No, I don’t think you get any closer with two person sets, as most all form are two person sets, even if you’ve never practiced it that way. That is how you learn the application of the technique. You attack, I defend. You do this, so I do that. You counter with this, I block counter and do something else. This is what forms are: a kinisthetic learning system akin to books. Rather than memorizing written words you are memorizing postures and sets in line.
Memorizing techniques isn’t going to enable you to use them. That’s like trying to dive Nascar because you once took a driver’s ed class and have read all about the cars and drivers. :rolleyes:
Yenhoi - That’s sort of the question isn’t it. I see pretty regularly comments about “people who think forms is the end all to be all” or “they think you can learn to fight/defend yourself without sparring” I’m just curious who these people are? My assumption would be people under 15, and those with less then three months of martial arts experience.
First, I am NOT a forms will teach you fighting advocate. To learn to fight, you need to fight. period.
That said, NASCAR is an interesting analogy. Racing is like fighting. Lots of stuff can happen in a race. On the otherhand, racers spend LOTS of time running the tracks solo. This is similar to forms. Working the movements in the ideal situation.
I learned to fight before I ever began my studies of CMA. Wanna know how? I got in fights. Yep thats right, never had done a form in my life, never even thought about doing them. But now that I have been studying kung fu for a while, being one who understood the principles of fighting beforehand, I most deffinately see the benefit of forms. I like the NASCAR analogy. Thats just how it is, you get comfortable doing the movements in a no stress relaxed invironment, (meaning a yelling sifu is less stress than an angry opponent on the streets) in turn giving your muscle memory a little help when you reach the real deal.
There is no substitution for sparring/fighting. The energy present in a constantly moving and adapting opponent CANNOT be simulated in solo work.
i think the forms only teaches you the movements, to really appreciate the form and to see and use it in action, you have to spar and make it your own, not everybody is going to throw, kick the same way.
I dont see any reason why someone couldent take a “form” and train it solo, with partners as a set, with partners but not as a set, solo as conditioning, with partners as conditioning, etc.
my cage-fighters would train this form everyday, with and without partners. Left and right sides.
sprawl
shoot
breakfall
bridge
roll to standing
jab
cross
hook
uppercut
overhand
shovel
hip toss from grip # 1
reap from grip # 2
footsweep from grip # 3
single from grip # 4
double from grip # 5
etc
Yep. I liked that analogy because you never see a pro Nascar driver who didn’t run a bajillion little heats before trying to use these skills in the real thing. They know they have got to get out there and race to be any good at racing.
If you have read those three books that written by Fu Son Nan then you would give up dreaming in forms. Fu and his father Fu Ja Bin performed forms to make a living in Taiwan back in the 50th. He had spent more time in forms than anybody that I know. He performed forms in Sheng Chang Wu Circus (the only circus in Taiwan) to make a living back in the 60th. He competed in tournaments and lost and he expressed his honest feeling about forms in his books.
There is a big difference between knowing how to do it and being able to do it. Not every EE Phd can fix a broken TV.
I’ve been hearing about the forms issue for years…it’s so interesting how certain topics never die. Nonetheless, as an enthusiast I find these discissions always to be of interest. So, I’ll put my two little cents if you all don’t mind…this is what I think of forms. I view them as the set of encyclopedias I have at home. Forms are great when it comes for one to learn the essence of any art provided that there is diligent practice. Just like an encyclopedia, you can read from cover to cover (which I think anyone rarely does anyway LOL) or you can go concentrating on one topic until you absorb everything that you need to absorb (which is the most logical way of going about it…but that’s just my opinion) Even when one attains a certain level of proficiency one can always go back (like going thru an encyclopedia) and dissect the forms and always find something new in them (this is the research part).
Like the Bruce Lee quote goes…‘Wishing is not enough, one must do; knowing is not enough, one must apply’ (I hope I got that one right). So yes, forms alone just won’t do…you must put into practice what you have learned in order to see if it works for you or not. That would mean going from solo practice to 2-man sets and eventually to sparring (that’s were experimentation comes in), which is very essential for one to attain mastery of any given system. Just my humble opinion.
Forms are good as a sort of review, the sets of movements you do should act like a basic cliffs notes version to the hits/locks/kicks you learned in actually class. You read the cliff notes to get the big picture, and when your practicing the small sections in detail you won’t get completely lost.
As for being ready to fight, the person that read the real book (sparring and practicing all the sections) will have more in depth understanding of his material. The person that just reads cliff notes can appear to be able to fight at the same degree as the other guy, but in the end some of those small details missing from experience or studious analysis of the Art will make him F**k up and lose.
Personally, I believe doing the techniques out of the form in pre arragned two man sets, light sparring and progressing to full contact against resisting opponents IS learning and mastering the form. To do anything less is just covering the surface, and not truely learning the form a all.
