kung fu at home?

[jera]

Is it possible to learn Kung Fu without taking an official class. I am planning on learing through a combination of videos and books.

Also, Which style do you think i should start out with. When sparing i usualy throw kicks to the 2nd gate(middle of the body) followed by hand techniques.

Thanks.

[B-Rad]

You can learn some things depending on what kind of experience you have, your mental ability, physical fitness, etc. but you're not going to be able to really learn "kungfu". For one thing, complete kungfu training requires more than one person. Thoug not purely a sport, it's still like most sports in that you need a coach to guide you, and other skilled people to practice with/on to really maximize your potential.

If you allready have good kungfu, then sure, I think learning some new skill, or improving yourself with video study can be beneficial If you're absolutely going to learn from video, I think the best route to go would be to get a partner and find a legit teacher willing to take on a corespondence student (who you could visit once in awhile and get feedback from).

[sunfist]

Take a class.

[Samurai Jack]

So many people want to learn from home. The thing is, it's just about the worst option for most people. Maybe it's because there isn't a kungfu school where they live. If that's the case, I think you are better off training in another martial art, with a legitimate teacher, who has a school close enough for you to attend in person.

[BruceSteveRoy]

this point has been made over and over on this forum but videos and books are great as a reference for material you have already learned and like was said before if you are already an experienced martial artists you can pick things up but it should not be the core of your study. if you just learn from videos you will end up doing your forms like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDdVI4A_hik as opposed to learning it like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dndU6SzYAE4
and forget forms you need other people to practice applications and for sparring.
just a thought.

[Becca]

Is it possible to learn Kung Fu without taking an official class.

Yes. Find a teacher and take private lessons. Or take B-Rad's advise and find someone who will take you on via corrispondance. You can even get an excellant excuse to take frequent vacations with this option.

I am planning on learing through a combination of videos and books.

Nope. You can sample new techniques through video. Books make great references. But neither are good teachers. A book cannot tell you if you are using incorrect power generation, or refrase itself if you don't understand a concept...

[katintokyo]

I have recently developed a great system for learning Wing chun at home. All it requires is a lot of beer, some space, the occasional pizza, the occasional king fu flic and some time.

See, what you do is invite a few higher graded friends over for beer, pizza and Kung fu movies and when they get there, just attack them. It can turn into about 2 hours of good training and when you finish, there's beer and pizza!!! How cool is that!

Sometimes I like to vary my approach a bit. Sometimes we actually plan to train together and the beer and pizza flows naturally (I live in a place where the only delivery food is pizza, so the options are limited.). Sometimes I drink tea or water.


But learning from videos and books...

Nope. It's good if you already know what you are doing, but then you still need a crash-test dummy to see how to get things to actually work in a dynamic situation.

Good luck, though.

[Mr Punch]

See, what you do is invite a few higher graded friends over for beer, pizza and Kung fu movies and when they get there, just attack them. It can turn into about 2 hours of good training and when you finish, there's beer and pizza!!! How cool is that!

Yep, the mix of old kungfu flicks, the pizza and some training often develops quite refined skills in cheese-sao. How's that for sticky hands!