It's important for everyone to take into consideration, "Does this really help me, or just help him/her make a quick buck off of me by stroking my ego???"
There are fitness programs & events out there that are becoming HUGELY POPULAR! They strike to the core of our desire to overcome obstacles, to be competitive, and to better ourselves. The problem is when you see in their movement that they could seriously injure their body. One should make sure that if they get involved in a fitness program like that, that they shouldn't just sign up because their friend does it. They should watch a class, see if the way the other members are taught & move will promote injury, as well as to see if anything is at least done to help correct members movement. If they're not, that place is just after your money.
Regarding self-defense, there is this wave of "Reality Based Self-Defense" (RBSD) methods that I think do a good job of giving someone something to think about in the short weekend seminar that they teach to help a student have a fighting chance of staying safe. However, the problem I have with these methods is that they don't take responsibility to give you the full truth and only milk a half-truth.
They teach you to attack, attack, attack! In some of these methods, they even suggest hitting vital targets. Nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is when you START to defend, and when a practitioner is taught to STOP.
There are several videos on youtube that are promoting these methods by some very well known RBSD instructors. One however shows the "good guy" throwing the first punch at the supposed bad guy simply because he's generally rude & lacking social skills (and interrupting the "good guy" flirting with a cashier). Um...remember though, there are people out there who just have poor social skills. No one ever helped them as a kid growing up. They're obnoxious, yes; but that doesn't give you the right to hit them.
Another video shows a guy effectively knocking his attacker down...then proceeding to kick his downed attacker over, and over, and over, and over again! Right there, that has turned from self-defense into assault. You do that in a public place where there's a chance that there's cameras filming this, and it's used in a court of law b/c you're being sued...you lose that lawsuit & win jail time.
What's worse is that the rebuttal for all the points regarding lawsuits & jail time is these RBSD instructors saying things like, "you can't worry about jail time when a guy is trying to kick your @#%!" That's only a half-truth. Students shouldn't have to think about it, or worry about it, because their teacher builds in self-control/self-restraint into the training so that they are not encouraged to do this macho pummeling-the-opponent mentality with no end in sight to the pummeling.
And finally, there is another video where they are training students to take hits to be able to defend themselves. Sorry, there is such a thing as one-punch knockout!
http://youtu.be/K0439xB8e50
You should never run the risk of letting yourself get hit to defend yourself. How horrible to know you've spent your hard earned money & time training in something only to, in the end, lose the fight because the guy got lucky and hit you with that one-punch knockout!
In conclusion, finding someone who takes great responsibility in their instruction to give you the best chance of staying safe from injury (personally imposed through fitness, or externally imposed by an attacker), and safe from mental stress of lawsuits, or being injured to the point you can't do your regular job to provide for you and your family is VERY important. Don't get caught up with letting these teachers/salesmen strike a chord with your emotions so much that you forget that YOU - physically & mentally- are vitally more important than the marketing image they try to sell you on (as well as the pockets they're trying to fill).
special thanks to Steve Smith for tuning me into that YouTube video
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