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It depends on how you want the action to come across - artistic and graceful, or gritty and realistic? The best thing to do is find visual references, then write to describe what you saw. You'll gain a sense for what combat looks like, and what it sounds like on paper. You can also read books detailing combat, but since it will be filtered through an another author's point of view it may not be as objective as is best for learning.
For artistic/graceful/unrealistic but beautiful fighting, watch films like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Kill Bill", etc. Comic Books are good for this too, but tend to leave mechanics out as they are difficult to illustrate. Sitting in on a martial arts class will also give you some experience with 'idealized' combat.
For realistic/gritty combat, first be aware that most real fights don't last more than a minute or two. They are brutish and full of hurt, even when dealing with martial arts. "Kill Bill" is a good reference for the hurt part, but your best bet are the more realistic movies out there like "Full Metal Jacket". "Sherlock Holmes" has some good tips in it too, at the beginning.
Since it's hard (and traumatizing) to actually witness serious combat, see if you can make friends with a mentally-stable war veteran who is willing to talk about their experiences. Don't push anyone, PTSD is a very real problem and can lead to all kinds of Bad Stuff if pushed.
As a last tip - it can be more dramatic and make for a better read, but less realistic, to have the bad guy get in a few really good hits before the good guy wins (or vice versa). You won't see too many examples of that in real-life combat, but it makes for more interesting reading. Good luck!
Last edited by lady_cthulhu; 07-09-2010 at 03:10 PM.
Reason: split paragraph in two for easier reading
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