When to start martial arts
I have no martial arts experience, where do I start?
hi it's Ramsey Dewey over here in
Shanghai China welcome to another
edition of Q&A with a coach today we
have a question from our friend
Xerxes five four nine four and I've
heard this question from a lot of the
viewers on this channel
Xerxes says if someone wanted to get
into martial arts and has virtually no
experience what would you recommend to
start out with and you probably want me
to say well go take a Crotty class or a
jiu-jitsu class or a judo class or a
boxing class or a wrestling class and
those are all great ideas go do that go
take a bunch of classes go gym hopping
if you want to buy a new car for example
if you're in the market for a new car
now let's say you've never driven a car
before you never owned a car maybe you
know how you have a license I'm gonna
amend that previous statement you you've
driven a little you're legally able to
drive you're not gonna crash into
anything but you go to the market to buy
your own car for the first time what are
you gonna get will you simply log on to
youtube go to a channel where there is a
car expert and say hey what car should I
buy and then you'll say well you should
obviously buy a Ford Mustang because I
really like Ford Mustangs and then all
the people over here who don't like that
particular model of car car will say
well no that's that's not what I would
get I would get this one instead is
there a lot of vehicles out there to
choose from and they all have their pros
and their cons so how is a martial art
art like that well are you just going to
sign up for whatever I tell you to
without questioning
if I say hey sign up for an MMA gym
there's a lot of variability on the
quality of MMA gyms I love the sport of
MMA but a lot of em MMA gyms are
terrible some of them are good some of
them are not that's why when we go to
buy a car we shop around man we shop
around
we test-drive a few of them we do some
comparison shopping and then after some
educated research some first-hand
experience Smashville sitting in the
driver seat and testing that thing out
looking for the bugs seeing if it's what
we really like seeing if we're
comfortable there then and only then do
we decide yes I'm gonna buy this car so
why should martial arts be different go
test-drive some classes go test-drive
some different styles most martial arts
gyms all the good ones I know with very
few exceptions will offer at least one
free trial class so that you can go in
and see what it's like so you can
experience it firsthand and decide is
this a place where I want to train or
not is this a style I feel comfortable
with is this a style that is consistent
with my goals and if you don't have any
goals right now make some what are they
why do you want it why do you want to
learn martial arts is it because you're
getting picked on by bullies at school
and you want to learn how to fight back
is it because you want to be a
professional fighter is it because you
want to have a cool social venue where
you have like-minded people to hang out
with those are all great reasons why not
that's fine
so go try it out try out as many as you
can and after the first class you might
go to a really great gym and you might
think hey I really like this and that
Ramsey Dewey guy on the internet said
try several and I feel like I kind of
want to sign up here that's fine if you
feel that way
sign up sure but if you don't feel that
way if you feel like ah man I feel like
maybe this place is not consistent with
my goals but I've I feel like I owe them
something because they gave me the free
trial class nah man just keep looking
keep looking until you find what you
want if it gives you the result you want
that's the right way so keep looking for
the place that gives you the results you
want at the same time understand this do
not use your gym or your coach as a
scapegoat for your own failings don't
use your teammates as a scapegoat for
your own failings own your own failings
if you are not progressing the way you
want to if you're not learning the way
you want to before you blame anyone else
look inward and ask yourself what could
I be doing better because if you've done
a bit of gym hopping and you've shopped
around here you've try and pry it out 20
different gyms and it's just not
clicking with you one of a couple of
things is happening maybe you're really
not that interested in learning martial
arts or maybe there's there's something
that needs fixing right here inside of
you
because out of 20 different martial arts
schools there's bound to be one at least
one that has something good to offer you
so to recap shop around
look introspectively into yourself make
a list of goals thanks for watching now
get out there and train
