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Originally Posted by largearms
How do you choose which one to get involved with? I am interested, but I don't know which would more beneficial in the overall picture
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First - what are your goals - why do you want to get involved in martial arts - what do you want to learn? Do you want to spar a lot, learn the artistic part, develop fitness or discipline or learn to defend yourself?
I don't think it's only about which art your pick - which teacher you end up with is probably more important... there are pros and cons to many martial arts, some are more competition oriented, some are more practical self-defense oriented, some have more focus on discipline or tradition than others... some do a lot of kicks, some punch a lot, some grapple on the ground and do lots of joint locks, some do throws and sweeps... what do YOU want to learn most?
Check out some local schools, surf the web a bit. See how many little kids there are, how many adults, who teaches (the head instructor or a lower-level student, and if the student teaches, are they someone you'd want to learn from?). How quickly do people get belts, and how often do people fail (failing belt tests is good - it shouldn't be easy or a given thing that you pass every test)... How long to get a black belt and do they guarantee it (not a good thing - it shouldn't be something that everyone automatically gets).
See if you can try out a few classes at the schools you like before committing - most will let you do a week or month of classes before you sign up...