OP,
You have heard a lot of good information on this already, here are few more thoughts for your consideration
1. start with why you want it - is this exercise that you are looking for, spiritual journey, sport aspect (complete/win/belt thropie), effective self defense, etc? what is/are your priorities as this would drive the rest of the conversation.
2. where are you located and what is your weather? colder weather means people wear more clothes and punching/kicking becomes less effective
3. what is your tolerance to a lot of inner discipline BS - aka guru workship? this is how it is done because sensei did it this way stuff..
if you are looking for sport, I would not be able to advice you much - any run of the mill commercial facility will give you rank advancement and exercise.
if you are more interested in effective self defense, you approach has to include all of the basic tools
- striking, some ground work including knowing how to fall (useful in a lot of situations outside of martial arts), and some grappling/joint work (being on both ends of it) . each tool has its weaknesses (high kicks are stupid and dangerous to you when attempted on black ice , punching someone's body who is wearing heavy coat will upset them and little more, striking the face with your first/hand is not the same as in boxing and would injure you if done improperly, wrestling on the ground is suicidal when facing multiple opponents unless you like being kicked in the head and likely killed by bad guy's buddies while you are having fun with awesome BJJ technique (how do you know that he/she is alone and there isn't a friend in the crowd who would jump in?), going to the ground is also incredibly dangerous when you can not see bad guy's hands at all times, how do you know that he does not have a weapon?) . in short, there is no magic, and you should think of what tools you have, why, and where they work/don't work. also, anyone who says training in wrestling is not dangerous , please reconsider - some of the worst injuries I have seen (spinal cord and neck injuries) are from wrestling when a hold was improper or proper hold was improperly released (person panicked). I have friend on permanent disability due to one of such events...
for me personally, I did taekwondo, aikido, grappling, and what I found most effective is a Russian work called 'the system' (systema). if you live in or near bigger city that has some school, try to check in out.
few things that worked for me
- ability to vary the levels of force (as there is legal consequences of real life alterations)
- training your awareness, detection, avoidance, de-escalation.
- learning to understand your body, your responses, and stress management (i.e. having a person seat on it pinning you down and another person trying to slowly step on you or kick you, what works what does not? what do you when you have problems breathing in choke holds).
- learning to control human body without harming it , i.e. getting you loved one out of danger fast without injuring them should it become necessary (bodyguards train in that but it is useful in many other situations working with non-aware or non-cooperative partner)
- training against multiple opponents
- no belts, gurus, bs. you train in what you walk in during the routine practice. life will not wait for you to change into nice outfit
- you train on unfiltered real surfaces, no one will be spreading mats for you in real life. the floor is harder than matt, a lot of nice sport rolls will get you injured fast when attempted in real life, floor also has objects on it (chairs,
- you should train with and against weapons, in every combination, including improvised weapons (belt, pen, your bag, etc.). a simple knife legal in almost every jurisdiction can become major force multiplier, concealed carry firearm is an excellent tool if you have the range to use it . force multipliers would beat technique and/or strength (that is why they are force multipliers) , be realistic in what you are and are not facing and what tools you are opting to have or not have.
I can go on if you are interested (PM me if you wish), another very important thing is that if that you spend some time thinking about and reading about limits of using force. you should probably know the use of force laws of your state (whether or not you end up training in martial arts), what constitutes justifiable use of force (as courts would hold you to that), and have very good idea of
if you get a chance - lookup Rory Miller who has an excellent series of books on violence and its categorizations (social violence vs asocial violence) and read Scaling force - dynamic decision making under a threat of violence.