How many people on the Martial arts forum have learned Martial arts from a dvd, book, or internet source?

I learned from my teachers for many years. I believe that if you have a good solid foundation that you could learn from video. I learned the second Naihanchin from video. The first one I learned from a friend. Learning from videos is difficult because people who do them leave out too much important detail. It's either because they don't know, in which case they should not be making any videos or teaching, or they just don't care and only want to benefit financially, regardless of quality. I can learn a whole system from a video correctly because I know what things I have to look out for. And when I think that I have it well enough, I would want to visit the person on the video for correction. Maybe even to test. No other person can improve on what my two main Teachers taught me. Their instruction is the pinnacle of my training and the reason for my understanding. And because of their level of mastery, I can learn any martial art and decipher their techniques. I can see techniques in arts I never trained in and find applications to them. I have learned a couple of things from books but they are too vague to really learn from so I don't use them for that purpose.

First of all, I LOVE possum's answer. Anyway, I started training in a typical aikido dojo, and only after several months of practice did I start looking at books (such as Oscar Ratti's "Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere - I guess you'd be hard pressed to find a longtime aikidoka who hasn't read this one). Even then I mostly read about techniques and principles that I'm already practicing at the dojo, and if there's any benefit I've gained it's that I can see the same technique explained by somebody who's essentially a senior instructor, who might point out things in a different way or emphasize different parts of a technique. Plus, I usually put into practice what I've read in books or watched on instructional DVDs in the dojo - not on my own with a friend in my backyard. EDIT: One thing that I think everybody should remember is that more often than not, people tend to see only the "Yes, you can learn from books/videos" part, and ignore the "if you already have a background in MA" part. I don't doubt that suplemental material can be of great help to a martial artist's progress, including early on. But please be careful of what you suggest to other people.

Many have. These people are not to be taken seriously and are not true martial artists. However, many already experienced martial artists read books for supplements which is fine because they generally know what is going on in terms of the bare basics.

I've read books and watched videos for references and information but never to learn a martial art, just learn about one. There have been things that I've read and tried for fun such as certain forms from Chang Quan. Me and a friend also had quite a bit of fun trying out some techniques from an old book on Asayama Ichiden Ryu. I've always had a teacher and I've never been reserved about asking for any input on outside material. Never have i thought I could improve from a DVD or book. The internet is a very risky place for authentic information so I avoid a lot of sites until I can find any connection to believe what they're saying.

I'm against the popular opinion that you can't learn anything from a book/dvd. It's almost impossible to learn a whole style from a book or dvd, but it is very reasonable to be able to learn a move or two without too much trouble if you already have a background in MA. If you do not have any experience in MA it's hard to tell if you are doing something correctly, and even though you feel that you understand the techniques you might not. Same goes for the experience MAist learning from a media, but there's a better chance that they will get it than not. It also depends on their MA experience too. If you done BJJ and try to learn a jab from a tape, there is a good chance you might not get it 100% correct. Same goes for Karateka trying to learn Wrestling. But if Wrestler wanted to learn BJJ, there is good chance that they will understand the techniques right away. This is because the techniques are so similar to the original style. But with proper background and a training partner I think a wrestler could easily understand the basic BJJ and posssibly advanced BJJ from a media source. A Wrestler understanding Wing Chun through a media might not work out so well, but I think the basics could be understood to a certain effect. (Please note that I'm mixing the styles around, but I'm not talking about specific styles. It's more about the similiarity in between the styles.) Lastly, they say a beginner can't learn from a media. I kind of agree. I think getting everything correct through a media source is almost impossible for a beginner. However if you have multiple media sources from different people teaching in different ways and spend a lot of time testing and retesting the techniques for a long period of time, I think it's possible that that person will be able to understand those techniques very well. But it will be a long process. I would aim for 4 years just to get the basics mostly correct as if they have been taught by a teacher. After understanding the basics it will be a faster learning process, but they might still have a glitch that always show up because they haven't been properly taught. Like maybe they drop the right a little before throwing a cross, because they have never been corrected and it really can't be seen in the mirror. And then that might be carried into your right hook, uppercut, and all right handed technique. That's a fatal mistake that always gives away your power shots.

I once tried to learn Tai Chi from a book. It took me a week of clumsy practice before I threw the book away and decided to enroll in a weight lifting gym instead. On the other hand, I've read Bruce Lee's "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do" after I started my first formal training in martial arts and it definitely helped supplement my training. The same thing with reading "Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere" by Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti when I took up Aikido much later.

You can't learn martial arts from dvds, books or the internet. Their sole use is as a resource material. I research stuff I've already learned, or studied and gain inspiration from reading this stuff, new training methods etc, but they should only be used in conjunction with proper teaching methods. I've seen guys trained in an art such as shotokan karate try to teach kali because they saw a dvd on it. It was quite amusing to see....

I learned a lot starting off from base zero form Target Focus Training's DVDs. Other people's DVDs seemed to require some more experience and knowledge to put to use. I learn from what you call traditional sources as well. At the beginning, I didn't know much about the martial arts world, however. I've begun to notice, though, that I simply spend more time analyzing certain things than other people. Whether you can call that talent or not, it goes without saying that some people can observe and analyze and produce conclusions based upon data A while other people can't observe and analyze data A to produce accurate conclusions no matter how hard they try. When I see or experience something, I always search for the fundamental keystone, the inductive logical assumption that underlies everything else. If A, then B, then C through Z. If I can find A, I can extrapolate all the way to Z. Trying to copy and learn techniques is like trying to use deductive logic. You are given B, C, and Z, and now you have to form a keystone with it and discover A. How are you going to do that without knowing the original progress of A to Z? The way science does it, is through experimentation. But often scientific experiments are "blind". If they knew what they were looking for, it would be a lot quicker and more efficient. I see it as a way to acquire the perspective of those with decades in martial arts, but applying it to the mind and body of beginners. But, it didn't turn out that way, because nobody at the beginner level thought like I did at the time. That I've found at least. If they did think like that, they would soon become experienced in something. While I believe other people would be able to see the commonalities in H2H training if they had only started from the position I was given, I continue to see a certain lack of connecting the dots amongst practitioners. It is not that they lack training or skill, it just seems like they have never tried to think outside the box and connect otherwise unrelated dots (data points). I've witnessed enough instances of this that I've begun to think that my own perspective is actually unique and not common. Just to give a few examples, whenever i look at throws, strikes, and joint locks, I see the same thing: striking. It's just the same exact thing applied in different contexts and using different methods. When I see something like this written: taijiquan uses “continuing momentum” – converting your expanded movement into a retraction, or converting your retracted movement into an expansion, much like a trampoline uses its spring; baguazhang uses “spiralling momentum” – redirecting your expanded or contracted movement into a spiral or coil; xingyiquan uses “falling momentum” – using gravity to refuel your expanded or retracted movement. I'm thinking... but those are pretty much all similar to the exact same components in striking, penetration and rotation. What's so different about it that one needs to call it "falling momentum" just because it applies to the legs not the hands?

Jas Key's answer was excellent. I have been training in martial arts for 17 years and started making use of videos fairly early on. My ability to gain new knowledge from videos has been directly proportional to my prior knowledge base in the area that the video covered. By watching good quality, targeted instructional videos and then practicing what was in them, I have been able to top-up my skill set and fix holes in my game. Watching a LOT of videos has exposed me to ideas, concepts, and domains which I was previously unfamiliar with, but I was not often able to develop any real skill in those areas unless I had a live instructor who was familiar with that area and worked through a curriculum with me.