Frequently asked questions

No. The fitness comes from the training, not the other way round. The first month is heavy for everyone, whatever the sport and whatever you arrived with. Take breaks when you need them. Nobody thinks anything of it, and nobody is watching.

Norwegian clubs have active members in their forties, fifties and sixties, in every discipline. You decide who you train with and how hard it goes. Plenty of clubs run classes just for adult beginners, so ask about that when you get in touch.

Injuries happen, but less often than people assume. In grappling, meaning BJJ, judo and wrestling, nothing hits your head, and since you tap yourself, you decide when something stops. What gets hurt is mostly fingers, ribs and knees. In the striking sports the risk sits in hard sparring, and you choose whether to take part. Ordinary club training lands about where other contact sports land.

Judo puts the weight on throws, wrestling on takedowns and control, and BJJ on what happens once the fight is on the floor: position, working towards a choke or a joint lock. The three overlap a great deal, and plenty of Norwegians train two of them at once.

Twice a week is enough to get noticeably better. Three is where most people end up. What matters is not how many sessions you get in this week, but whether you are still turning up in six months.

Pick the one closest to you with class times you can genuinely make. The journey stops far more people than bad instruction does. Use the directory to find the candidates in your town, and try two or three. The feel of a room is easier to sense in person than to read about.

No. Nearly every club lends a uniform for trial classes, and in the disciplines trained without one you never need it at all. Turn up in shorts and a t-shirt and the club sorts out the rest.

Whichever one trains nearest you, at a time you can genuinely turn up. That is not a dodge. People who have to travel an hour each way quit, however well they chose the sport. If you would rather not be hit in the head, pick grappling: BJJ, judo or wrestling. If you want conditioning and stand-up technique, pick kickboxing or Muay Thai. If you want the lot, pick MMA.

Judo is mostly about throwing your opponent from standing, and a match can be over in one throw. BJJ is mostly about what happens once you are both down: position, chokes and joint locks. They share an origin and a fair few techniques, and several Norwegian clubs train both in the same room.

No. Most people who train martial arts in Norway never compete, and in the striking sports you can work on technique and conditioning for years without hard sparring. Tell the coach what you want out of it. They get asked that every week, and no decent club will push you.

Children's classes in Norway follow the national rules for youth sport: no hard contact to the head, and an emphasis on play and technique. Judo, karate, taekwondo and BJJ have the widest programmes for children. Ask the club about the minimum age. It usually falls somewhere between four and six.

Addresses, prices and sports are read off the clubs' own websites, and every detail links back to the page it came from. If a club says nothing, the field is left empty instead of guessed. The rest comes from people who train at the clubs. Find something wrong and tell us, and we fix it by hand.