The first thing you want to learn from such books is that its Called, " HAND-TO HAND " fighting, and that means you are mostly likely to get hurt, Too! Its nice to know how to use these ancient arms to defend yourself, but it takes years of training to become proficient, and there are a lot better tools to use for self defense than a knife or hawk.
The age of multiple capacity magazine guns came about the same time that physical assaults became multiple ASSAILANTS rather than involving only one person. That hand held weapon is useless against more than one attacker, or if any of your enemies is armed with a gun.
By all means, take martial arts training. It will not only teach you basics that are used in all the martial arts, but it will teach you how to observe, what to see, and HOW TO THINK! Those are the critical skills you need to survive any attack, especially when you are facing greater numbers of attackers. Practice, always with plastic, or wooden "tools" they can be sticks, and don't even have to be shaped like a hawk. That will come later.
A lot of modern hawks use for combat come made out of a single piece of steel, for strength. Everyone likes the idea of a war hawk, with a 2 inch wide blade, and a spike or dagger off the back end of the head, hanging from a 20 inch or longer handle. It looked good in " Last of the Mohigans" didn't it?? It looked pretty darn good in Mel Gibson's " The Patriot", too. But read the books like Mclemore's. You will get past the Hollywood choreography, and find out about real fighting with a hawk.
You don't learn how to fire a gun from a Hollywood production, and I certainly hope you don't take seriously any movie idea on how to use a hawk to fight.
