I was 5 years old when my uncle first taught me some fundamentals of martial arts. I was roughly seven when he stopped training my cousins and I, and even that "training" up until that point had been extremely loose, informal, sporadic, and not what anyone would consider "real" training. It mostly just gave me ideas to think about.
From there I was obsessed with martial arts pop culture, absorbing what I could from film, TV, and books. By the time I was 14, I had no martial arts options for training near me, but I began to study the written works of real martial artists, and researched everything I could get my hands on. Of course, reading is no substitute for real training, but it's great to teach you principles and concepts that you can mentally wrestle with. Unfortunately with no instructor, practising said concepts can create a lot of bad habits-- and so I gained many.
By the time I was 19, I finally had access to real martial arts, starting with a brief foray into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (which I usually don't "count" when I talk about the beginning of my training) followed by a serious dive into Kenpo-Karate-- which is what I consider to be my "base style", and the point at which I begin to count my training in casual martial convo.
After about two years in Tracy style Chinese Kenpo-Karate/Chuan'Fa, I branched out. I was living in a new place with access to all sorts of styles. I dabbled in a myriad of them over the years, including Uechi-ryu Karate, Kyokushin Karate, BJJ, and Muay Thai. Eventually, I found a real martial academy where I went consistently for about five years, and inconsistently much longer. There, they instructed me in: Muay Thai, BJJ, Canadian Catch/Shoot Wrestling, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Celtic Stick, Filipino hand & stick styles, Judo, and Jeet Kune Do (not Jun Fan Gung Fu, but open JKD).
Later, I would train for several months in Classical & Non-classical Gung Fu & Wing Chun specifically. Then there was North American Boxing, Kickboxing, Wrestling, and cage-fighting (which interestingly, is its own style of Wrestling).
So when people ask me, "What style of martial arts do you do?" in my head, my answer is always, "The only style. All style. Fighting is fighting."
This is the truth I've learned over the years. It can be summed up best like this, I think:
"All paths lead to the same road."
