[Ghostdogg]

This is my first post so bare with me. I decided to start ma this year and I have a friend who fights in mma local stuff and he goes to a karate school. The teacher is very good nice guy he has black belts in a few styles (shotkan,kempo,jujitsu) and I have been going for a few months now, and I feel I learned a few things, but then I found out about a gracie barra school thats closer to my home and here is where my prob started. I really like jujitsu u get to spare/roll first class, my karate class still havent sparred. My goal is to do some tournaments get into better shape and learn a style that I could use In a real fight If somone could give some input that would be great. I went to the bjj school teacher is a good guy and he is a black belt. so my question is should I do bjj or ecletic karate.

[Chris H]

BJJ...you spar every class, there's always competitions/tournaments, you'll get into great shape.

Deciding to start BJJ is one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

[How I Roll]

I think it depends on what you really plan to get out of your martial arts experience. Obviously you might find people a little biased here on the grappling forum. If you had to choose between the two, you should go with BJJ. If it's a legit gracie barra school the instruction will likely be good, and you will learn a lot.

As far as self defense goes BJJ > Karate but it might be good to take some boxing courses somewhere too. After all BJJ is great if you can get the fight to the ground, or you are lucky enough to lock up a standing position. However, I've found that it's not as effective if you get knocked out because you don't know how to cover up and avoid punches.

[Wrestleben]

BJJ > krotty

[lethalazn]

Any guy who boasts multiple black belts is always sketchy, takes two years to (for the average person) even be accustomed to just the basics of any martial art (you could argue six months for Boxing) and even if the guy's legit in multiple martial arts, it's very difficult to pass down multiple styles at the same time, so much info, how are you actually going be decent at them?

as for BJJ....very competition oriented, it'll definitely make you stronger, i couldn't do a pushup in HS but then i started grappling in college that all changed, as for self-defense, BJJ should protect you from anything other than multiple opponents and knives/firearms (no martial art is a substitute for common sense)

[Rowan11088]

I think BJJ is probably more fun for a beginner, but I wouldn't rule out the karate at all. I train in both, though it helps that my karate sensei is really into MMA and picks up all the little tricks and such from pretty much every art. As for which is better in a fight...it really depends on how that particular school trains. Just decide which one feels right to you, it'll be the correct decision.

[Paedde]

If it's kyokushin or an offshot, you could do both.
But shotokan.. Go with BJJ

[Ghostdogg]

well what he has done is taken all the things he has learned from the multiple styles and formed one single style using the best part from each. And the bjj is what it is and it is legit it is daniel gracie jujitsu who is a part of team renzo gracie. I have seen pro's and cons to both but like somoen else wrote im just alittle skeptikal on the whole hybrid karate and The teacher is legit in his fighting skill but just cuz he is good doesnt mean he can make others good and like i said he is gonna give u 1 option to his 3 or 4 options do to mulitple style mastery.

[Hit-or-be-hit]

i learned more in 2 months of BJJ then i did in a year of Karate.

[Sub Dude]

For what it's worth, I spent almost 18 years training and teaching in a traditional karate style, and acheived rank as a 4th degree black belt. However, once I discovered grappling/BJJ, I began training it more and more to the point where I closed down my school, stopped training in my previous style, and began training BJJ full time. I now have much more confidence in my ability to defend myself in a realistic self-defense situation, and feel a much greater sense of accomplishment in obtaining a purple belt in BJJ than I did in obtaining a 4th degree black belt in karate.

I'm not saying that there is necessarily anything wrong with karate as a whole. It depends upon what your purpose for training is. However, for realistic training, it's hard to beat the "liveness" of BJJ. You know that if you can pull off the techniques against a fully resisting opponent who knows what you are trying to do, if will be much easier to do this with an untrained person. You have confidence that the techniques will work because you've performed them in a "live" situation. This is something that you don't get in a lot of more traditional styles that revolve primarily around kata or point-style sparring. If you want to practice striking too, I would suggest something like boxing, muay thai, or one of the full contact versions of karate, like kyokushin or something like that.

The other thing that really intrigues me about grappling is that the game is constantly evolving. People are constantly working on creating new positions/submissions, etc. It never gets old or stale.