Okay, my martial arts background is kinda long/extensive.
I first fell in love with the martial arts from movies and TV. I can remember the moment it happened too. I was watching a bar fight, and the main character hit this guy with a high front kick in the chin and kicked him up and over this bar. (I believe it was Don "The Dragon" Wilson). I thought that was the coolest thing ever, and I wanted to learn how to do that. That was at 7.
Around 10, I took a week long seminar in American Karate. It was fun. I practiced what I learned, but since I didn't have a teacher, or the focus needed, I stayed sloppy.
Then, I got back to Texas (was born here originally) when I started the 6th grade. Got picked on a lot. Got into a fight in the park once, 4 on 1. I lost, but I think I left some busted ribs on a couple of them, but that didn't save me from getting bloodied and busted up myself.
So, I practiced harder, and more. Mostly though it was freestyle, until I met my first teacher. James Levi Farren. Local guy, trained mostly in Wing Chun, JKD, and Aikido, with some Iaido/Kenjutsu. I began learning from him, mostly JKD concepts, Aikido, and sword skills, but on the side I began studying koppojutsu (ninja art of bone-breaking), as well as some of the Arts of Invisibilty. To this day, I can hide in plain sight, and have people look right over me and not see me, in just plain street clothes.
So, after training with him for two years, he left, due to personal reasons. Then I took two years of TKD and Hapkido under 3rd Dan BB Sabumnim Billy Sweeny. That guy did not like me at all. My striking techniques were good by then, but I hadn't worked much on defense, so I sucked there. I also tended to make his star students look not so good, when I could demonstrate "new" techniques better than they could. After two years, Sweeny left for Corpus Christi.
So, with no teacher, I wound up training a mix of Jeet Kune Do and Tae Kwon Do and kickboxing, as I was drafting techniques from a myriad of sources, such as movies, books, and even games. I've caught myself doing moves from the Tekken series when sparring before.
Anyway, once out of high school I moved involuntarily, but then began doing a two-year bout of Katsujin-ryu Shotokan Karate/Kickboxing/Goshinjutsu (self defense, basically)/Aikido, as well as training in the Dillman Pressure Point system, and training as a healer/energy/chi manipulator and in Chi Gung. Some of it I had experience with before, from various sources, but I was starting to consolidate stuff. Training under Sensei Albert Treto in Katsujin was a lot of fun, but I also got to be a better fighter, more accurate, and more powerful than I had been before, even with tae kwon do. At that point, I was also helping instruct the class, as well as our individual students as I was beginning to work toward my instructor black belt (which is 4x harder than just a regular blackbelt in Katsujin). Again, after two years, my instructor had to move, but by now, I was well-versed in all the techniques I had learned, and was starting to really combine them.
http://www.katsujin.orgFast forward to 2006, I went to job corps. Ran into a bunch of martial artists there, though I was probably the most knowledgable and second most experienced, so I wound up teaching a few students there. I touched base again with my Wing Chun training, especially Sticky Hands. There, we couldn't really spar or anything without disciplinary action, but we could work on drills and stuff like SH. So, for the better part of a year we did that. Was a lot of fun.
I guess, condensing it all down it looks like this:
6 years freestyle karate
2 years Odikwan TKD
4 years JKD
3 years Aikido
2 shotokan karate
2 years Hapkido
4 years Freestyle Tai Chi
3 years Wing Chun/Wing Chun Concepts
15 years self-defense
7 years pressure point/energy manipulation
3 months fencing
10 years kenjutsu/iaijutsu
Weapons training is: katana/long/large swords, knife, stick/club/escrima, staff (short and long), nunchucku, tonfa, kama.
Mixed in with all this has been a lot of arnis/escrima/kali training, as well as a little bit of capoera, a short stint with Muay Thai (mostly what I could learn on my own), and some various smattering of Kung Fu, such as tiger, eagle claw, 9 Palms Mantis, and a spinning method similar to either Taido or Ba Gua. I have also come up with a homebrew version of Drunken Boxing, but since my knee was destroyed in 2006, I cant really do it anymore without the joint slipping out. I've done some chinese style sword work as well, and I've come up with my own version of the snap lock and snap throw, just from studying body mechanics.
At this point, I guess I'm something of an encyclopedia martial artist. One of my buddies at Job Corps which was raised in Japan, and helps run a dojo over there called me a "Wilder", simply because there's no telling what I'll come up with. As of late though, I've been thinking about creating a codified system, and a structured method for teaching, basically creating a recognizable style from the conglomerate of knowledge I have, and of course how I approach fighting.
I still agree with some of our posters here that Yuck Fuo Run is one of our best options, cuz the other guy may know Mexican Judo. Ju don't know if he gotta gun. Ju don't know if he gotta knife. Ju don't know what he got. Since I've started my martial arts training in earnest though, I've had several opportunities to fight, and have even had dumbasses take swings at me, but I have only blocked if needed, and most of the time, they walk away feeling like idiots, and even in one case wound up shaking my had cuz he realized he was wrong, way wrong.
It is always better to end a fight peacefully, or even head one off peacefully before it begins. Especially with certain legal rammifications. Then in the words of Mr Miyagi "Fighting not good. Somebody always get hurt." This is true in any kind of fighting. Then there's the consideration that if you loose, you might wind up in the hospital. If you win, they might, and you might get to go to jail as well as pay their hospital bills. I don't want to do that either, and when I was training under Levi, I was training to maim, incapacitate, and to kill, mostly be reflex. It was not a condition I wanted to fight under, not really. I still remember all of it, and even train it, but not for reflex anymore. I would only use that if someone were to try to seriously hurt or kill me, or my family.