What was your reason

For taking up self defence, whether it be traditional MA, or reality based or both.

Mine started from about the age of 8, after being bullied in school, as most kids were in those days by someone or other. I was very skinny ( aint exactly big built now ). but the concept to me then was that small guys and girls for that matter stood no chance against the bully. So started Karate, I used to go 4 times a week mid week and once for 2 hours on a saturday. every week. I must admit I was not keen on it at all. all we ever seemed to do were the same moves week in, week out. At that time all i knew were from what I had seen in movies, big flashy jumping roundhouse kicks etc etc.

Then packed it in for years and lived with the fear that I would never be able to rid myself of the fear of the bully as it were. as it turned out for me, the bully was in my own head. I was the one beating myself up because I could not and would not face this person who was physically hitting me and breaking me down.

I had conditioned myself to not being around people, it was easier than facing them. and had to start all over again. and got into reality based stuff about 7 years ago now. and been doing it ever since.

For me the biggest aspect is what I see now as " defence against the self ". not the external ones who I THINK have a problem with me, but more do I have a problem with them because they look a certain way or been stereotyped. Hoodie, Vandal, agressive drunk, druggie? or just the fact that inside when i see them I am transported back 24 years to being that person being picked on by someone different.

Good news is, that power they had, has now gone, I fear my own potential and the potential of the ones I love and care for friends, family, and everyone I come to trust far more than I can fear any man.

Well this has turned into a ramble I guess,
In closing I guess what I have learned, we are all human, good, bad indifferent. maybe differs on perspective. however if I can be helped, and countless others can who is helping the ones who no one wants to trust or see as anything but these sterotypes anymore. corny I guess.

Guys like you on here started me on this road and I have never looked back.

So how about you guys?
What started you off ?

Craig

Similar but different. I was always small in school and had a few kids try it on ,but nothing too heavy had a couple of fights came out even most of the time.
Always was fascinated with martial arts but never took it seriously tried kung fu for about 6 weeks didn't go back for what ever reason.Think I was about 16 /17 when i went to a disco in the next town.Seems like the hobbies in this town was for grown men to wait out side teenage discos (showing my age now)and beat the s**t of the them, well that was that. 
  Once I was back to myself I made a choice never to be any ones punchbag again ever.     
In a messed up way I ought to thank the interbred Tw*ts who gave me a good kicking.Because of them they put me on a path I may never have travelled .Made so many friends and met so many people. Things could have been very different  .

Well I was bullied at school too. I was the fat kid However, as much as this may have been a reason, I have to say that watching the films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan was the real reason for me starting martial arts. I wanted to be able to fly through the air with jumping kicks etc. I started Karate as most people did back then and flitted in and out of stuff for years before finding Lau Gar. While training in that I decided to have a go at the local boxing club where I got pasted and realised that I needed to train more full contact stuff to actually be able to defend myself. Some years later while I was training kung fu and muay thai I read 'Watch my back' by Geoff Thompson which gave me my first real intro to Self Protection and also explained the feelings I was getting in live situtions. I purchased a few more of his books and eventually happened across a JKD class that was opening in Leeds, taught by Michael Wright This was Adaptive Martial Concepts and had a self protection syllabus and was based heavily on what would work out in the street. Since starting my training with Michael I have learned such alot more about martial arts, self protection and myself.
It is also through this path that I continue my journey in AMC, JKD, Self Protection, martial arts and life.

sorry not to be different but I lived near Moss Side in Manchester and was regularly getting battered... I took up boxing and wrestling at school and made school team for both.. it was better but I was still losing some fights (less though) so went into Judo/Ju-Jutsu in 1964 after 3 years boxing and wrestling.. 1970 went into Goshinkwai and found what I was looking for,, yet to find anything close in any respect at all.. no insult to any other arts meant,,

in 1990 I left as a 4th Dan to formulate my own ideas, and 10 years later was happy with the final result and founded the SDF and the SDF Self-Defence System..

was proud to say I was once teaching Geoff Thompson and his main men for a while .. including Matty & Lee Evans (bless him).. Justin, Tony and even Alan once or twice..

now Head of the SDF as an 8th Dan (pointless bloody grade really).. so North Manchesters street gangs made me start a 46/7 year journey

Yep i was the fat kid too! I got bullied by a group of kids a few years older than me (i was a big lad at that age). I started training for one thing revenge. I wanted to hurt them and i did, then as i got older i turned into an angry young man (for various reasons) and i became a person i did not like. In the end training taught me to let go of a few things ego being one of them, and i can safely say at nearly 37yrs old i am a happy, content person now. For me the biggest buzz in training is watching people who are awesome at what they do. They make it look effortless and thats the attraction the fighting side is irelevant for me now. If push came to shove and i had to fight again (i hope not) then i would have failed at the things i have trained for a while which is time wasted really. Also i love the philosophy side of the MA that part still intrigues me.

Dave

I was the kid with the stutter in school, people would tease me and get me to say certain words that they know for a fact I would not be able to say properly and would stutter emencely.

They would hit me, get me to do rediculous things to make them laugh etc. Though in a way, this give me a drive to show them I was better than them. Though in my desperation to prove myself worthy, I pushed myself way too far, and began stressing and not really getting anywhere.

So I started to do a kung fu class, to learn how to kick ass, this was when I was intorduced to Tai Chi and Chi kung (which I have found helped greatly with my overall confidence and even improved my speech), and I have never look back, though I am still learning and still find it hard to stick at it. Though am slowly getting there.

So, in conclusion, the only person who you need to prove anything to, is yourself. Dont push yourself too far, like I did to prove to others, as really they dont care what you do.

i started ma to beat the bad guy,

unfortunately it didnt work as planned and I came crashing down with a bump.

I'm older and wiser now, mainly use awareness and commonsense to avoid hotspots, still get the odd idiot but thankfully never been seriously hurt.

I find if you want the quality you have to travel to the big towns/cities.

Small coastal town where I live doesn't seem to attract big fish

cheers,

Den

Parents threw me into judo at the age of 5 and i hated it so quit for a few years. In secondary school i seemed to attract the gangs of bully's as oppossed to individuals. Got into a bit of a riot in a science lesson with one of the bully's. Won that but after the lesson the rest of the gang was waiting and beat the seven shades outta me. It wasnt until 5 years ago i decided to go with a mate who was a doorlad (and same size as me) to work and see if i liked it. I had a laugh and my mate introduced me to Carl Lewis and i've been training ever since, mostly for protection if i get set upon again, and also as a backup to the door work. (It does come in rather useful!)

I seem to remember being taken to my first Karate Class
where i went 4 days a week, mon, wed, fri, for an hour and 2 hours on a saturday. man I hated some of those classes. I am sure I still have dents in my shins and forearms from blocking.

Reasons why i started and continued.

1. In my early years - i wanted to be the Karate Kid
2. In my teens - I wanted to be Van Damme
3. In my twenties - I want to be Jason Bourne

Not particularly deep i know, but that's my motivation

Getting raised as a child in a violent atmosphere, left me fascinated with the whole concept of violence....
Getting into many fights at school and then getting older and doing the same in pubs and clubs.
Getting my jaw broken twice and nose broken once, in one nine month span of fighting.
Growing up mentally and physically, looking at the world and myself with my eyes wide open and seeing the potential for violence out there on the streets, and in my own heart
Having a family and young children to protect

I was forced into by a tyrant father lol

No i joke!

I technically didn't start. It was just my life!

I don't ever remember not being around it!

I always here people saying, i wish i had started at that age! I think it's been more of a curse. I tend to take opportunities for granted!

It's taken me this long to make an effort!

Thank god i have people like al and mick to keep me going!

This is a great forum guys!!

Louis

Glad you like it mate.

I was the littlest lad at school but never bullied. I always had too quick a tongue, the willingness to fight back plus the sense to pick my friends -- and my enemies -- carefully! It was rough enough (NE England) and there were plenty of scraps going on all the time but nothing serious and no-one wanted to risk getting beat by the midget so they tended to avoid me.

I started karate at 12 simply because my best mate was doing it. I ended up training obsessively in it until I was about 17-18 when "other activities" started taking priority :-) Sadly I didn't keep up consistent, regular SD or MA training after that for any length of time. I always loved the sessions we did with Terry O'Neil, reading Geoff's stuff and Nick Hughes's stuff in FAI. I knew even then that tweaks would be needed to the karate I was doing to make it really effective (although it worked fine for me in the few scraps and encounters I did have).

I've never needed SD. Never been a bouncer, or a policeman or anything. In my late teens/early 20s I was in some ropey situations with questionable people but I always managed to get by with wit and grit. For the last ten years I've been in a very non-violent city with no real threat. I've boxed a little bit but started training again last year because I found a great gym with a good coach and I'd just missed it so much. I'd always kept up with martial arts, was a big MMA fan etc.... I just wasn't training. Back on track now :-)

My Reason...... A friend of mine was wanting to start kick boxing or something similar and asked if i wanted to help find a decent club and train with him, great idea as i had heard a couple of lads at the gym talking about some form of MA so i asked one (Joe Vial) what the crack was. He explained the basics of the club(FFMA) and it sounded different so i went along mainly to get a couple of good cv workouts to compliment my weight training.

From the first class i was hooked, a great workout, friendly welcoming club, top instructors who stripped all the basic techniques down as i was a complete novice and a massive desire to go back for more. The weeks and months have flown by having had some great sparing sessions and of course the PT'S in the daunting garage of Mr 'T'.

I have been training now for nearly a year and would be lost without it in my life, and my reasons now is the harder i train the harder i still want to push my boundries, i know if out and it kicks off, i know it will not be me walking backwards thinking 'oh shit', i have made some great friends and can train hard and also party haed with them.

MA has made a lasting impact on me and this journey will never end for me.

Thanks to all i have trained with.

Tim

Actually up to two years ago I had no idea I wanted to learn self protection.

I realised about 2 years ago the reason for wanting to learn self protection was from 2 very dark situations which occurred to me in my teens. Situations which I put somewhere in my mind and believed to be mine fault, it took a good friend to make me realise different. It sounds kind of depressing, but the truth is these two situations made me realise that I am pretty sure I am not the only woman out there who has been in these situations and believed what I did, and that is without knowing it was the subconscious thing pushing me.

I was always fighting as a kid so violence never really bothered me that much. Yes there were several occasions when it did but on the whole not so much.

I remember seeing a fight when I was 17 where one lad I knew got a very, very bad beating. I was stood there rooted to the spot. I just couldn't move. It was the first time I had seen a guy on the ground with 4 or so men around him kicking him and one other guy jumping on his head. As I said I had always been around violence but not like that. Not where it looked like they were trying to kill him. Ah memories of Shields road and the Baxter Tavern I hope it is long gone.

It was after that incident that I decided that I needed to take up the martial arts just in case I had a similar situation. Yes now I know what sort of fantasy world I was hoping to live in. I was going to be the next untouchable. I'm sure we all have the fantasy that when we learn the "moves'' we will be untouchable. Ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ....erm ....Sorry. It's still a sad fact that most people out there still believe this and even sadder that there are so many people out there teaching it!

Anyway that was the start of my 20 or so year journey and one that has well been worth it......well apart from all the injuries that do not go away. EVER! That bit I really resent somewhat and wished I'd been a wee bit smarter at times. There again they have helped change me for the better so I should stop complaining really.

I think most people get into the martial arts for the violence (either to help them defend themselves or just to be plain nasty) but the longer you're in it the less it has to do with the violence and the more it has to do with the 'self' which is a great thing.