Learning Martial Arts From Books
By
Why do people
have a problem with learning the martial arts from books? Bruce Lee owned
thousands of martial arts books, and studied them religiously. He got a lot of
good ideas from them, and they helped shape his personal martial art into one
of the most devastating the world has ever seen. We don’t seem to have a
problem with people learning from books in our universities. A large percentage
of what medical doctors learn comes from textbooks, while in medical school,
and we rush to them when we have a medical problem without concern for their
use of the printed educational media.
However, I
will have to say that most books on the martial arts are practically worthless.
I should know. At one time, I owned practically every book on the martial arts
and self-defense that had ever been put to print in English. Now, of course,
there are far too many books on that subject. And, like I said, most are
worthless. Any given self-defense book usually has only one or two sentences,
if that much, that are worth underlining. The rest of the book is usually crap
(I will mention a few of the only good authors later).
I am now
going to let you in on a little secret: When I wish to gain more insight into
the fine art of dismantling people with my bare hands, I study medical books. I
have found a couple of truly enlightening large, hard-cover Surgical Anatomy
books, a good Pictorial Atlas of the human anatomy (color photographs of cut-up
human cadavers showing the location of every nerve, every muscle, every vein,
every artery, etc.), and a good, large hard-back medical dictionary. I have
been studying these books for about 25 years (Post-It Notes are sprouting
everywhere). I can assure you; I have found these books to be far superior,
more direct, to the point, and ACCURATE than any of the off-the-shelf martial
arts books you will probably ever see. These books are, of course, NOT written
for the martial artist, and do not approach the subject from the perspective of
doing harm to a person, but rather to fix what is wrong with the sick and
injured. Information can, however, be "turned around" to suit your
needs.
For example:
If the medical books say that the surgeon must NEVER do "this" under "these
circumstances" or it will cause a 97 % chance of the patient dying, then I
know that 97% of the people I DO that "thing" to will DIE from that
action. If the medical books say that in 85 % of the cases where the patients
condition was caused by a blow received to "that" exact part of the
body, at "this" precise angle, at "such-and-such"
foot-pounds of pressure that the patient will be permanently paralyzed, then I
not only know where to strike a person to cause an 85% chance of his being
permanently paralyzed, I also know at what angle to throw my blow, and exactly
how much force to use in my blow.)
Only 2 or 3
martial arts books I have seen and very few martial artists have this kind of
comprehensive information.
So, you might
ask, "If you believe martial arts books to be practically worthless, then
why do you own so many?" Simple. I keep hoping. And, much like Bruce Lee,
I will get the book just to find the rare tidbit, or two, in it that is useful.
Like Bruce Lee, I steal what is useful, and reject the rest.
Actually, I
must say that books from authors like Peyton Quinn, and Marc "Animal"
McYoung, and from a few more traditional martial artists, are really pretty
good, and contain a LOT of good information. Also, anything by Robert W. Smith
is darned good reading, too, even though his approach is usually more
traditional. Also, the books by John F. Gilby are awe-inspiring, and highly
entertaining, but were actually fantasies written by Robert W. Smith. The
difference is, these people, and a few others, have real street experience, and
tell you about it in their books. They are not just “Dojo Wannabees”. These
authors are a lot better than the usual fodder, and they have been more or less
responsible for boosting my hopes for the future of martial arts writing.
I suppose
that you can learn a great deal of other useful stuff from books, as well. You
can certainly learn the history of the martial arts from books, as well as
philosophy. You can also learn some pretty slick strategies for dealing with real
life self defense situations, and anyone who knows his salt can tell you that
learning strategies is far more useful for real self defense than learning
techniques.
I would have
to say, upon reflection, that you can learn practically EVERYTHING about the
martial arts from books, but you don't get very good at any of it until you
practice it on someone. Someone better than you.
