At one time deciding which particular martial art to take was easy. It was either karate, judo, or jui jitsui. Now it seems there are many to choose from. Although it makes it easier to find local domos to attend, it also adds confusion as to the best style to study.

Finding the right school can be a difficult undertaking. If you crave many belts, then you will have no problem locating a dojo that will gladly charge a testing fee for every belt. Usually they have a large number of belts in many different colors. But achieving belts does not always equate to proficiency.

Some of these schools will award you a black belt in as little as a year and a half. Compared to a traditional dojo that also ranks you in japan, or the native country of the particular style, these schools leave a lot to be desired. This is why it is important to look around a bit before deciding.

My training was from a style of karate that started in the late 1800's and emphasized respect, hard work,and only useful strikes and blocks. Many of the commercialized schools put a lot of emphasis on looking good with high, showy, kicks that will get you hurt if you try to use them in a real self defense situation.

I know this because when a local taekwando dojo closed down some of the students joined my dojo with thoughts of zooming to the top. Almost all of them were black belts of some degree but could hardly make it through the warm up routine. During sparring practice they would try a kick that would look good on a movie but invariably landed them on the mat. Usually by a purple belted karate student. After questioning them about their training, and finding out that most of them had only been training a year or more, I understood why they looked so confused.

I'm not trying to say that my style of martial arts is the best, I just want people to know that there is a difference in schools, and instructors. My suggestion is to visit a number of dojos in your area and ask the instructor about the belt system used. Request to watch a training session to get a better idea of the session.

If they have more than five colored belts, not counting stripes, then you probably will spend a lot of money on testing. To give an example, the karate that I studied required a minimum of five and a half years before you could test for a black belt. Moving from one colored belt to another could take well over a year.

Needless to say, the taekwando students didn't last but

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