Ask HN: A martial art for a programmer

- Taekwondo (and karate styles) - do them if you're in it for sport factor. They are mostly based on "hard style" which means physical training, repetition, power and endurance.

- Wing Chun - Excellent kung fu MA and probably the easiest to get into (Wushu being the oposite and acrobatic). Great ROI on time invested and no need for hard training.

- Jiu Jitsu - excellent complementary MA for kung fu styles (like wing chun or wushu) since they are considered "weak" on the floor.

- Shorinji Kempo - probably the most balanced MA out of them all I've seen (I'll explain later)

- Kenjutsu - if you'd like to train with the sword :)

What you have to realize though is that you're not in it to be a ninja or whatever, you'll not fight anyone on the streets flying all over and shooting power orbs (right?), so you have to ask yourself what you'd like to train for.

As a fellow that sits around computers for long times I recommend one of these:

a) - Qigong - this is the base for everything, you will feel health benefits from it and geenrally feel more power flowing through you. If you can pick only one do this. Wing Chun is 99% accompanied with Qigong (also sometimes called Chi gung, kung) practice.

you can accompany Qigong with either Wing Chun (and Jiu Jitsu) if you want to train to be a competent defensive fighter or you can substitute Wing Chun with Tai Chi (Chuan) which is basically a battle version of Qigong so you can train only Tai Chi.

or b)

- train Shorinji Kempo and accompany it with Qigong

I also hear rather good things about Aikido and Hapkido, but I have no exposure to them.

If you want to become a killer machine, learn BJJ, box, wrestling and muay-thai and stop programming. If you want to get fit and exercise your mind and body, train BJJ.

There are plenty of gyms in the US with great black belts. Look for Alliance, Gracie Barra, Paragon, Brotherhood.

For example, one of the first things we learned is defending yourself from various holds and chokes. The first move, after securing your throat or loosening their grip is generally to hit them in the balls. This is one example of something most martial arts won't teach you because that's generally "against the rules", however, in a self defense scenario, there are no rules (there are however laws that you may break so keep that in mind).

You really want to avoid going to the ground if at all possible. It just makes you more vulnerable if anyone else decides to jump in and you never know what you're rolling around on. Besides, what are you going to do, put someone in a submission until help arrives? A really effective way to break a hold is to grab their pinky and twist it in a direction it doesn't want to go. If they don't let go just move on to new fingers. Also, feel free to bite them. Hard. You can also pull hair, gouge eyes, fishhook, etc. It's great to know how to defend yourself on the ground, but you want to be on the ground as little as possible as it can be a dangerous place because your opponent is probably not playing under the same rules you are.

If you want more of a philosophy then it's probably not right for you. This is pretty much just about winning fights when it matters the most.