Can you learn from video?

[KPM]

In my opinion....yes!

First, why would so many instructors put out nice instructional DVDs for the general public if they didn't think people could learn from them? Why would people put out youtube videos with detailed explanations if they didn't think people would learn from them?

Second, someone with a good foundation in any martial art should be able to learn something new from video. An absolute newbie that has done nothing martial arts related in the past is likely to have more trouble, but as long as he or she has any physical talent at all they should be able to benefit.

Third, plenty of people have learned that have had limited exposure to the instructor. Maybe they travel or the instructor travels and they received one on one instruction sporadically. Now imagine you had video of those lessons that you could refer back to at will! That is essentially what DVD instruction amounts to.

Granted, nothing beats hands on instruction! At some point the person learning from DVD will have to seek out an instructor for some quality training. But his or her feet should already be firmly on the path compared to someone with no previous exposure at all.

You are not going to learn advanced material very well from a DVD. But most DVDs don't contain the system's advanced material anyway!

If you are already studying a specific martial art, then having instructional DVDs is great to help you remember things and review things multiple times, maybe pick up on things you missed in class, maybe see how a different instructor from your same system explains and does things a little differently, etc.

If you are interested in a specific martial art but don't have an instructor in your area, then DVD can help you decide if this is really what you want to learn prior to traveling some distance to the school you are interested in. But you have to have a partner. Martial arts do not work well when only practiced solo! So grab a friend that is also interested and start working through the instruction on the DVD a little at a time. And have fun! That's the important part!

 

[zuti car]

99% of people will disagree with you .I think , smart people can learn from any source of information . dogs and stupid people need a coach with a stick in order to memorize some movements .

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Can you learn this technique if you have some "basic MA training"? Of course people may argue about the definition of "basic MA training".

 

[zuti car]

It is a technique perforemd by using basic Judo principles , simillar(not the same ) to Uchi Mata or what ever is the name (i have practiced Judo 25 years ago so I forgot) If you know what to look you can see what they are doing

 

[Danny T]

Yes!
and
No!
Depends on what one is attempting to learn and to what level of proficiency one is attempting to get through videos.

Some videos are far better in giving usable information than others. Same with schools and instructors.

 

[yak sao]

Part of the learning process has always been mimicking your teacher, so from that standpoint, video is an exceptional learning tool.
Not getting that much needed correction and feedback from a live instructor though is a big negative to me, and is why I think it's not always a good idea for a person with little to no experience to learn from video.

I use video from time to time by allowing students to video either themselves or me when they're learning something new. I will even send them links of something from youtube that I think would be helpful.

All of this information at our fingertips has given us this false assumption of knowing. I will always be on the side of traditional learning...in other words, from a live teacher; with video being used as a learning tool.

 

[yak sao]

I had posted this on our group's facebook page some time ago on this very subject:


Remember the story of the dog walking across the bridge carrying a bone in his mouth? He stops and looks down at the water and sees his reflection. Only, he thinks it’s another dog with a different bone. So he opens his mouth to take the other dog’s bone, only to lose his bone in the water.
That’s kind of where we are in this crazy information age. We are living in a time where so much information is available at our fingertips that it boggles the mind. And while information can be a good thing, we can’t confuse information with truly knowing and understanding something.
Thanks to the internet, we are now able to view practically every fighting system known to man. The trouble is, there is so much info available to us that it has the potential to not only overwhelm us, it can paralyze us into inaction, or worse, ineffectiveness.

Use exercise as an example. You can’t flip on the TV anymore without someone trying to sell you their latest, greatest way to a great physique. You buy the program and get into it and are doing pretty good with it until you see some infomercial for a “new, improved, better, faster, more scientific way to get into shape” So you quit the one you’re doing and hop on the bandwagon to the next one…and so it goes. All of this information has ungrounded us to the point where we aren’t happy with what we have. The best exercise program becomes the one that we’re not doing, and so, many times we end up not doing anything. We would be better off if we ignored all the cyber-noise and simply walked around the block and did a few calisthenics.
There’s a reason the old masters were so good at what they did….THEY DID IT. They didn’t read about it, they didn’t theorize about it over a keyboard or dream of “if only I could learn__________”. They took what was available to them, stayed the course and became very solid in their skills. True, times were different back then. The world wasn’t a keystroke away. The average person probably lived and died in a 30 mile radius of where they were born. But we can learn from their example. We can devote ourselves to getting very good at a select skill set, or we can delude ourselves into thinking we know something because we saw it on youtube.

As a WT student, don’t fall into the trap of becoming a technique collector, picking up this and that from various sources. If you do this you are taking what was designed to be streamlined and efficient and bogging it down. You are taking a sports car and putting a luggage rack on the top, or worse, pulling a trailer behind it. Don’t become preoccupied with learning a hundred different ways to get out of a lapel grab. Instead, concern yourself with internalizing a select few ways of dealing with a hundred different attacks. What’s the old saying?..…”don’t fear the man who knows a thousand different techniques, fear the man who has performed one technique a thousand times.”
To learn something fully, you have to immerse yourself in it. It has to become a part of you; you have to embody it. You have to experience it. You must spend time, energy, effort, sweat, bumps, bruises and blood. You need to push yourself; Train even when you don’t feel like it. Don’t let a day pass without doing something that takes you a little further down the path. You must take it from the abstract and make it real. You have to get it out of your head and into your body. That is the only way. There is no shortcut.
That’s the difference between knowing about something and actually knowing it.
That’s the difference between theory and pragmatism. That’s the difference between information and true knowledge.

 

[Buka]

Some can, I imagine it would depend on how familiar/experienced one is with the subject being watched. I've been doing it for a long while. There was a time when there wasn't an Internet. There was a time when there wasn't such a thing as a VCR. We used to take an 8mm home movie camera and film the television set, get the film developed (couple weeks) then play it on my buddy's mom's movie projector because it had a slow motion setting.

One time, in 79, we filmed Sugar Ray Leonard's fight against Andy Price on tv, we studied it over and over in slo mo. It taught us a lot. He hit Price with a twelve punch combination up against the ropes and that was that. In 1995 I met Ray in L.A at my instructor's gym and a group of us got to talking. The subject of combos came up and I said, "want to see the combo you hit a guy named Price with back in the day?"
I air punched it for him. He nearly fell over, asking, "how the hell do you know that?" I told him, we became gym friends, trained together and even did some Martial Arts together.

Yeah, you can learn from video.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Yeah, you can learn from video.

Not only you can learn from video, you can learn from just words too. When my teacher told me that he used "inner hook" to take down someone in a challenge match. I asked him how did he set up his "inner hook". He told me, "I kneed him". The next day, I grabbed a partner and demonstrated in front of him the exactly combo move that he had used in that match.

If you understand the goal, when someone just give you a little bit of hint for your path, you should be able to find that correct path and reach to that goal.

 

[futsaowingchun]

In my opinion....yes!

First, why would so many instructors put out nice instructional DVDs for the general public if they didn't think people could learn from them? Why would people put out youtube videos with detailed explanations if they didn't think people would learn from them?

Second, someone with a good foundation in any martial art should be able to learn something new from video. An absolute newbie that has done nothing martial arts related in the past is likely to have more trouble, but as long as he or she has any physical talent at all they should be able to benefit.

Third, plenty of people have learned that have had limited exposure to the instructor. Maybe they travel or the instructor travels and they received one on one instruction sporadically. Now imagine you had video of those lessons that you could refer back to at will! That is essentially what DVD instruction amounts to.

Granted, nothing beats hands on instruction! At some point the person learning from DVD will have to seek out an instructor for some quality training. But his or her feet should already be firmly on the path compared to someone with no previous exposure at all.

You are not going to learn advanced material very well from a DVD. But most DVDs don't contain the system's advanced material anyway!

If you are already studying a specific martial art, then having instructional DVDs is great to help you remember things and review things multiple times, maybe pick up on things you missed in class, maybe see how a different instructor from your same system explains and does things a little differently, etc.

If you are interested in a specific martial art but don't have an instructor in your area, then DVD can help you decide if this is really what you want to learn prior to traveling some distance to the school you are interested in. But you have to have a partner. Martial arts do not work well when only practiced solo! So grab a friend that is also interested and start working through the instruction on the DVD a little at a time. And have fun! That's the important part!

IMO yes anyone can learn something from a GOOD video,but you have to realize have limitations,and you can only learn so much from a video.,Hands on training is the BEST and can never be substituted for the real thing.

 

[tshadowchaser]

learning from a video is possible. The more you know about the subject the easier it is to learn from that video and the more you are able to get from it.
Having said that I will say a good teacher is still the best way to go for there is so much that a viedo may not show and a teacher can tell you things the video will not

 

[Eric_H]

First, why would so many instructors put out nice instructional DVDs for the general public if they didn't think people could learn from them? Why would people put out youtube videos with detailed explanations if they didn't think people would learn from them?

Money and self promotion, pure and simple.

 

[Danny T]

Money and self promotion, pure and simple.

No problem with that; if the instruction is good.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Reviewing video footage/DVD instructionals can help you polish technique. There are aspects that you can always drill alone.

Still though, it goes without saying that you will make more gains with equipment and on-site expert advice to make corrections for you on the spot.

 

[jezr74]

I guess there is a chance you might get poor instruction from a teacher as well. Video is just another tool you can use, very good one imo when used along with your physical instruction.

 

[Buka]

If you're an experienced Martial Artist/fighter/athlete and you're a visual learner, film study should be something in your repertoire.

If it's not, ah, well, Cest' la vie.

 

[Danny T]

If you're an experienced Martial Artist/fighter/athlete and you're a visual learner, film study should be something in your repertoire.

If it's not, ah, well, Cest' la vie.

I have my fighters spend a lot of study time reviewing training, sparring, and fight videos of themselves and of their opponents. Why? Cause they be a learning!!

 

[Eric_H]

I have my fighters spend a lot of study time reviewing training, sparring, and fight videos of themselves and of their opponents. Why? Cause they be a learning!!

Filming yourself and studying it is of great benefit. These days I mostly use it to help fix my weightlifting form. However this is different than the OP about instructional DVDs etc.

 

[Danny T]

Filming yourself and studying it is of great benefit. These days I mostly use it to help fix my weightlifting form. However this is different than the OP about instructional DVDs etc.

True but I also stated I have no problem with video instruction 'if' the instruction is good. I'n not saying that video instruction should be the only form of instruction but it can be an excellent supplement.

 

[KPM]

True but I also stated I have no problem with video instruction 'if' the instruction is good. I'n not saying that video instruction should be the only form of instruction but it can be an excellent supplement.

True Danny. I didn't say it should be the only form of instruction either. ;-)