[Chiron]

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say you can teach yourself the basics, at least some of them. I didn't learn that way, but I do think it can be done, though it's not the better way. A far as throwing a proper punch or kick I think if you had a good instructional video, a mirror, and were halfway intelligent with some attention to detail you could teach yourself some things. When it comes to something like joint locks, chokes and throws I think it would be much more difficult because you have to develop a feel for it that you need another person for. For sparring (ground or standing) you definitely need some help. It would be better to have a teacher show you techniques, but you can teach yourself some basic stuff. There are examples of this in MMA: just look at Evan Tanner and Rich Franklin.