AboutIgor Klibanov Expertise I will answer questions about competitions, tournaments, physical fitness for martial arts, and preparing for tournaments. I specialize in sparring and traditional forms (though I will answer about freestyle forms as well).
Experience I have been training in martial arts for 10 years. I trained in traditional karate for a year, and then took up Shaolin Kempo Karate. I have achieved my black belt in Kempo, and later, I took up Sikaran - a Filipino art, very similar to Tae Kwon Do. To date, I have 5 years of experience in Sikaran.
Expert: Igor Klibanov Date: 4/5/2008 Subject: martial art
Question I'm a mother of two children (10 and 2).our daughter has taken Kenpo since she was 3.she is now a brown belt with 3rd stripe.i have watched over the years .started to take the adult class .few months later became pregnant with our son.so i stopped .i started again about a year ago .but our son was distracting the class so left.i recently started a tai chi - gu yi class .but again our son has a separation problem with me. can i learn at home and what books or videos are better? thanks julie
Answer Hey Julie,
Thank you for your question.
The answer to whether you can learn at home or not is a little complicated.
It depends on what your goal is. Why do you want to do martial arts training?
If your goal is fitness, then yes, practicing at home can work. Just about any book or tape showing basic techniques will do.
If your goal is self-defence, or you are interested in the athletic aspect of martial arts, no, you can't learn from books or videos. You need the supervision and feedback of a qualified professional, and when you train on your own there simply is no way to practice timing. Timing can only be developed when working with a training partner, so in that respect, I wouldn't train using books or videos.
So to summarize: for fitness, go ahead and learn froom books and videos. For self defence, and for sports, no, books and videos will not work.
