, including martial arts. With a strong international community, it is ideal for the martial arts.

Washington DC is, to a lesser extent as well, and for many of the same reasons. Having lived in the DC area all my life, I can say that if there is a martial art, there is likely a school for it somewhere if you dig hard enough. Jhoon Rhee's presence here doesn't hurt either.

SF I'm sure is similarly a hot spot, though it has been over two decades since I've been there, and at that time, it was not for checking out dojos. I remember the city very fondly, particularly how nice the climate was as compared to the DC area.

Daniel

Yeah, I did a search of NYC schools on the internet and was very impressed by what I saw. I would love to go to John Perkins school.

 

[Joab]

For mentioning states with many schools and arts available, I'm surprised that no one put Texas on the list yet.

Anytime I'm on vacation and have access to a phone book, I enjoy looking up the martial art schools just to see what's available and count how many listed schools there are for which style. Houston had an impressive list, I thought.

I'm sure any state that has a high and diverse population would have a lot to choose from.

Robyn

I'll keep that in mind, although my wife doesn't want to move to Texas. Hey, Chuck Norris is there!

 

[Joab]

California is a good pick and so is NYC, but I am going to go with Hawaii. It is the halfway point between Asia and the Continental US and there are a great number of MAists there.

My understanding is Kenpo came to the manland from Hawaii. From talks with someone I know from Hawaii, there arn't a huge number of schools there but they are very good. My wife would like to live trhere for awhile, if we can afford it I'm all for it.

 

[JadeDragon3]

Depends on how you define mecca. Are you going by population/martial art school ratio or are you going by just the number of martial art schools in that city? If you go by per capita then Lexington Kentucky has it hands down. We have TKD schools on every corner, we have Shaolin Do's headquarters here, we have a Bujinkan Dojo here, we have mma schools here, we have a few aikido schools here, and lastly we have the Al Tracy Kenpo headquarters here. and we're just a small town.

 

[Joab]

Depends on how you define mecca. Are you going by population/martial art school ratio or are you going by just the number of martial art schools in that city? If you go by per capita then Lexington Kentucky has it hands down. We have TKD schools on every corner, we have Shaolin Do's headquarters here, we have a Bujinkan Dojo here, we have mma schools here, we have a few aikido schools here, and lastly we have the Al Tracy Kenpo headquarters here. and we're just a small town.

What I mean by it is the sheer number of schools in total. You can intepret it anyway you want of course, but that's what I meant by it, as well as diversity of styles.

 

[JadeDragon3]

Your larger cities will have more schools then. I'd have to say either San Fransisco or Chicago or New York or Miami. Per capita then Lexington, Ky.

 

[Joab]

Your larger cities will have more schools then. I'd have to say either San Fransisco or Chicago or New York or Miami. Per capita then Lexington, Ky.

The larger cities will of course. I live in an area without a lot of people, hence there arn't very many, not very diverse, not normally meant for adults but mostly kids, and most are really day care centers as well as martial arts schools and there arn't a whole lot per capita either. But I'll keep Lexington in mind, my wife is really into horses, we could definitely end up there, thanks.

 

[JadeDragon3]

The larger cities will of course. I live in an area without a lot of people, hence there arn't very many, not very diverse, not normally meant for adults but mostly kids, and most are really day care centers as well as martial arts schools and there arn't a whole lot per capita either. But I'll keep Lexington in mind, my wife is really into horses, we could definitely end up there, thanks.

We are the horse capital of the world. And we have a large variety of martial arts here. Krav Maga, TKD, Kung Fu, Ninjutsu (Bujinkan Dojo), Aikido, MMA, Kenpo, and even a muey thai school (although it looks more like an aerobic class from what I've seen of it).

 

[blindsage]

Your quite correct, and there has been a real boom in martial arts schools in Seattle the last few years. I went to two that were particularly good for what they were trying to achieve in Seattle, a lot of work, but the results were quite good, good teachers. But there are far more schools in San Francisco than Seattle.

There is a good selection here, and if you want to train you can find something that will appeal to you, but Seattle is far from a MA mecca in the States.

 

[Flying Crane]

It's pretty much whatever you want in San Francisco at least when I went to school there. I counted 50 kenpo karate schools alone in San Francisco in the phone book.

hmmm, no there are actually very few kenpo schools in San Francisco proper. Of the top of my head, I can think of maybe four, including a USSD school and a couple others. No strict Parker schools, nor Tracy schools that I'm aware of.

The greater Bay Area has several, if you go all the way down to San Jose and up to the North Bay as well and include Oakland and the East Bay. But even there, I'd say there are far fewer than 50.

LA, and Pasadena, however, has quite a lot. Ed Parker settled in that area, and a lot of his lineage still reside down there.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

When you said 'MA Mecca of the USA', I was thinking along the lines of the places that people go specifically out of their way to visit due to not just the quantity of schools, but because of who's schools are in the area. Or due to the MA history in the area.

Daniel

 

[Omar B]

I'm gonna have to go with NY on this one. My old apartment in Queens in a mostly residential neighborhood had 2 MA schools on my street alone (TKD and Ninja). Within a half mile there are more than 15 schools, all that without getting in a car or on the train. TKD, Shotokan, Ninja, Eskrima, Shorin Ryu, MMA, Kenpo, Kyokushin, the list goes on.

But what really makes me think that way is that on my morning runs I would meet up with instructors from 2 separate TKD schools in the area and we would work out after our run in the playground (padded ground). Not very often on a random morning job you get to work out with 2 qualified instructors. Makes me feel like I was doing TKD for about 3 years though.

Here's a pretty good listing of school in the area. http://www.martialartsny.com/index.html

 

[Ronin74]

As far as having a variety of martial arts, I'd have to agree that California in general has quite a lot to offer. As a resident of the Bay Area, it's not hard to find a martial arts school between the North Bay to the South Bay. Going further out, Stockton was once considered the Mecca for Filipino Martial Arts.

That said, I can't readily say that all of these schools actually offer a good quality of training. So if the question is where can person find a concentration of quality schools or gyms, you might be hard pressed.

As far as MMA goes, it's a tough call, but they all end up in Vegas for the big leagues.

 

[Guardian]

Nah... nobody likes Texas... hehehehe


besides the Republic of Texas has The Chuck... nothing else is needed & it's borders are secure once he's ensconced on the throne as the God Emperor of the Kingdom of Texico...

Amen to that one!

 

[Guardian]

When you said 'MA Mecca of the USA', I was thinking along the lines of the places that people go specifically out of their way to visit due to not just the quantity of schools, but because of who's schools are in the area. Or due to the MA history in the area.

Daniel

I was thinking of the same thing.

 

[MJS]

I would say San Francisco is a strong possibilty, having graduated from a High School in San Francisco, there seemed to be a martial arts school every other block in the city by the bay, including many USA headquarters of the said art. If you included the entire Bay Area, the contention would be even stronger. I've heard New York City is the Mecca of martial arts in the USA, and there are certainly a lot of them in the Big Apple. Los Angeles would likely be a strong contender as well. What do you think is the Martial Arts Mecca of the USA?

I will state Dover, Delaware is not the Mecca of martial arts in the country, as I'm living near there, and the schools are few and far between, and many of them cater to kids, becoming more like day care centers than serious martial arts schools often unfortunately. Fine schools for the kids I'm sure, but I'm not a kid.

I would definately say that California seems to be the mecca. I mean, you can pretty much find anything and everything there, and there are many top practioners there. Kajukenbo, JKD, Kali, BJJ, Kenpo....Ca is where everyone is. Now, this isn't to say that you can't find those things anywhere else, but, the majority of people are there.

 

[bluekey88]

It seems to me you'd want to add Hawaii to the list as well.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

It seems to me you'd want to add Hawaii to the list as well.

Wouldn't it be cool if all US martial artists had to make a Hawaiian pilgrimage?

Daniel

 

[bluekey88]

Someday I intend to do just that.

 

[Ronin74]

Nah... nobody likes Texas... hehehehe


besides the Republic of Texas has The Chuck... nothing else is needed & it's borders are secure once he's ensconced on the throne as the God Emperor of the Kingdom of Texico...

I'm sure somewhere in small print for this site, it mentions that the answer for all questions on MT is "Chuck Norris", and that all other replies are meant as "next to" or "second to" the Chuck.