:jointsmile:Karate- not for self defense.

I took World Oyama Karate for almost 4 years and poured my heart and soul into it. The last tourney I fought I beat 4 guys, two who were black belt TKD, two were higher ranking shotokan guys.

And then I started training at a reality based martial arts school and the first day sparring got rocked because I hadn't been used to taking a punch to the face or going the ground.

Karate is not going to do you much good. True it's better than having nothing at all but not by much- and my style was considered one of the "hard" styles that stressed hard physical contact. Almost every karate school you will find does not teach face contact, weapons or ground work.

If you care about your money and trully about your self defense, forgo the karate.

I have been training in martial arts since I was 17, I'm 23 now and still train several times a week so I figured I would toss my two cents in.

And I grapple blazed often (that's another interesting thing; the amount of people who do train grappling blazed, including many top athletes).