Learning MA by electronic media

[Tom Yum]

Hey guys. There's a lot of great tapes and websites out in the market today covering alot of martial aspects from weapons to fighting fitness.

Can you learn martial arts from electronic media?

I don't think there is a clear cut answer to this one.

If you want to get sport specific training and conditioning advice, I think its a big YES or if you are just looking for a different way to stay in shape. I think there's a great market out there for electronic media about sport-specific conditioning because you can be far away and still efficiently build your attributes if you are motivated and have the right equipment.

If you are learning MA forms/kata, I think it could be possible but you will still miss out on having an instructor watch every angle and critique what you are doing.

If you are looking to learn a new martial art, I would have to say maybe but probably not. The reason why some people might be able to learn a new martial art is if it is a martial art that is closely related to an art they have allready been training in with professional instruction and to a decent level.

For example, can an NCAA wrestler teach himself judo if he gets a video and a willing training partner (YES). Can an offcially wranked karate black belt learn Tae kwon do (YES). Can a well trained FMA guy pick up silat from a credible online source (YES).

When it comes to learning a martial art that is significantly different than your own, I think its a maybe. Could the NCAA wrestler teach himself silat from a video? It depends....he might have awesome balance, explosive speed and sensitivity but silat seems like it requires more fine motor skills in my opinion.

If you have no martial arts training (and no athletic background) I would have to say no.

If you cannot get professional instruction in an art and cannot get the realism of training partners when learning a totally different or new art, videos and online sources will not be a good substitute.

[shirase]

tape and online training can be quite useful in many ways, but it falls short in a few areas. For example, you can condition yourself and learn some techniques and combos by yourself with videos, and if you have a partner you can even practice some moves with full contact. However where it falls short is having someone more experienced than you teach you personally, and helping to correct your mistakes. That is one of the areas that you could go wrong in online/tape training, you could teach yourself bad habits and not realize it.

[HtTKar]

Under a circumstance where you have an intelligent, honest, hard-working, devoted friend that you could work drills with and practice techniques against, as well as full contact spar. Where both of you are open to critisizm, and both of you are aspiring to become technically great, then I think that videos, books, and other forms of media could teach you a martial art. But circumstances like this are hard to find. I guess it could be possible that a great friend could be a better teacher than a below-average instructor. But nothing could compare to being taught one-on-one by a great accomplished instructor.

So sure you could learn a martial art. I just dont think that your potential would be as high as if you were taught personally by a great instructor. There's only so much that you can absorb by seeing. You have to be able to do the techniques, fail at them, analyze them, and really figure them out before you could be proficient at that martial art.

[Tom Yum]

That is one of the areas that you could go wrong in online/tape training, you could teach yourself bad habits and not realize it.

I think this is especially true with MAs that you use regularly in the ring or mat. If I notice an opening that a coach would correct but the guy keeps creating, I can usually land and know that it probably came from a bad habit.

While you are feeling out your opponent and trying to knock him with fast and hard combos, what if he hits you back before your finished ?

Can you suck it up, think on your feet and regain control of the fight?

This happens to everyone from the guy just learning how to tuck his chin to the guy you see on Friday night fights with 50-1-2 record. This is the most difficult thing to learn and you need someone to help you work through it. (Makes you helluva lot more greatfull for your coaches!!!)

You might have to stop mid round while sparring because you get outclassed and outgassed, cause there is allways someone better but you get back up, clean off the sweat (or puke), put your mouthguard back in and keep at it. Heck, Freddie Roach said that he would work Tyson so damned hard with the mitts that Tyson would have to go puke in the corner and then get back at it.

This is the psychological learning curve that you can't get with a video.