Ditto with videos.
And often those books or videos are part of a series; you know, the entire syllabus of SomeKindaMartialArtorOther on 16 dvds!
Here's the deal: there are no advanced techniques.
And here's a surprise: there are no beginner's techniques.
There are techniques.
And when people organize anything, they put them together in a particular order.
So in Judo, students start with breakfalls, then throws, and after they get their Shodan or Nidan, they pick up the striking techniques that Sensei Kano picked up from Sensei Funakoshi. So in Judo, striking techniques are for advanced students!
And in Shotokan Karate, the usual syllabus is almost always the same: students start with kata (the Heian Katas, one through five, to be specific) and then move to Tekki Shodan, and so on through the kata syllabus, while the student learns the basic variations of kicks and punches and blocks.
And so to many karate students, throws are advanced techniques, because they're going to learn those after they move through the kicking and punching and blocking syllabus, if at all. Note that a buncha throws are encoded in the kata, but in some schools, they aren't taught much.
And to an Aikido student, snapping fingers and biting and gouging is....an advanced technique, because he's never going to hear about that or see it in class! For that matter, in many Aikido classes, students are never taught a defense against a left hook, which I suppose makes a left hook....an advanced technique!
There is a nice series of books put out by a student of Bruce Lee, and those end with a book entitled "Advanced Techniques".
HERE IT COMES: a technique is only advanced because it's put at the end of the training syllabus by the teacher who designed that syllabus. Got it?
Putting it another way, there are no advanced techniques.
There may be difficult techniques, but that doesn't make 'em advanced, at least not in my book. The fact that some movements, like a reverse jumping back kick over three automobiles, shattering five concrete blocks while in the air, is a difficult technique from an athletic perspective doesn't make it an advanced technique.
Let's try it again: there is a huge body of martial arts technique out there in the world, available to anybody who can read or use a computer and watch youtube videos.
The techniques range from punches and strikes of every possible sort, to throws of every possible sort, to gouges and breaks and bites.
No kidding, I watched a video once that purported to teach "advanced" biting techniques. You heard it here first.
So here's my official position, and its worth what you paid for it: there are EXACTLY no advanced techniques in any martial art. There are techniques. There are percussive techniques, there are locks, there are chokes, and there are throws and takedowns. None are advanced.
There are very experienced folks (not me, remember) who will also tell you that really knowing three techniques is far, far better than sort of knowing a thousand.
Now here's real wisdom: nothing I've said above matters one little bit!
What matters is that you find yourself a good teacher (I've got mine, thank you) and that you study and practice.
That matters.
And stay out of biker bars. If you MUST to go into a biker bar to make a phone call, don't. Walk the twenty miles out of your way, because getting in fights is a bad idea. And it is most likely that you will find yourself in a fight if you have found a way to combine alcohol, women, and pool tables.
Instead of going to biker bars, go to dojos. Compared to most bars, which often have women, alcohol, and pool tables, dojos are very safe places, even if there are lots of highly-trained women there. People in dojos want to punch you, kick you, throw you, and maybe choke you.
But they don't want to hurt you!
