If you are interested in getting fit, doing a sport with prizes or learning an old discipline by all means do a martial art. If you are interested in self defense steer clear of 'martial arts'. The vast majority of so called 'martial arts' are very far from martial when examined closely. In any endeavour it makes sense to train for the things you will do, the train hard fight easy type motto of the SAS and so on. So if you are going to play tennis don't practice your swimming breast stroke and so on.
So looking at the training in 'martial arts' you see people stripping off and putting on pyjamas with their feet bared. Then they warm up and stretch (with old out of date streches and exercises that have no relation to advances in modern sports science for the most part although the sports MA's are a bit better here) in a brighly lit empty room with soft mats on the floor. The kata or forms are then worked on - for self defense purposes a time wasting endeavour if ever there was one as real fights don't follow a pre-arranged pattern. The 'techniques' are then practiced with each person knowing what is coming next, sometimes this is just a two person kata performed without the people being under stress or anything else resembling a 'real' situation that could be encountered in life. The actual techniques are out of date in most cases - think jumping kicks designed to knock someone off a horse as they are not laterally mobile. Do you really think someone will stand there without moving while another person jumps up in the air outside of Hollywood studios? Last is sparring - again based on the techniques covered in katas and usually with soft contact and rules and no weapons, concealed or otherwise. Then after doing all this for a period of time a payment is made to get a belt of a different colour to hold your pjyama jacket closed.
How much of this do you think prepares you for real life situations? Excuse me Mr. Mugger / Robber / Murderer - do you think you could wait a minute to I change into my pjyamas and warm up before you proceed? Also can we move to a different area as this area is dark and cluttered and has no mats. And when you do proceed would you mind not moving out of my way when I do a jumping kick and only attacking with attacks from my style please? And lastly would you mind not using any concealed or modern weapons as I am only used to training with weapons from a different century that are displayed from the beginning. I can easily imagine the result.
If you are interested in defense some groups to look at are Senshido (based in Montreal) Demi Barbito's JKD (based in LA), Geoff Thompson's self defense schools (based in the UK) and Peyton Quinn (based in Coloado), Hock Hockheim (Texas I think) and so on. All of these guys have good links pages and forums where you can learn more - have a look as there is a wealth of information out there. Also all of these guys have licensed instructors in various places but they are not as commonly known as the Karate, TKD, Aikido schools. The best quality is never the most famous or easiest to get - just think of that in the knife world as outside the knife buffs here how well known are Busses? And we all know how hard to get they can be. Anyway rant over. I hope this helps a bit on 'martial arts'. good luck on whatever you decide to do.
] - you might as well get something great for it!! 
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