So to begin with, i dont fully comprehend why it gets so much flak, somone generally does self study either alongside lessons or in lieu of them because they cant find anyone to teach them it. The obvious limitation is what material you are refering to when you self study. And if you can access any sparring partners and equipment.
There are three things you do not get when training by yourself:
- Advice from the instructor about what you should be working on to grow
- Feedback from the instructor on your technique
- Feedback from your sparring partners as to what works and what doesn't
Curriculum is important. Some schools have a rotating curriculum, some have a set curriculum based on your level and experience. Some schools have a class where everyone trains together and breaks into small groups. Others have a more open gym approach, where coaches will give you advice on what to work on based on where you are and what your goals are.
There's so much to learn in martial arts, that you can't get it all at once. If you try by yourself without direction, you may try and do too much at a time, may focus needlessly on specific things that hold you back, or you may try things you're not ready for because you haven't mastered the pre-requisites. For example, you may try and learn all the submissions in BJJ and not get a good idea of how any of them work. You may spend months trying to get a faster and faster jab (at the expense of all other techniques and fundamentals). Or maybe you're trying to do jump spinning kicks before you've mastered the basic kicks. Direction is important so you can grow at the optimal pace.
There's also things you may not even think of, which are integral to an art. For example, boxing is relatively simple. You've got a handful of punches. Maybe you train those punches diligently, but you're not working on footwork and distance control, or weaving in slips and rolls into your combinations. You may be able to get good technique on a heavy bag, but applying it to a person requires more than just knowing how to throw out your fist.
Feedback is important. Going along with the theme above - you don't know what you don't know. When a student performs even the most basic of our forms, in the very first step (turn to the left and down block), there are over 25 different details I'm looking for. For a beginner, I only care about maybe 3 of them. But as you get higher and higher in belt, there are 25 different details, from the orientation of your feet, the specific position you chamber your block in, the timing of your turn, your breathing...lots of different things. How many of those things are you going to pick out for yourself?
There are so many mistakes that people make when they train, even when they follow an instructor. And even when the instructor encourages their progress, there's still a long way to go to perfect techniques. And so far I'm just talking about a simple technique, used in a form. I haven't even gotten to using the technique in a more applicable manner.
An instructor can watch you do your techniques and provide feedback. We can figure out:
- How to make your movements more efficient
- What bad habits you have and how to break them
- How to take a technique from the technical demonstration level to the application level
- How to use your technique while not opening yourself up for a counter
If you don't know the counters, you're not going to make it work. If you try a technique and fail, it doesn't mean the technique is bad - just means you need to learn how to make it work. (I'm gonna use your first post ever as an example, when you said that the hook punch is bad because you can hurt your hand. It's not that hook punches are bad, you just didn't have feedback from an instructor on how to do a proper one).
Sparring is another key point. And I don't mean just sparring against untrained folk. You need to spar with 3 types of people:
- Those that are better than you, so you can learn from them
- Those that are worse from you, so that you can practice on them
- Those that are even to you, so that you can push yourself to compete
If you're never sparring, you are never training your skills. If you only ever spar against people that are equal to you, then you also miss out on a lot. If you're all untrained, then you never spar people better than you in order to improve. If you're all still at that untrained level, you never have anyone worse than you that you can drill your foundational techniques on.
I believe I've linked this to you before, but this is a guy with wrestling experience, who tried to do what you want - learn in his basement, by sparring with a wrestling buddy. They basically wasted their time. He's since gone on to become a very successful fighter in BJJ, and become a very well-respected spokesman of the martial arts community on Youtube. But he had to go to a class to get there.
somone generally does self study either alongside lessons or in lieu of them because they cant find anyone to teach them it
I broke this sentence out of the last quote because I wanted to focus on it. First off, most people who self-train in lieu of taking classes due so understanding the limitation. Any posts on MartialTalk or Reddit I've seen where someone asks how much they can train without taking classes, the resounding answer is - you can't. If you absolutely cannot take classes, then you do what you can. Most of the advice is to work on conditioning - strength, cardio, and flexibility - rather than to work on technique. Because you won't get that technique otherwise.
Then there's two other scenarios - the person who goes to class and self-trains between classes, and the student who has to take time off from classes (for reasons of schedule, pay, or locality) and who trains on his own.
In the first case, that's just an example of doing homework. You're still getting feedback, it's just not constant. Say I go to class on Monday and Wednesday, and I practice at home Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. When I go to class on Monday, I get feedback on my technique. Maybe I learn that for my back kick to be more powerful, I need to lean over to thrust my hips out. So on Tuesday I practice doing the back kick while thrusting the hips out. Then I go back on Wednesday, and when I do my back kick I can find out my progress.
If I was training on my own, without going to class, then I wouldn't have known to add in that detail to my back kick. And if I only trained in class, I'd have much less reps to work on it. Training at home amplifies what you do in class. If you practice 3 hours a week at home and go to class for 2 hours, it will really add up. But if you practice 10 hours a week and took 0 hours of class, your practice is going to be largely meaningless.
In the second case, of the student who has to quit, they're not really improving. They're maintaining their skill at the level when they left. You don't have someone leave a school as a red belt, train at home for 3 years, and come back and be given a 2nd degree black belt. You see someone leave school as a red belt, train at home for 3 years, and come back and jump back into the red belt class.
Pending what is taught, would also matter as some skills are obviously easier to pick up and retain, some others arent.
This varies from person to person. It's also not really relevant to the discussion. Like I said - if you're unitiated (which you are unitiated), you don't know what you don't know. Whether those details are easy for you to pick up or not, it doesn't matter that you won't pick them up if you don't know they exist.
Tieing back into the first statment, the only issues i see with it is: Quality and quality of material you are using. Both of which can vary in a school.
This is a reason to be vigilant and verify that your school is a good one, not an excuse to avoid taking classes entirely. Do your research when you join a school.
- What are their credentials?
- What are their accomplishments?
- What do their students think of the school?
- Do they do live sparring? (Sometimes you may need to ask this, as quite often live sparring happens when you're more advanced and have a better understanding of the foundations and the rules)
- Post a link to their site on the appropriate martial arts subreddit (or the r/martialarts subreddit) and see what people who know the art think of the school.
- Talk to the instructor and try to figure out how much of what they say is legit and how much is snake oil. If you're not sure, post a summary of the conversation on the appropriate subreddit
When you select a school and you first start training, you should pretty much stick with that school. Some may say at least 6 months or a year, I say give it a year or two. Give yourself enough time to become proficient in what they teach. After that, if you've grown disillusioned with your school, then find a new one. Go back through the process I mentioned above. Except this time you'll have a better idea of what is martial arts and what is bullshido.
I'll also say that unless there's something downright dangerous about the training at your current school, stay there until you can find a new school. Otherwise you'll stop training entirely.
In conclusion, this is why I have been so adamant in my posts that you go to class and get training. I'm going to say it once more:
you don't know what you don't know. For example, I'm thinking about starting BJJ classes soon. Even though I have a red belt in Hapkido, 3 years in wrestling, and I'm a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo, I'll be starting fresh there. I've watched a lot of Chewjitsu and other videos. I've asked questions on the forums. I've messed around with some of the ideas with my friends in my Hapkido class. But I would be willing to put money down that within the first month of taking BJJ, I'll have questions about subjects I didn't even know existed.
You have to go to class if you want to grow. Plain and simple.
) In a similar way if you just want to loose weight and stay healthy you dont have to run a marathon, or get into bodybuilding, powerlifting etc.
