Learning to fight vs learning a MA style.

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

Time to get the flames rolling.

IMHO, there is a difference if you want to learn to fight quickly and effectively and learning a MA style.

A lot of people today seem to look at MA as a route to get to the former and maybe stay on for the later.

I have seen it often in many kwoons that students start and within 6 months leave for another school/McKwoon that does a lot of sparring, hard conditioning and promises to be street effective.

Yes, those guys look impressive and have a fair chance of winning a confrontation, but in few do I see well developed principles & basics of they style they claim to use.

For me when embarking on studying a MA style it is like learning to play a musical Instrument, a long and tough journey.
I know that I won’t be playing on street corners for quiet some time nor be able to give concerts or measure myself against fellow musicians.

Before I can play a song I need to learn the basics(rifts/scales, etc) first and master them well.

Chances of me earning a living using my music are slim, but yet many are keen and eager to trust their MA skills to save their lifes.

What am I not getting here?

2

Whats a style and how do you use it?

What am I not getting here?

:rolleyes:

3

Originally posted by yenhoi
[B]Whats a style and how do you use it?

What am I not getting here?

:rolleyes: [/B]

Maybe it is because of the art/style you study. :wink:

4

What am I not getting here?

In my opinion: The notion that we can all train for different reasons and still all be martial artists.

I understand your motivations. In large part, they match up with mine. But your priorities are not everyone else’s priorities. And there’s nothing inherently more spiritual, technical, or stylistic about the “slow and steady wins the race” philosophy of training.

You were looking, I’m guessing, for a mental and physical exercise that you could mull over for a long time. Other people aren’t looking for that. But regardless of what you or I might think of their motivations, actions, etc., if they’re learning in a structured environment (regardless of the specifics of that structure), it seems unnecessary to reclassify them as something else.

Stuart B.

5

apoweyn.

I have no probs with other peoples motivations and reasons.

But many SAY they fight using lets say TJQ but I can’t see the principles and basics expressed in their movements. and sometimes what they use doesn’t even look like their claimed style.

Now fighting for the sake of pummeling someone is ok, but if you CLAIM to use TJQ (again) than it should be TJQ that you are using.

I guess that is my point, maybe I am just weird that way.

6

You cant use TJQ.

You fight.

:eek:

7

Originally posted by yenhoi
[B]You cant use TJQ.

You fight.

:eek: [/B]

Yenhoi, Yenhoi.

I use TJQ principles and the trained basics in a fight.

So YOU fight, why do you study than the arts you DO, if you can’t use them??

Why do they exist if we can’t use them??

Why spend $$$ paying someone to learn something we can’t use??

I can learn to fight in any street-gang or similar.

8

Originally posted by Laughing Cow
[B]apoweyn.

I have no probs with other peoples motivations and reasons.

But many SAY they fight using lets say TJQ but I can’t see the principles and basics expressed in their movements. and sometimes what they use doesn’t even look like their claimed style.

Now fighting for the sake of pummeling someone is ok, but if you CLAIM to use TJQ (again) than it should be TJQ that you are using.

I guess that is my point, maybe I am just weird that way. [/B]

Question is would someone observing you using TJQ in a fight be able to see the principles and basics?

9

“Styles” and “Arts” do not exist.

Pick one up and throw it.

Better yet, try and use it on someone in a fight.

Seems to me styles are just abstract names given to some very loose set of training methods that occasionally or often are grouped together. Accross the board I see very wide dispersement of training methods and how they are grouped together.

Names of styles seem to mean very little. You train, at your school with your sifu. Theres really nothing more.

You fight. You hit your opponent with your hands, arms, legs, whatever.

I like sparkly thingies too.

:eek:

10

Yenhoi has caught an itchy, burning sensation that medical professionals commonly refer to as “the Correct.”

:smiley:

11

I would encourage anyone that thinks that you cannot fight using a martial arts style to look harder or train hard and daily for at least a couple years if not more, and then see what you think. I have personally run into several people who could fight proficiently using the strategies, tricks, techniques and footwork of their styles. Like Chen Man Ching said though..for it to take hold in your body, you have to actually have faith in it…if you dont, you will not change the way you move..

12

I am with Golden Arms here.

For a style to become ingrained you need to “do” it 24/7 at the optimum.

Your stepping, your posture, your breathing pattern, your movements and so on must be there ALL the time, not just when you are in the kwoon or sparring.

There are many stories of masters of old doing certain moves unconcsiouly & continously during the day while performing other tasks.

Your whole being has to change to absorb the style and make it your own.

Observe yourself during the day and ask yourself, did the move I just did follow the principles and basics.

You need to try to bring your MA into your everyday life into everything you do.

As far as I am concerned this is what differentiates the good MA from the hobbyist.
Not stepping into the kwoon 5 days a week, but absorbing your art 24/7.

I bumped into my old Sifu last Saturday and she mentioned that she can see that I am studying a different TJQ style from hers as I move differently now.

But I am sure some will disagree with me on this topic.

13

Yenhoi.

Do a degree you are right, but when you make claims like “you can’t use your style” without clarrification it’s will be taken the wrong way.

I agree that I learn my teachers interpretation of what he learned from his teacher and that art/style is called XYZ as if complies with the requirements of XYZ.

If those requirements are not there it isn’t XYZ, it might still be effective though.

14

Pimp On It.

Originally posted by CrippledAvenger
[B]Yenhoi has caught an itchy, burning sensation that medical professionals commonly refer to as “the Correct.”

:smiley: [/B]

Indeed. Mo Fo!

15

Originally posted by Laughing Cow
[B]I am with Golden Arms here.

For a style to become ingrained you need to “do” it 24/7 at the optimum.

Your stepping, your posture, your breathing pattern, your movements and so on must be there ALL the time, not just when you are in the kwoon or sparring.

There are many stories of masters of old doing certain moves unconcsiouly & continously during the day while performing other tasks.

Your whole being has to change to absorb the style and make it your own.

Observe yourself during the day and ask yourself, did the move I just did follow the principles and basics.

You need to try to bring your MA into your everyday life into everything you do.

As far as I am concerned this is what differentiates the good MA from the hobbyist.
Not stepping into the kwoon 5 days a week, but absorbing your art 24/7.

I bumped into my old Sifu last Saturday and she mentioned that she can see that I am studying a different TJQ style from hers as I move differently now.

But I am sure some will disagree with me on this topic. [/B]

It’s not that I disagree with your feelings on the matter. I disagree with your categorization. Learning a martial art vs. learning to fight. To my mind, it’s a question of which you consider the horse and which you consider the cart.

For me, real life is the horse. It has to lead. And I’m not talking about some over-dramatized urban jungle nonsense. I’m not suggesting that my life is a day-in day-out struggle for survival on the mean streets of Alexandria.

What I’m saying is that we all learned moves in our martial arts classes. Maybe we learned them in a mirror, through forms, on a bag, whatever. In any event, we very often hit a point where we spar (or actually fight) and start receiving new feedback. The techniques don’t come off the way they did in the mirror. They don’t hit as solidly or cleanly as on the bag. They don’t flow as well as they did in the form. Whatever.

Now, at this point, there are basically two avenues. Some people will reason that they’ve failed to internalize their art sufficiently. So they’ll go back, focus more vehemently on their training, walk the walk, etc. In the hopes that, next time, they’ll have absorbed the style sufficiently that it’ll manifest itself the way it should.

Other people reason that adaptation is the key. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and all that. The basic principles are sound, but the execution needs to be less idealized. It needs to be guided by the way things really are. The way people really are. So modifications are made around those basic principles and theories. They don’t bulldoze over them.

Some people are going to make that observation and then choose their avenue earlier than others. And some styles are likely to do that sooner than others as well, depending on where in the curriculum sparring begins. So it’s not (in my opinion) that a boxer has no patience for the finer points of martial arts. (I chose boxing, but this may not be fair to your point. I apologize if it isn’t.) It’s that the boxer is brought into contact with the non-idealized mess of sparring very early on, so he has to make the choice very early on regarding his training. Try harder to internalize the style? Or make modifications to fit “reality”?

Either is a valid approach. And what bends me out of shape is the insinuation that one produces less of a martial artist than the other.

Stuart B.

16

Seems to me styles are just abstract names given to some very loose set of training methods that occasionally or often are grouped together. Accross the board I see very wide dispersement of training methods and how they are grouped together.
Bullshlt.

A style is a fighting philosophy. Different schools have different philosophies, which emphasize different combat techniques. Someone who properly trains in Taijiquan is easily discerned from someone training in Tanglang in a combat situation, even though both are “hitting their opponent with your hands, arms, legs, whatever.”

If one school emphasizes using elbows, while another school emphasizes using high kicks, you have two distinctly different fighting philosophies…i.e. STYLES.

17

A style is a fighting philosophy

Bull****.

“philosophy” might be one of the ways ‘they’ went or go about choosing or developing the training methods.

If one school emphasizes using elbows, while another school emphasizes using high kicks, you have two distinctly different fighting philosophies…i.e. STYLES.

Your right. Different schools will look different from one another. Little of it has to do with what they call themselves, its what they actually do, day to day, training, sweating, etc, that makes them what they are when it comes time to throw down. None of it has to do with what letters you choose to put on your banners. I have never ever seen two people that look exactly the same when fighting, moving, eating, walking, or anything.

:eek:

18

OK, Bruce…

I didn’t know we were getting into Deconstructionists Theory here.

Read any good Ferdinand deSaussere lately?

19

this troll brought to you by the letter C

“philosophy” might be one of the ways ‘they’ went or go about choosing or developing the training methods.
You’re taking the view of philosophy equals pedagogy. I do not entirely disagree.

There are at least 2 arts that begin with what you already do and maximise that rather than reinvent the wheel each time…Koo SD and that Sikh art that uses the Panthra. I suppose maybe police/military arts do the same.

So what’s being argued? Are those any less ‘arts’ than ones which demand you change every aspect of yourself? No- we’re just arguing pedagogy here…

20

Yenhoi and MK,

You’re both very clever people. And I’d be fascinated to hear what you come up with if you could stop flinging poop at one another.

Whaddya say?