This is one part of the series, Get Started In The Martial Arts: A Beginner’s Guide.
This is the best of times, and the worst of times for new students of martial arts. Never in history has there been so much information published on the world’s diverse styles of traditional and modern martial arts. On the Internet, this information is plentiful, and it is free. And sadly, it is completely unreliable.
Traditional martial arts are the product of a distant time, place and culture. Throughout most of their history, they have been intertwined with local politics, religion, and business. All of these factors conspire against a complete, accurate and objective recounting of historical events today.
To all that confusion, add the market forces of modern Internet publishing. Careful writing, editing and fact-checking are too expensive even for general-interest publications such as the New York Times: most of these organizations lose money on their online operations, and are only kept afloat by their offline counterparts. In relatively special-interest, low-budget industries such as martial arts instruction, publishing high-quality material online is simply prohibitive.
According to the old story, all the finest tea in China was once consumed domestically, while lower-quality leaves were exported to Japan. What the Japanese weren’t willing to drink was sent to England, and what dregs even they would not accept were finally shipped on to America. Consider that when you read martial arts articles on the Internet today, you may be reading material that someone deemed not important enough to keep secret; not complete or accurate enough to print in a book; and not useful or interesting enough to appear in a magazine!
Clearly, that is no basis for to choosing a style of martial arts, into which you may invest hundreds or thousands of hours of your precious time. But if not with online research, then where should you start?
Here is the secret: you don’t have to choose a style of martial arts. Just find the best teacher you can, and study whatever they are teaching, and you’ll do fine.
You could spend months reading about the strengths, weaknesses, attributes and practices of different martial arts, but at this point, it would be a waste of your time. Real-life schools and instructors do not always conform to the popular prejudices and stereotypes around their respective styles. The local boxing coach might be a kind and gentle soul, and your local Tai Chi master might be an arrogant jock. Really.
You have to choose from the options you have. You have to select a martial arts school and teacher from among those available to you. Gather a list of those schools, so that you can visit a few and evaluate them in person.