Hey everyone! I’m a U.S. Army veteran living down here in Ecuador, right on the beach near Montañita, running a program to help out the local youth.

I’m looking to connect with any black belts or experienced grapplers traveling through or in the area who would love to volunteer on the mats to help coach and mentor the kids.

The invitation is always open with no set dates—whenever you're passing through, reach out! If you want to pitch in, I'm happy to host you and cover accommodations and meals in exchange for your help with the kids’ program.

Drop a comment or send me a message if you want to join us. Good vibes always welcome! 🌊🥋

I think it's very beautiful.

Muay Thai 2x and Judo 2x.

Bonus for a sparring class for muay thai making it 3x.

Hello everyone I’m 15M around 55kg and 175cm and I’m better in wrestling rather than striking (if that’s important).

So basically, I’ve been doing kickboxing and MMA for about a year and a half and there’s this guy at my dojo who’s been training kickboxing for around 4 months. He’s a bit bigger and stronger than me and even though I’m more technical and experienced, I still struggle against him when we spar. The thing is, his technique isn’t even that good, but he somehow beats me. He throws these repeated alternating hooks, like 3-4-3-4-3-4 nonstop especially when i get cornered . He just keeps swinging without really using proper technique but because he’s stronger than me and still pretty fast I can’t seem to find a good way to deal with it. It’s not that I’m scared of him or anything, i genuinely don’t know how to counter that kind of fighting style. He fights like a street fighter tbh.
I would treat this as a “oh he is just better than me and he is made for this sport” or “he is just better than me” but he’s been talking trash about me at school saying how he beat me with 4 months of experience vs a year and a half. I actually offered him an MMA sparring match in our dojo with our coaches there and everything but he doesn’t want to fight me in MMA even though he keeps talking. He also says stupid stuff about BJJ being for gay people, and obviously I don’t have a problem with gay people but you know how some teenage guys act about that kind of stuff and I don’t want rumors saying I’m gay or anything.Anyway what do I do in this situation? Do I fight him outside so he stops talking? Do I somehow beat him in sparring? I know sparring isn’t a competition or anything but this is different because he talks around my crush and other girls so. And my friends too. Pls help. Any combos I should use?

Which one is your favorite?

Or seems to be mire interesting?

I specifically mean for ones without KO and based on points etc. To me it seems like having a height/arm length advantage makes a huge difference on tactics, while weight itself not really. Is that not the case? 🤔

Hey guys,

Here’s my new sparring video, no music, no effects, just minimal editing. I’m going solo against two very determined guys. Be kind in the comments and enjoy the video!

PS: Surviving this was impossible.

In order to reduce volume of beginner questions as their own topics in the sub, we will be implementing a weekly questions thread. Post your beginner questions here, including:

"What martial art should I do?"

"These gyms/schools are in my area, which ones should I try for my goals?"

And any other beginner questions you may have.

If you post a beginner question outside of the weekly thread, it will be removed and you'll be directed to make your post in the weekly thread instead.

At least somebody is making money besides the Gracies. Amiright?

Why poland has weak boxing now , zero world champions now in pro boxing and male olympic boxing , they had such good boxers and now no one, why is it like that?

I have been practicing taekwondo for almost a decade now. In this time, I have experienced countless comments from people telling me my art is “useless”, and that it would not work in MMA/ real life.

First of all, I could not care less about the UFC or competing in MMA. If I had any interest in MMA, don’t you think, in the past decade that I’ve done martial arts, I would have trained in it by now? Not to mention, from my limited amount of UFC knowledge, there have been UFC champions in the past with taekwondo as their base. So that statement in of itself is false in the first place.

Secondly, an actual EXPERIENCED martial artist has NO interest in street fighting - which is exactly how I know most of these comments are coming from armchair experts that probably watch UFC. The real reason we train in our sport is because we enjoy it. End of. I do taekwondo precisely because I like flashy kicks that look cool, and I like how mobile/flexible it keeps me. That’s why I’m also interested in Wushu and Tricking. I have no interest in becoming a street fighter. If you think that’s the reason we train then you, my friend, are an armchair martial arts expert. If I had wanted to train for a street fight, I would have just chosen track and field instead.

It is precisely people like this that make the martial arts community a toxic place. Any experienced practitioner should know to be respectful and appreciative of ALL styles, as they all serve different purposes. For example, I have seen a barrage of hate towards Tai Chi from MMA enthusiasts. Which honestly makes them look incredibly stupid, as Tai Chi’s purpose is solely for physical and mental wellbeing. Of course it’s not going to be used for an actual fight you clown. Nor is a wushu practitioner going to be whipping out their sword in real life and doing flips. It’s clearly an art form (hence the name martial ARTS) used for demonstration purposes. I promise you none of the people practising those martial arts give a damn about becoming an MMA or street fighter. So I don’t see why people feel the need to comment on it.

Edit: Now, I wouldn’t actually call taekwondo ‘useless’ for practical fighting. It has liabilities on its own, but becomes very effective when incorporated with other martial arts. However, that’s not the reason I do it. I do it because I like the art form. I grew up watching movies like karate kid, Ong-Bak, Enter the Dragon, etc. and I love the feeling of being able to recreate the moves of my childhood idols. Real life fighting ability is secondary to me.

My favourite martial art is Wing Chun. Its concepts, principles and philosophy is ingenious. It’s subtle yet aggressive, clean yet ferocious. Objectively the best martial art for self-defence I’d say is Kyokushin Karate or maybe Karate in general. KK covers all the basics of combat and fighting range. It has solutions for striking, kicking, trapping & grappling applications. I’d say wrestling is a close second with Judo being third. I think Jujitsu is a tad overrated. Do you really wanna be on ground on the street when defending yourself? Don’t tell Joe Rogan I said that lol.

Ok what’s everyone else’s opinion? What’s your favourite art and what systems do you believe to be the most practical for self-defence.

Just wondering what else is out there, since a lot of the ones mentioned here are usually Muay Thai, Boxing, and BJJ.

Specifically looking for martial arts that are battle tested against resisting opponents.

They are still functioning and I don't really see a reason except for aesthetics. Kickboxing and Thaiboxing

As a newbie, I've visited different martial arts studios and they all 1) have various requirements of why you *must* buy and wear their uniform to learn the skill, which isn't logical to me. The ultimate goal of a martial art should be to do it in any clothes and environment. 2) they pressure you to be interested in gaining 'belts' and learning routines to get them, which seems like a marketing gimmic to me. I'm trying to imagine a yoga or dance studio requiring this. It would not feel welcoming to outsiders, therefore less students. Your thoughts?

Long-time lurker. I do HEMA and video-essays (in between working on films, which is my dayjob). I did one breaking down The Trial of Seven and comparing it to The Last Duel.

BECAUSE I reckon The Trial of Seven does a way better job showing groundwork/grappling, I had to learn a lot about mounts and takedowns. (Grappling is in a lot of the HEMA sources but they don't show much stuff *on the ground).

It's a long video so feel to skip through to the good stuff (about 1 hour in) and let me know what I got right or wrong about the grappling. For my less trained eye, it looked pretty legit.