Teach myself martial arts?

If you plan on being very successful in martial arts you may want to try something other than teaching yourself. It is not a good idea. I know it started from somewhere. Somebody had to come up with the initial ideas. I have always wanted to learn how to fly a plane. If I read a few books and studied hundred of video would you buy a ticket to fly on the plane with me? I don't think so.

There are many women in martial arts. You may have to wait until you have moved out of your parents house if you can't convince them to alow you to learn martial arts. I don't know your parent, but maybe they have other reasons why they don't allow you to train.

I can't believe you can't find a decent karate school nearby. While Kung-fu might be harder to find there is a fair amount of it throughout the New England area some of which is pretty decent. I would suggest you check the yellow pages and on-line and see what you can find and look a little deeper. As for teaching yourself martial arts I would not recommend that and especially combining two arts so different as karate and Kung-fu. Teaching yourself martial arts without having any prior experience or background in martial arts is like teaching yourself golf or some other technique intensive thing. You will not learn or be able to do things as well as if you had formal instruction. Even a mediocre school and instructor would be better than no school or instructor at all for most people with no prior experience.

My heart goes out to you. I'm sorry your parents feel that way. A girl needs self defense more today than ever. I do not think you can teach yourself. There is no really good way to learn on your own. Keep yourself fit by working out. a fit person is better able to defend themselves than one who is not. When you are a bit older you can find a school and you will not need parental permission. I don't understand the girl thing with your parents. We have about one third of our students girls. It doesn't make you less feminine to learn martial arts. Perhaps you could talk your parents into letting you take a self defense class that is just for women. Our school does these for college girls here in Delaware.It is free and part of our commitment to community service. Look for a similar offer where you live. Check the local Martial Arts schools.

I've read Miyamoto Musashi's "Book of Five Rings" that training by yourself is going to be extremely hard and there is no guarantee of success. There may be people who get stronger/better even by training alone but those are the special ones (who knows? You might be one of them. But it's still requires hard work).

Now, you said that you've been having trouble in finding the style of martial arts that will fit for you. In my Kung Fu class, Sifu Mike talks about using your physical attributes in fighting. If you're tall and thin, then it's probably a good a idea to be kicker. If you're short and bulky, then you might want to be a close range fighter (Judo, goju-ryu, etc.) However, choosing the type of fighting style that you enjoy the most is the best thing to do.

So your parents don't like you to do martial arts, huh? There are some crazy ways to practice martial arts without them knowing. Wake up early in the morning and practice at your backyard, school track, park, etc. Or when they're not around, do some basic punches, blocks and kicks.

You have a very limited space to practice? that's not a huge problem (I think). Like what I said earlier, wake up really early in the morning and go to the park, school track/field, park, or anywhere close to your place. If you don't want anybody watching you, then practice really early. You can use your mom or dad's garage when they're not at home (tha'ts what I've been doing.hehe ^_^).

Here's another tip: While watching tv, do some stretching exercises. Stretch every part of your body, especially your legs.

Finding a dojo (you have to carefully choose though) is still the best way to learn. Even though you're one of those few talented people who can teach themselves, it's still a big gamble. Try to persuade your parents that martial arts isn't just for boys. In fact you've got a heavier reason to do martial arts because you're a girl. You need it to protect yourself.

Go to youtube and check this guy out: Choson ninja. Contact him if you can. He might help you.

I wish you luck in your quest. God bless. ^_^ 13thsentinel

With all the sincerity of my response, training via online, videos, or books without proper instruction and guidance from a qualified martial arts instructor are rarely a path one chose if they want to succeed and progressed as a serious and decicated martial artist.

Self-training using video, internet and books cannot turn you into a good or an effective martial arts practitioner. Many can argue that Bruce Lee did it, but how many had forgotten that Bruce Lee had a solid martial arts background before he ventured on to create Jeet Kune Do.

Another detrimental result by training online , videos, or books is that this method teaching medium cannot correct or give you advices either you're doing things right or even wrong. Training martial arts without proper instructions and supervision can also cause minor or even serious injury.

Learning martial online, videos, or books can be best described having a online, videos, or books romance. You don't quite get the real thing !

You might think that you may have discovered the ultimate and cheaper way of training in the martial arts, but when reality strikes, the facade and sloppiness of your "self-training" will show. The worst that can happen also is having a false sense of security.

A majority of self-taught, pseudo blackbelts, MMA poseurs and other fraudulent wanna-be martial arts "practitioners" are one of the main reasons why the general public looks down on the martial arts and its practitioners. Many of the long time legitimate practitioners of the martial arts regardless of styles finds this awfully frustrating and horrendous , when we spent half of our life trying to live up to the highest standard and virtues of our beloved art.

For long time practitioners of the martial arts , video training or other forms of training such as DVD's and the internet are just another "tool" in our "toolbox"

I know what everyone's gonna say, "Get a teacher", and although I know it's not that answer your looking for, it might be right. I was in your shoes, my parents didn't think I should join because I'm a girl. Then i told them about how it would be extremly helpfull for a girl to know self defence, expecially if you live in a big city. They thought about it, and about the other things martial arts teach you and they finally let me join. I'm sorry, but it is extremly hard to learn martial arts on your own. Most martial arts with grappling need partners to practice with, and a lot of others needs a large amount of space to practice in.

Let me ask this, could you learn to perform surgery well from a book or video? It is the same thing with martial arts. Without learning correctly all it will do is give you a false sense of security. I honestly don't know if this is a serious question or not "Bob", funny name for a 17 year old female.

Anyway you will soon be 18 and can make your own decision.

What the others are saying about the difficulty of learning without an instructor correcting you is true.

However it appears you have no choice, which I suspect is caused by a cultural problem in your community disadvantaging girls.

I would recommend youtube . The stuff you learn will in some cases be incorrect for a purist, but in your situation it doesn't matter.

With this last statement in mind. Do a youtube search with "taekwondo basics "Have a look at the taekwondo basic lessons at the bottom half of the second page. (answers will not allow me to post the link for some reason)

They are a bit dark, and as I am not an exponent of taekwondo, I can't vouch for them, but they look ok to me for a person in your situation. Good luck.

You can't teach yourself martial arts. You need a teacher to show you the stances. You need a Sensei to watch you move in stance thousands of times. Stance is important for ballance. You need to spar other people thousands of matches so you can develop timing. Martial arts styles are base on the laws of physics. You also need someone to motivate you.

this is a tough one. you can't teach yourself something you yourself don't know. there are lots of vids on youtube and other sites but without the feedback and instruction of a skilled martial artist you really have your work cut out for you.

my advice is the following:

exercise, stretch especially

find a partner who knows something about the arts

ignore movies

stay basic.....stepping and stances, 4 basic kicks, punches and blocks. basic forms are all over the net.

grappling is almost out of the question without a partner but many of the seemingly decorative movements in kung fu and hapkido forms are meant to replicate grappling.