Question for those that do/did train in martial arts

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I think for a lot of us its probably best to find a teacher who does well at training you on how it all works before your thrown fully into free-sparring.

For about the last three months I've been in a class where the instructor (a friend of ours) teaches a blend of Kali, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Shaolin, Tai Chi, and its been great. My own problem, maybe similar to yours, is that my ability to pick things up quickly by muscle memory is rather pathetic; that it I still can get extremely good at anything I practice enough but if it has any interlacing, complexity, or can visually lose me, I'll have people who just started explaining it to me better than I can understand it myself. It is what it is though, and thankfully - unlike a lot of Korean styles like Tae Kwon Do etc. that I'd tried earlier this really seems to fit me. Particularly with the Kali, practicing the abecedario and siniwali forms is quite addictive.

My guess is just go for something that has more liquid flow, throwing, joint locks, etc. - its less likely that you'll be asked to spar right off the top because, as form based as it is I'd like to think most instructors wouldn't see the sense in it. Yeah, you'll do a lot of drills in practicing sensitivity exercises and forms with other students but it'll only progress into sparring as your ready for it.

When you practice enough forms in enough variety for long enough, you start to do them instinctively when the openings come up - it just takes a lot of time. Keep practicing, grasshopper (note that this advice is not meant to imply that I'm all that good at sparring, myself).

Sometimes to help me improve my sensi will put me with a higher student who has control and I can spar with. Other times I get put with someone and they can not attack me until given cues.

I took Tae Kwon Do when I was about 9 and I liked it because there was more patterns and less contact. I got up to Yellow Belt with a green tag.