Why learn a martial art?

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by PK

The only real difference between "I know these skills" and "I've learned this style" is that the latter means you also bought Style Familiarity. That perk is pretty cool -- it gives you a lot of minor benefits for just a point -- but it has the prerequisite that you can't take it unless you first take all of the primary skills of the style. So that's the one true game-mechanical benefit of "learning a style" -- you get to buy Style Familiarity for it.

I thought that you had to be in a style to be able to improve the techniques of that style above default. Am I wrong here?

And of course the cinematic techniques and skills usually need Trained by a Master and the master in question may be picky about who, how, and what he teaches.