You’ve always been drawn to kung fu — the flowing forms, the explosive power, the philosophy woven through every stance. Maybe you attended a taster session years ago and life got in the way, or you’ve spent hours watching instructional clips online and feel like you’re going in circles without a proper structure beneath you. Finding a good kung fu school in the UK can be surprisingly difficult: classes fill fast, schedules rarely suit shift workers or parents with packed evenings, and the quality of instruction varies considerably from club to club. So you’ve done what many serious starters do — decided to invest in a well-structured book or instructional resource to build your foundation before committing to a school, or to supplement the training you’re already doing. The challenge is that the market blends thin, surface-level titles with genuinely excellent resources, and it’s not always clear from a cover image and a handful of reviews which is which. This guide cuts through the noise for you.
How These Picks Were Selected
Selecting these picks involved working through the kung fu books and instructional resources currently listed on Amazon UK, filtering by author credentials, structural clarity, and reader feedback patterns. Five criteria drove the evaluation: whether the author had documented, verifiable training in a recognised kung fu lineage; how well the material is organised for self-directed learners without constant access to a coach; the quality and specificity of technique demonstrations — photographs and diagrams for books, or live video instruction for the DVD set; how each resource handled progression from foundational to more advanced content; and what verified buyers reported consistently across reviews, particularly around clarity, physical detail, and practical usefulness. Resources with limited review samples were flagged in their sections so you can weigh that factor yourself when deciding.
Best Overall Kung Fu Book
If there’s one kung fu book that consistently surfaces when experienced practitioners point newcomers toward reliable starting resources, it’s The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu: The Secrets of Kung Fu for Self-Defense, Health, and Enlightenment, published as part of the Tuttle Martial Arts series. Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars across more than 330 reader reviews on Amazon UK, it’s the most thoroughly vetted option in this guide — and that review volume gives you real confidence that the quality holds up consistently rather than satisfying only a handful of buyers.
What distinguishes this book from more generic martial arts primers is its treatment of kung fu as a complete system rather than a collection of impressive-looking moves. It opens with a substantial grounding in the history and philosophy of Shaolin practice — not as decorative padding, but because understanding why techniques were developed the way they were helps you absorb and apply them with far greater accuracy. Readers who approach it purely for physical drills tend to skim those opening chapters and then wonder why the techniques feel disconnected; readers who engage with the full picture consistently describe the book as the most coherent introduction to kung fu they’ve encountered in print.
The technique sections are well-structured and supported by clear photographic demonstrations. Stances, hand positions, footwork patterns, and basic forms are covered with enough detail that a disciplined self-learner can make genuine progress between instructor-led sessions, or build a working foundation before a school becomes available. The book is also honest about the limits of self-study — it doesn’t imply mastery is achievable purely from a page, which is both accurate and refreshing in a market full of overclaiming resources.
Where this book reaches its limits is in depth: once you move past the intermediate fundamentals, you’ll want supplementary material. Think of it as the foundational text and an ongoing reference rather than a complete library in itself. It doesn’t go deep on sparring application either — if close-range combative technique is your primary interest, pair it with something more combat-focused. But as the single strongest starting point for anyone approaching Shaolin kung fu seriously, it’s the clear choice in this guide.
The Tuttle Martial Arts series has built a solid reputation across multiple disciplines — their books on judo, taekwondo, and Chinese martial arts are regularly cited by instructors as quality reference material. That institutional track record matters when you’re learning a complex physical art from a printed page.
Best for Complete Beginners
Kung Fu for Beginners: The Complete 30-Day Starter Guide to Martial Arts Training (New Edition) takes a structured, time-bound approach that makes it well-suited to people who’ve never set foot in a martial arts class and find the prospect of jumping straight into traditional Shaolin curriculum daunting. Rather than presenting techniques in isolation and leaving you to construct your own training plan, it maps out a month-long progression that takes you from absolute zero to a working grasp of foundational stances, movements, and short sequences. That kind of scaffolding matters enormously when you’re training alone at home.
It’s worth being direct about a significant caveat: this title has only a small number of verified buyer reviews on Amazon UK at the time of writing. That makes it harder to assess long-term reliability through crowd-sourced feedback, and you should weigh that against the more reviewed options in this guide. What you can assess from the outset is the structural logic of the approach — a 30-day programme with daily guidance removes the most common failure point for home-based kung fu learners, which is not knowing what to do first, then second, then third, and eventually abandoning the attempt out of sheer uncertainty about where to begin.
The 30-day format addresses open-ended overwhelm directly. Even an excellent technique library can be paralysing for an absolute beginner if it offers no clear order of priority. A fixed daily structure removes that friction — you work through the programme in sequence, accumulating skills logically, and by the end of the month you have a real foundation rather than a loose collection of isolated movements practised without context. The built-in endpoint also helps with motivation: there’s a clear target to hit, not an open-ended process with no visible finish line.
The main trade-off is breadth over depth. A 30-day programme is an introduction by design — it can’t go deep on any single aspect of the art. If you’re already reasonably fit with some body-awareness from other sports or martial arts, you may move through the early material faster than the schedule suggests and find certain sections move too slowly. In that case, the Art of Shaolin Kung Fu or the Shaolin Lohan Masters book reviewed below will give you more to work with. But if you’ve tried other resources and bounced off them because they assumed too much prior knowledge, this is a sensible and structured first step.
Best Value Kung Fu Guide
Kung-Fu: The Ultimate Guide to Shaolin Kung Fu Along with Its Movements and Techniques (Mix Martial Arts) covers Shaolin kung fu forms and movements at a budget-friendly price point, contextualised within a broader mixed martial arts framework. Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars across more than 130 reviews, it has a solid enough feedback base to reveal consistent patterns in reader experience — making it one of the more dependable budget-tier options currently available on Amazon UK.
The mixed martial arts framing is worth understanding before you buy. On one hand, it makes the material feel immediately practical — you’re not learning classical patterns as historical exercises alone, but seeing how they translate to real combative application. On the other, readers seeking deep immersion in traditional Shaolin philosophy and authentic historical lineage may find the MMA contextualisation pulls the book in too many directions at once. That’s not a failing so much as a deliberate editorial choice that will suit some readers well and leave others wanting more focus.
Where this book excels is accessibility. The writing style is relatively plain, the technique breakdowns don’t assume a deep prior foundation, and the overall tone is practical rather than academic. Buyer feedback patterns across the 130-plus reviews suggest that people without any martial arts background can follow the content meaningfully. Those with some prior training tend to find it a useful consolidation rather than a revelation — it confirms and organises existing knowledge more than it surprises. If you’ve tried other kung fu books and struggled with jargon-heavy or overly academic writing, this one is likely to sit more comfortably.
One caveat to bear in mind: some readers note that the book skews more general in places than the Shaolin-specific branding on the cover implies. If your interest is purely and specifically in traditional Shaolin kung fu with proper historical depth, the Tuttle titles elsewhere in this guide offer more focused material. But if you want a practical overview of how Shaolin kung fu fits within the wider landscape of contemporary martial arts training — and you want it at a budget-friendly outlay — this is a sound, well-reviewed choice that won’t leave you feeling short-changed.
Best for Traditional Shaolin Training
Shaolin Kung Fu: The Original Training Techniques of the Shaolin Lohan Masters is the most historically grounded resource in this guide. Rated 4.2 out of 5 stars from more than 80 reader reviews, it focuses specifically on the Lohan (Arhat) fighting methods — among the oldest and most systematically documented training sets in the Shaolin tradition, forming a direct foundation for the broader Shaolin curriculum still practised today.
What separates this title within the Shaolin-specific niche is the granularity of its technique descriptions. The Lohan methods are methodical and precise, and the book reflects that character faithfully. Each movement in a sequence is broken down in terms of both physical mechanics and intended application — whether defensive, offensive, or health-related. Critically, it doesn’t skip the transitional movements between positions, which is one of the most persistent shortcomings in martial arts instruction generally: showing you position A and position B while leaving you to bridge the gap unguided. This book is far more careful about those connective details, and that specificity is where its real value lies for serious students.
Be realistic about what this material demands. Lohan forms are more complex than most beginner-level resources, and the emphasis on precise body alignment means errors practised without correction can become ingrained in muscle memory. This is a reference and study companion best used alongside regular classes with a qualified instructor — either to deepen your understanding of what you’re training, or to give your in-class practice historical and technical context that most club sessions don’t have time to cover. Readers with prior martial arts experience in related styles tend to find it the most rewarding; pure beginners may find the material demanding without additional support.
Production quality follows the Tuttle template — clear photographs, an organised layout, and enough technical depth that experienced students will return to specific sections as their skill level develops over months and years. It’s the kind of book that rewards re-reading: passages that don’t fully click on first pass tend to make considerably more sense after sustained time on the mat. For those committed to understanding Shaolin kung fu as it was originally conceived and practised — rather than in a modernised or simplified synthesis — this is among the most faithful English-language resources currently available.
Best Instructional DVD Series
The Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu Complete Collection 8-disc (YMAA Kung Fu DVD) by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming offers something qualitatively different from any book in this guide: the ability to watch and mirror a qualified practitioner performing techniques in real time. Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars, this collection from YMAA (Yang’s Martial Arts Association) focuses on Shaolin Long Fist — Chang Quan — one of the most structurally foundational and widely practised kung fu styles. Dr. Yang is among the most credentialled teachers involved in transmitting Chinese martial arts to Western learners, with decades of documented instruction and publication behind him.
Eight discs covers substantial ground. Long Fist forms are presented progressively — foundation-level sequences through to more advanced material — with careful attention to stances, kicks, hand techniques, and the transitional movements that connect positions. Video instruction removes the translation problem that limits book-based self-study: rather than reading a description and hoping your body interprets it correctly, you watch a trained practitioner, pause, replicate, and check your positioning directly. For kinaesthetic learners and anyone who has previously struggled to make written instructions click in their body, this is a significant practical advantage that a book simply cannot replicate.
The trade-offs are worth considering before committing. This is the premium-tier resource in this guide, and that outlay makes the most sense if you’re specifically committed to Long Fist as the style you want to develop in the medium term. If you’re still in the exploratory phase — working out which type of kung fu suits your goals and physique — a book is a lower-risk starting point. The relatively small number of Amazon UK reviews, compared to the book picks, is also worth noting; though the ratings are consistently high from those who have reviewed it, the smaller sample offers less crowd-sourced validation.
One practical point: this collection requires a DVD player or an external USB disc drive to watch. If your home setup no longer includes an optical drive, factor that in before ordering — USB DVD drives are an inexpensive workaround. For serious students who are willing to invest in long-form, credentialled video instruction with a clear pedagogical structure, Dr. Yang’s teaching style is patient and explanatory — he justifies the logic behind each technique rather than simply demonstrating it — which means you build understanding alongside physical skill rather than just copying shapes.
What to Look For When Choosing a Kung Fu Book or Training Resource
- Author credentials and lineage: In kung fu more than most sports categories, the provenance of instruction matters. Look for authors who name their teacher, their style lineage, and the school or tradition they trained in. Vague references to years of martial arts experience without verifiable specifics are worth treating with caution.
- Format compatibility with your learning style: Physical skills can be learned from written descriptions and photographs by dedicated readers, but the learning curve is steeper than from video. If you’ve tried learning physical activities from books before and struggled to translate text into accurate body movement, a DVD or video series will serve you better, even at a higher price point.
- Level alignment: Verify that the resource genuinely targets your current level — not where you aspire to be. Beginner books that progress quickly to intermediate content, or intermediate books that assume you’re already training regularly, are among the most common sources of frustration in this category. Most product listings specify their target level clearly.
- Technique specificity: High-quality kung fu instruction explains not just how a movement looks, but what it’s doing mechanically and what purpose it serves. Surface-level descriptions of positions without mechanical context teach you shapes rather than real understanding — useful for demonstration, less useful for actual training.
- Style focus: Shaolin, Wing Chun, Hung Gar, and Long Fist are all under the kung fu umbrella but train very differently. A style-agnostic overview works well early on; once you’ve chosen a path, look for resources specific to that style rather than broad compilations that risk becoming inconsistent or confusing.
- Honesty about limitations: Trustworthy resources acknowledge what self-study cannot replace. Any book or DVD that implies complete mastery is achievable without a qualified instructor is either misleading or aimed at a very specific advanced market. The best resources actively direct you toward in-person training at appropriate points.
- Review volume and consistency: A resource with 200 or more verified reviews collected over several years provides stronger evidence of consistent quality than a newer title with 10 reviews. Both can be worth purchasing, but with a limited review base you’re placing more trust in the format logic than in proven, repeated reader outcomes.
Verdict
For most UK readers exploring kung fu for the first time — or returning to it after a gap — The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu: The Secrets of Kung Fu for Self-Defense, Health, and Enlightenment is the pick to start with. Its 4.6-star rating across more than 330 verified reviews reflects consistent quality across a large and diverse readership. The coverage of technique, history, and philosophy is well-balanced for a newcomer, and the Tuttle Martial Arts series track record adds further confidence that the material will hold up over time rather than feeling thin after a month of study.
If you know with real certainty that you learn physical skills significantly better from watching than reading, the Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu Complete Collection 8-disc (YMAA Kung Fu DVD) is worth the higher outlay. Dr. Yang’s instruction is patient, methodical, and deeply explained rather than just demonstrated — which suits the kind of disciplined self-directed learner who will genuinely put eight discs to serious use over many months.
For those wanting to start at a budget-friendly price point, the Kung-Fu: The Ultimate Guide to Shaolin Kung Fu Along with Its Movements and Techniques (Mix Martial Arts) is a reliable option with a solid review base. Whatever resource you choose, treat it as the beginning of a longer study — the books and DVD sets here will take you considerably further than most online content, but kung fu ultimately requires consistent time on the mat with qualified people around you.
This guide was produced independently. We were not paid to feature any specific product in this guide. All opinions are independent and based on publicly available specifications, verified buyer feedback patterns, and category research.
Quick Comparison Table
FAQ
Can you learn kung fu from a book or DVD without a teacher?
You can build a genuine foundational understanding from quality books and instructional DVDs — including stances, basic forms, terminology, and the reasoning behind techniques. However, kung fu involves complex body mechanics and subtle timing that benefit significantly from external correction by a qualified instructor. Self-study resources work best as a foundation-builder or supplement to in-person training, not as a complete replacement for it.
What’s the difference between Shaolin kung fu and styles like Wing Chun or Hung Gar?
Shaolin kung fu is a broad family of styles associated with the Shaolin Temple, typically featuring wide stances, long-range strikes, and an extensive catalogue of forms. Wing Chun prioritises close-range efficiency and economy of movement. Hung Gar is known for its low stances and powerful, grounded strikes. Most English-language instructional books and DVDs currently available on Amazon UK focus on Shaolin or Shaolin-derived styles, which makes them a practical broad foundation before choosing to specialise.
Are kung fu books appropriate for children to use?
Most books in this guide are written for adult learners or older teenagers with the reading comprehension and body-awareness to follow detailed technique descriptions accurately. Younger children are typically better served by supervised classes where an instructor can safely correct posture and movement in real time. Some publishers produce illustrated kung fu books designed specifically for children — look for that framing stated clearly in the product listing if that’s what you need.
How long before you notice real progress from practising at home?
With consistent daily practice of 20 to 30 minutes, most beginners notice genuine improvement in balance, basic stance stability, and flexibility within four to six weeks. More complex forms and higher-level techniques take months or years to develop with any real quality. Structured resources with a built-in progression — such as the 30-day beginner guide — help maintain motivation by giving you visible, achievable milestones to work toward in the early stages.
Do you need special equipment to start training kung fu at home?
For foundational work — stances, footwork, basic hand techniques, and short forms — no specialist equipment is needed. A clear floor area of roughly three by three metres is sufficient for most beginner practice. As training progresses, some practitioners add training gloves or a wooden dummy, but none of these are necessary in the early stages and shouldn’t factor into your initial resource choice.
Is there a single best kung fu style for beginners?
There’s no universally optimal style — it depends on your goals, your physical build, and what’s accessible to you locally. Shaolin kung fu is widely recommended as a broad starting point and covers the majority of English-language instructional books currently available. Most experienced practitioners advise beginning with whatever style has the most credentialled teacher accessible to you in person, since quality instruction matters far more than style choice in your first year of training.
