[QUOTE=t_niehoff;750131]Positioning is a key or core skill in BJJ, no argument there. But positioning is not a concept or a principle: it is an essential skill in playing that game. If you can’t get good position, you can’t play the game well. Dribbling is an essential or core skill in basketball – you can’t move the ball well if you don’t dribble, and if you can’t move the ball, you can’t play well. It’s a skill, not a concept/principle.
Beginners may use “principles” to help them in the beginning but as they get better, more and more they rely on experience (IMO). Beginners don’t know how to move, why to move, what opportunites open when you do this or that, etc. So they need something to guide them in their movements. That something are general rules (principles or concepts). These general rules are distilled from other more experienced practitioners’ experience (who find that if you generally do this or that, it will increase your chances in the game). As beginners get more and more into the game, and earn their own experience, these general rules will be unnecessary.
As I see it, concepts/principles are at best a starting point from which to begin earning our experience. From that experience, we develop judgment. It’s our judgment that tells us what to do, when to do it, etc. A expert in an area (in our case, a good fighter) doesn’t do soemthing because it conforms to some general principle; he does it because in his judgment, forged from loads of actual experience, he has found that is the best way to go for him. And very often, that may even be contrary to the “general principle.”[/QUOTE]
Hey Terence
My point was that the core is based on principles, just like in your example above to get into the proper position is a skill which you’ll get no argument there from me, but that skill is based on principles. I’m talking if you strip everything away, from any sport or martial art it’s core is the principles, and it’s how you apply those principles (skill) that matter.
Just like in basketball, when you have to move around another player. They’ve taught you to pivot way back when you first started learning, it’s mainly on the ball of the foot and that’s the principle, but how you apply it is your skill level. You look in one direction, pivot in the other to pass or whatever. That skill is based on the principle of pivoting on the ball of your foot in combination with other elements of course.
Now you brought up judgement, which again is another big factor for sure. Poor judgement could have you end up somewhere that you don’t want to be. Good judgement comes from experience, hands down, experience comes from practice, practice comes from applying a learned set or drill or technique which is based on a principle.
As for your final outcome not following a general principle I’m not sure if that’s really the case. It may not ‘look’ picture perfect but for the most part if you analyze whatever it is, I’m willing to bet it does. The thing with principles and concepts is that they’re not tangible which means because they’re not rigid, it’s easier to conform to a principle than it is to go against one.
My whole thing is that the ving tsun’s principles and concepts work.
) further more would say both vt and bjj (along with mt and boxing to a leser degree) are fine effective arts that rely on both positioning and HIPS… the usage of hips within vt is paramount to generating short range torque/power correctly, imho mt does the same thing from further away as bjj does it closer. positioning otoh usually comes from correct timing and footwork/movement which should be the focus of chisau (rather than hitting each other and scoring points mentally which some high level guys still dont get!!!)