Hey i was thinking recently to take up a form of karate, id prefer muay thai of course but my knees need to build themselves up before they can take constant impacts.
anyway i used to train wado ryu but i wanna do something different.
i was thinking kyokushin or kung fu but im not sure

I trained Kyokushin for three years and switched to Boxing six months ago. The karate school was a light-contact school with a small full-contact group, so the level was clearly below pure full-contact schools.

In Kyokushin you will take a lot of low-kicks, so if you want to protect your knee, I would advise you to start with Boxing or maybe Kickboxing.
To make the knee stronger I would do classic weight training with squats and deadlifts.

However, in a good MT gym nobody will kick a rookie's knee into pieces.

PS: Compared to full-contact combat sport schools, an estimated 90% of all "martial arts" schools are bullshit.

just go to an mma gym dude, they will teach you how to fight. normally gyms have boxing, muay thai, bjj and wrestling as their main disciplines so you can get it all at once. in some gyms your striking trainer may actually be a black belt in some form of karate so you can ask him to work with you on that. likewise your bjj trainer may also hold a black belt in judo. sometimes you have to pay extra for 1 on 1 time but if the guy likes you then he might just work with you for free.

jizzothekid wrote:normally gyms have boxing, muay thai, bjj and wrestling as their main disciplines so you can get it all at once. in some gyms your striking trainer may actually be a black belt in some form of karate so you can ask him to work with you on that. likewise your bjj trainer may also hold a black belt in judo. sometimes you have to pay extra for 1 on 1 time but if the guy likes you then he might just work with you for free.

That is normal in the USA? Dammit, I need to apply for UC Berkely or San Diego or something!

angst wrote:Hey i was thinking recently to take up a form of karate, id prefer muay thai of course but my knees need to build themselves up before they can take constant impacts.
anyway i used to train wado ryu but i wanna do something different.
i was thinking kyokushin or kung fu but im not sure

If you wanna be good at moving and hitting with the jump in, hit, jump out thing like Machida (or me ) then Shotokan is the way forward.

Kyokushin is probably not the most applicable style, you'll learn to low kick and high kick real nice, but the sense of distane is warped by the fact that you can only punch the body and thats all they train for.

However at the highest level both are amazing styles - watch the world kyokushin championships and see the power, watch the JKA all japan and see the speed, evasiveness and technique of the shotokan guys.

Dont expect to be amazing at MT when you take it up though. You'll be able to fight one way, but you're gonna be learning another.

Gotta agree about the 90% of schools things. I had to go to Japan to get to the real good stuff.

Student_of_the_game wrote:

jizzothekid wrote:normally gyms have boxing, muay thai, bjj and wrestling as their main disciplines so you can get it all at once. in some gyms your striking trainer may actually be a black belt in some form of karate so you can ask him to work with you on that. likewise your bjj trainer may also hold a black belt in judo. sometimes you have to pay extra for 1 on 1 time but if the guy likes you then he might just work with you for free.

That is normal in the USA? Dammit, I need to apply for UC Berkely or San Diego or something!

yeah, its normal...maybe not the work with you for free thing. ive never had a trainer work with me for more than 5-8 minutes for free, but its enough to show you some things to practice. if you want half an hour or a full hour you gotta pay. and fuck yeah come to america man, youre brazilian right? ironically my dream is to one day train in brazil.

The distance-thing is true. Also the change from bare-knuckle to gloves.

youre brazilian right?

Ahm... no. I'm from Switzerland, it's in my profile right under Kyra.

*Officially a European that likes America!*

jizzothekid wrote:just go to an mma gym dude, they will teach you how to fight. normally gyms have boxing, muay thai, bjj and wrestling as their main disciplines so you can get it all at once. in some gyms your striking trainer may actually be a black belt in some form of karate so you can ask him to work with you on that. likewise your bjj trainer may also hold a black belt in judo. sometimes you have to pay extra for 1 on 1 time but if the guy likes you then he might just work with you for free.

that must be a big ass school over here we have kickboxing school boxing schools but not that many that have that much fighting sports, unless we count the goverment payed collegegyms

definitely not kung fu. it's all the acts these days.