Is technique based training immature?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I just had a tai chi student tell me that focusing on techniques instead of just the forms makes me impatient and immature. She said I was looking for a quick way to become good. Also, she said that if I did mainly forms, with little emphasis on applications, I would become a much better fighter, even though it would take longer.

God d@mn hippy. Tryin to make me feel bad about wanting to learn applications.:mad:

Anways, what’s everyone’s take on this? Should applications be emphasized, or should forms?

2

What is the point of a form if you don’t know its application?

3

Smack her in the face. Really hard. Once.

4

:confused: What’s the point of forms without applications? And how would being good at forms with no effort put into apps make you a better fighter, regaurdless of time frame? I have seen people who are picture perfect at forms who couldn’t block anything in a spar. If they can’t make it work in sparring, how are they going to defend themselves agains a real advisary?!?

I always thought the forms were ment to train the body to do the movements correctly. I don’t know any idiot who is going to stand there and let me beat up on them. And that is the only way doing the forms in their pure form would win a fight. You may not be as smooth by working apps more than forms, but a solid punch is a solid punch, even if it’s ugly.

Anways, what’s everyone’s take on this? Should applications be emphasized, or should forms?

Depends on your style. Do it the way your Sifu teaches it, and you aught to be fine.

5

It also a case of horses for courses. Some people learn better through applications, others through form/principle. Really, like the internal/external division, the two converge anyway.

6

To me, what she said to you was complete and utter bull$hit. I like this quote the best…“Also, she said that if I did mainly forms, with little emphasis on applications, I would become a much better fighter, even though it would take longer.” …Yeah maybe you would become a better fighter after you got killed from training like that and with that attitude, and then learned the applications in your next life with profound vigor.

Forms teach ALOT, much more than people give them credit for, but they do not teach many of the fundamentals of combat. Skills such as timing, spacing and strategy you cant learn properly doing only forms work. Mimicing a technique in a form and actually doing it on a resisting opponent are 2 totally different things. However i do think that once you are already a competent fighter, you can learn simply a new form and be decent with it combatively, without having prior practice with the techniques in the new form.

7

Re: Is technique based training immature?

Originally posted by shaolin kungfu
I just had a tai chi student tell me that focusing on techniques instead of just the forms makes me impatient and immature. She said I was looking for a quick way to become good. Also, she said that if I did mainly forms, with little emphasis on applications, I would become a much better fighter, even though it would take longer.

To a certain degree she is right and wrong at the same time.

Also she expressed herself poorly, IMHO, and thus did not make clear why form with little emphasis on applications can be desireable.

Most prolly not been training long and gotten some wires crossed from what she heard her Sifu say.


Anways, what’s everyone’s take on this? Should applications be emphasized, or should forms?

Both need to be emphazised at the right time and place in training.

Concentrate on only one and the overall result will suffer.

8

Martial - military, fighting, aggression, defense, offense, application

Art - grace, intent, expression, pretty, ooo, ahhh, form

A series of applications thrown together = form

Tell her that if she wants to go all out focusing JUST on forms, to join Cirque de Soleil.

Follow your instincts and seek help from your Sifu.

9

Well i believe that from the forms you get the techinques, and when you perform the techniques to generate the correct power and accuracy, then the techniques can be used in the form to make it better than what it originally was before breaking it up to practice the techniques.

10

She is right … but she said it wrong.

You can learn applications all day long. We can stand in a line and you can grab my wrist and twist it this way and that way and end it with a knee in my chest. Very good! You just learned an application. Now learn 100 more. An expert, right?

But how do you get my wrist when I’m punching full power, aiming for your head, not your waiting hand, and resisting fully?

I used to train karate and learned tons of forms. They tought me balance, distribution and generally how to move well but not to fight. In fact, my sparring looked nothing like my form. In that regard, form is kind of, won’t say a waist, because it taught me to move well, but…

However, in Internal Arts I’ve learned form does not mean follow the teacher’s dance, but traing powerfull movements. How to jam that incoming blow by maintaining a strong shape, driving powerfully off the back leg, spine straight, ect. This practice requires a lot of solo walking, which could look like a form.

Of course, after you feel you have it down you have to put the gloves on and test. You just can’t maintain a strong shape pacing back and forth. One needs to test. But I think there is a danger in practicing “technique”. It’s very hard to pull off those “techniques” in actual combat. How many times have you seen it done in sparring. I think the technique is in how you jam, or strike the apponants blow and then give them a bit of yours. It doesn’t look like Kung Fu in the end, which is what a lot of people are expecting.

So when I think form I don’t think Sil Lum Toa. I think of mainting a wedge in both arms and legs and driving as powerfully as I can, over and over and over again. When I feel the alignment is OK, some power, than I’ll test it out with some friends and make adjustments or ask my master for some guidance.

Technique in my eyes is the way you overcome a bigger guy. When they have more power and try to collapse you, you “apply” a technique, like rolling the elbow.

Perhaps lots of people train the same way and just use other terms. To me, form used to be a dirty word. Now I understand its place. This is why I shy away from the gernal term of “kung Fu”. A guy at a party may be talking form and showing some Wu Shu. Form means something else to me, and so does Kung fu.

11

Originally posted by Serpent
Smack her in the face. Really hard. Once.

And if you connect, explain to her why she may need to concentrate more on technique.

12

:rolleyes: how about taking the middle road and doing a little of both? If anything I would have to argue that focusing exclusivly on forms won’t get you as far as working techniques. Although you might look good for the ladies in the park…

13

EvolutionFist:

IMO almost exactly right. You can train nothing but technique and still be an effective fighter (i.e. BJJ, judo, boxing).

Forms emphasize different ways to employ fighting techniques, teach you how to use new techniques, and (IMO most importantly) show you how to transition smoothly from one set of techniques to another.

So, that TC student probably just got her info mixed up. Then again, maybe not … try smacking her like Serpent said. If she hands you your ass instead, let us know … might have to reconfigure my thinking. :wink:

14

I agree with you too if by technique, using your grappling example, you mount me and lock me and don’t let me out. Then show me a way to get out and lock me a gain and make me work for it. But often times in kung fu technique means standing in line and pac sauing a crapy reverse punch that was never intended to hit you anway. I think that develpos a false sense of security.

My football coach used to say you play how you practice. I believe that.

I break it down like this: solo power/alignment training. I call this walking, not form. But it could be called form too.

Semi-cooperative two man drills: this means putting gear on and giving each other full (or as much as the other can take) power to work a concept or idea. Can start out in a line format or evolve into moving and more free. But there is still the friendly element where you try to get them but not hurt them. The intent is different.

Then there is sparring. For me, my intent is to get them, and issue stopping power but not to really cause damage (but it happens accidently at times) Think tournament.

The guys I’ve played with that were friends of friends have, for the most part, been gentleman, and it has not been much different than above. There were two instances where the guys were drunk though. And they were a bit nasty and things got a little heavier. I learned not to play with drunks, but at the same time its hard to say no when someone is in your face asking to play.

My training has changed a ton since studying internal. So has my outlook on martial arts. The more I learn the more I realise how much more their still is too learn. Jeez, I had no business wearing that black belt. I’ve also gotten away from worrying about everyone else and their style. I have found a system that fits my mind and personality and I’m sticking with it. I’ve gotten stronger and smarter.

Peace
Ray

15

The main problem I see here is that people obsess about “either, or” in thier training.

In the end a good fighter is the sum of ALL his training.

Each aspect of training lends its teaching to the final result. To miss one training for another is incomplete.

16

I’d have to go with Abel… there is just so much to get from each aspect, to miss one would affect progress somewhere in the long run.

17

Yep.