To want my husband to take up a martial art to develop his confidence?

You can’t protect him, why does he think that? A man will overpower you. Men also react differently to a feisty man than a woman , he runs a risk of getting punched. He needs counselling to get him past the bullying and make him comfortable in his own skin.

Indeed.

He's an adult, you talk about him like he's your primary-aged child.

Martial arts are pretty useless outside of their chosen arena. They are a sport, designed for competing against fellow sports people following the same set of rules.

Whilst this is patently untrue, what is true is that there are many, many 'McDojos' out there, who will take your money, grade you to black belt within a couple of years, and teach you nothing of any use whatsoever.

True martial arts developed over hundreds of years as a means of self-defence.

Using karate as an example- if you walk into a club and they tell you they practice 'non-contact', and that you are NEVER allowed to make any sort of contact during sparring, you should leave. They will be one of the clubs who is there purely to make money and any karate you learn will be performance karate.

Look for a club with the true martial arts values.

My husband is a martial artist. He has been doing martial arts since he was 14-now 59.
He is definitely the kind of man who would step in front of me, or my children if someone was kicking off.
The only pointing would make though is you can't MAKE someone do martial arts. It has to be their choice, maybe if you decide to take classes together, it will appeal to him, but if he doesn't want to do it..even if he only goes to make you happy he won't actually take any of it in.
Over the last 22 years of marriage, my husband has tried to get me interested in various forms of martial arts and they are just not my cup of tea.
I see the benefits that HE gets, it calms his brain, exercises his body, and gives him a way to work out the stresses of the week...but it just doesn't do it for me!

From your update I do think he needs therapy or meds in addition to the martial arts. No worries about being short!

My DH is like this. He has a generalused anxiety disorder. He is currently undertaking therapy and has been put on anti anxiety meds for it as it has escalated. By all means try martial arts but more for distraction and confidence building, but if the anxiety is affecting his everyday life then he needs a doctor not a martial arts instructor

An ex cop turned self defence instructor came to my high school when I was 16 and spoke to the girls specifically about self defence. It was if someone was trying to grab you or sexually assault you. Best strategy, get away, if you can get away always do that. If you can't do that you need enough noise or do enough damage to get away. Attackers dont like attention. He actually said screaming fire can be useful, people will come to watch a fire, but many will go the other way if it sounds like someone's being attacked. Self defence courses are more specific and quite different. Things like slamming your heel down on the inside of the foot, breaking their nose with a headbut, clawing their face hard enough to draw blood. Incapacitate them briefly so you.can run.

I'm sorry you're feeling potentially threatened at this time. Racist violence and threatening behaviour is abhorrent.

But sadly he won't be able to 'back you up' against someone with a knife or worse. Or mob handed.

If something bad happens you run away, not start engaging in karate or whatever.

You can't expect someone to be able to be a physical bodyguard to you just because they're your partner/the opposite sex.

He could end up seriously hurt.

If you really do want to get into self defence classes then it should be both of you doing them.

But the best self defence is ignore the person, don't engage, and run if you are feeling like you are in danger. And call police.

Your poor DH. I hope he doesn't see your opening post on this thread. If he was bullied at school by boys who were roughly the same age as the teenage boys he now crosses the road to avoid, that makes perfect sense and highlights just how deeply bullying impacts victims, often for years to come.
Suggestions for self-defence classes are spot on. De-escalation is where it's at. DP is a lifelong martial artist, previously competing, now teaching; brawny and mean-looking, but by his own admission the softest wimp who, like your DH, really avoids anything street with the merest hint of aggression if at all possible. On the one occasion he was forced to intervene in a dangerous situation, it wasn't his martial arts experience that informed his actions but rather de-escalation techniques from a programme of self-defence training he'd undertaken for CPD. Sure, he might have been able to beat the crap out of the aggressor, but as it turns out he carried a blade, DP is very glad he was only concerned with finding a way to walk away.

We don't always get what we want though do we.

Your opinions are Franky ridiculous and you have embarrassed yourself with your lack of knowledge on any of the given subjects and lack of ability to be introduced to new information. You have missed the point of everything I said in the first post and continued this in the second, seemingly unable to grasp anything outside of what you want to be the truth.

Irregardless of what you consider stale my pity stands. I would be ashamed to be so maladjusted that when presented with facts, information, and places to source my own information I couldn't bare to do so for pathologic fear of being proven wrong. Perhaps you are humiliated by your incorrectness but it is more of an embarrassment to continue to be incorrect and spout dangerous and ill informed opinion.

Or perhaps you just really love teakwondo lol

Wow, that is one weird, intellectually dishonest, pompous and windy rant.
Then we have the old hat ploy, the disingenuous "I pity you" form of passive aggressive insult. This is right out of central casting and was considered stale twenty years ago. Perhaps you are fairly new to the internet, because I rarely see these particular manipulative tactics lately.
At any rate, a thirsty ego has obviously gotten the better of your common sense and I do not wish further communication with you.

His qualities are none of your business though.

That sort of man isn’t for me either but clearly the OP doesn’t feel the same or she wouldn’t have married him.

You are actually being mean and I think you know it.

You’re not being mean at all, everyone has preferences and a “timid” man wouldn’t float my boat either. I’m happy to protect and stand up for myself but I wouldn’t want a man (or any other sex partner) cowering behind me.

This is exactly the type of response I have come to expect on here.

Call another person unfair, rude, unkind etc for disagreeing. as though that somehow grants moral supremacy to the situation.

Pretent it's an opinion when shown fact, pretend that personal acedotal life experience is absolute proof.

When shown proof deny the proof, because they can't stand anything that challenges their opinion of disproves their ill informed belief. Would rather be wrong and ignorant than corrected.

The entire response confirms my suspicion, that people who buy lessons in self defense and such things, believe that because that is what they were sold, that is what they are now capable of. It regardless of the truth.

I feel very sorry for you. I do hope you are not forced ever in a situation where these beliefs are disproven.

Your reply was needlessly nasty and had little to do with what I said, so it's just as well the quote did not appear with such an irrelevant and irrational response.
Why so defensive about different opinions? There is no fact checking because this is not about fact. It's completely subjective which martial art is more effective for what situation, because everyone is different and every situation is different.
Nor did I say anything about any marital art making one invulnerable to attackers, so spare me the straw.
Claiming some video is proof of any claim to fact is so silly that I'm embarrassed for you.
Try to keep your temper in check FFS.

@Luxer I know, right?

I don't want to be mean actually. Probably shouldn't have posted that a timid man is just one big ick really and wondering what his redeeming qualities are

@YaCannyKickYaGrannyInTheShin hope not! I'm not into very timid, anxious men

I agree. We all have preferences in life but a timid man isn’t one of mine, it’s rather off putting to think about.

I replied to you but the quote didn't take when I added links.

This is one of the stupidest responses I've ever heard. It shows a profound lack of understanding of either fighting or sport. It actually sounds like something spouted by those defuncted personal trainers run useless self defence classes, that do little more than make the person attending them feel better and offer no real world use.

I was a professional ballet dancer for years before I was too old to do it any more. It involved a lot (I mean truly a lot) of strength in my legs. It involved an enormous amount of balance. It involves huge amounts of discipline and practice every day for many hours. The strength and skills I learned would be completely redundant in any form of physical altercation. In fact being on one leg (even to issue a kick) puts you in one of the weakest positions and makes you incredibly vulnerable in a fight. If you go down, you're fucked. If somebody grabs your legs, you're fucked. If you're doing anything on one leg in a fight you have already lost.

If you use Google and search 'marial arts Vs boxing fight' then look on videos. The top three results are these.

Which shows 3 martial art experts having their asses handed to them by weofully average boxers. Please fact check yourself before you spout this type of misinformation because it's dangerous for anybody to believe that their black belt in taekwondo would hold any real power against somebody who intends to beat the shit out of them, and knowsnhow to throw a punch. This is especially true for women.

I'm sorry, was the OP asking you to date her husband or something? 🤔

Boxing is both a marital art and a sport and is not inherently more effective outside the gym than any of the others. How effective any skill is depends on the person and the situation.
The difference between traditional boxing and most other martial arts is that boxing does not involve kicking. Since most women tend to have good lower body strength relative to our low upper body strength, skill at kicking is an advantage for women, a way of somewhat evening up the odds. I doubt it's that much of an advantage for men.

Op I actually agree with you, I recently took up boxing. I am gym fit and more recently I've been doing intensive strength training. I realised I was actually sorting of jacked when I won an arm wrestle against a fit younger man, and surprised us both. I decided to take up boxing after that. There is nothing quite as empowering as actually knowing your own strength. Martial arts are pretty useless outside of their chosen arena. They are a sport, designed for competing against fellow sports people following the same set of rules. Outside of that specific environment they aren't particularly applicable. Suggest he joins a boxing gym instead, you don't have to spar unless you want to.