Do you think it is possible to learn karate from a book ?

[david]

to be honest when you really do get in a fight karate wont work i once took real karate classes its useless it won't work

[BlueTongueFridge]

one beer is better than no beers

[jon]

You could learn some, yes. Would you be effective in a self-defense situtation with just knowledge from a Karate book? Probably not. Even people that are black belts in Karate don't have a 100% guarantee against all attackers and attacks.

It would be better than nothing. If you took it seriously and were dedicated to it, you exercised, and everything you could squeeze something out of it. But, most people don't have enough personal discipline to even do that.

You may be able to pull off a simple move that may protect you in self-defense. But, if you have someone who wanted to seriously fistfight you, your book Karate wouldn't help much if at all.

If you wanted something to learn from a book to apply to defend yourself I would study boxing. Karate is just too complicated to learn much from a book alone. Boxing you can gain basic knowledge quickly from a book. Your chances of applying it in real self-defense is much higher than Karate.

So, go find a boxing book if you want to go this route. It would do you more good than a Karate one. A book is definetly limited in helping you. But, if you take it seriously and do the exercises it recommend and get yourself in shape, you will get some benefit out of it. If you have a friend you can always buy 2 pair of boxing gloves and spar with them light contact to help you out too. In boxing you can also do part of your work on a heavy bag also. A boxing book is just easier to apply because it just deals with punches. All the kicks and weird strikes Karate does will be too complicated. You will get boxing punches down much faster and better.

[SenseiScandal]

You can learn ABOUT karate from a book.