Mjolnir, you are tiresome. You also fail to crasp the subtle arts of syllables, phonetic distinguants, and silence.
Onebum, the bestway to find more about 'which is best for you' is to simply become involved in it.
Grab a phone book; look up all the martial arts with really cool names. Note; if you don't think the names cool, you probably wont stick with it too long
Call a bunch of them and find out when you can head down there. The best time to 'head down there' is right then, procrastination is boring. Become involved in something that looks cool. It is extremely unlikely that you will stumble on anything truly PRACTICAL immediately, and anything you find initially you probably won't stick with... So 'looking cool' is a good enough characteristic to judge by.
Converse with your newfound contacts concerning what you find interesting, or would be interested in, what you need in a martial art, what you don't want, et cetera. After all, you can get a bit out of magazines and such, but it's easier (and more fun) to pick the brains of the sorts who have been doing it for decades. You'll be much more likely to find something that meets your preferential balance of practicality and athleticism.
You'll also quickly learn to distinguish a MARTIAL ART with a COMBAT SYSTEM. This is probably something you should know well enough. Some people are unhappy with their martial arts for years and years, because what they were looking for was a combat system and didn't know it. I've never heard of this working the other way, probably because combat systems are so rarely taught nowadays, and are inherently outside the public's eye, thus fairly difficult to locate in the first place.
Onebum, the bestway to find more about 'which is best for you' is to simply become involved in it.
Grab a phone book; look up all the martial arts with really cool names. Note; if you don't think the names cool, you probably wont stick with it too long
Call a bunch of them and find out when you can head down there. The best time to 'head down there' is right then, procrastination is boring. Become involved in something that looks cool. It is extremely unlikely that you will stumble on anything truly PRACTICAL immediately, and anything you find initially you probably won't stick with... So 'looking cool' is a good enough characteristic to judge by. Converse with your newfound contacts concerning what you find interesting, or would be interested in, what you need in a martial art, what you don't want, et cetera. After all, you can get a bit out of magazines and such, but it's easier (and more fun) to pick the brains of the sorts who have been doing it for decades. You'll be much more likely to find something that meets your preferential balance of practicality and athleticism.
You'll also quickly learn to distinguish a MARTIAL ART with a COMBAT SYSTEM. This is probably something you should know well enough. Some people are unhappy with their martial arts for years and years, because what they were looking for was a combat system and didn't know it. I've never heard of this working the other way, probably because combat systems are so rarely taught nowadays, and are inherently outside the public's eye, thus fairly difficult to locate in the first place.
the subtle arts of syllables, phonetic distinguants