Can you learn martial arts from a book? In a word: no. Armchair ninjas can protest all they want, but the fact is, unless you’re incredibly gifted (which almost every last one of us are not) you just can’t pick up the subtleties of self defense from a text. It’s just not going to happen. You probably can’t even pick up a good working knowledge of self defense that way.

Yet, there’s a whole industry around martial arts texts. What’s the deal? It seems like there’s a new one coming out every day. If you can’t learn martial arts from a book, then why are there so many books on martial arts? What I’ve found is that such books serve two purposes.

One is to provide an intellectual look at different styles and their histories. I can read a book on Tai Chi, and while I won’t know Tai Chi, I’ll at least have a glimpse of the movements and philosophies behind it. Some parts of it might never make sense, but intellectually, I find it fascinating.

The other purpose I see martial arts books serving is to supplement the knowledge of whatever you might be studying. I picked up a couple books on Wing Chun, and while initially they didn’t seem to make much sense, the more I practice, the more the points they discuss start to come together. Only by going back and re-reading a book after practicing for a while was I able to understand why they included what they did, and what it might mean.

Of course, you still have to worry about bad martial arts texts. (I’ve come across a few, and will no doubt be writing about them.) I guess I forgot reason number three for some martial arts books: to make money. I’ve found it best to read any text with a grain of salt. Don’t immediately write off any text, but don’t take them at face value either. Cross-referencing your work helps, too.

Is kata good or bad? Kata, or forms, are the practice of a set of pre-defined moves, usually done alone. When I studied Aikido Kokikai, I was struck by the lack of kata. This is typical of many styles of Aikido (though there are some, such as Tomiki Aikido, which apparently use them). In my current study of Gu Lao Wing Chun, I found that, again, I don’t have kata. In this case, it’s a little unusual compared to other styles, as the most popular styles of Wing Chun use three basic forms.

The purpose of kata or forms varies, depending on what you’re studying. Some use them to illustrate proper execution of technique, or proper footwork. Others use them to develop internal strength. In styles that use them, kata are considered a basic step in learning any art. You have to master them before you master anything else. To the very end, Yip Man (a legend in Wing Chun and the source of most Wing Chun in the US today) would do forms, spending long periods of time on specific parts. Though he had practiced them for all his life, he still found things to learn.

The Karate Kid, Part III showcased kata as a means towards calming the mind to win a fight. Yeah, even they didn’t know quite how to show the value of learning kata.

The problem is that some McDojos use kata as a way to collect fees. By teaching the same form for years on end, they slowly milk people out of money. Plus, the very notion that katas are done alone for the most part makes one wonder how it develops any self defense application whatsoever: if you don’t spar with someone, how do you know if a technique works?

I don’t think kata is necessarily bad, despite many opinions to the contrary. The way I look at it is as a physical handbook to moves for an art. Rather than pass along written pages, you pass along the forms. The trick is to realize that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” way to execute techniques (they always vary on application), and to not use it as a substitute for other training. Training in kata alone will probably not yield much result for the average person in terms of fighting proficiency.

Many arts, after all, find that you have to “train out” what you learned in kata, to develop good, flowing movement for fighting. It seems kind of counterproductive to learn a form, only to have to unlearn it later.

I’d still find the study of the sil nim/lim tao, chum kiu, and bil gee sets of Wing Chun fascinating, just as a way to see the catalog of different moves. I’d just hate to have to spend years learning them, only to have to unlearn them.

I recently came across the Kick Ass Kung-Fu video game, which is a fighting game in which your real movements are used in the game. Watching the sample clip made me want to ask if it was a joke, though the technology is actually very cool. At least, it seems less vaporwareish than, say, Extreme Wing Chun VR — where the hell did that game go? But I digress.

In terms of an actual interface, I can’t imagine KAKF being useful for training, nor for a satisfying gameplay experience. The idea seems sound at first glance: translate your movements in the real world into virtual movements in the video game. Use real fighting techniques you know to defeat your virtual opponents. This also makes for entertaining-to-watch gameplay, DDR style.

In practice, however, is where the limitations come through. The main problem I see is feedback: if you kick and strike someone, you’re going to feel it. Kicking the air and kicking a person are vastly different experiences. The same is true of getting hit — when you get hit, you might stumble back. It’s not as if you just take “damage” but don’t move. Dealing with that energy is a big part of learning good defense.

The converse is true: if you strike someone, it’s going to feel vastly different than kicking in the air. There’s a resistance at play there that would just be missing, leading to strange technique. If you only practice kicking or punching in the air, you’re going to be quite surprised if you ever actually get in a fight.

Plus, there’s a certain subtlety in fighting style that appears to be missing: blocking and counterstriking are a vital part of any martial art. How do you put up a good defense, if you can’t block anything? In theory, they could develop reasonable block detection, but without the aforementioned feedback, it’s going to be difficult to develop the subtleties of what a person can and can’t do. If the computer traps my arms, am I prevented from making certain movements? If they step to the side of me, are certain steps of mine more difficult than others? How does the computer knock me off balance?

The technology itself seems frustrating. If you look at the demo video clip they have, there is a noticeable lag between executed technique and display in the game. Perhaps this is good enough for a game. It just seems like it would be aggravating in a game to have moves delayed — almost like piloting the Mars rover. Send a kick, wait for it to happen. This is probably just because the technology is still being developed, and the lag may be fixed before release. If it isn’t, it’s going to be extremely annoying to play.

Interestingly enough, the better you actually are at martial arts, the better you’d do at this game. But, if you’re at that level, maybe you’d find real life sparring much more satisfying than punching and kicking to the air against a virtual opponent.

If, on the other hand, you’re a gamer, but not a martial artist, then you’ll find this game very tiring, without actually helping you develop real, effective technique. (In that vein, it’s similar to DDR, I guess: people great at DDR don’t necessarily make great dancers.) I can see gamers just throwing out their legs random times and otherwise just flailing about, in an effort to get as many strikes out there as possible.

A real movement video game fighter is the holy grail of fighters. This is not that game. As a game it seems lackluster, and as a martial arts trainer it seems terrible. Who’s the target audience here? Lonely armchair ninjas? I really and truly hope they prove me wrong. I wouldn’t mind watching someone bust out some Capoeira-style moves at the mall arcade.

Well, first, it’s near impossible to write a glib short article about this. Entire book series are dedicated to one philosophy, so, I’m bound to butcher it. Off we go, then!

Confucianism was the earliest philosophy, and continues to impact Chinese culture today. Ritual and right action were the key: work your hardest to do things right, and you’ll approach greatness. It took a long time to get things right. Respect your elders. The importance of ritual in Chinese society continues to draw from these roots.

Taoism on the other hand was based more on the constant changing nature of things. It was an attempt to describe the world as it was, and the position of the self within. To quote Stan Rosenthal’s translation of the Tao Te Ching: “The Tao is abstract, and therefore has no form, it is neither bright in rising, nor dark in sinking, cannot be grasped, and makes no sound.” Everything comes from Tao, and everything goes to it, with transient impermanence in between. Taoism brought the notion of living in harmony with the world, touching all aspects of Chinese life.

Buddhism (or rather, Chan Buddhism or Zen Buddhism) became strong especially in Japanese martial arts. Bushido (the warrior code) developed out of Zen. Logical constructs of the world are rejected, and the Freudian ego is relinquished, as only then can one be truly free. To a proper follower of Zen Buddhism, even death means nothing, because the self is unimportant. What’s interesting is that at that point, beauty exists, even in tragedy. A quote from Zen master Basho stated, “Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon.”

It’s interesting to see how each of these philosophies, succeeding each other in turn, impacted Eastern society. You can’t separate the three, because each layer made and continues to make deep impressions on, for example, Chinese society. This is odd, considering that the philosophies themselves are at odds. For example, Taoism is in stark contrast to Confucianism. Taoism works to harmonize with the world as a whole by taking a natural view of things. Confucianism, on the other hand, works to reshape your life through hard work and persistence over a long time. Or, to banally phrase it, one goes with the flow while the other builds a waterway to try to control the flow. Buddhists would wonder why you were so concerned about dealing with the flow in the first place.

Growing up entirely in Western culture, Eastern thought is at times non-intuitive. This is unfortunate, because this thought has a lot to offer.

As I study martial arts, I find myself considering all three of these philosophies, despite their inherent inconsistencies. Confucianism teaches respect for senior students of the instructor, as well as that hard work over time will pay off. Taoism teaches me to flow with the movements, rather than fighting them, as strength versus strength is often the wrong tactic. Buddhism teaches me to not get worked up over how my training is going, to be able to enjoy the training itself, while rejecting ego (i.e., no “I’m the most ultimate bad ass fighter ever!” nonsense). Most martial arts follow these foundations. At least the good ones.

Footwork in martial arts is key. It’s the root of strength and stability for technique. This is not news; anyone who takes martial arts for a while is acutely aware of this. Yet, when beginning a martial art, it’s so often secondary, as hand techniques or kicking always seem much more useful. Everyone thinks about how to execute this punch, that block, or the proper form for a kick, but people rarely think about where to stand or how to move around their opponent.

It’s so hard to take seriously. Doing drills in how to step seems a bit silly, when what you want to do is fight and learn how to defend. Learning how to step forward and backward in odd postures seems a bit droll to the uneducated.

Yet when you put it together in, say, chi sao (the sticking hands drill in Wing Chun) or sparring, it quickly becomes apparent how important it really is. When someone doesn’t maintain a proper stance, it’s very easy to push them over. Without the right method of stepping, you’ll find vulnerabilities in their stance popping up when they try to move. Also, without proper stepping, your opponent will have a hard time trying to get around your strength.

On the other hand, with proper footwork, you will find yourself able to deal with an opponent’s strength. You can absorb a lot of strength downwards through your body, as well as be able to maintain a stable stance. What’s more, proper movement will give you advantageous placement on your opponent. It’s all about keeping a good defense, while moving to a position of advantage.

In class, I’ve found that doing drills of footwork with technique taking on a different feel. Whereas before technique and footwork seemed very disjointed, I felt multistep routines becoming almost like one movement. The more I practice them, the more natural they become. Drill on something that feels unnatural for long enough, and eventually it will become natural.

Sadly, my footwork does need a lot of work. Here’s hoping that one day, it’ll be natural!

When it comes to Wing Chun, there are two movies that really come to mind: The Prodigal Son, and Warriors Two. These two movies were Sammo Hung’s directorial tributes to the art of Wing Chun. (Yes, there’s also Wing Chun, but I think of these two first.)

If you’re a martial arts movie buff, then you have to see both of these movies. Stop, go out to the video store, and get these. Now. I’ll wait. Okay, got them? Good.

While certainly not as polished as more recent offerings, they do highlight the Wing Chun style, while presenting the more gritty side of martial arts movies. They also feature some of the (at times apocryphal) history of Wing Chun itself.

The Prodigal Son stars Yuen Bao as the legendary Leung Jan, a well known character in Wing Chun history. Centering on the time of Jan’s apprenticeship with the Red Junk Opera, the story begins with Jan in the village of Foshan, where his father pays people around time to lose fights to Jan, to protect his son. An encounter with another famous Wing Chun figure, Leung Yee Tai, demonstrates how incredibly poor his skills are, and he follows Yee Tai around, hoping to learn from him. His training eventually includes tutelage under Wong Wah Bo, played rather amusingly by Sammo himself.

The plot of this movie, sadly enough, leaves something to be desired. Much as I’d like to appreciate a historical look into this period of time, the plot doesn’t really come together in any cohesive way — it comes across as just a bunch of stuff that happens, which is a bit unsatisfying. The traditional you-killed-my-master-so-I-will-defeat-you theme is there, but not as any overarching conflict to drive the movie. This movie is more of a historical hypothesis, though one wonders how much is real, and how much is fantasy. It’s true that Leung Jan worked on the Red Junk Opera, and received training under Leung Yee Tai and Wong Wah Bo. How much beyond that is true is left to speculation.

Of course, the real reason to see this movie is the fighting and training. Like any good martial arts trainer flick, the hero begins as an uneducated beginner, trains through the movie, leading up to a final battle. From the Wing Chun perspective, this movie has a lot to offer. When Wong Wah Bo trains with his daughter, I see a nice fook sao-jut sao-punch drill that seems quite familiar. Play this scene in slow motion, and you’ll see that Wong Wah Bo’s moves are just a little more practiced and speedy than his daughter’s. The fight coreography in this movie is quite good, and really showcases a lot of moves from Wing Chun.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Wing Chun (or even just well coreographed fight scenes), this is a must see movie. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for flowery plots and character development, you’re going to be disappointed. It doesn’t have the broadband appeal of more popular martial arts flicks, but is well worth a look.

A monk said to Joshu, “Your stone bridge is widely renowned, but coming here I find only a heap of rocks.” Joshu said, “You see only the stones and not the bridge.” The monk said, “What is the bridge?” Joshu said, “What do you think we are walking on?”

About nine months ago, I started studying martial arts at the Wing Chun Kung Fu Academy, under Sifu Stanley Jue. I’ve always been fascinated with martial arts, though never really took the time to seriously study until now. In college, I studied a little bit of Aikido Kokikai, but then went on a hiatus for about seven or eight years.

Aside from basic fitness and self defense, I was hoping to learn a little bit about the art side of martial arts as well. That makes Wing Chun an interesting choice — there are no flowery techniques in Wing Chun. If I was looking for a “pretty” art, I chose the antithesis. There’s beauty to be found, but it doesn’t have the immediate appeal of, say, wushu or more artsy styles.

I’m also on a quest to learn more about myself and the world, by seeking enlightenment in the modern day. Who knows if I’ll be successful? As they say, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that’s important.

Hopefully, my quest will continue to be a rewarding one. At the very least, maybe I’ll be able to defend myself!