 Can you learn karate from a book? Or any martial art for that matter? In light of current events, many dojos remain closed, which makes a lot of alternative training methods that much more appealing. But the question comes down to just how much of an art can you learn from printed material and how would you go about doing it? Today's question actually comes from one of our Patreon members, Basawotro Septrid, and he asks, can you actually learn martial arts from a book that has descriptions and pictures to guide you along? Now we've had a couple of discussions in the past about learning from videos and DVDs and online programs, and I briefly touched upon printed material, but I think now is the goodest time as any to take a deeper look into this topic. Now when it comes to actually finding printed material, we're in an age where information is at our fingertips and there's no shortage of books out there. I mean, you could probably spend a lifetime searching for all sorts of different martial arts texts and workbooks and manuals and thesis and whatever. So I think it really comes down to focusing on what your goal is, what you're trying to achieve and learn, and then picking the right material for that goal. You have books on history, principles and concepts, theories, biographies, workbooks, forms, and even technical manuals, which we're going to include in this topic because it's still all part of printed material. So can you learn from a book and printed material? Let's answer the question right now. Sure, of course, why couldn't you? There's absolutely a lot of education you could draw from reading printed material on a martial art. As long as you understand that there's a limit to what that material can provide you. See, books are a great way to learn about an art, great to learn theory, great to learn deeper levels in academic information, in the best case scenario. And yes, you can learn some technique from it, but much like video instruction, the limits are you do not have that live classroom environment. And a lot of people underestimate just how important that is. Without a live instructor, without actual hands on feedback, you're missing the big chunk of the art. You can't really know that you're applying it. It's great if you can memorize something. That's one thing. But if you want to be able to apply it effectively, you need live instruction and correction and you need a partner to work it on and resistance training. That's how you can get the most out of your arts. But we are in times where sometimes that personal connection is limited, so we do have to make do with what we have. So exactly how do you get the most out of training from a book? First, I think you have to break it down into two perspectives. One is your academic information, your theory, learning about your art. And then second perspective is the curriculum and techniques, basically your workbooks and your technical manuals. They're kind of two different animals, and you need to approach each one two different ways. So let's start with curriculum based, because I believe that's what most people are seeking out when they're looking for manuals and printed material. When you're trying to learn curriculum and techniques from printed material, you have to take an extra level of caution because you now are adding in an additional step of translation that you don't have with video. Because you see with a video, when you watch a technique performed and taught via video, you're getting audio in terms of description and narration with it. You're actually seeing the play out on the video screen, you can see reference points, you can even align your body to mimic it. And then you're seeing the whole thing is, it's almost like a live instruction. It's a full presentation, but you only have that one step of disconnect where you don't get that feedback. When it comes to printed material, you don't have that visual cue. And you don't have that narration that it's all internalized. So you have to read the printed words and then internalize that visualization inside your head and then use that as a reference point. So it's like an extra step of work to do in order to mimic those techniques. But the keyword I want to focus on there is mimic. Is that what you're doing? Are you just mimicking it? And if that's the case, are you truly learning the material? Or are you just memorizing the sequence? I heavily recommend finding material that explains the why along with the how. Nothing that just says block, punch, kick, but explaining why. Why are you stepping a certain way? Why is your balance a certain way? You're positioning the reasoning behind it. Sometimes it's theory, sometimes it's traditional, but I think it's important to have that why along with the how. Even when the material is accompanied by photos, it might just say, you know, step one, step two, step three and have photos with it. But even then it can be deceiving. It depends on the photography taken and the quality of the work. Many times the photography can be very, very highly detailed. You can see very good reference points. It's taken from multiple angles. Other times there's just single shots. And depending on how it's presented, you don't have that sense of depth. So you might not always get the correct alignment, depending on what the techniques are. So there's still, even with photos, there's still a lot of fine detail that you can miss with printed material. So I would like to reference the Shodokon Karate Bible. I've used this book before, especially in the Shodokon episodes, but I kind of like it as a visual reference. I like the way it's laid out. And I have an interest in just kind of learning about Shodokon. You know, I'm not using this for any training, but it's more of an educational part on my side. But I'd like to point out though, that even though it's got a lot of highly detailed pictures, if you notice that sometimes the pictures are just profile shots, against the white background, you lose that sense of depth. Photography flattens space. And when you flatten space, you lose that sense of depth and it makes it hard to have a reference point. Now in many cases in the book, there are alternate angles shown, but not in every instance. And that being said, that's one example of how you could find yourself in trouble if you're trying to learn solely from the book, because what point of reference do you have and who's going to be there to correct you about it. But even with that being said, that's one reason I like this book, because they even take the step to acknowledge that it's easy to make mistakes, and they even show you some examples and corrections that you have to be aware of. So again, when it comes to using photos, photos help with the book. They help a lot. They're a great visual point. They're not quite as good of a reference as video, in my opinion, but they help, but you still can't take it for granted. You still have to exercise caution when learning with this method. And that gets really important because early mistakes can cause you a lot of problems down the line. And for that reason, my advice to you is if you're going to try to learn something from a book, I really believe you should have somewhat of a fundamental understanding of either that art or similar martial arts. You want to know your basics. You want to have a foundation, because if you're just starting, if it's something you're completely unfamiliar with, again, you don't have that live instruction. So any mistakes that you make early on in your stances, in your posture, in your basics, you can throw off your entire training. You can develop some really bad habits, maybe something that could be bad for your own health and your body structure, that could cause your problems down the line, or maybe even just the way that techniques are applied. So I think you need somewhat of a fundamental understanding because you don't want to make those mistakes early and have them become ingrained and become horrible habits that you're going to have a hard time breaking later. Because trust me, you perform something and it becomes muscle memory and you find out later it's wrong. It takes a lot of work to correct it. So to illustrate this point, we recently did an episode on the Gojirukata of Sanchin and the question of whether or not the kata can give you hemorrhoids if you do it incorrectly. Now I can already hear the, huh, out there. So definitely go check that out. It was kind of a fun topic and an interesting study, I thought. But it highly illustrates the point of small details, big differences. And don't take for granted that books are always correct. Something as simple as a typo could really throw you off. Now, thankfully in my own cases, I do have some experience learning from printed material, especially when my school closed for two years, I was on my own. And every once in a while, I did come across a typo or a small error. And if I didn't have already a fundamental understanding of the art and of my basics, I might have gone completely off course. So you do have to be careful with that. If it's something you're unfamiliar with altogether, you might not realize it if it's a mistake. Whenever possible, seek out video samples. We are in the age of YouTube and internet. Somebody somewhere has likely uploaded what you're trying to learn. So my recommendation is read your material, walk through it a few times, visualize it, internalize it, then stand up and try to walk through it, get what you think is a good idea of it, and then go look up some video samples. See if you can find clips of someone performing it. You'd be surprised what you might find. It might be different than what you thought. It might answer some questions. It might even raise some questions. So, but be wary. Everyone does things differently, and a lot of techniques, especially with Kata's, can vary from one school to another. So if you're looking up a technique and you look up 10 videos, there's a very good chance that each one of those videos are gonna be 10 different versions. But again, as far as a reference point, it's usually very helpful because if you use to print and video together, you're only gonna reinforce what you're trying to learn. But still, it does not replace that live instruction. And I think it goes without saying that more detail is better. It's one thing of the technique is described as, bag guy grabs your shoulder, you're gonna pin, step to the side, drop a hammer first to the groin, then take your right leg and buckle their back leg. Okay, technically that's a fair description. It could be accurate, but it's leaving something to be desired. There's a lot of questions in there, a lot of fine tuning that can be done. It's another story if you find a manual that says, bag guy comes up on your right side, they put their left hand on your shoulder, you're gonna take your left hand, you're gonna pin, step out to three o'clock, drop to a horse and says, you've finally seen a seat drop, a hammer fist into the groin, then take your right leg, shoot it straight back to 730 and buckle their left leg and then cover out. That paints a much better detailed picture. And if you have an understanding of that terminology and those basics in your system, you can follow along with that much more confidently knowing that you're closer to the real version than if you just got some vague description. So it's not always available, but whenever possible, try to find the most detail and highly descriptive text that you can find if you're trying to learn technique from it. And that just touches on the clock principle in which we use in Kemple a lot and other arts use it as well, but imagine yourself standing in the center of a clock and straight ahead of you is 12 o'clock and straight behind you is 6 o'clock and you use the different clock positions as directional references. A lot of arts use that. Other arts use North, South, East, West and different references, but I personally find the clock directional references to be extremely helpful, especially when you're reading it in text because it can get pretty detailed. Many Kemple schools will actually put down reference lines on the floor that represent the straight lines and diagonal lines and for beginners learning brand new techniques that can become invaluable and it's a very easy way to visualize it. So if you are working with an art that has that kind of directionality built into it and you have the printed material that describes it put tape on the floor do some sort of lines give yourself a visual reference so that way when you're walking through it you're helping that translation of reading the printed material and translating it in your mind it's only going to help. And it has to be said that some arts are going to lend themselves better to print than others. You know, you have some styles of karate and Kemple and kickboxing the boxing. Yeah, sure. If you have a basic understanding it's not unreasonable to think that you can learn some techniques by reading it but you have also other arts such as the Chinese martial arts you know, fine weapon arts Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Judo and any grappling art frankly it's going to be very hard to learn from a book because there's so many tiny nuances that really make up the whole difference it's not just a matter of learning your basic steps and walking through it you need that tactile response for grappling you could read it all day long you don't know it until you can apply it and you need a person to apply it I don't care if you spend a thousand hours doing it in the air it doesn't work until it works so just keep that in mind that a lot of arts and especially the Chinese martial arts have some very very fine body movements very, you know, the difference in tension and stuff that you can't get from a text and it just goes right back to that live instruction so just, you know, choose wisely when you're looking for material and understand that there are some serious limits and if you overlook those limits you're doing yourself a great disservice and then we have the academic side and this is a very different way to train is a totally different mindset but I think learning things like history and even theory to some degree and just kind of knowing how your arts put together gives you rhyme and reason and sometimes opens your eyes and helps you discover new layers of the art that you didn't know were there even something like MMA unboxing if you were to find a text on, say, a prominent fighter and they went into their biography and the history of their training and why they did what they did who's to say it doesn't open doors to more understanding for you you know, it's not always about what they learned or just what the curriculum they went through but how they approach it their mental aspects, their strategies maybe they made alterations that work for them and it can give you some ideas for your own training you know, when you open your mind like that you never know what you can find and unlock and just reading and why people do what they do arguably can enhance your skills the why often supports the what now so while I do advocate having a fundamental understanding of the arts before you try to learn from text if it's just something you want to dabble in or if you're just really more interested in seeing what others are doing go ahead and take a look what harm can it do if you just want to see other ideas and just see other techniques even if it's so different from what you've trained you might be able to cherry pick concepts or thoughts or be like ah, I never thought of doing something that way but what happens if I play around with it you never know what you can unlock and add to what you already know so as a personal example back in 2008 I had to create a thesis form for my second degree black belt test we were allowed to choose any topic we wanted as long as we explained what we were doing and why we were doing it I chose the Psy I love the Psy the problem though is I don't know how to use it we did not have any formal training in the school I have never had training before it's an exotic weapon and I thought it'd be a cool thing to implement into the system at least as an experiment so what did I do? well I watched a bunch of clips on YouTube and I picked up this book Psy Karate Weapon of Self-Defense by Shita Room Master Fumio Demura and in the book is basically all sorts of examples and your basic entry forms and really what I learned from this was how to hold a weapon and maybe a couple different twirls I would never say I know how to use a Psy it didn't give me that kind of an education but it gave me just enough where I took that and I put it in Kempo and I was like okay well how would I adapt this to Kempo forms so that's what I based my thesis around was taking one aspect of an art and adapting it to another so that was my experiment and I had a lot of fun doing it and for those of you who actually want to see the full Psy form unfortunately I only recorded one practice session with it I don't have footage of an actual performance I recorded myself doing a walkthrough for my instructor once in the early stage just so I could show him what I was working on so it's the best I have but it is going to be available on our Patreon page remember so you can go check that out it will be up there shortly after this episode releases if it's not up there already but for all of our members who signed up you can see that exclusive behind the scenes look of my Psycata so just to wrap things up the question of can you learn karate from a book the answer is yes you can absolutely learn a lot from a book even instructional and technique stuff but once again and that's the last time I'm going to say it by promise in this video is that you still need live instruction I don't care how many times you read something if you don't have application with a live partner if you don't have live instruction and correction on it you're not going to know it to its full extent but by all means I advocate reading whatever you can because it's just information and if you don't like it you can discard it but you never know what you're going to discover and that's some of the my most favorite moments to train in the martial arts is just when I'm looking around and researching and all of a sudden I get that little nugget that goes huh light bulb flashes and I start to see other patterns that I didn't realize were there so yes I highly recommend seeking out martial arts books and texts and just see what you can learn from them but let's flip the script a little bit instead of trying to use printed material to learn something new why don't you create printed material based on something you already know take a technique or take a series of techniques that you already know sit down and write them out in extreme detail I mean as much as you can remember step by step talk about direction talk about body posture talk about any tension or small nuances that you can think of and write it down imagine that you're going to give this to somebody who's never seen it and they're going to try to learn from it by doing that you're actually accomplishing two things one you're going to help yourself discover patterns and connections that you didn't realize were there it might not happen when you write the first thing down but as you start to write a series of things down you're going to start connecting the dots so you're going to start to see similarities because now it's a whole new perspective it's a whole new way to look at things and in my experience when you change your perspective you see different angles so that's going to be eye-opening and two it's going to help you retain what you've already learned and I'm going to refer back to an experience in high school it was the end of the school year we had final exams coming up and my science teacher said that he was going to allow us to bring in one sheet of notes that we could use on our test and whatever we could write down that we were allowed to bring in but one page so of course I went home the night before and I'm sitting there looking through the book and highlighting the important stuff and in the smallest handwriting I could I squeeze as much information on that piece of paper as I possibly could because I'm like I got to score you know an A on that test next day I go to school open my school bag time for the test and ah I left it at home on my desk I was panicking I'm like I spent all that time writing down this stupid cheat sheet and I forgot to bring it so I was upset until I started taking tests and I realized I knew the answers so the act of me going through the book and highlighting things and writing it down helped me retain it so our teacher tricked us into studying well played Dr. Klein well played so once again a big thank you to Basavoto Septrid for your awesome question this was the topic that we've touched on before but it was good to come back to it and take a look at it on a deeper level because I do think there's a lot of valuable information you can get from books as long as you understand the pros and cons and you know how far that information goes and of course any of you out there if you have any experience from learning from a book or a particular manual I'd love to hear from you please put down in the comments below any advice that you have maybe specific text that you have for certain arts or any warnings that we didn't talk about here and any limitations that you've come across please put your feedback below and as always thank you guys so much for watching please don't forget to join us on Patreon we've got a lot of bonus material up there for members and like I said our Psy we're going to be adding my Psycot to very soon if it's not there already and you know love you guys you guys are great and we'll see you next week