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My advice to you is to stay away from schools that specialize in "well-rounded" fighters. Learning a little bit of everything is good from a defensive standpoint (learning how to counter specific martial arts), but from an offensive standpoint this is no good. Being a "jack-of-all-trades master of none" is a carnal sin in the MMA arena. I practice grappling (I know, the term is very generic) as my primary art. I go heavy on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, as I feel that is the best form of ground-fighting, supported by greco-roman/freestyle wrestling for my take-downs and clinching, and I follow up with researching Judo and Sambo to perfect my grappling skills.

For stand-up, which is crucial to all MMA fighters, I practice Muay Thai with a little bit of Tae Kwan Do. Muay Thai is especially dangerous because of the heavy dependence on knees, elbows, and clinch fighting. It is a very well-rounded striking art, and I reccomend it to every grappler who is looking to improve their stand-up game as a whole. As far as utilizing Tae Kwan Do, there are a few techniques (spinning back-fists, sweeps, and kick-combos) that I feel are useful. However, as a whole, Tae Kwan Do doesn’t hold much water in the MMA franchise.

I would suggest choosing a specialty. Whether it is grappling or standup, that is up to you. It’s a personal preference as to where you feel comfortable fighting. The reason I frown upon schools that teach you a little bit of everything each session, is that most of those teachers, from personal experience, don’t really value their students as a whole. They train "smokers" to throw into the ring for better fighters to destroy. As opposed to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master who would love to see his represented martial art flourish in the ring, and train you in every way he can to see it and you succeed.

I would suggest to start with 1 martial art before starting the MMA which is Mixed Martial Arts.

BJJ is an excellent ground game, the best in my opinion. Though I began with Judo, then Wrestling, then BJJ.

Muay Thai is an excellent striking art. If you have access to a teacher this would be an great place to begin. I started with a Karate Belt School, then Kick-boxing and Kung Fu.

In my opinion you learn a lot of techniques in the established arts. Starting with MMA would be akin to learning math starting with a calculator. Not good or bad really, but better to have an understanding of how you arrive at a solution.

my fiance started training in jui jitsu first…and after trying to teach me so much of it, i later joined. i still go twice a week . he’s now taking mma classes and a few boxing classes a month and doing overall training with other fighters. jui jitsu is a beautiful martial art, and i believe it’s a perfect place to get started. he does it for mma purposes…i do it for self defense. the average attacker wouldn’t expect their attackee to put them into a kimora or guillotine…and i’ve made SEVERAL grown strong men tap since i’ve started my classes…so just muscular strength won’t always win…i’m just a 20 y/o girl that can put a beatin on plenty of em. it may not seem like much advice coming from a girl…but i mean, it’s helped me be able to successfully defend myself from men that are twice my size…and i’m really not THAT strong, i just know the art..good luck in whichever course you take. i know from my fiance training, you have to be fully dedicate to it and you have to want to do it deep down…because it’ll be your life. it takes alot of heart, devotion, and sacrafice. i try to do whatever i can to help my fiance out because it’s his dream to fight professionally. and he’ll be there soon enough. if you really want to do it, then what could be a better job than doing something you love?
oh, he said knowing jui jitsu beforehand, it helped alot when he started his mma class. he said he sorta would of liked to have taken a muay thai class for a while before starting the mma class…so he’d has that good base class, just as the jui jitsu class…the mma class brings it all together, and helps you incorporate all of it

It depends on what style of fighter you would like to be, MMA classes generally teach you just what you need to know for fighting as in what has been proven to work in the octagon, whereas some bjj or other trainings will give you a lot of stuff that you may not need, but still may be good to know

I would start with 1 at a time. Get adjusted to everything first. I would start off with BJJ then more to Muay Thai.

Don’t take the MMA class. Although it gives you a little about everything (all of the basics). When you step in to fight, your opponents will know all of the basics too and more. You will get pwned…

It all depends on the quality of the instruction, as always. It would be an advantage, however, to get very competitive at some sort of grappling or striking so you have a strong game in one phase.

Start one at a time, if you do several at once you’ll get the styles mixed up and won’t do them right. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay thai (there are no belts in muay thai by the way) and MMA classes will give you the basics, so also consider wrestling and boxing. Once you are proficient with your grappling (bjj) and your standup (muay thai), then take the MMA classes, that way you can adapt their style to your own, making it unique