Learning Tai Chi online

[Bruce7]

I agree everyone is right.

I agree with flying crane and other, to truly learn a MA you need a great teacher.
Video will never replace a great teacher.
I also agree it is very hard to learn without any teacher great or not.

I agree with Metaltboar and others, most teachers just show you the physical movements.
So having a teacher is not as big a deal as it once was.

The quality of the video instruction now days is amazing nowadays.
Some of the video is better than instruction in class from average teachers.
I was able to learn and perform Tiger Rocks Progressive form all the way throw red belt on my own
In 2 months from video.I could perform the forms as well as anyone in the school.
I had the advantage of knowing all of the TKD Techniques before learning Tiger Rocks progressive form from previous training.
Of course I was not allow to perform past yellow belt part of form,but that is a different issue.

I would have to strongly agree I don't think I could have learn long fist on line.
I would not stay in a horse stance for half an hour and there would be no one to hit
me with a bo when I did something wrong. There would be no one to make me humble.
There is so much to learn that is not physical movement.

So you can see you are both right.

 

[Bruce7]

IMO Trump should not be brought in this form. He noway represents MA. Please do not insult people by comparisons to Trump.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Just to end this pointless argument. Show me one pro fighter who learn martial arts online and succeed


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And how many here would go to, and stay in a class, if the instructor said he learned everything from a DVD or online

 

[Xue Sheng]

I agree everyone is right.

I agree with flying crane and other, to truly learn a MA you need a great teacher.
Video will never replace a great teacher.
I also agree it is very hard to learn without any teacher great or not.

I agree with Metaltboar and others, most teachers just show you the physical movements.
So having a teacher is not as big a deal as it once was.

The quality of the video instruction now days is amazing nowadays.
Some of the video is better than instruction in class from average teachers.
I was able to learn and perform Tiger Rocks Progressive form all the way throw red belt on my own
In 2 months from video.I could perform the forms as well as anyone in the school.
I had the advantage of knowing all of the TKD Techniques before learning Tiger Rocks progressive form from previous training.
Of course I was not allow to perform past yellow belt part of form,but that is a different issue.

I would have to strongly agree I don't think I could have learn long fist on line.
I would not stay in a horse stance for half an hour and there would be no one to hit
me with a bo when I did something wrong. There would be no one to make me humble.
There is so much to learn that is not physical movement.

So you can see you are both right.

Why Dr Yang, of YMAA was still in Boston, I thought he had a fairly good set up for DVD learning, if you followed it.
He had seminars 2 weeks a year and you could get the DVD (actually VHS tapes back then) and work with that for 6 months, then go to the associated seminars twice a year.

Would it be as good as learning with him in Boston full time? Well no. But it was not to bad and considerably better than just using the tapes to teach yourself with the possible assistance of a friend

 

[Flying Crane]

If you teach a group of students, do your students just mimic you?

No.

 

[Bruce7]

And how many here would go to, and stay in a class, if the instructor said he learned everything from a DVD or online

What I have seen is the teacher shows the student many technique and when the student does it wrong, They just keep going. I asked about it and was told they will learn the right way in time.
The video on the proper way to move from front stance to front stance was better than any TKD schools I have seen so far.

I guess my point is unless you find a really good teacher.
A really good video maybe have better instruction than going to an average school.

 

[Xue Sheng]

What I have seen is the teacher shows the student many technique and when the student does it wrong, They just keep going. I asked about it and was told they will learn the right way in time.
The video on the proper way to move from front stance to front stance was better than any TKD schools I have seen so far.

I guess my point is unless you find a really good teacher.
A really good video maybe have better instruction than going to an average school.

I have known one person and talked with another who were extremely talented. Neither was new to martial arts, both had year of experience in other styles and they are not the norm for most video/distance learners.

The one I knew also had some training in Baguazhang with my first shifu. He decided he wanted to learn from Park Bok-Nam, but he was not near where Park Bok-Nam taught so he got all the videos available of Park Bok-Nam's Pa Kua Chang and trained it. He later had the opportunity to train with Park and was asked who his teacher was, because his Pakua was very good. He said he learned a bit from the teacher he trained bagua with originally, but the rest was from Park's videos.

Talked with another guy who had trained, I believe Yang style, but really liked Chen style, so he got all the DVDs of Chen Zhenglei he could find, and taught himself Chinese. He later decided to travel to China to train with Chen Zhenglei and was told by Chen that his Taijiquan teacher should be proud of him since his taijiquan was so good. This guy did not tell him he had learned all his Chen from Chen Zhenglei videos, he just said Xièxiè. He continued to travel to China to train with Chen Zhenglei after that.

However it should be noted that these were not the norm for video learning. They both were incredibly talented, with a lot of background in martial arts, with great ability to observe and focus and the drive to train over and over until they got it as correct as possible. This is not the norm for most who do this and even though many will think they have that drive, focus, powers of observation, and talent, they don't. In both cases they both trained with these teachers afterwards for awhile. The Chen guy I believe went on to teach Chen with the permission of Chen Zhenglei after training with him awhile. The Bagua guy returned to focus solely on Yang style and was a student of my shifu (he was one of the old war horses I use to train with)

Another thing to take into account here, especially when attempting to learn anything from a DVD (VCD) out of China. These guy occasionally change the form, just a little, in the video. So they are able to look at someone, claiming to be there student, and tell if they trained with them personally, or from their video

 

[Flying Crane]

The other thing that I pointed out earlier and will do so again, is that no matter how high is the quality of the instructional video, it places the onus of correction on the student. The student becomes responsible for identifying and correcting his own mistakes. Outside of the rare exceptions such as @Xue Sheng pointed out, that is simply unreasonable. It takes a fair bit of knowledge and skill and understanding before someone can reliably and consistently self-correct. And the details do matter. That is where the real problems with distance/ video instruction come from.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Good teacher > good video > bad teacher

 

[Flying Crane]

Good video and bad teacher are both bad options.

 

[seasoned]

Tai Chi as with all arts has a physical movement aspect that has to be learned. But, there is the feeling aspect of movement of power, yours and theirs. Also learning to move and feeling their movement which can't be taught but must be felt. It's this feeling aspect that could take years to grasp, but, never from a book or video.

 

[Buka]

I think we all tend to get too one sided or the other concerning learning by video.

I don't believe you can learn Martial Arts by video if you've never trained. But if you're an experienced Martial Artists and you see something on video that grabs your attention, you should be able to tear it apart and pick it up - if it's similar to your experience. A striker isn't going to learn applicable grappling from video alone, and vice versa.

I learned one of my all time favorite chokes from an instructional video I once saw by Renzo Gracie. I remember seeing it for the first time, sitting up tall and thinking "Oh, my, that's sweet." I immediately called a friend, a fellow Martial Artist, and told him about it. He came right over. We rolled around my living room floor for several hours, much to the delight of my dogs, then brought the tape down to the dojo the next day and ran through it with a bunch of people.

I've been doing that choke for twenty years now. (against resisting opponents of course). It's one of my favorite things and I don't even know the proper name for it. (some may find that sacrilegious not knowing it's proper name, but as they say around here, "me no care")

As for Tai Chi, I've done some Tai Chi, done some recently, done some many years ago. I love Tai Chi big time. So......if somebody had a good Tai Chi video, AND gave good verbal instruction in addition to what the video showed.....I'm sure I'd learn something. Maybe not a lot, but something .....but that's because I've actually done Tai-Chi before.

So you can learn......but you really need a good base understanding and experience of the Arts.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think we all tend to get too one sided or the other concerning learning by video.

I don't believe you can learn Martial Arts by video if you've never trained. But if you're an experienced Martial Artists and you see something on video that grabs your attention, you should be able to tear it apart and pick it up - if it's similar to your experience. A striker isn't going to learn applicable grappling from video alone, and vice versa.

I learned one of my all time favorite chokes from an instructional video I once saw by Renzo Gracie. I remember seeing it for the first time, sitting up tall and thinking "Oh, my, that's sweet." I immediately called a friend, a fellow Martial Artist, and told him about it. He came right over. We rolled around my living room floor for several hours, much to the delight of my dogs, then brought the tape down to the dojo the next day and ran through it with a bunch of people.

I've been doing that choke for twenty years now. (against resisting opponents of course). It's one of my favorite things and I don't even know the proper name for it. (some may find that sacrilegious not knowing it's proper name, but as they say around here, "me no care")

As for Tai Chi, I've done some Tai Chi, done some recently, done some many years ago. I love Tai Chi big time. So......if somebody had a good Tai Chi video, AND gave good verbal instruction in addition to what the video showed.....I'm sure I'd learn something. Maybe not a lot, but something .....but that's because I've actually done Tai-Chi before.

So you can learn......but you really need a good base understanding and experience of the Arts.

I absolutely agree with you here. Certainly “things” can be learned from video, and the more experience and knowledge and skill one already has, the more they can learn from video.

We used to pick apart videos of capoeira games, focus in on some interesting combinations and fluid movements that the senior level folks did, and see if we could work it up so we could pull it off in the roda too. But we were already trained and actively training capoeiristas, so we were simply adding to our capoeira-relevant experiences.

But I think the question about video instruction generally comes from the direction of folks who have no training, or very little training, who want to learn a martial art from video. Lacking any basis of knowledge, I say they will learn little and it will be mostly an exercise in frustration.

Can these people still learn “things” from video? Sure. They may pick up some tricks or ideas that they find they can use. But likely these tricks will lack polish and efficiency, and they will never be able to learn a comprehensive martial system in this way.

As I’ve said many times before, it is not difficult to hurt someone. An untrained person with athletic ability and an aggressive personality can be a fearsome fighter. A high level of skill in a sophisticated martial art is not a requirement to be able to fight. Such a person may be able to put such “things” and “tricks” to good use. But again, he has not learned a martial system.

Those rare folks who could actually learn a system via video such as @Xue Sheng described, who already have a deep knowledge and skill, I argue are exactly the people who do not need it. Their skill is such that to collect another system via video is, in my opinion, unnecessary and a waste of time. If they choose to spend their time and energy in this way, that of course is their choice. But I still say they do not need it.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

So you can learn......but you really need a good base understanding and experience of the Arts.

When knuth's MIX assemble language came out (1975 ?), I was a teaching assistant in the UT Austin computer science department. My professor asked me to teach that class. I told him that I didn't know MIX (but I had learned CDC 6600 assemble language). He said, "Nobody in our graduate school know that MIX assemble language. You just have to learn yourself and teach at the same time." In that semester, I learned one chapter and taught one chapter until the whole class was finished.

Not only I could learn from book, I could also learn today and teach it tomorrow.

 

[Buka]

When knuth's MIX assemble language came out (1975 ?), I was a teaching assistant in the UT Austin computer science department. My professor asked me to teach that class. I told him that I didn't know MIX (but I had learned CDC 6600 assemble language). He said, "Nobody in our graduate school know that MIX assemble language. You just have to learn yourself and teach at the same time." In that semester, I learned one chapter and taught one chapter until the whole class was finished.

Not only I could learn from book, I could also learn today and teach it tomorrow.

I wish more people could envision the possibilities of things like this.

And that pretty much describes how I started teaching Martial Arts as a white belt. It was only to other white belts, but still. The people I was teaching all thanked me because they couldn't understand what the hell the Black Belt was trying to teach them.

 

[_Simon_]

I think we all tend to get too one sided or the other concerning learning by video.

I don't believe you can learn Martial Arts by video if you've never trained. But if you're an experienced Martial Artists and you see something on video that grabs your attention, you should be able to tear it apart and pick it up - if it's similar to your experience. A striker isn't going to learn applicable grappling from video alone, and vice versa.

I learned one of my all time favorite chokes from an instructional video I once saw by Renzo Gracie. I remember seeing it for the first time, sitting up tall and thinking "Oh, my, that's sweet." I immediately called a friend, a fellow Martial Artist, and told him about it. He came right over. We rolled around my living room floor for several hours, much to the delight of my dogs, then brought the tape down to the dojo the next day and ran through it with a bunch of people.

I've been doing that choke for twenty years now. (against resisting opponents of course). It's one of my favorite things and I don't even know the proper name for it. (some may find that sacrilegious not knowing it's proper name, but as they say around here, "me no care")

As for Tai Chi, I've done some Tai Chi, done some recently, done some many years ago. I love Tai Chi big time. So......if somebody had a good Tai Chi video, AND gave good verbal instruction in addition to what the video showed.....I'm sure I'd learn something. Maybe not a lot, but something .....but that's because I've actually done Tai-Chi before.

So you can learn......but you really need a good base understanding and experience of the Arts.

Very well said mate , and ah the dogs would have totally loved that haha

 

[Flying Crane]

When knuth's MIX assemble language came out (1975 ?), I was a teaching assistant in the UT Austin computer science department. My professor asked me to teach that class. I told him that I didn't know MIX (but I had learned CDC 6600 assemble language). He said, "Nobody in our graduate school know that MIX assemble language. You just have to learn yourself and teach at the same time." In that semester, I learned one chapter and taught one chapter until the whole class was finished.

Not only I could learn from book, I could also learn today and teach it tomorrow.

Obviously some things can be learned via video or books. Some things can be self-taught with those kinds of materials.

Other things cannot.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Just to end this pointless argument. Show me one pro fighter who learn martial arts online and succeed


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@drop bear didn't you bring up a fighter who mainly learned online in a past argument? This was a while ago so I might be getting posters confused..

 

[drop bear]

@drop bear didn't you bring up a fighter who mainly learned online in a past argument? This was a while ago so I might be getting posters confused..

Anton was basically training himself there for a while.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Just to end this pointless argument. Show me one pro fighter who learn martial arts online and succeed

If you can find a new student who is willing to spend his next 3 years to train this "1 kick, 3 punches" both solo drill and bag work, he will be a good fighter.

MA training is not that complicate. You just have to be able to do 1 thing better than others.