Do you think you can learn from books/videos?
Im a believer in them IF you have had some formal training in the past. I just read and spar and its working for me. The critics also say you cant learn "difficult" arts from books/videos. Yes you can, it takes just as much dedication to read or watch that video and "mimic" what you see, because you are basically mimicing what the instructor is doing at a dojo anyway. Wing Chun, if you want to traditionally chi sao, you almost have to have a WC student. I do a mod. version of chi sao. You have to touch just as in the traditional, but any technique is ok to use. We use full out spar gear with the JKD open finger gloves. So i guess it more like in fighting sparring than chi sao, but trapping is still used often (atleast by me).
So people say i cant call myself a martial artist because i havent had "real training" in a number of years. To those people i say..............fine im a Martialist then.