can u self teach martial arts or boxing from vidios with no oponents ?

I wouldn't say you can't but it will be much harder. I think most people seem to forget that which ever was the first martial art, the person made up attacks and kicks by them self with no teacher and most likely nothing but a sack of rice or a tree to practice against. And that stuff probably took atleast in the same amount of time that it takes for someone to reach a black belt they probably had just finished coming up with the moves and then they had to take more years to train it to be effective. I think watching videos you can accomplish this in a much shorter time but it's still going to be hard.

Self teaching has never ever worked for anything, never mind something as exacting and precise as a martial art. I do shotokan, and have for many years, so tell me please what do you teach yourself first to learn shotokan? Which kata do you do, and what do those movements mean anyway? You are lost before you begin. Learning to make a fist and hit at somebody is NOT martial art. You can watch videos a lot, and become very good at watching videos, but you can't learn anything even resembling martial art. I have trained several of these 'video warriors' and self made wonders, and they come with so many serious bad habits, stubbornly resisting change because they have trained this mistake repeatedly. From my observation, if you self-train one year, it will take you one year longer to get your first BB. Inversely proportional, train yourself for 3 years, and you need 3 extra years to shodan. Self train over 3 years, and you become nearly hopeless, hire a bodyguard.

I have seen some very good videos and such but not everyone can learn things maybe as well as they should or could this way. They certainly can't learn them in general also as if they were enrolled in a class, gym, or school with a good instructor or coach. So the one does not substitute for the other very well really.

If you want to learn about some aspects of things I see nothing wrong with it but realize that its not the same as learning under the guidance of a good instructor or coach and having them there with you to correct or tweak what you are doing.

Beyond this there are other aspects like timing, touch, control, to name just a few, that you can not learn without the aid of training partners or from a video.

The live class should be your first priority. You need a teacher and sparring partners.

At the very least you need a sparring partner to get an idea of how the techniques should probably work. Otherwise martial arts tutorial videos have all the value of something like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoK45egKq0w

Self teaching is just plain impossible. One goal of martial arts training is to help students gain self confidence. Relax and be patient.

Native Pryder - you're wrong.

These people did not just randomly put attacks and kicks together.

If you do not know what you are talking about, do not answer any questions here. When you do, you mislead people.