Learning from Books, Video, etc…

We had an interesting class last night… Neil was showing a turnover from the hands & knees position… a Daki Wakare variation…

What I found interesting is that a number of students were stuck because they didn’t allow enough slack at the beginning of the move. If you keep a close connection with uke into this move, you can’t end up where you need to be. There has to be some slackness in your position as you begin the movement. It brought to mind how many people today are purchasing books and videos to learn from - yet the problems that people had with this move would never be diagnosed with a book or video.

Naturally, I’m a big fan of Judo books - I could hardly say otherwise with this website - but books (and videos) have limitations that beginners rarely understand. Without a basic grounding in the fundamentals of a martial art - learning techniques from books is a waste of time. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be starting a martial arts book collection as soon as you can - but to recognize and understand the inherent limitations of learning from books/videos.

By all means, if you learn something from a book or video, practice the move under the supervision of your sensei, and let him guide you. This way you can both learn from books/videos, and then learn correct technique under the guidance of your sensei.

Of course, if you’re yudansha - the above paragraphs mean nothing to you - you already have grounding in the fundamentals, and can easily and profitably make use of books & videos to expand your knowledge base.