What martial art should I learn? - Page 2

The martial arts I would most like to to pick up would be: Muay Thai (boxing-like with knees, kicks, and elbows), Judo (Predominantly throwing and grappling with some submission fighting), and Brazilian Ju Jitsu (Predominantly submission fighting, also some grappling and judo is involved.) I would also highly suggest no-gi over gi style in both judo and BJJ (if possible), as no one you ever fight in real life will be wearing a gi. I am a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and find it pretty much useless in terms of self defense. I legitimately think I've learned (far) more about self defense and fighting from watching UFC and Pride FC than I ever learned in Tae Kwon Do. To me TKD is better for kids as the only thing it is good for is discipline.

Aikido is a great art. I trained for a while and it is a really nice combination of practicality and philosphy.It is not the most effective at beating people up but it does not sound like your looking to go out and start kicking ass so that should not be a problem. The way most Aikido practitioners avoid being pushed around is by being the type of people that no one wants to push around. There is a lot of energy practice that works to this end ( as cheesy as that sounds). Its also a lot of fun with a really great heritage and you get to learn stick and sword forms, which are also a lot of fun not to mention usefull.

I have a friend who was very very serious with akido - went a half dozen times to Japan for 2 months to study, studied for years 4-5 times a week. once I saw him stand up to some guy who called him "gay" and get the crap beaten out of him, and once he asked me to try to puch him, basically he wanted to show me that I could try to push him with all my strength and he wouldn't budge - I gave him a shove and he flew about 10 feet back. I get teh feeling that arts like aikido give a lot of false confidence to people.

Thats true of a lot of aikido school, but it depends on how you train. A lot of the schools do it more as a philosophy and tend to do techniques with full opponent cooperation. If your not working against resisting opponents at least some if not the majority of the time during your training, your not going to get techniques that work.

check out the clips here:

http://www.history.com/minisites/humanweapon

Never seen the show myself just stuff off the website.

It's a good show if you're interested in learning the history and seeing some moves in action. The two guys are really annoying and they spend a lot of time with exposition and shit. The best parts are the discovery channel style graphics which show two dummies moving in the style of the attack. I've picked up a few tips myself. I'll second Globe's recommendation of Krav. I find it's the most useful in everyday type situations. I wouldn't want to fuck around on the mat with somebody who knows BJJ but If you're in down on the ground with the guy from the bar, it does you no good when his buddies show up and start kicking you in the head and ribs. I witnessed this recently and it was NOT pretty.

Totally true, Aikido is basically a cooperative art, and does not really train for "real" life combat situations. When I did train I always had the thought in the back of my head"yes but could you still throw me if I was punching you in the face". However it does train for a lot of non combative 'real" life situations. Again, at the risk of totally sounding like a dirt worshiping hippie, training for coperative action is not the worst thing in the world. There is also a very deep and real ki based medatative tradition behind it that those so inclined might find really valuable. I never pursued it to any great depth but I definitely found my self respecting it as an art.

It's a great show, some BS moments in every episode, but for the most part it's legit.

I've yet to see any Aikido that I would call useful in a self defense situation. I've seen some stuff that looked alright, but it was basically not nearly as good if somebody just learned some boxing and judo and wrestling instead.
I've done Muay Thai for about 5 years, Brazilian Jiujitsu/Submission Wrestling about 1 year, and taekwondo for about 2 years. I like Jiujitsu, I'll probably do it when I get older and I can't keep doing the impact of Muay Thai, but I freaking LOVE muay thai and it suits me completely. Find something that fits you best and stick with it.

random addition: General rule of thumb for martial arts is that it is a contact sport and they should make you sore the next day, so if you aren't pushing your physical limits then you probably aren't learning anything worth learning.

That is going to depend on why your learning it and what you consider useful. In terms of self defense some of the most useful things to learn are about being aware of your surroundings and not looking like a victim. Both of which can be learned without breaking a sweat or being sore the next day and yet they are highly worth learning if your interested in self defense aspects.

Yeah, but you don't need to spend 50-150$ a month to learn that, you've just saved him money.

Is this Van Damme's work?

Not really, I told him some important things that he needed to know but not how to do them.
However, anyone interested in self defense can learn a large portion of what will be helpful in terms of the non-physical elements as well as some of the physical elements in a good self defense course, in much less then a month.

For self defense I would go with either Krav maga or Muay Thai. I do Krav myself, but would do Muay if I didn't. If you're looking for something on a spiritual level I would say to not look at either of these as they're about beating the snot out of your opponent Go with Karate, Aikido, etc if you want a mental exercise.

I recommend fencing, archery and some firearms training.

I vote for Kendo. You get to hit people with sticks.