Kung-Fu and MMA

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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I originally posted this on the Southern Forum, thought it might be a better discussion here:

Originally Posted by tungmojingjung
Tung Mo Boxing allows its learners to experience many techniques extracted from multiple systems allowing the learner options. In other words it is Tung Mo that has allowed freedom to intercept with the Chuin of Choy Lee Fut, followed by the Rising Elbow of Ba Ji, completing with the Trip Kick Body throw of Chinese Wrestling, mind you all skills adopted from the vast arsenal of Chinese martial arts. Chinese martial arts is complete, no it doesn’t need Jiu Jitsu, Thai Boxing or anything else outside of it in my opinion.

The older generation had it correct when they went out and investigated, put into practice, exchange ideas, all with the point of bettering themselves and their understanding. We must also be conscious of their efforts and lessons so as to better ourselves as well.

A little contridictory, don’t you think?

Why not put your theories to the test then? Have you or your students compete in a NHB/MMA competition.

Additionally, why is it that the general concensus regarding TCMA is about preservation? For some reason, for the last 25-75 years, TCMA’sts have tried to ‘preserve’ the teachings of there foreteachers. Tsk, Tsk. This is NOT the true spirit of TCMA - let me explain my point before some of you start shaking and becoming ill with discontention.

TCMA is about ‘progression’, not ‘preservation’ in MY opinion. Most of our “traditional” styles, which we love so much, are all ‘hybrids’ - Jow Ga, Choy Lay Fut, Hung Ga (yes, Hung People, WFH’s Hung Ga is riddled with signature combinations from more than 1 other style), Hung Mok, Hung Fut, 4 styles of Tai Chi (at a minimum, they all are modifications of the Chen Style), Fu Jow Pai, Hakka styles, etc.

If Jiu Jiustu (BJJ) was popular 100 years ago, you can bet your @$$es that the Chinese would have been doing it as well. Hell, the assimilated western boxing and started teaching their army San Da/San Shou over 80 years ago! Stating that western boxing methods and their training was superior to CMA at the time! (Written by the Chinese Gov., look it up people)

These styles were all about progress. They incorporated stuff from other styles, not for altruism, but for results. They added stuff to their styles, cut stuff out, created new forms, ditched old ones, etc. If anyone here thinks they are doing forms/pattern in thier exact fashion, as they were practice over 100 years ago, YOU ARE LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD. These patters/forms ALWAYS changed. It’s just with more recent times, as things are getting easier to record, AND we are fighting less, that they are being preserved.

And seriously, who cares if your form has 2-3 more movements in it than the other guy, or if your form is an older version of something? What difference does it make? It doesn’t make you a better MA’rtist than the next guy, that’s for sure…

Fact is, fighting methods evolve. The rules of engagement and the way people fought 50, 100, 200 years ago has always changed. People are bigger, faster and stronger than ever today. No one fights they way they did 100 years ago, and most of what you hear about the ‘old days’ is silly storytelling, mostly taken from Kung-Fu movies that romantacize the morals and values of KF people, not to mention outrageos skills sets/levels. Read more about the Chinese people, or hell, get to know some - and you’ll realize that there is very little ‘chivalry’ going on, either in the martial arts world or not. The politics surrounding TCMA is appauling, designed to control and supress, not to build and support as they suggest. But I appear to digress here…

TCMA don’t want to admit that their secret fantasy martial arts styles are not complete. They (now I mean most, not all) want to keep thier stuff ‘original’ thinking it’s better and shouldn’t change a **** thing. If you learn some Thai boxing or add some BJJ to your curriculum, you are looked down upon.

Problem with MMA is it has no allegiance to a specific style. HA! That is too hard to deal with for TCMA people. They want allegiance, they want to be part of something bigger. It makes them feel more secure and gives them a big brother to stand behind them. They claim that their style is so good because of so and so in the past, who fought and beat 100 people with nothing but a toothpic and a hand towel, blah blah blah. To quote the bare-breasted miss Janet Jackson, “what have you done for me lately?” What exactly has TCMA done Lately to show it’s superiority? Hmmm, let’s ponder this for a moment…

Don’t get me wrong. I love Kung-Fu as much as anyone on this board and have dedicated the last 26 years to training and teaching it. But people - wake up! Some of what we do, just isn’t applicable anymore and I seriously doubt if some of it ever was! WHOA - BLASPHEMOUS TALK!~! Yes, the silly bowing rituals, they codes within forms, secret handshakes, etc. A LOAD OF CRAP. More stuff that has nothing to do with fighting (CMA’s original intent, mind you) Forms? Sorry. More a way to demonstrate NOT FIGHTING, and a way for many southern KF people to demo and beg in the streets to earn some money.

FORMS? A good way to catalog some techniques, a bad way to learn to fight.

The myth? Practice your form and you’ll be a great fighter one day, just like the Shaolin Monks. Oh, not the one’s who defected here in the early 90’s and ate meat and asked for porn as soon as they landed on American soil, I mean the one’s from the movies (no,..they really can do all those things that they do in the movies - my teacher told me, because his teacher was a real Shaolin Monk). Yes, even though Shaolin is a legend and was really only known for staff play, not the birthplace for all arts. Oh yes, they did do martial arts, but not as we have been told. Yes, even though these stories of the Shaolin temple do NOT appear in any written texts, prior to 1909 in china (a story created) and later debunked by other chinese historians over the next 10 years. No, I still believe in fantasy stories about superior monks and if I just practice this form that has been passed on for 1000 years, I too will become super, just like the monks in the movies.

What the f(ck is wrong with everyone? Where did everyone’s common sense go? People - Train to become the best you can be - forget style, lineage, history or what country that arm bar came from…

Just train yourselves, train your students and make PROGRESS. Preservation is for the AMISH. Learn some new stuff, train with some people who do Sticks, or BJJ or MMA or Boxing. Become a well rounded MA’ist and make your OWN contributions to the next generation, don’t just photocopy what you’ve learned from your teacher and pass on the notes. Add to them. Throw some pages out.

SIDEBAR - I think that there are many fantastic techniques from TCMA that MMA people have yet to see. 13 years ago, the UFC was dominated by a 185 lb. guy who couldn’t throw a punch to save his life, but choked the f(ck out of everyone who never saw it coming. Fast forward to modern times. People learned the same stuff he knew and beat him and others like him. Now BJJ is just part of the puzzle, along with Striking and grappling/throwing. The strikers today are okay, but they won’t hold a candle to the guys that are fighting 13 years from today. And just as the ‘superman’ punch has now become a real MMA technique, I believe you’ll eventually see Kahp Choih, Pek Choih and many other of our classic favorites make their way in as well. As soon as TCMA guys get their heads out of their @$$es and start training and fighting NHB/MMA.

If you are a TCMA guy and claim your stuff is superior to what is being done in MMA today, PROVE IT. And not with stories from the 60’s of your teachers point-fighting record or some fictious notion that you do full contact in your school. Train, Fight, Progress. Stop teaching secret applications of your styles in-door bowing technique and magical chi-blasts. Teach them to punch and kick, clinch, throw and submit. Teach them how to use the techniques you love, keep in mind that some of them might not actually work - so you better test some out first - and then re-evaluate where YOU are in YOUR martial arts career. Train some more and re-evalute again. Meet some people outside of your TCMA family and spar and share and stop being a bunch of secret-holding sissies who think that they are better than everyone else because their styles is so deadly and rarely taught to anyone. THAT does not make it deadly, it just make you sound like an idiot.

Peace. Love and “Progress”

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I agree with your points. No argument there. I am, however interested in exactly which techniques you felt were either inneffective or downright useless in your forms. When I say exactly, I don’t expect you to go through forty moves, of course. Just go through several that stand out in your mind.
Also, SANJURO RONIN
you had also mentioned that Kyokushin has changed. Could you also go into that?

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My only disagreement here is that I think Kung fu is more then fighting. Certainly fighting is a big part of it but over time I think it has evolved to include more. Just as you said, it’s about progression. I like to believe that Kung fu has progressed to be about more then fighting.

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If anyone here thinks they are doing forms/pattern in thier exact fashion, as they were practice over 100 years ago, YOU ARE LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD.

Reply]
This is not exactly true. Scholarly research has compared documents from ages ago to forms done now, and show them to be near identical. Also, many sets from various locations have been compared and they show to be nearly identical as well…which means a common source from the distant past that spread out in various directions and remained preserved despite isolated evolutions.

Also, if something worked, it got recorded and preserved in the forms. I am not saying forms practice makes on a good fighter. You really don’t even need them for that. Based on my research I have discovered my own style originally had no forms…it was all loose techniques bound by a fighting methodology and common training exercises.

The first form was developed at Shaolin because they were creating a vehicle to preserve the style into the future. Forms were for TEACHERS to record thier system, organize it’s curriculum, and maybe even provide a sport specific exercises to help Maintain certain physical attributes in relation to body mechanics, muscle memory etc…they were never for students to learn or practice anything.

Another thing to think about, just because there has been a lot of intermixing and adapting does not mean other sets weren’t preserved too. China is a big place, It’s like a huge forest with many trees…some young saplings, some trees have been around, and others are so old they cannot be dated. All exist in the same forest, which is full of a great diversity of life from plant, to animal, to insect.

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My only disagreement here is that I think Kung fu is more then fighting. Certainly fighting is a big part of it but over time I think it has evolved to include more. Just as you said, it’s about progression. I like to believe that Kung fu has progressed to be about more then fighting.

Reply]
Only the lineages that found thier way into the Temples are about more than fighting. Even then, the only reason is that the temples who preserved those arts naturally attached quite a bit of religious and meditative practices TO the already existing fighting style.

The extra is just that, extra added material because a TEMPLE preserved that particular style. It wasn’t designed as a path to enlightenment or anything, it was designed to train you to fight and defend yourself in a really violent world.

All that “extra” is a stand alone thing as well. You don’t need Martial arts for it. It’s all a pairing of practices that in all honesty aren’t necessarily compatible in principal. If you really look at the “Whole” package, you really have to compartmentalize it all to make it go together.

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[QUOTE=RD’S Alias - 1A;772540][I]

The first form was developed at Shaolin because they were creating a vehicle to preserve the style into the future. Forms were for TEACHERS to record thier system, organize it’s curriculum, and maybe even provide a sport specific exercises to help Maintain certain physical attributes in relation to body mechanics, muscle memory etc…they were never for students to learn or practice anything. [/quote]

That brings up an interesting point in my mind. I often compare learning martial arts to learning to play a musical instrument (being that I am a long time guitar player).

The typical way that people learn music is to go and take lessons from a teacher. Now if you are going to learn music the classical way, you start with scales and you practice those religiously. You learn all kinds of musical theory, how the notes fit into chords, what notes can played with which chord. It can get quite complicated very quickly…sound familiar?

All this training is required because it presumed that you are going to become a TEACHER of CLASSICAL music yourself one day. Most people just want to be able to sit down and play their favorite songs and maybe be able to “jam” with other people.

They don’t need all this classical theoretical background because they are never going to become teachers of classical music. They need enough of a background that they gain some technical proficiency on their instrument but then it would be better to cut them loose a little bit and let them practice playing with other people.

Thats how good musicians are born by playing and playing and playing AND playing lots with other people. Not from learning as much musical theory as is possible in isolation.

So I see the same thing in martial arts. Teach some rudimentary technique, then the students play and play and play. That’s how you develop a good fighter as well. Learning all this form and theory with the expectation that the student will someday become a teacher of it is backwards.

Some background is important but ultimately you gotta let the student get out
there “jam” with other people. Sooner rather than later. Then as the student progresses you can introduce more challenging material from the forms. Let them digest and then bring it into the “jam” session…let them develop their own style.

If someone is serious about becoming a teacher of classical martial arts then perhaps learning form on form on form is essential. But most people aren’t going to ever want to be that, they want self-defense, exercise, sport etc and it is doing them a disservice to laden them with all this theoretical crap that they will most likely have no use for.

And then you have to also ask yourself if its all this theory what’s the point? If its not making me a better figher what’s the point? To quote Bruce Lee its a “classical mess.”

FP

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If someone is serious about becoming a teacher of classical martial arts then perhaps learning form on form on form is essential. But most people aren’t going to ever want to be that, they want self-defense, exercise, sport etc and it is doing them a disservice to laden them with all this theoretical crap that they will most likely have no use for.

Reply]
I disagree. You still learn it the same way as anyone else. Learning the Formal Routine would be the last step before you go out on your own.

If you never learn the form, but have mastered the style, you can then create your OWN form and use that as your documented, organized curriculum. Sure, you would be teaching it your own way, but the style would still be transmitted due to the fact that How knowledge is passed is not the same as the actual knowledge itself.

If you look at my style, it was created before forms were common. So by the time forms were a big thing many branches existed. Each branch developed it’s own forms to document thier ways of teaching the style, so they are all different. HOWEVER, because they are all made from the same core bunch of techniques you can still spot a Tai tzu form by the techniques and flavor even though you don’t recognize the choreography of it.

So once you understand that the style existed for hundreds of years (in some branches) without forms, you must also recognize that you don’t need them, and can create your own based on how you feel it is best to teach.

As always, the students don’t learn them, because they hinder learning how to fight. They are your Teaching tools, sort of like a teacher’s edition text book. They exist as a compressed Zip file to record your curriculum.

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[QUOTE=RD’S Alias - 1A;772540]If anyone here thinks they are doing forms/pattern in thier exact fashion, as they were practice over 100 years ago, YOU ARE LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD.

Reply]
This is not exactly true. Scholarly research has compared documents from ages ago to forms done now, and show them to be near identical. Also, many sets from various locations have been compared and they show to be nearly identical as well…which means a common source from the distant past that spread out in various directions and remained preserved despite isolated evolutions.

Also, if something worked, it got recorded and preserved in the forms. I am not saying forms practice makes on a good fighter. You really don’t even need them for that. Based on my research I have discovered my own style originally had no forms…it was all loose techniques bound by a fighting methodology and common training exercises.

The first form was developed at Shaolin because they were creating a vehicle to preserve the style into the future. Forms were for TEACHERS to record thier system, organize it’s curriculum, and maybe even provide a sport specific exercises to help Maintain certain physical attributes in relation to body mechanics, muscle memory etc…they were never for students to learn or practice anything.

Another thing to think about, just because there has been a lot of intermixing and adapting does not mean other sets weren’t preserved too. China is a big place, It’s like a huge forest with many trees…some young saplings, some trees have been around, and others are so old they cannot be dated. All exist in the same forest, which is full of a great diversity of life from plant, to animal, to insect.[/QUOTE]

RD, you couldn’t be more wrong;

Show me your “Scholarly research.” You should know better than just to throw that out there and not be prepared to back it up. That was a stupid statement by itself…

and

The first form at Shaolin? How the hell would you know? Did you teacher tell you that?

Martial arts didn’t come close to begining at Shaolin. Do some real reseach and you’ll find out that the Shaolin Temple story is a load of bunk. There is a rare book collector in Taiwan that has made collecting martial arts manuscripts a hobby/profession. He has over 2000 books, given to him by martial artists and thier families over the years. He actually has several manuscripts that were written by a Shaolin Monk in the 1600s. That’s right, the 1600’s! Shaolin guys practices Staff, and very little hand to hand! The story of the Shaolin temple, five elders, giving refuge to revolutionaries, holding all these special styles - IS A STORY! A story that has no written records, prior to 1909! Other martial arts historians debunked this Shaolin Myth in the early 1900’s, AND THERE IS WRITTEN PROOF OF THIS! Not hearsay…

So unfortunatly, we’ve all bought into this Shaolin myth, as propogated by romantic KF fantasy flicks and bad research. Read up and you’ll learn a lot.

I’ll post the name of the book when I get home. It will blow you away as far as crushing just about every Martial Arts myth you know of…

Peace.

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[QUOTE=unyma;772539]My only disagreement here is that I think Kung fu is more then fighting. Certainly fighting is a big part of it but over time I think it has evolved to include more. Just as you said, it’s about progression. I like to believe that Kung fu has progressed to be about more then fighting.[/QUOTE]

yes, but the reason for why it became “something more” is, I would argue, pretty pedestrian:
I would suggest that society has always had the singular phenommena known as the “weekend warrior”; that is, the professional, scholar, academic, working class guy who wants to fan his masculine flame by playing soldier; be honest, we see it today in the fact that the majority of students at a given MA school are of that type: the few “hardcore” guys are usually the ones who have to sweep up at night because they can’t afford lessons…
so basically, if you are a “real” fighter in old time China (soldier, mercenary, etc.), and you decided that the adventurin’ life just wasn’t for you anymore, if the only thing you knew was fighting, then you had little choice but to set-up shop somewhere and try to attract a recreational cientel for exactly the same reasons then as now: paying your rent and feeding yourself; and like today, where MA schools tout the “additonal” benefits of MA training (discipline, confidence, good grades, socially acceptable behavior), you did he same thing: except back then it was the Buddhist or Taoist angle that you pushed, as opposed to now, where you have a preponderance of Chirstian based MA systems; but other than that, Chinese society, being Confuscian, held many of the same values dear as mainstream America does: loyalty to family, duty to country, scholarship - all that conformist stuff…
I mean, be honest - the nobility of ancient China pobably wasn’t much diferent from the soccer moms of today: do you want your son studying with a cold-blooded psycho killer, or someone who pushes “good” values such as obedience to ones parents?
so think about it a bit…

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<<yes, but the reason for why it became “something more” is, I would argue, pretty pedestrian:>>

That’s fine by me. I don’t think it has to be a message from upon high that makes it something more. In fact I agree with your premise that old time chinese parents sent their kids to learn Kung Fu the same way soccer moms of today send they’re kids to do something. That doesn’t detract from my argument that it’s more then fighting.

I also agree with the weeknd warrior concept. In my experience the overwhelming majority of people that train in Kung fu don’t fully commit to the training and in many cases it’s a social thing at best. That’s okay too. I’m certainly not going to judge them and they can train however they like. It doesn’t prevent me (although I admit sometimes it complicates training options) from training in the way I want.

Bottom line, I still maintain that there can be more to Kung Fu then fighting.

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[QUOTE=unyma;772604]Bottom line, I still maintain that there can be more to Kung Fu then fighting.[/QUOTE]
it can be, but when it is, it looses a key aspect of the fighting aspect: for example, if you take it as a means of self-development, then the “fighting” becomes metaphorical: the fight is not about the other guy, it’s about you, so to speak; and that’s fine - of course, many other things can be like that as well; however, as i said, it then becomes something “other” than what it was originally, and so it now has to proceed according to a diffferent set of standards: decisions you’d make about training and teaching are now based on different criteria; and as such, you will include things not so fighting oriented and drop other things that are, because they are not necessary for the newly derrived goal of self-development

bottom line: you can’t have your cake and eat it too (unless you are Chuck Norris: then you not only can do that, but the cake actually eats itself first out of fear)

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FORMS? A good way to catalog some techniques, a bad way to learn to fight.

Meet some people outside of your TCMA family and spar and share and stop being a bunch of secret-holding sissies

[/QUOTE]

I agree, and have held the same opinion about forms. TBH, I didn’t really think people believed forms taught you how to fight anymore.

My school has an open sparring class: Anyone from anywhere is welcome to come in and test their stuff, or test our stuff. Ive spoken to my Sifu about it many times, and his reasoning is “I would be cheating my students if I only allowed them to fight the people I’ve trained.”

Sad thing is, this mentality is a RARITY in my experience. Recently I went to a kung fu school nearby and asked if I could simply WATCH a class. He said no. Why? Well, he runs a BUSINESS. Me watching would be almost equivilent to getting a free lesson. (I also find it absurd that schools dont allow a free week of class before you decide to pay for it. To me, that reeks of scam.)

Teachers may also be afraid they cant stand up to a challenger and will be defeated if they allow open sparring, and then lose students. When people run their school as a business they have MUCH more to worry about.

My instructor doesnt charge much for his time, as he has a full time job at Toyota, and makes decent money from what I understand. He teaches because he loves what hes doing, not because he depends on the income from kung fu.

:smiley: So if anyone is in the houston area and wants to test their stuff, come on down. We’re a friendly buncha people.

PS: As a sidenote, ive been reading about CMA has no grappling…My instructor HAS it, but im not sure where he got it from. Ill ask. To my knowledge, hes only trained (Officially :P) in Karate and then Kung Fu.

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Kung fu is a different method to MMA, if you practice it as that, then you are preserving it by default, if you dont and think that kung fu is just like MMA but not as good, then i really fail to see why you havent quit TCMA and found the nearest MMA gym.

Having said that, cross training is of course the bomb, though im not as fond of cross teaching. For example: why should all the CMA schools add BJJ to their curriculum? The quality level should be far higher at your local BJJ place.

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[QUOTE=sunfist;772661]Kung fu is a different method to MMA, if you practice it as that, then you are preserving it by default, if you dont and think that kung fu is just like MMA but not as good, then i really fail to see why you havent quit TCMA and found the nearest MMA gym.

Having said that, cross training is of course the bomb, though im not as fond of cross teaching. For example: why should all the CMA schools add BJJ to their curriculum? The quality level should be far higher at your local BJJ place.[/QUOTE]

syas whom? according to several of the guys on here, kung fu used to be trained in a format similar to mma.

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[QUOTE=cjurakpt;772605]it can be, but when it is, it looses a key aspect of the fighting aspect: for example, if you take it as a means of self-development, then the “fighting” becomes metaphorical: the fight is not about the other guy, it’s about you, so to speak; and that’s fine - of course, many other things can be like that as well; however, as i said, it then becomes something “other” than what it was originally, and so it now has to proceed according to a diffferent set of standards: decisions you’d make about training and teaching are now based on different criteria; and as such, you will include things not so fighting oriented and drop other things that are, because they are not necessary for the newly derrived goal of self-development

bottom line: you can’t have your cake and eat it too (unless you are Chuck Norris: then you not only can do that, but the cake actually eats itself first out of fear)[/QUOTE]

That makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure I agree with it. The way I’m reading that it appears that you are saying that you can’t add to the fighting aspect and also maintain the meaning of the fighting aspect. As if to add more to it you have to reduce something else. If I use the cake metaphor, the cake is only so big and you can’t fit more into the cake pan then there already is.

Why can’t we just use a bigger cake pan? Maintain the validity of what was started and hopefully have but continue to add to it?

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[QUOTE=unyma;772677]That makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure I agree with it. The way I’m reading that it appears that you are saying that you can’t add to the fighting aspect and also maintain the meaning of the fighting aspect. As if to add more to it you have to reduce something else. If I use the cake metaphor, the cake is only so big and you can’t fit more into the cake pan then there already is.

Why can’t we just use a bigger cake pan? Maintain the validity of what was started and hopefully have but continue to add to it?[/QUOTE]

well, a great example would be Musashi - he was the real deal when it came to fighting, and he also gained awakening using his practice as a vehicle - but as a result, he stopped using a live blade and switched to wooden ones - so in a sense, the killing took a back seat, although it evidently didn’t have a negative impact on his ability to win

I mean, how many kids who have grown up on the “mean streets” have gotten into MA and turned their lives around? for them, the arts became a way to temper their…well, temper? for them, in a way, it was never about fighting, more like finding a mthod to channel themselves

I guess my point is that you can’t climb two mountains at the same time, at least not in my experience - I am not denying the possibility that someone might be able to a great fighter and also use the art as a means of self-development, just that one eventually precludes the other, if you think about it: I mean, it is a bit paradoxical learning to fight so as to learn not to fight - as long as you are at one end of the spectrum, you can’t be at the other at the same time

BTW, while we may disagree, please know that I appreciate your perspective and the thoughtful manner in which you relay it

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[QUOTE=Lama Pai Sifu;772589]

I’ll post the name of the book when I get home. It will blow you away as far as crushing just about every Martial Arts myth you know of…

Peace.[/QUOTE]

I think what needs to happen in TCMA, bottomline, is that the myths need to go. If you want to make a “truth claim” about anything then it needs to be backed up by some kind of factual evidence. If its empirical evidence then all the better.

TCMA needs to get into modernity…NO MORE MYTHS!!!

FP

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[QUOTE=RD’S Alias - 1A;772551]If someone is serious about becoming a teacher of classical martial arts then perhaps learning form on form on form is essential. But most people aren’t going to ever want to be that, they want self-defense, exercise, sport etc and it is doing them a disservice to laden them with all this theoretical crap that they will most likely have no use for.

Reply]
I disagree. You still learn it the same way as anyone else. Learning the Formal Routine would be the last step before you go out on your own.

If you never learn the form, but have mastered the style, you can then create your OWN form and use that as your documented, organized curriculum. Sure, you would be teaching it your own way, but the style would still be transmitted due to the fact that How knowledge is passed is not the same as the actual knowledge itself.

If you look at my style, it was created before forms were common. So by the time forms were a big thing many branches existed. Each branch developed it’s own forms to document thier ways of teaching the style, so they are all different. HOWEVER, because they are all made from the same core bunch of techniques you can still spot a Tai tzu form by the techniques and flavor even though you don’t recognize the choreography of it.

So once you understand that the style existed for hundreds of years (in some branches) without forms, you must also recognize that you don’t need them, and can create your own based on how you feel it is best to teach.

As always, the students don’t learn them, because they hinder learning how to fight. They are your Teaching tools, sort of like a teacher’s edition text book. They exist as a compressed Zip file to record your curriculum.[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure we’re really disagreeing. Sure, all styles started as a kind of compendium of techniques. Eventually, this was codified into some kind of kata or hand form. Thats the nature of the beast as it exists today whatever it might have existed as before.

Either way learning lots of forms is an inappropriate training method for most people interested in martial arts. It’d be like saying, OK you want to learn to play rock and roll in a band?..ok…first you gotta learn this complicated Mozart sonata. Its inappropriate for 2 reasons…

One, you are perfecting skills that aren’t really applicable to the end goal and secondly its totally overkill in terms of preparation.

Would it be an excellent foundation? Of course, but overkill. Would you have more options in improvisational solos? Of course. But in some cases more choice is not always a good thing.

FP

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[QUOTE=RD’S Alias - 1A;772540]

Scholarly research has compared documents from ages ago to forms done now, and show them to be near identical.

[/QUOTE]

  1. Learn how to use the quote function

  2. Please CITE this “scholarly research” … having a master’s degree, I can go look up the article and see what merit this “research” has :rolleyes:

  3. Much easier, put 5 guys who do Hung Ga in a room and ask them to do Gung Gee Fuk Fu, or ask a punch of CLF people to do their forms (ie same names, often the forms look nothing alike). Heck, ask some Wing Chun people about the correct way to do Biu Jee :eek:

Mike is probably referencing “Chinese martial arts training manuals” by Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo, ever TCMA person should read this and meditate on it’s contents

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2. Please CITE this “scholarly research” … having a master’s degree, I can go look up the article and see what merit this “research” has

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You would have to go to Sal Canzonieri for those details.

3. Much easier, put 5 guys who do Hung Ga in a room and ask them to do Gung Gee Fuk Fu, or ask a punch of CLF people to do their forms (ie same names, often the forms look nothing alike). Heck, ask some Wing Chun people about the correct way to do Biu Jee

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Most versions of Xiao Hong Quan I have seen look pretty much the same. I have seen variants of Tai Tzu Chang Quan as well, but still only minor differences…it’s the same form for the most part…doesn’t matter what lineage I’ve seen it from.

All the styles you sited above are relatively new to the scene, only a couple hundred years old. Most of their curriculum is not considered sacred if there is as much variance as you say. Other wise there wouldn’t be any changes, and there wouldn’t be much variety. Even with that said, I’d be willing to be there are purist lines who do it exactly as it was created.

If you read what I said before, some stuff is remarkably preserved, and other stuff gets changed up a lot. It’s a BIG Kung Fu world out there.