Lets all argue about forms.

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
21

Yo mommas sucking form sucks, hows that!

Seriously there is no need for everyone to answer every question directly. Some are obviously just being plain silly.
Im just trying to get an idea of peoples viewpoints on them and weather or not they think they are generaly used correctly.

My personaly belief is that forms are a tool for the forging of various skills. I think far to many people think of them as an actual method of fighting. I mean sure the forms contain elements that will be used but there is no logical way you can pass of forms expertise as evidence of actual combat proficeny.

IMHO forms should only be a part of training they should not be the focuss.

And now back to the arguement.

Sak would be so much better if he would learn Sil Lim Tao :stuck_out_tongue:

22

because she learned from your mom :o

speaking of which, tell her to stop wearing that neon lipstick, my manhood is starting to glow in the dark because of her.

23

I’ll tell my momma to stop wearing neon lipstick if you tell your brother to stop calling me :smiley:

24

He can’t help it, he likes girls like you :smiley:

25

Touche :smiley:

Except that he likes to play the b!tch :smiley:

And tell your wife that no matter how much she begs me I can’t sleep with her anymore :smiley:

26

What defines a form?

I personally don’t believe that a complete system needs a form at all. That is just a way of speaking to make one feel superior about what “they” practice.

27

Good form is absolutely necessary for good mechanics.

28

Originally posted by Shooter
Good form is absolutely necessary for good mechanics.

good form in a mechanical sense, yes. You don’t need a prearranged form, kata etc. to have good form though.

29

I don’t think you have to worry about it Joedoe - I heard about the problem that your little (and I do eman little) guy has… You know they have viagara for that now, right?

oh yeah, I saw your mom again yesterday. When I was leaving the bedroom, I stepped on a penny, and she told me to get off of her paycheck. :smiley:

30

most forms/kata contain the mechanics which dictate the tactical and strategic premises of the style they represent though.

31

Originally posted by SevenStar
[B]I don’t think you have to worry about it Joedoe - I heard about the problem that your little (and I do eman little) guy has… You know they have viagara for that now, right?

oh yeah, I saw your mom again yesterday. When I was leaving the bedroom, I stepped on a penny, and she told me to get off of her paycheck. :smiley: [/B]

Minime has no erectile problems, so I don’t know what you are talking about.

Her paycheck? She isn’t supposed to get a paycheck :smiley:

32

How many arts have you heard of that do not have forms, out of curiousity?

Personally, I’ve only heard of one CMA [I liq chuan- speaking of yo momma ;)] Then there’s boxing, WMAs, maybe MT, MMAs?

33

Also FMA systems.

In less you count a energy drill as a form but I would not as it branches out into non-prearranged patterns. Its just a shell for the learning tool. Gives you a free-form of experisson.

34

Re: Re: Re: Lets all argue about forms.

Originally posted by SevenStar
[B]

I would disagree with that. You are dividing your time when it could be spent solely drilling and fighting. By dividing your time more, naturally you will need more time. The only exceptions I would see to this are arts like judo or shuai chiao, where the forms are single technique drills that directly translate to what you will fight with. [/B]

In my view, being an encycropedia of techniques of particular style is the minimum fuction of form. And to be honest, I’m not sure this fuction is anyway useful considering that you can do that by doing drill work. There are far more to form than just that.

What I should point out is a difference focus between drilling and form practice. When you do drilling, you mainly focus is on performance of particular technique. When you perform form, your main focus is on a particular principle of the style.

For example, we discussed in other thread over the difference between low stance and sunken stance. I could perform my style’s foundation form entirely focusing on being sunk, performing the form in extremely low stance. Or my main focus could be being signle-weighted on one leg. On another occasion, I could perform form by focusing on generating entire movement from dantien. Or I could perform my form holding heavy weight concentrating it on power.

In my judo, we had particular form of practice where we performed groundwork counter in sequence of about 10 techniques. It was extremely neat sequence because it cover nearly all the basic groundwork hold. Basically, one guy put me in one holddown, then I counter it which put him in other holddown which he counter it and so on. Obviously, if you want to perfect one counter as a technique, you only drill one counter. But doing this sequence which is basically a form is great way to learn the general principles of counter (defence) in groundwork such as you need to create leverage from your hip, or you need to create space or that you need to position your hip in right position.

There are literally 1000s of techniques (whether it is groundwork or standing work) if you count variation of basic technique. Doing drill work and memorising each technique or for that matter a counter for each technique (which double the quantity) is completely pointless. At certain point, one must shift away from being technique monkey and concentrate on the principle. The main purpose of the form is to do exactly that. That is why I said it will save your learning process.

My style for example teach weapon forms despite the fact that there is no practical usage of sword/spear in moder world. The reason, for example, of doing Dao (Chinese broadsword) is that after doing the form/drill endlessly, your body get too tired so that I have to use whole body especially waist to lift the sword up. After that we perform form without sword. At that point, I suddenly realised how much hip movement I make and that was a quite revelation. Longsword is about footwork, staff is about fajing and accuracy. Two person form is about counter.

The reason some form contain complicated and obscure technique is not that you are going to use that technique in combat. It is more that doing such techniue while maintaing principle is far more difficut so that it is a very good way to train that principle. Usually evey form has purpose and foundation form (such as sanchin or taijiquan form) contain the entire principle of particular style. If one think that form is just about encycropedia of techniques, one is waaaaay off the mark.

35

The problem with forms…

Solo Forms- You lose the proprioceptive feedback that you get when drilling with a partner or by using equipment. Would you practice baseball without a glove, bat and ball? Would you practice shooting free-throws without a basket and ball? How much do you think your swimming will improve if you practice on dry land?

Slow motion forms- Slow motion is good only for a very short time while you are learning the sequence of a new, unfamiliar technique. After that, you lose any accuracy you have developed while doing the slow motion form when you apply it in real-time. Slow motion practice will negatively influence speed development.

36

Just wondering, but is there a point where flow drills like those in Tai Chi, WC, Aikido and FMA become counter productive?

37

Givent that taijquan is the martial arts known for slow performance of the form, I guess your criticism is directed at tajiquan.

Firstly let me state that almost all major styles of taijiquan contain fast form. Yang Sanshou form A and B is the famous one. Not only it is performed in fast speed each form A and B is the counter to each other so it also become two person form. And if we want, we can perform any form fast. But this is usually done at advance stage.

The confusion is in thinking that taijqauan form is collection of techniques. Though it is true in the sence that each step could manifest into technique, each tajiquan step is, in fact, a posture, hence tajiquan form is sometimes called posture form.

One idea is that performance of form train the body to be tajiquan fighter. It is similar to doing Power Yoga. Have you tried to hold yoga posture for long time? Trust me on this but doing form slowly is far more physically demanding because of the heavy demand placed on body especially on leg strength and flexibility.

The another point is that everyone when they learn new technique will perform it slowly. And even when you think you learned a technique well, you discovere later that you have certain defect in application and you have to get back to doing it slow. One thing which is held true by all taijiquan practioners is that when you loose in push hand or sparing, the reason you lost shows up on performance of form. For example, my pushhand attack have tendency to be countered by pull-down. The reason for this is that i don’t relax my back leg when I push. Also, I tend to be tipped over when my hip lock. I have the same habit when I perform form so my current theme is to correct this habit in performance of form. I also have a friend who just started tkd few month ago and he had tendency to lose balance whe doing certain technique in sparing, I asked him to do his form and saw that his foot had tedency to point to wrong direction because his foot touch ground from toe then get twisted when heel land. It is easier to cheat (or skip important bit) when you perform technique fast but when you perform slow, every faults you have ooze out, that is if you know what to look for.

Lastly, just like boxing, taijiquan only have very few basic techniques, totalling only 13. That is 8 movements (push, press, ward off, roll back, takedown, shoulder, elbow, chop ) and 5 directions (left right forward backward centre) movement. One reason tajiquan in particular emphasise performance of form is that we emphasise flow of technique. Ideally, one have to be able to transit to any 8 technique into any five direction. Hence the move from one technique to another is equally important as each technique.

My explanation is not any attempt to discredit value of sparing or drill work. In fact, tajiquan is considered as the origin of pushing hand. Every tajiquan player has his/her favourite technique and we do drill particular technique. But the form is considered to contain the secrets of the art and hence the main focus of the training.

38

Originally posted by rogue
Just wondering, but is there a point where flow drills like those in Tai Chi, WC, Aikido and FMA become counter productive?

Anything done significantly slower than what will be done in real-time can be counterproductive. As can always doing the drills in the same manner against a partner who is not applying full force. A good example of the latter is the difficulty many experienced people encounter when going against a new, unorthodox, but powerful opponent.

39

Hmmm, if one solely practice taijiquan form (that is no push hand or sparing) then form practice is useless but that is if you only practice taijiquan for health.

Plus, I don’t do boxing but I think boxer spend majority of training doing other than sparing where each training emphasise particular aspect of boxing.

After all why do we have training. If we can get better by just sparing, we don’t need to have a coach. All we have to do in any sport is to play. In fact in most sport, playing the entire game is there to discover your fault so that you can correct such fault in other training.

40

form will choke out royce

:smiley:
cheers