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Originally Posted by Estarr
I have practiced Hung Gar Kung Fu for 7 years and it has changed my life. Not only has kung fu taught me to fight but also to meditate and how to apply 'mind over matter'. I was mugged a few months back and if it were not for the self defense skills i learned i could be dead right now, you never know. As far as learning martial arts from a website or a book or a movie or instructional video... i dont think its possible. You have to be taught by example and repited practice. There just isnt a shortcut for experience. Thats not to say that any information is useless but if anyone is really interested in martials arts I believe the best thing to do is to join a school that is available to you. No one discipline is better or worse than any other its really all up to the individual.
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I LOVE Hung Gar, especially the 5 animal system portion of it because it makes it so diverse. It was one of the very first arts I studied at length so I have a certain extra fondness for it. It is also a very difficult art and just some of the static stances alone are excruciating for the novice who is not in shape. It is also second generation Shaolin Kung Fu and the Shaolin are in my eyes one of the pinnacles of the martial art experience.
These monks would train all their life from a very young age so that the body can be trained before it started to develop limitations of muscles and tendons that atrophy from lack of use. They use what some would call bazaar methods to strengthen, bones, muscle and even internal organs to withstand punishment and endure some of the techniques they would employ at higher levels that simply cannot be performed until the much of the body has been conditioned sufficiently. A lot of the traditional arts rife with culture and older technique are like this.
I agree with you in that it is better to learn in a school, but it isn’t all that necessary unless you want to excel at the arts and explore the older arts which can take a lifetime to perfect because you continue to condition the body which in turn opens more new doors of attainment. The more the art relies on technique rather than concept, the better off you are in a school. But there is so much you CAN learn on your own, it is still staggering to the novice.
Like you said above it all depends on the individual and what they want out of it, their drive and desire to know, that makes a good fighter, and not the particular art they prescribe to, although each art has only a limited amount of martial observation to give a person IMHO. One should find the art that answers the problems that brought them to learning the arts in the first place. When you take a class these days you are simply paying someone to show you how to stand, punch, and kick etc. and eventually you get the “feel” for it and then you just start observing technique and plugging it in to what you have learned like a cook does with a recipe.