On Learning Martial Arts at Home

 

    A common question that seems to be asked is if you can learn martial arts in the comfort of your own living room. I know any answer other than yes, sounds like I'm trying to scam someone into buying something, but the bare truth is, you cannot learn martial arts on your own at home. Bad news for those of you that purchased Master Bob's 48 disc self-defense box set for the low, low price of $699.95. The fact is the ability to fight and defend yourself is acquired through years and years of intense, repetitive, live drilling with a resisting partner that knows what he's doing. You practicing moves on your buddy in the backyard doesn't count.
   The notion we can teach ourselves is a silly one. How can we teach ourselves something we don't know? We would have to pull knowledge from other sources, that's not the same as teaching ourselves. These sources are not here to tell us if we're doing something right or wrong. They aren't there to correct or reinforce behavior. So we're always left in this state of not knowing. This is never a good place to be in, especially when it could mean our lives. These sources can vary from DVD's, Books, or articles and videos off of the internet. When we try to learn from these sources, our bodies are only mimicking the things we see. This is different from actually learning it and developing it into muscle memory.
    Muscle memory are neural pathways that are created after an action is completed repetitively over time. This grants our body the function to compete said action, without even thinking about it. This would be something like walking, flipping through our phones or typing on a keyboard. Muscle memory is the key in learning martial arts, because when conflict arises, our body dumps adrenaline into our system. Adrenaline is a biochemical reaction in our bodies when conflict arises that puts our bodies into a "fight or flight" state. By doing this, our bodies are put into an emotionally fragile state. Common emotions are fear and anxiety. Remembering our training at this very critical juncture, can be difficult, if we don't have muscle memory. It's almost in fact, impossible. But with muscle memory, our bodies go into an almost auto-pilot mode. We react automatically despite our weakened emotional state. Unfortunately as I stated, this isn't something we get through casual drills.
   At the end of the day, supplementary materials weren't created to trick or deceive you. They are great teaching tools. But they can be abused like anything in life. They were designed (hopefully) as supplementary materials, meant to accompany your training, not as a replacement for the gym/dojo. Sources that try to use their materials as an excuse to not train in a gym/dojo setting, but rather through them, are trying to create a dependence on them for improving. This merely paves the way for you handing them your wallet for rank, belts, and more training materials. Stay away from these places.