How do you remember your forms?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I have a friend who’s a terrific martial artist and sifu.

He has crosstrained in many different methods, and he’s constantly learning new stuff. What he does WORKS for him in combat.

Once, I asked him “How do you remember all that stuff” and he said “I don’t, but I write it all down”.

That shocked me a bit, though I can see how effective that would be. That’s because I practice a single fist set with only 36 moves - and that’s the empty-hand training of my style along with a two man matching hand set!

For me, I just keep doing that little form over and over again. It took me quite some time to learn it by memory, but I did it. My sifu is constantly pushing me to become more and more attentive to detail.

What do you guys do to memorize your forms, particularly those of you that train large systems?

2

Practice

cxxx:::::::::::>
You’re fu(king up my chi

3

Practice

“Life’s a great Adventure, Mate”
Jacko Jackson

4

learning

I dont try learn a whole form at once, and I make sure what I learn in the school I have down before leaving.

5

the best way is to practice them with the 5 elements, the 2nd is to write them down and the 3rd is to video tape them so you can watch your self performing then understand how you can improve them.

http://www.kungfuUSA.net

6

practice daily. the videotaping idea is good also. It’s really not so hard once you get in the habit of practicing them.

"Just because I joke around sometimes doesn’t mean I’m serious about kung-fu.
" - nightair

7

At last count, I have learned over 98 forms-how many do I remember? Dang, I’ve forgotten entire systems!(I intentially forgot the entire Villari kempo;-) I vaguely remember my northern stuff, lien bo kuen is gone, Gung Lik Kuen is vague,gwai-ding is vague, but my tan tuie is intact-not bad for 29 yrs ago, my pinans are still okay,bassai is ok, naihanchi is gone-I quit right after Ilearned it. My Lam Sai-Wing gung-ji, and fu-hok are pretty gone-I prefer the Tang-Fung, but i practice the Sup Ying Kuen. I write down the weapon sets, because my sifu force-fed me them. Some sets I no longer practiceed after i researched them and found them to be bogus-made up by previous instructors who lacked the true understanding of their art, Some are on the back burner to be worked on in depth as my progress continues. My curriculum I know-because I teach it every day. This seems to be the best way to know, remember, and truly understand them, by teaching.It brings out all the subtle nuances, as you are constantly explaining, demonstrating, correcting their form-and your own. So much for “those who can’t-teach”.

8

As many said already: PRACTICE…there’s nothing likee muscle memory…however, videotaping it can be a very good thing: if you practice the form enough and tape it, in case you forget it later the video will remind you the rough stuff and your body will remember the details along the way…

9

I dont see how he can be GOOD at “what he does”, make it work for him if he have to write it down . When going to a fight, does he have to pick up his note book first?

form collecting is probebly fun, but I pesonly dont think that its a great ideé. That may be just me?

                    ~K~

“maybe not in combat.. but think of the chicks man, the chicks!” – someone on the subject of back-flips in combat –

10

I practice, write it down as I practice (sometimes drawing stick figures), and with some forms I video tape and leave it in my archive.

Robin

Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.

11

Pracitce, yes yes. But writing it down has been they key to transmission of many styles.

The school I attend has a manual that decribes every technique and it’s method of execution (in nicely abbreviated japanese). I find this interesting becuase you can see that the forms are a series of assembled individual techniques. This allows for more solo study too.

12

The first time I learn a kata I too write it all down. Then, of course, I practice it. But the act of writing it down initially leads into formation of new cognitive ways of looking/learning at the kata and shouldn’t be dismissed.

Your thread leads into another question. When do you guys feel you “own” a kata/form? In another words, sure you may know the movements of a kata, but how long do you have to practice it before you feel you own that kata? In shotokan the rule of thumb is if you practice the kata 1000 times you’ll own it–this was an old Funakoshi rule.

K. Mark Hoover

13

You don’t write it down to remember it during a fight, you write details down over successive lessons so that you can review the concepts and work on incorporating them into the techniques, so that, once they are all incorporated, THEN you can use it in a fight.

I’m picky on forms. One sifu came up with a fan form, and it wasn’t the S***, so I didn’t learn it. I have a very defined list of what I wish to learn, and I don’t get distracted from that list unless my sifu can come up with a compelling reason that the form will improve my kung fu. Here’s my list:

Six Elbows basic form(learned it-basic southern kung fu primer)

Little Buddha(Intermediate six elbows form that begins to touch on the internal side of the art)

Bi Da(Six Elbows again, but far more of the internal stuff-learning it right now)

Other stuff that I have not learned yet, but is on my list:
Six Elbows internal form(last of the six-elbows open hand stuff)
Knife-for home/self defense
Six Elbows spear-for the chi cultivation
pa kua(once I’ve shown skill in the six elbows internal form)

I think the key is to keep your training focused. Some forms collectors are good martial artists because they collected forms that made sense together, and some suck, because they just learned whatever in whatever order.

14

You just have to practice.

When you accumulate a few forms, practice them all but break it up so you practice two forms one day, the next two on the following day and so on.

Then set aside time to practice further that which you are weak in.

Retention only comes through constant repitition.
If you don’t practice your stuff you will forget it.
In a fight, you go with the second nature of what you have ingrained through practice. It’s not like you are going to do a form in a fight, you are going to use that which comes to your readily as a result of the inculcation of practice.

Practice, Practice, Practice, it is the only way you will get the stuff into you.

Keeping reference material is handy, but has little value when compared to the actual doing of the forms you have been taught.

peace

Kung Lek

Martial Arts Links

15

Not being argumentative, but I’ve seen a lot of guys practice their forms an awful lot, but not implement all the details their teacher has ever told them because they forgot them. The first time I learn a technique or portion of form, I pay attention to all the statements my teacher might make about the form, because most of the time, when first working on a new technique, it is all the student can do to remember the gross movements of the form. Practice of those gross movements does not necessarily teach you the details. However, once you have the gross movements down, if you have documented further instructions that you couldn’t implement before, then you can further your form. However, if you don’t have it documented, then you must wait til class and make your teacher repeat what he already said.

Practice is extremely important, but unfocussed practice is worse than none at all, because it ingrains bad habits. Ancient monks often couldn’t read, but had endless hours to practice. Most of us don’t have endless hours, but we can read and write, and its foolish to not use your brain to maximize your practice.

So if you can write, its my opinion that you’d better write everything you can down about your lessons. Your teacher has to repeat himself enough without you forgetting what he already told you.

16

I’ve tried to get into the habit of writing down a few notes after each class, or during the occasional water break.

Chances are, some notes I will immediately appreciate and begin using. Others I won’t find as useful, but I’ll write them down anyways for the day I’m more willing to experiment, or to pass on to my future students.

The only problem is that I used to be pretty unorganized and wrote these notes all over the freakin place on any scrap of paper I could find. Sometimes they’re in a notebook, on the back of a flyer, in a book, or in my palm pilot. One day I should go through each form and take all the applicable notes and put them to one source.

And then, lose it :slight_smile:

17

KC, I agree, practicing incoorectly is worse than not practicing at all.
So, yes, the essence of the form and sequence is learned first, then comes refinement along with extrapolation of application.

So, you should know a form in essence and sequence and a fair deal of the applications before even beginning another form.

At least that is how my sifu taught me. No new stuff til what you have is down.

In some forms, changes are made later after a student has developed the required ability to make the adaptations. This is presented to the student much later sometimes.

For instance I learned the same form three different ways in one case. i also was taught that in some forms one could repeat a particular motion 3 times or 5 times or more lengthening or shortening the duration of the form without omiting content.

This was usually more true of the soutern forms I was taught as opposed to the northern Shaolin where the form was the form period. you did it from start to finish the same way each time. However, it was always encouraged to break all the formsdown and practice singular applications and techniques from within the forms by themselves to develop effectiveness with those applications.

I do make a point of writing every single thing down, and would do so either immediately on a break or immediately following a class. I usually was very careful as to the amount of questions I asked so that I would only have a little bit to remember instead of trying to remember a whole bunch of things and forgetting some of the more important stuff.

It is always better in my opinion to absorb a little bit and do that little bit a lot before moving on.

I practice all the forms I was taught all the time. I review notes and even watch videos of myself and then once or twice a year make new videos and compare them to keep up with improvements or to make note of where I need improvements.

So I agree, constant testing and reviewing of the self is absolutely necessary, but the first and foremost requirement is doing through practice.

peace

Kung Lek

Martial Arts Links

18

Agreed Kung Lek. Its interesting to hear your impression on southern forms tending to have more variation in the way you practice them. My longfist is pretty much written in stone, but all my six elbows, which is southern, has lots of variations. As an example, there is a shuffle called biu ma that is common in the system(not identical to wing chun’s biu ma, ours looks just like hsing yi when done correcly). Now, I noticed my teacher did biu ma on certain techniques in one form, but did not teach it to me that way. He told me to try putting biu ma into every technique I could, and observe what happens. In the end, his form and mine look very different, we biu ma on completely different steps, but neither of us is wrong, as he is short and must shuffle in on some steps that I would normally already be in range on, and I biu ma on other steps because of my size and mass.

We also learn forms in three steps, basically the groos movements, then the refinements, then the power. Of course, the form I’m working on now is more internal, so the order is somewhat different, but not much. Its intersting to hear of others who practice the same way.

The video thing is a great suggestion. In the past, I limited that to when I was preparing for demonstrations, but I really should make it a regular part of my practice.

Again, I agree about learning a little at a time. I am not by any means a fast learner, and my real advantage is that I love to do things many times over, so that I may not learn fast, but I do learn correctly(in the long run). My problem is that teachers always give me more details than I can necessarily implement right there, so I keep track of them and later in the week/month/year, when I’ve gotten some confidence in the technique, I can implement those changes.

19

Uhhh, what was the question again? :smiley:

20

Question? Isn’t this the post about kicking dogs? :wink: