Okay. Bear in mind that my advice is based on what has wandered into my mind from 16 years of growing up in Third World pestholes, many years in Law Enforcement as a patrol or SWAT officer, and two years bouncing bodies at a hip-hop bar claimed by the local versions of East Coast/West Coast gangster idiots.
I don't have any black belts. There are no autographed pictures of Martial Arts Gods on my walls. I've never had a referee making sure that my opponent and I followed the rules, and there is no chance in hell that you're gonna find me inside a cage with one of those monsters on Pay-Per-View.
So, keeping those limitations on my advice in mind, my suggestion is that you find yourself a good
Jeet Kun Do school, preferably one affiliated with JKD Concepts.
Do
not however, be afraid to look for something else if JKD doesn't "feel right" for you. You won't hurt my feelings.
It is my Humble Opinion, though, that JKD is hard to beat as far as laying a good, solid foundation to base the rest of your training on.
With you being a young lady, I would suggest learning to use your close-in techniques -- elbows and knees -- then moving to your long range kicks and punches, and only after thorough work on the first two ranges should you move on to ground-fighting techniques.
In my experience (and this is only
my experience) you should always be prepared to run like a striped-butted ape the first chance you get during an altercation.
Going to the ground with a critter effectively eliminates that option, and leaves you with but two choices: 1) Force the critter to submit; or 2) Lose.
The third option of Running Like Hell beats the other two options hand down.
Also, grappling is only effective in one-on-one fights. Period. Full stop. There is no way that you can fight a second opponent whilst grappling with a critter.
If can guarantee/no doubt in your mind/dead certain that the critter you are face-to-face with is the only one around, by all means double-leg him and choke his lights out.
However, if you can't make that guarantee 100%, then stay off the ground.
The
grappling uber alles proponents are going to tell you (repeatedly) that "80% of all street fights go to the ground". Well, I'm here to tell you that 98-99% of them start standing up.
Learn to deal with the 99% of fights that start standing up, before you move to the 80% that wind up on the ground.
Hope that helps.
LawDog