Could it be possible to teach yourself MAs?

[Black Dragon]

I think its possible, but you have to be extremely through and disciplined in your training, more so than if someone was teaching you techniques that are already refined. Once again it is possible given the right dedication and athletic ability, but dont be the guy who watches a Kung Fu flick 30 times and all the sudden thinks he can fight.

[Drunken Monkey]

i think the general consensus is that the key is in the training.

 

yes you can learn the style by yourself by which i mean you can learn the forms and drills but without proper training with a partner of higher skill/knowledge/training you will be limited in your applications.

 

you may be strong and fast but if you have never actually used the techniques against a person, you will not know what actual sparring resistence feels like and you will not experience what actually happens when hands meet.

[Tibby]

Yeah, training is a big part of it all. Some football guys are the toughest fighters in my town. They are big, strong, and fast The aren’t training in any fighting styles, but they train there bodies to react and battle it out.

[Drunken Monkey]

just like you can train to have fast hands but if you don't train your relexes against a live opponent your fast hands mean nothing.

[Gino]

Theres no better way to learn to fight than being taught or helped by someone more experienced and knowledgable than yourself.

[karate_woman]

I don't think you can do it effectively by yourself, but working with different opponents with some trial and error could make you a formidable fighter if you were a natural.

 

I don't think it was ever a case of someone going off alone and coming back a great fighter - more a progression. I think that what probably happened way back when is people recognized the abilities of the natural fighter were something special but realized that others can be taught to be good too. They probably had a system where parents and/or elders taught the kids what they knew. Eventually they probably developed specialties, with former or present warriors passing on the moves they found work best. It would have been (and still should be) a flexible system where new weapons can be learned and invented, and corresponding defenses for them created. The kids games would also have developed skills for fighting, tracking, aiming, etc.

 

Just a thought

[Sens55]

I think you can teach yourself. Heck, the best MA training I ever had was having two older brothers. The time between coming home from school and my mom getting home 2 or 3 hours later was nothing but one long class in survival! I still have scars...literally!

 

However, I think a good school speeds up the learning curve. Learning on your own might teach you some things, but you might develop bad habits and not know it. Also, while in the end it's all about effectiveness, proper training should give you more options to use in different situations. And, you should have the test tube of trying your newly learned skills on different opponents to see which work with different body styles and which don't. Of course, there are tons of people who spend tons of money and years of training in a dojo/dojang but aren't very good fighters. That isn't their focus. I can think of half a dozen in my school alone that have beautiful form, but little killer instinct. To them classes are just a form of gymnastics. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just to point out that even though they've been training beside me for a few years, they don't focus on the "fighting" as much.

[Cactus_Gazz]

I think that if you really wanted to you could teach yourself some basics but i think that part of martial arts is the fun that you have while in the dojo, which you cant have if you train yourself. Also a sensie would have many years of experice and he would pass that on to his students, so i think that its better to train in a dojo, most clubs are reasonbly priced anyway