I guess I should have started... here is a story of my experience so I seem like less of a know-it-all ****. Not trying to be, just been there, thought that, and learned better on a lot of things people say, lol.
Anyway martial arts has basically been the core of my entire life, my first apartment was a little room in the back of a dojo. I started with martial arts in Kenpo and Boxing when I was a kid. My aunt was a golden gloves champ in NY, and my grandfather and uncles all competed in boxing their whole lives. I was always drawn to martial arts though (probably why I got into naruto too), so I begged my mom to sign me up for karate, and I got Kenpo which is pretty much the same thing. Anyway after a couple years we moved, and I tried a few other arts including Shaolin Kung Fu, Judo, and Shotokan Karate. then when I was old enough to join wrestling in middle school I did. I loved wrestling but wasn't that great in competition. I wasn't the worst, but my division was really competitive and I had a lot of matches where I got creamed. In boxing I only did a few smokers, and fought guys beneath my level so usually won pretty easy, though there were a lot of guys that could have whooped my ass. I just hated losing and ducked them (ego flaw of a kid)
Anyway, then I started wanting to do basically every martial art. I worshipped the martial artists of the past like Bruce lee, and studied him constantly. I trained in JKD under one of Dan Inasanto's top students, and learned a lot about JKD and stick fighting. I also got into krav maga under the same instructor who was certified high level instructor. through him I eventually also became certified to teach, but I was heavily drawn to ninjutsu, and ended up drifting off to a local Ninjutsu dojo when I was about 18 right after I started to teach krav/boxing at a local Japanese jujutsu dojo.
Anyway loved ninjutsu, and it introduced me to "submission grappling. my school brought in some great fighters to teach all kinds of stuff, and I started to branch out and crosstrain the right way for the first time ever. I started learning Catch and sambo after a seminar with Frank Shamrock, then I started watching UFC and got even more into it. I took my first 2 MMA fights that year, and won both in the 1st round by TKO. but then I actually went to a REAL Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school that trained UFC fighters and contained BJJ black belts. I actually went their for Capoeira (I only did this for a few months, but I LOVE it), then one day the BJJ guys (who I thought were a bunch of ego maniacs and tough guys) got me on the mats knowing i did ninjutsu and other arts.
BJJ guys get a bad rap amongst other martial arts as being arrogant etc. I purposely avoided them because I had seen this, and had been told this. I was also told it was one dimensional and not realistic for fighting/self-defense, but recent UFC footage I saw of the gracie brothers had me doubting that. I was told I was learning the same stuff in my Dojo's grappling, and had no reason to doubt that. It's impossible to see the differences, they can only be fealt.
What these BJJ guys didn't know is that out of all the non-BJJ schools in the area I was more or less the best grappler (a lot to do with my wrestling background and natural love for it), even after a couple months in ninjutsu I was tapping out almost every black belt in almost every school (with the exception of the highest tier masters), and was going to almost every ninjutsu, jujutsu, sambo, catch, whatever school I could to learn new things and train with new people. I was very confident in my ability, and thought it wouldn't be much different here. The first white belt I went with was better than over 90% of the traditional black belts I had ever trained with. He was strong as hell, but I managed to catch him with a sneaky submission.
The instructor saw this, and was impressed. I was in shock since I felt like he dominated the crap out of me and I got lucky at the end, but the instructor asked to train with me and I did.
He LITERALLY went in
slow motion and proceeded to rape the **** out of me...
I had never been handled like that. Even sparring with world champions and training with masters in other martial arts, and shoot Sugar Shane Mosely even sparred with me in the boxing gym a couple times, but there is nothing that can make you feel more helpless than a good BJJ fighter if you don't know BJJ.
He only tapped me out as many times as he wanted to and then said I did awesome. I couldn't even believe what happened. I went home and thought about all the times I could have thrown in an eye gouge if my life depended on it, but really I was just trying to justify the gap...
I signed up the next day as a student in muay thai and BJJ, but continued with ninjutsu too. I stopped teaching though and focused on only being a student. I refused to teach again until I could do to my other instructors what that BJJ purple belt (the instructor) did to me in my first real BJJ experience. After about 3 years I got there. Now almost 10 years later I'm fulltime.
So anyway not a BJJ superiority thing. All martial arts have something great to offer, and all are great at what they were created for. I think everyone should train, no matter what art you choose to do. If you're going to stick with it without getting brainwashed and turning into an egomaniac, then it's good for you. Just know their flaws. When It comes to actually fighting Mixed martial arts is clearly the best. It literally combines all the best fighting techniques from all martial arts. Many martial arts claim to do this, but for MMA it's actually true. MMA has the flaw of focusing on FAIR fighting, so when people pull out weapons, gang up, etc. it will be outside of your comfort zone. The thing is the mentality, which is the difference between competition and self-defense. The good part is in MMA you are training to beat people sooooo much stronger than anyone you will fight in the street that they have to pull out a weapon or gang up to even have a chance. But because of the difference in mentality I added that experience from my old martial arts training into my MMA style, particularly when teaching.
for sneaking up on feudal lords and assassinating their ass ninjutsu is dope, but I eventually decided that for my goals it didn't fit, as cool as it was. I loved practicing ninpo though, and wanted to earn the title Renshi so I could be a master ninja, haha (never made it that far).
I still have a ton of friends in the ninpo, BBT, KM, and traditional martial arts community, but now I'm a professional Mixed Martial Arts competitor and instructor. I also teach self defense for police and run a program on the military bases here. And for some reason I got hooked in this ninja manga....
So currently I train and compete specifically in BJJ (Black), Judo (Brown), Muay Thai, and MMA. I also teach BJJ, Submission Wrestling, Boxing, MMA, and Self Defense Specific classes that pull from all my past experience.