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Learning martial arts online

  
 
Char Aina
02:25 / 09.04.04
i have studied some martial arts before, and have recently been thinking about getting back into it.

can anyone direct me to a good online resource; a site that has the information needed to teach oneself?

primarily i am interested in anywhere i can find out more about tai chi forms*. i would like to study the form with an eye to mastering it. i am not looking for street fighting techniques originating with tai chi. i am also not too interested in any religious learning at this stage. meditation techniques and the like are fine, but i prefer my skills unbound, free from a sense of spiritual duty, if that makes any sense.

i am sure the idea of learning without a sensei seems odd to many folks, and it is.
i assure you i will seek out a teacher at some point in the near future to perfect what i learn (if i do indeed learn anything). i am well aware of the folly of learning incorrect tai chi; a friends master will not let him teach anyone what he has learned for this reason.



so...
anyone have any ideas where? or who?
anyone have any horror stories about online martial arts learning?
anyone wanna flame me for stealing the mysteries of the orient for the white man? without even talking to a mysterious oriental, no less!









*but any resources that are easy to translate from picture/description to reality would be a bonus, no matter which style.
 
 
---
05:01 / 09.04.04
Anyone got anything here? I'm interested in this too. I'll have some online Pakua if anyone can find anything.

No matter what anyone says, it IS possible to learn kung fu from a book/the internet.
 
 
VonKobra,Scuttling&Slithering
08:41 / 09.04.04
DENIM FU: THE WAY OF THE KINKY FIST

Lesson One -

"Devastating Blitzkrieg Defence"


Take a Clawhammer

Stand opposite opponent

Drug opponents beer with 2(two) Rohypnol Tablets

Wait for slur in speech to develop

Punch opponent in face with clawhammer, making a backward motion when finishing, thereby ripping opponents jaw off.

Swivel hips in sexual posturing motion

Steal opponents' Crack Whore

End of Lesson One.
 
 
Potguns
09:55 / 09.04.04
Rohypnol: because she's worth it
 
 
illmatic
13:47 / 09.04.04
No matter what anyone says, it IS possible to learn kung fu from a book/the internet

No it fucking isn't. Sorry Toksik/Zen, I sincerely believe it isn't possible to learn this online, there's too, too much that you can only pick up from a teacher. Fine body alignments and principles, testing with others, just seeing up close how these moves are expressed through the bodies of others - there are small subtle principles and movements that it's taken weeeks to unfold to me, even with a really good teacher. Get that into the head - even with one on one tuiton, it has still taken me weeks and weeks to understand exactly what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing. I have never, ever come across a written resource on martial arts that manages to convey a fraction of the learning that you undergo in the dojo. I think this is especially true of the internal arts such as Hsing I, Ba Gua and Tai Chi, which are all about generating power through these kind of subtle movements.

My Hsing I teacher is actually teaching us this because the moves are a lot simply than in the other internal arts, so that we get an understanding of the internal principles easily without getting lost as can easily happen in the more complex forms. He also runs a Ba Gua class on another night, which is actually refered to by the other more experienced students who attend as "mindfuck" night. These are people with a lot of experience and ability, and Ba Gua in the flesh is still completely twisting their heads up. How you hope to replicate this kind of learning experience through pissing around with a few webpages is beyond me. It's like substituting internet porn for a girlfriend.
 
 
Char Aina
14:17 / 09.04.04
thanks, but no. it isnt.
its a lot closer to using internet porn to find out what it is you are supposed to do in bed before you go to your girlfriend.
all i want to learn is the form of tai chi; and then i will take what i have learned and expand on it, with tutelage.

i am aware of the many benefits to personal tuition, and i am well aware that i will be doing learning lite.

i studied martial arts for years, and if it were possible to find a good reliable teacher i would. this is a stop gap solution, and i am confident it will work as that.

i learned yoga the same way to start with, and then went to classes.(technically i had a book first... but the net was useful)


i dont need the lecture, basically. i know what the limits of onlline learning are.
 
 
Char Aina
14:19 / 09.04.04
oh, and if you are going to tell me i absolutely need a teacher, can you recommend one in glasgow?
 
 
illmatic
14:36 / 09.04.04
That was more aimed at Zen than you Toksik. The bit I quoted struck me as more like what he wants to believe than anything that's actually true. Your first post shows you're aware of the limitations. I still stand by what I said though because the thing is, it's not just the form, it's all the kind of little weird open and closings of joints, your back, alignments etc that your do as you do the form. Out of the Tai Chi stuff I've read - not a great deal admitedly - I've never seen anything that addressed these points.

I'd concede that reading a run through of the form and knowledge of the different movements and the intent behind them might help you learn quicker. I would think that if anything it'd get so bloody frustrating you'd rush out to classes.

I can't recommend anyone up there, so I'd say get in touch with the British Tai Chi association and see who they recommed. I pulled out an article of the paper with their details in last week. I'll stick it up when I get the chance.
 
 
illmatic
14:38 / 09.04.04
Having said all that I would be interested to read any links etc if you do turn owt up. Let me know.
 
 
remorse
19:24 / 09.04.04
Aikido FAQ

This is an excellent site for information on Aikido and other Aiki based arts. It is very easy to navigate and there is some extensive info that goes on and on. I'm sure you can find some links to other martial art styles as well in there.

I agree with Ill that there is absolutley no substitute for an instructor when it comes to learning this kind of thing. By all means fill your head with as much knowledge as you can from books and websites, but then take that into the class with you.

I learned all about the etiquette of the dojo and weapons etc. from books and the web beforehand, and was basically well prepared when actually taking the class hands on, so I think there is a definite benefit to reading about the arts and learning from studying.

If you happen to not have any great dojo or instructors around your area, why you could always just 'create' your very own style of martial art. Who would know you weren't doing it wrong? The first person to challenge and defeat you...well, there's your new instructor!
 
 
---
22:11 / 09.04.04
Well i still think it's possible to an extent. I've only had three Chuang-Fa lessons myself but i think that there's a way of combining magick, visualizing your opponent, meditation, and chi-kung to actually get somewhere in the art.

Maybe i'm wrong, but believe it can be done. Wong Kiew Kit says in The Art Of Shaolin Kung Fu :

"But more important than the method is the teacher. Nowadays one can read up on many Kung Fu training methods from books, but without the personal instruction of a competent teacher it is difficult - though not impossible - to get good results, especially in the more advanced, inner arts.


I think you can do force training definately, i had problems visualizing for technique but if someone had a good head for it and had very good reactions, practised a lot and had a BIG amount of luck on their side, they can learn skills. I've learnt how to apply force better with a book by combining chi-kung, techinique practise and magick but i got stuck when it came to visualizing and couldn't apply the technique, just combine it with other things to learn force. (the magick obsessive having problems visualizing, that really was irritating.)

In my second week at Chuang-Fa we where doing kicking form and my teacher laughed at me and said something like "You must of read that book a lot" or something like that, what he probably meant was that even though i didn't know Kung-Fu i had learnt something in the technique area by practising on and off for a year with a book. I don't think it's possible for 98-99% to learn enough kung-fu from a book, (me included) but in freak cases i think it can be done.

Maybe if you had a freindly Kung-Fu spirit that was evoked when you visualized your opponent or something, or you'd been good at Kung-Fu in your previous life(!), there's a lot of ways in which i think it could happen, but i can understand that it's hard to concieve of this, and after starting lessons i can see a lot more how it would be almost impossible, almost.
 
 
---
22:13 / 09.04.04
After trying this myself (net learning) i'd just like to add that video clips of teachers practising force/form, people sparring, are probably your best friend.
 
 
netbanshee
23:53 / 09.04.04
Video would probably be a good reference as it shows you some of what is going on. Just thinking how nice it would be to examine my master's movements in my off-time. But this, of course, means I know what I'm looking for.

My experience has shown that it is possible to learn something from studying books and articles on specifics, but it only makes sense when it can be tested, reinforced and applied. All form starts from mimicry, then feeling and internalizing the movement, then branching out from it. Then of course, the process starts all over again, infinitely.

It'd be good to have a decent sized mirror and a work-out partner in practice. Seeing how a movement works as well as the stance you draw it from is pretty important too. Remember, the entire body is the strike, block, etc. Being able to place the movement to the correct area of the body is crucial too.

Well... there's way too much to cover. But I'll give one piece of advice. Look at basics and stick with them. Avoid the fancy and keep using the building blocks until they are beyond mind-numbing. Then go to a school.
 
 
---
00:57 / 10.04.04
Yeah the only way i've begun to understand it better is by starting classes, but i was thinking of the way out chances that some people will have an innate skill for self-defense/kung-fu and could learn it from a book by using intuition aswell, or magick or whatever.
 
 
Char Aina
02:44 / 10.04.04
Maybe if you had a freindly Kung-Fu spirit that was evoked when you visualized your opponent or something, or you'd been good at Kung-Fu in your previous life(!), there's a lot of ways in which i think it could happen, but i can understand that it's hard to concieve of this, and after starting lessons i can see a lot more how it would be almost impossible, almost.

well, i was good at kung fu earlier in this life, does that count?

right...
if this is being directed at me(and i assume it is), i should maybe clear something up.
the point of this is not to master tai chi. all i want is to familiarise myself with the forms of tai chi, the most elemental piece of the taichichuan puzzle. i am confident that my studies to date will help me with mastering these simple movements so that i may build on them, probably in the presence of a teacher.
the impetus for retreading the martial path was a friend of mine asking if i would train with him. the request was conditional on me regaining my fitness, andi have decided i should learn something new while i work out. it will take me a few months for my strength to back to anything like it was, and i was going to fill the time with some learning. the idea was to give me focus, i guess.

maitreya i would say that if (and here comes that assumption engine again) you have not studied martial arts in a setting you would consider disciplined, you are going to have trouble picking them up from pictures and the like.
i will probably find that vid clips are my best bet, but as you can no doubt guess, they are not all of a high quality. this thread was my last ditch attempt, having googled like crazy, to find a reliable source for such a resource.
i was hoping that someone more experienced would step in, able to discern whether the fu being kung'ed was kosher with a higher degree of skill than myself. i can tell the really shite sites, but i am lost in the mediocre to good.
this is partly why the online resources are so limited in their usefulness; you need to have some skills and knowledge to know if they are telling you lies.


on a tangent...
why is it that the martial arts dont get a look in on this site? ostensibly the child(perhaps spawn is more apt) of the invisibles mythos, it would seem a glaring barb'omission.
we have no real physical aspect to barbelith. is that because we are all the kind of kids who skived PE class to play guitar/do our hair? would a sports forum be of any use? The Arena?
 
 
*
03:32 / 10.04.04
I'm sort of with Ill on this one. I did a little tai chi chuan (that is to say, five years of it) and most of it was sifu moving my hand a little to the left every single time I took a particular position, etc. I also did some iron body, and if sifu hadn't corrected my posture with infuriating and painful frequency in the beginning I probably would have given myself a severe cardiac condition. One of the upper-level students casually tossed off once as I was learning a chi kung posture, "Do this with your spine instead of that. If you don't, and you start shitting blood, don't say I didn't warn you." I checked with sifu later, and he told me that student was speaking from experience.

The point being that although it's rare, you can fuck yourself up rather badly with internal arts. Now, having a certain body and energy awareness helps with this, but it still won't necessarily tell you what you're doing wrong.

Of course, that said, nothing wrong with looking up the resources and trying things out. At least with your level of understand of yourself and your body and some idea what you can do to yourself, you'll recognize the warning signs. You may not be able to fix your posture or movement or energy based solely on those warning signs (that's rather like finding a needle in Camden with a few vague "hot or cold" clues), but you'll keep from doing permanent damage to yourself in all likelihood.
 
 
---
05:31 / 10.04.04
well, i was good at kung fu earlier in this life, does that count?

Obviously, sorry toksik that was meant for Illmatic so he could get a better idea of where i was coming from.

maitreya i would say that if (and here comes that assumption engine again) you have not studied martial arts in a setting you would consider disciplined, you are going to have trouble picking them up from pictures and the like.

Yeah i agree again, i've been having a lot magick stuff going on in the last few days (diary filling rapidly) and i was imagining a magickally gifted person picking the art up i guess. (magick on the brain and all) Sorry again, i'm in no way trying to imply that because i believe it's possible that things could be learnt without a teacher that i actually know kung-fu well myself, because i don't.

this thread was my last ditch attempt, having googled like crazy, to find a reliable source for such a resource.

Yep, i've been there too. I found a Pakua site that had vid clips and i didn't write the damn URL down, i never found it again.

*groans at loss*

i was hoping that someone more experienced would step in, able to discern whether the fu being kung'ed was kosher with a higher degree of skill than myself.

That would be cool and i was hoping for that too, someone who was good at kung-fu and also who'd spent a lot of time searching for sites on the net.

we have no real physical aspect to barbelith. is that because we are all the kind of kids who skived PE class to play guitar/do our hair? would a sports forum be of any use? The Arena?

Good idea, i remember skiving rugby often because i was a little wimp and hated the thought of getting covered in wet mud just to learn something that i hated. In a sports forum we could make threads for each art and post links to all the good sites we'd found, that would be amazing. Oh and Arena sounds perfect too, nice call!
 
 
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05:38 / 10.04.04
Yeah that's what i was implying in my first post here, i remember now. I believe that anyone who could actually learn kung-fu well from books etc, would have to be magickally guided, i had magick on the brain, and i still do now, i'm off to magick to look for magickal martial arts threads, sorry for any threadrot toksik.
 
 
---
06:17 / 10.04.04
I just found this in the Temple in one of the magickal martial arts threads, hope it helps :

Yang Style Long Form
 
 
illmatic
12:04 / 10.04.04
most of it was sifu moving my hand a little to the left every single time I took a particular position

That's exactly what I was thinking of when I was writing the above. Just that "no, drop your shoulder, stop leaning, move from you hips" kind of advice> At first I found I had not a fucking clue what I was expected to do, and over the course of a couple of weeks you get corrected, puzzle things out, and then - bang - you've got ten times more power than before. You're not gonna get this online. Incidentially, this is why it's worth learning the combat applications as well if you get the chance, not so you can beat people up, but because the testing and pressure gives a different type of quality and depth to the movement. Understanding and feeling that this move is designed to trap a limb or strike or lift someones weight form the floor really brings it alive. But all this depends on your teacher obviously and what they choos to emphasis.
 
 
Char Aina
16:42 / 10.04.04
yeah, that was the problem.
i'm unwilling to put myself in the hands of a less than talented teacher when i could do the same amount of damage to myself for free. if i could find a class i could belive in, that would be different.
 
 
grant
23:54 / 11.04.04
For what it's worth, that Gilman Studio site has the best images of the Yang style long form that I've seen, and I've got a couple books on it. The big advantage is that he shows the move, then shows the martial application, so you kind of know how it should go, what the inside should be doing at the same time.

But doing it on your own sounds like it'd be slow and hard. Good way to really learn it, if you know what it feels like to be centered and can work on maintaining that feeling throughout each motion.
 
 
Lord Morgue
07:02 / 12.04.04
http://www.taijiworld.com/download/Free_books.htm
Some good articles and PDF files on Tai Chi and it's combat applications here. I recommend the "How To Use Taiji For Fighting", "Reflex Violence Book" and "Dim Mak Point Location Book" files.
Also, Ashida Kim is giving away his basic training manual at http://ashidakim.com/stb.html
Good section on Kujikiri- the ninjitsu school of ritual magic. The "Time Control" sigil technique makes for some interesting comparisons with the old Veritas lentation PDF manual, if you have a copy. I think the Veritas guys pulled it down, as the technique (controlled adrenalin burst) was causing heart problems in users.
 
 
illmatic
06:22 / 13.04.04
Links at last:

Tai Chi Union which is the largest body of Tai Chi practioners in the UK. They're based in Glasgow so they should be able to help you mate.

Also, you might want to check out The British Council for Chinese Martial Arts

They give a couple of practical tips for seeking instruction ie. ask if you can see a class, don't pay upfront, any decent teacher should be able to tell you with whom they trained and for how long etc. Tellingly, they also state "do not attempt ot learn Tai Chi from a book or video".

Some other links which I haven't checked out:

www.taichichuan.co.uk

www.taiji.co.uk
 
  
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