Here is a list of my top 8 must watch martial arts DVD’s.  These are all up here for different reasons, and I will explain what I thought was so good about them with each listing.  In this list, I am not going to discriminate between instructional DVD or martial arts movie.  As a martial arts enthusiast, and lifelong martial artist, I am just as entertained watching an old Kung Fu flick as I am playing, pausing and rewinding a martial arts instructional video.  There is no particular order in which each video is placed.  My top listing for best martial arts DVD changes from day to day based on my mood or where I am at with my training.

Marcelo Garcia:  Winning Techniques Of Submission Wrestling (Series 1)

If you are moving beyond the basics with your ground game, this series will give you tons of great stuff to work on.  If you know anything about Marcelo Garcia — you will have to check out the arm drag and taking the back discs.  Best ju jistu instructional DVD series EVER!

Enter The Dragon

Do I really need to say anything about this movie?  Bruce Lee’s most popular flick, and I’d have to say this martial arts DVD comes in just behind his Fist Of Fury.

Fist Of Fury

Arguably Bruce Lee’s best film.

Seven Samurai

Cult classic.  If you are a fan of old fashioned martial arts movies, you need to see this movie.

Erik Paulson:  Ultimate MMA Training Series

This 3 DVD set is packed with useful information.  Most martial arts instructional videos waste a lot of time repetitively showing you the same technique over and over.  Not so with this video.  Paulson also focuses on transitions and give tons of used tips and techniques.  Best MMA training video Ive seen in ages.  He also goes over some good drills to burn this stuff into muscle memory.

Snake In The Monkey Shadow

Drunken style.  Snake Form.  Monkey Style.  Tiger Claw and Mantis Fist.  You can’t help but get sucked into this martial arts DVD.

Bichunmoo

Better than Crouching Tiger IMO.  If you haven’t seen this movie, drop what you are doing and get it!  I’ve watched this movie several times.

Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger

Great martial arts video.  Incredible fight scenes and cinematography.  Beautiful scenery.

So there you have it.  The 8 best martial arts DVD’s.  Even if you think there should be different movies in this list, you need to see this films.

What is the best martial arts DVD you’ve seen over the last 10 years or so?  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?  Iron Monkey?  Once Upon A Time In China?  How about one of Jackie Chan’s more recent films?  Most of the people I have talked to about this all say they liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  I recently saw a fantastic film from Korea which in my opinion surpasses Crouching Tiger for a couple of different reasons.

The name of the movie is ‘Bichunmoo (Dance With Sword)’ (2000).  It was directed by Kim Young-jun and stars Shin Hyun-Junen and Kim Hee-seon.  The film is not rated, but Im sure it would have gotten an ‘R’ rating in the United States due to the slicing and dicing and the romantic theme of the movie.

This movie surpasses Crouching Tiger mainly due to the fact that the story line is a bit more polished and clear cut.  Where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon kind of picks up in the middle of a story, Bichunmoo is completely self contained.  Aside from the martial arts action, the story lines are what makes these movies so good.  Bichunmoo is the best martial arts DVD I have seen in a long, long time.  It not only has the high quality fight scenes and choreography that rivals Crouching Tiger, it also delivers with a good romantic plot line.  For someone like me to say that this is a plus in a movie, it has to be good.  I usually hate having to sit through all that boring romantic crap they always seem to inject into movies these days.  The character development and history that they give about the people in the movie does a lot to pull you into the movie.  This is one of those movies that you feel a little depressed at the end of the movie because it’s over.

Bichunmoo also happens to be the biggest budget film in Korean history to date.  You can tell by some of the computer generated special effects, specially when they are delivering the early storyline between the two main characters.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely MUST see Bichunmoo.  Its a Romeo and Juliet meets Kung Fu flick with amazing martial arts action fused with a bunch of sword play.

A little side note: if you get the DVD, change the language setting to Chinese and watch the movie with English subtitles.  If you watch it the way it comes, it will be in Korean, with the actors mouthing in Chinese, with English subtitles.   This is the best martial arts DVD I have seen since first watching some of the old Bruce Lee movies!

I used to think that only the old movies had good story lines, but it wasnt until I started paying attention to the films coming from other countries that I noticed that some of the best martial arts DVD movies are still being produced despite mainstream Hollywood’s destruction of the martial arts genre by limiting it to cheesy fight scenes and special effects.

You can learn a lot from watching a martial arts training DVD.  A lot!  If you are going to learn this way, whether you are also receiving some martial arts instruction from a teacher or if you are learning martial arts from instructional videos, there are a few things you need to consider from this mode of instruction.

The first thing that you need to take into consideration is the fact that when you learn from a martial arts video, the information will only flow in one direction, and your martial arts DVD will not be able to make important adjustments to your technique.  A good video should address some of the common errors most people make performing certain techniques, but it is highly likely that you will have difficulty mastering any particular move simply by watching a martial arts instructional DVD.  Your technique will have to be fine tuned by experience, or if you are training under an instructor your rate of improvement should increase dramatically.  Quite simply, nothing beats full contact training with a qualified instructor.  Martial arts training DVD’s, clubs, forms, and books are all supplemental to live, interactional instruction.  Specially if that instruction involves ‘live’ training.  That being said, not all of us are privy either to the money, time or access to qualified instruction.  Something is better than nothing.

The other side of this argument, specially for those who train under instructors who aren’t as eclectic or open minded, is that it exposes you to more techniques.  This in itself is a mixed bag as well.  There are those of us out there, the author included, who like to compulsively ‘collect’ techniques.  This can be detrimental if your time is always spent learning new techniques and never bothering to put in the time drilling over, and over, and over until whatever technique it is becomes ingrained into your nervous system.  People like this can still benefit from learning from a martial arts training DVD.  They simply need to wait until they have processed whatever information they wanted to glean from the video before moving on to purchase the next latest and greatest instructional DVDs on eclectic martial arts that is going to finally make you feel like a complete martial artist.

Learning from a martial arts training DVD can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you go about learning from it.  It has been my experience that the best way to learn is to grab a single technique at a time, grab someone and drill with it, then find a way to apply the technique as a sparring drill and then finally use it full contact sparring.  So go ahead and get that new DVD, just make sure you grab something useful from it before moving onto the next technique!

There are many different reasons why people feel that learning martial arts is important.  Some people get into martial arts because they feel insecure, others learn martial arts because they want to do something that is both healthy and functional.  Whatever your motivation is for learning martial arts, most people find that their motivation changes as time goes on and they continue learning.

Personally, I came from a violent home.  My parents, my brother and the kids I went to school with were violent towards me.  I lived in a state of insecurity.  I remember watching martial arts movies and thinking to myself how nice it would feel to be able to fight back and stand up to the people who had victimized me.  I had taken karate as a kid, but found that it was largely ineffective.  I went to a commercial school where we did point sparring, so when it came time for me to use it in real life, my distance was off and I tapped the people I was fighting.  In particular, I remember one fight I got in school where some kid had taken part of my costume during Halloween.  I ran up and executed a picture perfect side kick towards the kids chest.  He just stood there and looked at me as I ran up and bounced off of his chest.  I became disillusioned with martial arts at that point and it wasnt until later in life watching some Jean Claude Van Damme movie, Kickboxer, that my interest was rekindled.

From my previous experience with commercialized traditional karate, I knew enough to know that there where certain styles that seemed a little more practical for street fighting.  Thai boxing looked very appealing to me.  Problem was, it was the mid to late 80’s and thai boxing had yet to become the flavor of the month in the martial arts community.  I eventually found a similar style, Burmese Bando, and learned from a guy who taught out of his back yard.  I was hooked!  What I loved about it, was that it was full contact.  There was no mistaking how functional this stuff was.  I remember the first day I was allowed to spar.  It started off in this guys basement, and we even went outside to do some fighting in the snow.

Over time, as my skill increased, and I knew that I could fight, my motives for learning martial arts began to change.  No longer was it about defending myself of being able to beat someone up.  I found that there was something about moving my body and using it to control another that was very appealing to me.  It wasn’t about violence, but more about feeling alive, exercise and recieving a bit of a thrill in the process.

Learning martial arts for me has become more about staying in shape, teaching others and enjoying the commoradery.  There is an interesting bond that forms between people who train together.  Somehow the physical act of training with someone shows you what the other person is made of.  I find that I bond quickly with people who I train with (minus those who are too busy trying to prove something).  As your path down the road learning martial arts goes on, you will find that your preconcieved notions about martial art, as well as your motivation for learning it evolves over time.

Martial Arts DVD is a site devoted to anything related to martial arts DVD’s.  We know that there are many different ways that people learn martial arts.  DVD, martial art classes and watching kung fu films are just some of the ways that people have picked up martial art instruction.

Our purpose is to review movies, martial arts instructional DVD as well as to provide access to these films so you can learn from the comfort of your own home.  Whether this is your sole means of instruction or a means to supplement another form of training, we will also provide a means to access these DVD’s.

While learning from a martial arts dvd is not necessarily as good as live instruction from a certified teacher, for many of us, it is all we have access to.  Something is better than nothing.  Of course, without someone who is there to make the tiny corrections and give the advice and motivation that is important to learning martial arts the way it has been traditionally taught, we are likely to miss out on some important details.

A martial arts training DVD can often be a good way to solidify things that we have been taught when a teacher is not around.  Martial art instruction can be reinforced by daily practice and rehersal, and many of us most likely don’t have the means or access to a teacher who is going to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Martial arts training videos vary in quality in production, instruction as well as in the ability of the teacher to relay martial art technique through a strictly visual and audio medium.  This is why it can be less costly and time saving to see martial arts dvds reviewed before you choose to purchase.

Our martial arts DVD site is also here for those of you who simply enjoy watching martial arts movies, from old kung fu films to the latest blockbuster hits.  No type of DVD is excluded either from review or access.  Looking for dragon  or snake form training dvd?  How about an Issun Ryu form instruction DVD?  You will find a wide range of information discussed on this site!

Whether you are a martial arts enthusiast, a begginer, someone looking for a mixed martial arts instructional DVD or someone who simply likes watching old kung fu films, Martial Arts DVD is the place for you!