How many here buy, or own martial arts books, and videos?

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

How many have actually learned something from them, and or worked out a form, conditioning routine, drill/s, exercises, or applications that you ended up actually training and turning into real skills?

[FungFu2u2]

How many have actually learned something from them, and or worked out a form, conditioning routine, drill/s, exercises, or applications that you ended up actually training and turning into real skills?

We actually have some KFSS vids, mainly used to refresh memory for forms.

[Mr Punch]

No. Got MA books, but always avoid the ones with forms and even apps in: they're no good to learn from. Have learned a couple of things from online grappling vids, but not from scratch, more things to add to my grappling repertoire or fill in a couple of holes.

My books are all on history of MA or health, fitness and medical problems in MA except for one kendo book that I bought for the terminology when I first started.

[Vash]

Patrick McCarthy's stuff is excellent. Showed me how to look at my training to improve as a karate man and as a general self defense proponent, using the same tool box.

But, like Mr. Punch, I buy in the MA category more for historical purposes.

[Shaolinlueb]

i have a couple videos. never learned a form from a video. you could if the skill level was high enough. i probably could on some of the chinese ones. but i keep them more for reference.

i have a couple military style kung fu videos i keep for reference. we do a lot on the videos already and this is always a good refresher. i have a couple fighting videos that are good cause always giving me new combo's and i take what i like for training methods.

do i actually learn stuff from videos? yes, not in the sense its everything i know. i take bits and pieces of Oh i know it this way, they do it that way lets try it and see how it work. plus if you watch a fighting video and they give you pad drills you might not know about, whats the big deal with trying them and using them?

[sunfist]

I never learn anything from them directly, in terms of material. Occasionally youll get a valuable concept or idea out of them though, or glean a new perspective on some of your existing material.

The main reason I collect a lot of forms material though is because talent transcends style. I might not care about Pi Gua, but I care about what a top Pi Gua master has to say, and hell usually be talking in the terminology of his style, as well as referencing its forms to illustrate his points.



Also- Sigged again. Woo yeah.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I have tons of dvd's, videos and books on the MA and I can get at least one useflul thing from all of them, those that I can't I usually throw away.

[sanjuro_ronin]

We live in the information age, which also equals the mis-information age, unfortunately.

We can see different MA systems and principles and techniques all over, from books, to videos to youtube.

We get to see the good, the bad and the ugly.

This is a great time for MA, never before have we been able to share and to learn in such an open way, of course with that comes the "buyer beware" issue of crap and fake goods.

Such is life.

[RonH]

I beleive in the 3 source rule.

1. Instruction via a live person- Hands on training from experience with others. Without the other 2, you run the risk of becoming a cult follower because of a lack of experience with other styles/people/ways of thinking.
2. Books- Text allows large amounts of information to be recorded and stored over the long term, especially if it's in its original form and not continued translation after translation and rewrite after rewrite to be understood by a more modern audience. Without the other 2, all you have is theory and no practical experience.
3.Video- A combo of 1 and 2. Video gives a continuous view of moves that can be replayed over and over again, as well as containing large amounts of information. Because of its combination nature of 1 and 2, it suffers from the combination of those same faults.

I have DVDs, I have books, I've worked with people in person. I've also got books on other subjects that are related to martial arts, like philosophy (Machiavelli, for one) and various branches of sceince for 'westerns' and 'eastern' sceince (thought I think the idea of calling them eastern and western is moronic).

[Pork Chop]

Have a bunch of MA books.
Have never really learned anything from any of them form/technique wise.
Some books, like the YJM chin na & long fist books, I just got because I thought kung fu guys were supposed to have 'em.

I've also got a bunch of videos.
The videos that teach forms haven't really done me much good, even as a reference.
The old Chinese Sanshou videos are pretty interesting to see how they do stuff.
I've learned a LOT from sport fighting videos like the Ringside John Brown series (esp Mastering the Mitts with Mayweather & others), The Master Trainers series (Jesse Reid and Archie Moore), The Title series (Jeff Fenech, Freddie Roach, & Russ Anber), Milletech (his thai pad tape), Rob Kaman's tapes, Bas Rutten's tapes, and Ernesto Hoost's Vos gym tapes.

[GeneChing]

I have a huge library of videos and books, not just my personal one, but everything here. I learn from every single resource, some more than others, of course. Some I only learn what not to do. However, I've never learned an entire form from a book or a video. I tried to do so a few times in my youth, but it was pointless. Living in the S.F. Bay Area, there are so many good teachers here and there are always seminars and such. Now, when I look at form demonstrations on video or in books, it's mostly to deepen my ability to recognize different styles. If it's a form I know, then it has much more value as a comparative study. But as for drills, exercises and techniques, I'm always drawing material from said resources. Why wouldn't you?

[bawang]

hi,
my only book is a ten year old chinese book, it had basic stretches and stuff like fist pushups.
my opinion is ten minutes with a good teacher is better than ten years with a book.

i also like the old manuals from from ming dynasty, just for entertainment. i had a chinese online libary pass, the beijing library scanned all of their books into electronic form, so i spent lots of time reading the old manuals for fun. there was a funny part where a shaolin monk developed skill of iron butt.

[Lucas]

I will always try to collect any video or book on material i know or am familiar with already.

always nice to see things from a different perspective or from other angles so to speak.

[Lucas]

IMO, learning from books/vids requires a good degree of common sense. to know what to, and what not to pay attention too.

[xcakid]

I have a couple of Shi De Yang's DVD's. These are forms I have learned in the past. I also recently bought Dr Yang Jwing Ming LF book. Since I am taking LF at the moment it helps me with learning my forms.

I have never been able to learn from a video or book. Hard for me to discern angles and transitions.