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The Most Typical Martial Arts Styles

There are a variety of martial arts in the world, although not many people are aware of all the styles. This can make it hard to choose a dojo to practice at, especially if you do not know much about the particular style. If you are interested in learning powerful self-defense moves, click here for free self-defense techniques.

So this article will teach you a bit about the most popular martial arts. Both style and history will be covered for each art.

Karate is one of the most popular martial arts styles in America. This is the one everyone knows thanks to a lot of movies, The Karate Kid, and just has a lot of general mainstream media attention. However, while many people think that Karate is the most popular martial art in the world, this is in fact false. It is typically just the USA where it is most dominant. If you travel around a lot, you will find different styles in each country. Muay Thai in Thailand, Judo in Japan, BJJ in brazil etc...

Japanese farmers were the creators of Karate. These farmers created Karate as a means of defending against the invading Samurai. Karate split into different style as time passed through the different Islands of Japan. The Okinawans made Okinawan Karate, but other islands also had their own special styles. It's mainly a standup style using lots of punches and kicks. Karate can also teach you many self defense moves.

One martial art you have probably heard of, Tae Kwon Do, is a Korean art relying on heavy kicks and punches. Tae kwon do practitioners use a lot of different techniques, but mainly focus on what's called the roundhouse kick, which you can see a lot in their different sparring competitions. Nearly 90% of the kicks thrown in a match will usually be roundhouse kicks. If you are a kicker, or want to learn to kick, Tae Kwon Do is definitely the martial art for you. There are three different styles. The most popular is WTF or World Tae Kwon Do Federation. It's an Olympic sport. There is also ATA, and ITF. ATA is the most popular style practiced in America.

Point sparring is the most popular style of sparring in the ATA style. If you've been to a martial arts competition, this is probably what you saw. This is very different from full contact fighting. This causes the fighter to use speed and skill rather than power. They award points based on first contact.

A popular non striking art is Judo. Particularly, Judo is very popular in its home country of Japan. However, judo is practiced all throughout the world, not just Japan. It was founded back in the 1800's when Jujutsu the main martial art in Japan. Back then broken bones and other injuries were very common in Jujutsu classes. Judo used the same techniques, but removed many of the extremely dangerous practices, making it a much safer art to practice. It relies on a lot of throws, pins, chokes, and arm bars. The main idea behind judo is that you use leverage, not strength, to defeat your opponent, making it a great source of powerful self defense moves.

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