Choose Your School
A journey of a thousand stumbles begins with a single face plant.
In place of a proper introduction the drunken master will start by giving you the only advice you need: how to start.
As I myself is currently a roaming warrior in search of a new master it seems suitable to impart the process I follow. After all, finding those worthy of punching our nose bloody and choking us unconcious, and the right teacher to dictate which should happen on a given day, is no trival matter.
The easy way
For absolute beginners, the first steps on the journey is simple:
Find the school nearest you that teaches MMA, wrestling, judo, BJJ, Muay Thai, boxing or sambo.1
Find the second nearest.
Contact both and book a trial class.
Go to both for a vibe check.
Pick one.
The next steps are harder, but easy to formulate:
Go to class once a week or more.
Repeat.
Like chopping wood and carrying water, there is not much to it. You either keep showing up and you become a fighter, or you stop after learning two basic moves and become a warrior in the Youtube comment section.
The key is that you want to get sparring soon. If you chose judo, BJJ or wrestling you might be sparring in your first class, but at least in a few weeks. If it’s MMA then you should be sparring pretty soon, at least for the grappling part. If you ended up in boxing or Muay Thai it may take a few months. Don’t quit before that.
Here’s my recommended strategy: commit to 6 months. You will go 2-3 times a week, no matter what. If after 6 months you don’t like it, fine, leave. It is not for everyone. Just don’t let yourself back out after a few weeks. It’s tough and it hurts but you become friends with that hurt after a while. That is where you want to get to. That is when the philosophy of the drunken master will truly start to sink in. Break through the first wall, and you shall be mightily rewarded. If you need, reward yourself with beer and takeout after every class. These may be the most important 6 months of your life. Promise the drunken master that you will not give up? Contact the drunken master if you need accountability. Together we do this.
But which style is the right one for me?
That is a topic we shall return to many times, if nothing else in the forthcoming Very Brief Introduction to modern martial arts. For now you want anything that will have you sparring ASAP with as little talk about chi, street fighting, long hypotheticals or funny rituals as possible. There is a place for everything but you do need to get punched in the face or slammed in the ground first. It’s more fun than it sounds and you will thank your drunken master for it later.
The actual style matters a great deal and it’s a choice that deserves the utmost reflection, but not in the beginning. Unless you have trained for over a year any theory you have of “I think boxing would be more effective in a street fight” is hypothetical, directionally wrong, spiritually misaligned and just cringe. First go fight. Then ponder.
The hard way
For those of us further along the path, we can allow ourselves some more finesse. You have spent some time on the mats and know what you want to master. Fighting is part of your life and you negotiate a place in your life for it. Do you go once a week or every day? Do you stick to one style and coach or do you have two or even three schools you rotate through? Are you fitting your schedule to kids? Are the bruises hurting your ability to do in-person sales? (IME they help — great conversation starter!) Do you mix in some lifting? Rest days? Do you want to do a cage fight before you’re too old or just stay uninjured long enough to earn a black belt or at least teaching a kids class?
Much to ponder. This is a whisky question. Beer is for the novices who need reward. Whisky is for pondering the future.
The drunken master is currently one month in to trying every place withing driving distance. Out here in the 田舎 (shithole country side) there are limitations. Some things worth considering:
Quality of sparring partners. Being the best person in the gym is not fun or good for growth.
Quality of instruction.
Distance. The drunken master does like a beer after training, ideally with the friends who train. Long drives hinder this.
Class schedule.
Style. For instance I want a good judo club but in these parts mostly kids train.
The drunken master’s master excel sheet is doing lots of heavy lifting trying to figure out what a good schedule can look like. I will also be taking up horse riding and dog training — a true warrior knows how to fight together with the great beasts — and schedules need to be negotiated for both.
The drunken master has only one piece of master advice for the middle-of-the-road fighter such as himself: it’s a marathon so keep it simple and repeateable. Find a weekly schedule you can commit to without having every week be different. Be on the mats the same time every week and don’t let yourself skip. If anything, build a core curriculum that you stick to and add in extra classes (or lifting, or calligraphy, or whatever) in between and allow yourself to skip those, but never the core. Too many warriors sit by the wayside with an imaginary arrow in the knee reminicing and saying they want to get back on the road to personal greatness. Make a plan you can stick to that keeps you moving forward. The goal is greatness in a decade, not in a year.
The hardest way
You want to be a professional fighter? Forget balance and nuance. Sell all your belongings, book a one-way flight and sleep on the floor with 10 other apprentices above the studio of the best MMA, BJJ or Muay Thai coach that will have you. I hear Thailand is beautiful.
Avoid: capoeira, aikido, krav maga, karate, tae kwon do, ninjitsu, self defense (unless it’s combined with any style on the Yes list), japanese jiu jitsu, wing chun, tai chi, and really anything else that isn’t on the Yes list.
Maybe’s include Filipino martial arts (stick fighting), fencing, and other weapon based sports, for reasons that whall become apparent as I lay out more of my philosopy of fighting as a modern western subject.
Oh. and if you happen to roll into lethwei or bare-knuckle boxing and you decide to join, God help you. That shit is too crazy even for me.
If in doubt consult the below chart. Take the first right and you won’t go wrong with any pick. Take the first left and you will learn movie moves and hear a lot of bullshit.
