I have recently delved into combat magic myself. I have been working on mastering my elements in terms of astral manipulation and once I did I started practicing them into combat techniques with my staff. I do fairly well with it. I have a room mate who is a druid and although our beliefs differ, for I follow the path of the ancient Greek olypmians, I work very well with him. I am a rogue and have pledged myself in service of my gods. Recently we were visited while performing our respective rituals by a presence that, while reading its energies, was lupine in form. It attacked on an astral sense and I answered its challenge with my newly learned skill of magical combat with my staff and in the end was fictitious in driving it away. I then drew my sword and formed a ring of astral flames around my home so they could not enter again. If they want a confrontation I shall deal with it outside from now on.
After reading the posts in this topic what comes to my mind is this. Assuming that by the term "magick" you mean the conscious manipulation of energy I believe that the practice of any of the internal martial arts IE., Tai-Chi, Xing-yi, Pa-Qua, you can learn to use magick for combat. I practice Tai-Chi and it is all about learning to feel, then control the energy and gradually increasing your skill until you achieve the oneness. The whole point of the internal arts is to learn to achieve harmony with the universe which means to be one with the energy that makes it up.
At one time I didn't believe in Chi but after several years of practicing internal arts I can tell you a lot is possible. The trick to learning how, is to find that true master to learn from and avoid those in it only for the bucks. I don't know if this helped but this is my two cents worth on the subject.
To perfectly straight combat magic in sense of using ones energy to attack long range or as a material for a weapon is one hell of a fluff.
On the other hand usage of ones energy/chi/psi/mana as a way to augment ones abilities in hand-to-hand combat is very possible, although it does require a lot of work, and those that use it properly don`t really need IT. Because by the time they learn to use it they are skilled enough in hand-to-hand combat that it becomes redundant.
But if you are talking about fighting on astral plane or with spiritual level simply expanding ones energy violently in a form of a bubble should push any nuisance away and if they persist just re expend your energy and spin it violently and with as much power as you can to fling them away and quite possibly rip them apart(only for purely spiritual beings).
