Hey, now there is ANOTHER person who said this(earth dragon)
He said “Becaue nobody will ever fight like that”…
Someone else said that too, so you learn forms, which i was told are fighting applications, but you dont fight like that? Wheres the sense in that? Can somoene explain this a little better plz? If you dont fight how the form is, how DO you fight?
When you fight, you fight fiercely. You shouldn’t be overly concerned with form during a fight, but the form has developed proper structure and body alignment so your fighting ability flows more naturally and you body has adjusted to moving the ways necessary to execute your attacks and blocks & both.
A lot could be written on this subject but you will gain more just from putting time into your martial art and over the years you will see the part forms play.
a short explanation
From experience and from what I have seen and read, forms can serve many purposes cause there are lots of different kinds. They contain the principles of movement of a given art. They give order and connection between movements. This aids in learning how to shift from one stance to another, moving the body as a whole, learning how to breathe while moving, and last, but not least, circulating energy in the correct fashion.
This is not the same as fighting. Now, there are fighting sets, which are stereotyped fighting situations, but that is not what we are discussing here. Here, I am talking about solo forms.
Fighting is something else. Theoretically and in practice, in my opinion, you do not need forms in order to be a fighter. I believe you can learn the stances, the fists, the transitions and the applications, energy, without them, practicing units of movement repetitively and changing their order. Yet, the training can be enhanced by them, by the organization they offer to it. They serve to define and organize an art.
I guess one of the most elementary and important are the stance training forms, in which one goes from one stance to another using only leg work. Forms go on to include the fists, and weapons, extensions of the body.
The applications are within the forms, but doing forms is not equivalent to working out applications as in a contact situation with another human being. And, in fact, practice in these contact situations simultaneous with or before learning forms is most efficient, as one has a feeling for the moves and knows the components of them and what they mean in physical contact before learning the form. However, unfortunately, this is not always done.
In fighting, there are no rules. Not in real fighting. The person does not necessarily move as you would expect, or wait for you to complete a move. In a form, there might be many components to a unit (a small set of moves), but in a real fight you do not necessarily need all of the components or follow the order of the forms in delivering them.
You fight in terms of the stances, fists, kicks and energy training. The forms are a blueprint of an art, with information that is not obvious. A fight is freestyle, using the principles you have learned in order to prevail, to respond properly. A form is a form, a tool on many levels.
Cody
There’s a couple different ‘camps’ concerning the purpose and usefullness of solo form practice.
Generally speaking, practitioners of the internal chinese arts (taijiquan, baguazhang, and xingyiquan being the most famous) tend to emphasize that the purpose of forms is to learn principles of movement; or, in other words, if you want to train moving a certain way, the ideal exercise emphasizes and exaggerates moving that way (specificity of training principle) - you train moving by MOVING.
Generally speaking, practitioners of the external chinese arts (just about all the other ones) emphasize more the idea that forms are catalogues of their style - which prominently includes fighting techniques, but also includes other training techniques, the spirit of the style, etc.
Of course, this is a vast generalization that is only accurate in the sense that any vast generalization is - cross-training and just generally thinking tends to make things like this difficult to categorize. Nonetheless it gives you the sense that, depending on where a person is in this continuum, they will give you a different answer concerning the value of forms. And of course there are people who think they’re alltogether useless for martial arts!
This is not just a philosophical concern, but tends to affect the way people train - whether they know it or not! The internal chinese styles tend to have very few forms - in many cases, only one. Learning the form is an involved process - to simply be taught every posture in order in the form is likely to take two years. Training in the form becomes a lifetime’s work. This is all consistent with the idea that the form contains the principles of movement for the style. In a way, this kind of form work can be seen as ‘conditioning’ - albeit of a very specific sort. This training will give you the kind of balance, strength, flexibility, endurance, coordination, etc required for your style.
Conversely, many of the chinese external schools have an abundance of forms. At least the beginning forms seem to be taught very quickly in comparison to internal style forms; and in many cases there is a sense of ‘succession’ (that is - such-and-such a form is more ‘advanced’ than the previous). Again, this is consistent with the stereotype described above.
And again, these are generalizations. But at the very least they should inspire some questions you can ask regarding your training.
But in case you didn’t get your answer from that ramble… 
…From an “internal” stylists viewpoint - forms are for learning how to move. This seems very straight-forward to me, as it follows specificity of training. What is a form? A series of movements. What is your goal? To move. So how do you train? A series of movements; a form. To be more specific - most martial arts, and most certainly the chinese internal martial arts, seek to use a “way” of moving that is different from what your untrained body is going to do reflexively. Stepping to throw a punch is stepping to throw a punch, right? Not necessarily. Where’s your weight? How did it move? Where is it focused on your foot? Where and how, if at all did your feet pivot? Which way is each ‘hip’ pointing? Did that change during the movement? What about your waist, indendant of your hips? Do your shoulders lift or sink with the punch? Did the elbow sink or thrust? Did your chin lift up when you stepped forward? There’s a hundred different things that could vary - and this is a simple punch. Anyone who tells you there’s only one best way of doing it is kidding themselves. Think about all the different nuances involved in not just punching - but all the aspects of human movement involved in a martial encounter. Do you want to replace your current reflexes in those nuances with new ones? That is what training to move is.
yeah. what he said! 
Just as I said in the other thread, forms teach principles of movement. they may be overexaggerated in some cases, but you are learning a basic principle of movement in your style. When you fight, the movement will not be exaggerated, but it’s still the same. So, technically, no you don’t fight that way, but since you are using the same principles when you fight, then you really are fighting that way. Confused yet?
I see…
hmmm, i now see how important body alignment can be, i kind of always did know, but now HOW important, ya still wit me?
Another question, lets say you get taught a form, a series of movements, could you use those EXACT movements, or just 1 of the movements the exact way it was taught, at a higher speed to execute a punch? Or kick? elbow, knee, anything…and what would the benefits be as opposed to, an untrained fighter(not referring to myself, im smarter than most) to just swing his arm n body weight wildly…?
Apprentice I think you are not spending enough time on training and worrying to much about how you should! I dont mean that in a bad way but you should just train and stop worring about how and why and as nike say just do it!
Why does a boxer shadow box? there is no opponent, no one to hit him, not real application of calculated movement, why shadow box? it gives his body a feeling of how to react to a reaction. using himself as his opponent. like I said before to learn how you will react in a fight.
I will try to explain what I meant when I sad that no one fights that way. Forms are coreagraphed movements from simulated multiple attackers attacking at random times, the fight sequence in real life will never happen that way , that is what I meant. If you are defending multiple attackers you will not fight in a preagranged sequence. However that does not mean you should not train yourself to! do you understand what I am getting at? Just becuse you will not stand in horse stance in a fight should not mean that you shouldnt stand in horse stance. Again you are training your self to prepare for fighting. if this means that you need to stand on one leg for 3 hours a day to improve your balance for when and if you are ever thrown off balance in a fight, then you are not only training yourself to be balanced in a fight but also in daily life so you are killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I hope that I make my self clear and expalined in a way that you can understand. good luck ! your freind E.D
there are cases where the exact movement can be used, but if you are looking for that, I think you may be missing the point of the form. As for the benefits, you should know how to move, be aware of your center of balance, what options you have available to you, etc. much better than an untrained person would.
Many forms in almost all styles are stylized(sp?) Sometimes you have to loosen the performance of what you’re doing in the form to find the functionality of it.
For one small set moves in the Yul-Kok TKD form I’ve found many applications depending upon what the opponent throws.
I think it depends on what style one does.
The style I do has us sparring with the exact same moves and combinations in the form and drill - at least for the most part.
Oh yeah - our style has us standing and moving in horse stances when we fight.
My sifu’s sifu has a brother who’s an all-out brawler that is an excellent natural fighter.
Though this guy trained in our style briefly and uses the moves in combat, he hates doing the form and doesn’t practice it regularly.
However, both my sifu and his sifu firmly believe that this brother cannot approach either of their skill because he hasn’t spent the time doing the repetitive drilling necessary to become a competent kung fu fighter.
here’s my 2 cents…
forms are books of techniques. you take the techniques that feel the most
natural to you and train your techniques until they become applicable in theory, not just text book
technique.
learning the entire form and practicing the entire form is key to transmission
of your style/system. not everyone will use the same technique/theories,
so if you decide to teach, teaching them just the ones you personally use will put
your students at a serious disadvantage. teaching them the complete form[s], however,
will give them access to literally hundreds of techniques to train, learn and
assimilate into their own theory. and they will have also learned the form, thus
keeping the techniques pure and textbook-like.
the practice of a form in it’s entirety, aside from the physical conditioning,
lets you see/learn/train other techniques, with the chance of learning/assimilating/adapting
a technique that maybe you didn’t like previously.
let me try to give a more accurate descritpion here.
let’s say you learn a form with 5 movements.
you decide to train movements 1,2,3 and 5. movement 4 is a technique you feel that you will never use.
as you train the 4 movements from textbook application into theory, you still practice the form in it’s
entirety. after reaching a certain level of training, where the 4 movements become theory, not just mechanical
and text book, you realize that you can take movement 5 and follow through with movement 3, a good combination. so you train this. after a while you realize…hey, whiat if i do this combo and movement 3 doesn’t work?
then you see where movement #4 - the one you didn’t train - comes in.
did that make any sense at all?
or am i becoming the some such some such such some some such guy?
[no_know?]
Figuring out forms can drive you nuts. I’ve spent time and money trying to decipher the applications of forms and so far I’ve come up with that there may be serveral types.
Developmental forms which prepare a student for what’s to follow.
Training forms that teach a student how to move and use their bodies, may contain parts of applications.
Applications/concepts (aka the systems encyclopedia) Forms. The “good” stuff.
And then forms which someone else called “Performance Art”, which may contain something, are difficult to perform but are mainly showpieces.
With the advent of video and cheaper printing costs I don’t see forms as being a very good medium for passing down a systems techniques. Still a good way to practice them.
One nice thing about forms is that they allow you to develop your style without having to have your sifu tell you what moves to use. When you have the entire form at your disposal, you can pick moves to specialize in that you seem to have success with, and your personal style(within the context of the overall style you practice) can grow much more.
That’s where I’m at right now, and its great. It makes it so that even your sifu may not be able to predict what move you’re gonna pull, because, if you’re like me, you didn’t work on your specialty in class, just took what your sifu taught you about it and secretly made it yours.
Also, form is not necessarily written in stone, and any sifu is going to have parts of the form that they are superior at. Thus, a video that could really relate the subtleties of a tai chi form would have to be many hours long, have the form performed many times with the accent placed on different parts of the form, and still probably miss the boat in some ways. I’m not dissing video, but a teacher who is great will always be superior to a video in preserving his art, although I’d be glad to watch his video nonetheless.
Hey Apprentice
Sounds like you are new to the MA? I am fairly new, only been practicing for about 2 years, and this is what I am understanding about form work. Mostly it is designed to train your muscles and your body for proper structure when initiating certain real applications. For instance, in Wing Chun, we do a Tan Sau, hand out in front of you, palm up, elbow in. There are many variations of this application in real fighting, but we do it a very specific way in our Sil Lim Tao, or first form. The important part is the structure of the tan and not where it necessarily is. The elbow in is very important, but it is a very unnatural place for it, practicing the form has made it feel more comfortable and now I find my elbow falls in place there more now.
I think, as well as drills, it also helps build muscle memory. Now, if you have to defend yourself, your hands may fall into place, instead of just flailing wildly at your opponent. with the form you have trained them in where to go. The more you practice your forms, as well as drills for these then they will come more naturally to you. Does this make sense?