Learning from Youtube

I read an article that referenced learning from youtube. It then alluded to simply learning from video's so that would include movies, television, video's, DVD's and of course Youtube. The question then comes to mind, is this possible?

The answer, like most things involving physical disciplines as applied to self-defense and even sport, is involved, complicated and just plain convoluted. The short answer is, "yes-n-no."

If you are a novice with little or no experience then the short answer is no. You cannot take a book, a movie, or DVD, etc. and learn a system. You cannot go on-line and learn a system from your browser on some web site. It cannot be done. There is way to much stuff missing that cannot be gleamed from any of these sources. 

If you are an expert with a good deal of experience then the short answer is yes. You can look at a book, a movie, a DVD and even Youtube and supplement your current knowledge. One caveat, it takes that expert experience to take these sources and move them to the dojo floor to work them out and remove as many of the faults you may inadvertently incorporate learning from such limited sources. It takes time, effort and many senses to see what is valued and make it work. This is a simplistic answer for such a short article.

It is like posting to the blog, it is valued information but you still have to take that information and work it out to see if it has value for you. These things have depth and breadth that cannot be conveyed in a film. This is why in the end all of it must be vetted in a training environment with others who are experts and experienced in reality based scenarios. Even in one of these environments you have to go over it again and again and again because each time something new is going to pop up. This does not happen in books, films and video's etc. It just doesn't. 

Think of it this way, movies take you to a world that fools you into believing the possibilities, i.e. in two hours you can feel like you have experienced days, weeks, and even months if not years, a misperception of what is true violence vs. drama, and can make you believe in things that were not even displayed within the movie itself. If we can be misled by movies than why should we contribute any type of validation toward movie's taken on someone's phone? Why should we assume that just because it is on film that it has all the facts, etc.? It does not and it can fool you into believing something not real.