Can you learn marital arts from a book?

There are of course some things a person can learn from reading a book or watching a video. Not everyone does well with that type of learning though and instead needs the attention and hands on approach under the watchful and educated eye of a good instructor. It also is not the best or ideal way to learn things either and there are many aspects within martial and fighting arts that a book or video can not really teach you very well at all. Some aspects are best learned and practiced with training and sparring partners under the eyes of a good coach or instructor instead.

How fast or slow or how hard to apply something or little adjustments that you might need to make based on the situation or your adversaries size, weight, and strength are examples of things that are best learned and developed through being coached and while working out with a variety of opponents or training partners. Books and videos are really not adequate for teaching those types of things really.

Well you might as well also bring up those who study the Korean version of HEMA, a book called Muye Dobo Tonji.

The HEMA guys (and the Koreans studying the MDT) should make no bones about having learned anything - only learned "about".

And for those HEMA folks who look you in the eye and say "I learned it", I ask them: how do they know what they learned is the real deal and is authentic, and that what you learned is accurately taken from the books? There are too few books, and the result is no different than how they made dinosaurs from lizards in the movie Jurassic Park: critical mistakes and assumptions were made with disastrous results there. It remains to be seen how (in real life) we might bring back the Wooly Mammoth based on the same science as in the movie. The bottom line, some facts were assumed by interpolation of other facts - and it can be no different than learning a martial art from a book (and in HEMA's cases, from very scarce books).

There is so much missing that interpolation of techniques is the inevitable result. It cannot be said that one has "learned" the art - only "learned about". And in the case of those who interjected their interpolations, they invented something completely new. Is it any different than someone who changes a kata/poomsae/form - in the slightest - and tries to call it the original form? No - it's something else.

There are many who try to read their way into an art (a thing which requires discipline), such as cooking, music, biology, martial arts... and the results are disastrous. For history, there is no choice, and we should applaud those who try to piece together what they read - as in HEMA and MDT - but the fact is, they haven't learned the style. They may have learned many things along the way, but they haven't learned the style. The missing pieces necessarily make learning the style a holy grail.

Yes, you can learn from a book. Just keep in mind that a painting can have many different meanings to people. That is to say even if you learn from the same book as anyone you'll get something different.

For all I know the way how I use zornhau totally differ from how "they" do it accordingly to their treatise/manuals. My way is faster, it's easier-greater for someone of my build. They call it unorthodox, I call them stubborn.

But they just like kendoka or fencers, they have a place to practice and train. If you aren't able to work on your tactical wheel and muscle memory in bouts, like them, you won't grow. A book can only get you so far but you need to train the physical aspect of an art as well.

You can learn from a book there is no question about it, see school. Could you use them or apply them properly and train correctly, that is another thing. you know what they say all theory but no practice... no good.

Martial arts are a group of techniques developed and fine tuned by practice therefore if you really want to learn, you should practice with someone that knows the applied techniques. (this guy is called instructor)

You can learn about martial arts from a book. You can learn theory from a book. But you need a class and instructor to actually learn martial arts. There has to be application as well as the theory.

I would not break it to the HEMA people. If they ask I will give them the truth. If they don't it is not of my concern really. They can do as they please. They are already doing as the please. Also HEMA aren't really learning martial arts. They are just doing historical references as far as I know. They are not teaching other to use this in self defense.

Of course not. It doesn't even make sense, when you think about it. Martial arts is, by nature, a physical endeavor. Could you imagine anyone claiming to have learned to play baseball, for instance, simply by reading?

No, and the HEMA guys are not learning from a book. Most of them had training in either western fencing or Japanese kendo and koryu.

I am going to say yes, yes you can learn martial arts from a book but ill be honest u wont learn it as well as you would in a dojo.

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it's way better to just go to gym with valid instructors

No you can't. you need to go to class and preferably have live sparring.