My question is concerning some of my other post about not having space. I have joined a gym were I could use one of the studio rooms to do forms. I would have plenty of room to open up and go full throttle but I would feel kind of weird asking a new sifu if its ok. so what I’m asking you kind men/women if its usually frowned on in Chinese martial arts or not. I don’t want to ask sifu and I don’t want to be disrespectful.
Oh, you mean practicing somebody else’s forms in public? Not practicing at another school.
Screw the sifu (not literally). You are paying him $$$, right? You’re not a slave. Do what you like.
Well if you are a member of a gym and there is a studio in that gym where you have enough space to do your forms(when there isnt a cardio kick box class going on) then i say if you are not self concsious about people occasionally popping their head in to see what you are doing, then go for doin your forms there.
i am a member of a local gym and when the studio is dark and no-one is in there i will sometimes go in and spend a few minutes working on stance and posture and then i will do some stuff i know.
i mean if you get people coming up to you and asking what you are doing then answer them but still keep in mind the agreement you made with your teacher to not teach what you are learning out to anyone. It is always kosher to demonstrate to a small degree to people.
Peace,TWS
[QUOTE=The Willow Sword;704255]
i mean if you get people coming up to you and asking what you are doing then answer them but still keep in mind the agreement you made with your teacher to not teach what you are learning out to anyone.
Peace,TWS[/QUOTE]
What agreement? Who says this person made an agreement?
Do you guys ever get challenges when doing that? Don’t people always come up and say “Oh, you know Karate? Show me something…” Then it’s like “Okay, let’s say I came up to you and hit you in the nose like this…Oh, I’m sorry, dude…I think it’s broken…you’d better sit down while I find you a towel to soak up all that blood with…yeah, that’s why I never took up karate…” LOL
[QUOTE=Faruq;704257]Do you guys ever get challenges when doing that? Don’t people always come up and say “Oh, you know Karate? Show me something…” Then it’s like “Okay, let’s say I came up to you and hit you in the nose like this…Oh, I’m sorry, dude…I think it’s broken…you’d better sit down while I find you a towel to soak up all that blood with…yeah, that’s why I never took up karate…” LOL[/QUOTE]
??? Challenges? No. I used to do forms in public in college, and I’ve come across people doing taiji and stuff but nobody ever challenges. ???
never in the years that i have done my forms in a gym or out in the park have i ever been approached by anyone wanting to challenge me or to have me show them how what i do works. oh and lunghushan, when you join a kwoon there is usually a prerequisite that you are not to teach out the forms you are learning to anyone.
TWS
go ahead and do your forms. If the Sifu showed you them its not his problem anymore. I know some schools get real hung up about the idea of showing people their “secret forms” but who cares? really it doesnt matter. go for it if you want to practice.
[QUOTE=MARTIALSTUDANT;704243]My question is concerning some of my other post about not having space. I have joined a gym were I could use one of the studio rooms to do forms. I would have plenty of room to open up and go full throttle but I would feel kind of weird asking a new sifu if its ok. so what I’m asking you kind men/women if its usually frowned on in Chinese martial arts or not. I don’t want to ask sifu and I don’t want to be disrespectful.[/QUOTE]
Then respect your teacher by having the courage to ask him. You’ll grow stronger from the experience.
[QUOTE=The Willow Sword;704269]never in the years that i have done my forms in a gym or out in the park have i ever been approached by anyone wanting to challenge me or to have me show them how what i do works. oh and lunghushan, when you join a kwoon there is usually a prerequisite that you are not to teach out the forms you are learning to anyone.
TWS[/QUOTE]
??? Prerequisite? I’ve never heard of this.
A teacher might not want you doing it, but that’s their problem. You don’t sign a contract or anything. Otherwise you’re totally wasting your money.
If you are not allowed to teach them then leave the school immediately. That’s total B.S.
I practice forms at a local park all the time. Actually, a few years now. One time a bunch of kids drove by yelling “HIIIIYAAAHHHHHH!”. I just smiled and waved. That was the only time anyone ever said anything to me.
You have to practice, to me, that means doing forms in public.
[QUOTE=Chief Fox;704279]I practice forms at a local park all the time. Actually, a few years now. One time a bunch of kids drove by yelling “HIIIIYAAAHHHHHH!”. I just smiled and waved. That was the only time anyone ever said anything to me.
You have to practice, to me, that means doing forms in public.[/QUOTE]
I’ve actually done partner practice in a public park many times. There have been people hanging out, playing with their kids, playing soccer, and we were punching each other and throwing each other.
Nobody paid any attention to us at all! It was a bit surprising – they didn’t even seem to notice.
My sensei and my sifu have all been delighted when I’ve gone back to class having polished and perfected my kata/forms. They certainly didn’t mind when I practised in the parks. In fact I’ve had private lessons in parks before, sometimes when the sifu was too cheap and sometimes just because it was a nice day. I know a lot of my teachers have practised in the park.
I too have done and still do a lot of pair work in parks and in UK the worst I’ve had was ‘hiyaaaaa’ calls and a national, respected TV channel (Channel 4) asking if they could film us (we said ‘Yes!’!). In Japan sometimes people ask what we are doing and watched us closely but nobody has challenged us yet.
Go for it!
Willow sword - you practice in darkened rooms in the gym…? No wonder nobody has ever come up to you - they probably think you’re crazy! 
Actually one teacher we could always tell when he was short on students because he’d have class in the park to drum up some more business.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704277]??? Prerequisite? I’ve never heard of this.
A teacher might not want you doing it, but that’s their problem. You don’t sign a contract or anything. Otherwise you’re totally wasting your money.
If you are not allowed to teach them then leave the school immediately. That’s total B.S.[/QUOTE]
If you aren’t an asst. instructor, you probably shouldn’t be teaching anyone anything because you don’t have the skills yet. If you half-@ss know something, odds are you are going to teach it half-@ssed.:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=MasterKiller;704294]If you aren’t an asst. instructor, you probably shouldn’t be teaching anyone anything because you don’t have the skills yet. If you half-@ss know something, odds are you are going to teach it half-@ssed.:rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
So … who the heck cares? This person is talking about showing their forms to other people, not teaching anyway.
Bottom line everybody sucks anyway and would be defeated easily by a gun. So who cares? Good at doing a form? BWAHAHAHAHA Good at grappling? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
All it would take is one kid who hadn’t trained for a month with a gun to kill any of us. So what does it matter?
It doesn’t matter.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704302]
Bottom line everybody sucks anyway and would be defeated easily by a gun. So who cares? Good at doing a form? BWAHAHAHAHA Good at grappling? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
All it would take is one kid who hadn’t trained for a month with a gun to kill any of us. So what does it matter?
It doesn’t matter.[/QUOTE]
All of the above would be wrong.
[QUOTE=Wood Dragon;704311]All of the above would be wrong.[/QUOTE]
Seriously, I’ve never known ANYBODY killed in a fistfight. Or a fight with handheld weapons such as sword, spear, etc., for that matter. Or even a knife fight, although that is more common.
But I’ve known people who got killed in cars, motorcycles, of heart disease, old age, and 2 from guns.
Just look at the statistics. How many people are seriously injured or killed from fighting, compared to guns?
Bottom line is martial arts are really not very important to anybody except cops who need to restrain people.
I’ve never gotten challenged in public. If I do forms in the park, most people just make Bruce Lee noises. I had one woman ask me what I was doing once at this huge park in Atlanta once. I told her Praying Mantis Boxing and she said “cool” and went on her way. I had a bunch of silly gangstas laugh at me while I was doing qigong.
Once, this one kid saw me practicing and wanted to show me how his BJJ would totally kill me:rolleyes: I let him do some stuff. He was 13 and I couldn’t have really fought him and got away with it…I’m 24. After he does his demo and leaves, one of the middle girls that was watching comes up to me and asks me if Adam (apparently that was his name) beat me up. Well, they thought he did by the way the girl looked at me, lol.
I’ll show someone a little of the art if they are genuine in their desire to learn…but just a little. After that, I’ll tell them they can come to class if they want to learn more. Hey, I didn’t get to learn all this stuff for free and neither did my teacher.
This is funny. This stuff always happened to me and my friends when we went to the park to train. All the hayaaa! stuff, and some laughs, and some gangstas, but no fights thus far. To the thread starter. It is not disrespectful to ask, it is disrespectful NOT to ask. I really don’t see any problem though. It can be a bit distracting training in the park, and you have to get over shyness, but its interesting, and I can’t count how many times people who had geniune interest have come over to me and had a little talk (which is a positive thing). A couple joined my old school. And you can meet women while training in the park… I don’t think you would be able to do that in most dark gym rooms, and if you could, I don’t think they would be the kind of women that you would want to show your OH face to… Anyway you look at it, park beats no park.