My name is Sun Lu Tang, and someday (if its gods will) i want to excel in the internal chinese arts
I want to be a Master and i was wondering if you friends could help me, wich of these should i pratice?
Xing Yi?
Bagua?
Taiji?
I want to pick one so i can be master
[/bad joke]
I’m not Sun Lu Tang really (guess yall know that lol)
Its ok to pratice other arts if you can come up with a racional and functional mix. Sun Lu Tang was very good on those 3 arts, and eventually created his own Taiji style.
Cross-training is just another scholastic approach to learning. Put plain, you take a function, be it a skill, a technique, a training drill, a philosophy, or any outside activity and assimilate it into your own training, to extract a certain benefit.
It allows you to work on aspects of your training which you might not be able to learn from one school of thought. It allows you to draw from specialist systems or better than that specialist people who are experts in certain fields, I like the word specialist people better because a system IMO is a artifical term, its the flesh and blood man or women passing these skills onto you that are often the true treasure to be weighed.
People that are often violently opposed to any aspect of cross-training often seem to fall into the thinking that their methods of study are from the coined “complete system” club. If what you are doing works for you, acknowledge it, its important to have a strong foundation, but what complete means to one person often changes to the next.
Not to mention that it is not necessary to know a complete system, what ever that term really means, unless you view it as a preservation of a certain art form or culture heritage, lets not forget that many-many-many people the world over defend themselves every day and very nicely without any martial training whatsoever.
those of us who “follow the craze” usually have a solid base in one style.
There are some things that some styles just do not adequately address. Case in point, ground grappling.
There’s no real reason to “Know the complete system” other than the fact that you want to. Is it helping your fighting ability in any way? most likely not. Actually, you could be hindering it.
Originally posted by Xebsball
I’m not Sun Lu Tang really (guess yall know that lol)
Its ok to pratice other arts if you can come up with a racional and functional mix. Sun Lu Tang was very good on those 3 arts, and eventually created his own Taiji style.
Agreed, he did study 4 arts, but not at the same time.
(Shaolin Hung boxing & Qing Gong/2yrs, Xing Yi, Pa Kua/3yrs, Wu Yu Xiang TJQ)
He always studied Full-time while preferably living at his teachers house or the Shaolin Temple..
He actually was refered by his 2nd teacher(Xing Yi) to his 3rd(Pa Kua) to round his fighting skills of.
The 4th he learned after helping a renowned master that was sick in his town, at that time he didn’t know what style the guy was practicing.
I think this happened quiet late in his life.
I’m a person that comes from a school where nobody (for the most part) trains in only one style. I personally train in Baji/Pigua, Chen Style Tai Chi and Mantis. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. An advantage is that the principles of these styles tend to complement each other. The better my Tai Chi gets the better my power generation in Mantis. Baji helps everything. Pigua really opens up my whole body (at least it’s supposed to, I’m slowly getting there). A marked disadvantage is that theres only so many hours in a day and not enough time to practice everything. Practicing only one style might result in a deeper level of mastery that outweighs the benifits received from the practicing of all the styles. There are some in the school who just train Tai Chi. Their Tai Chi is really good but I’d rather touch hands with them than some of my brothers that are doing different styles at the same time( When I say I’d rather touch hands with them I mean the other guys are more formidable opponents). I think that if the principles are complimentary it is good to train in more than one style. Especially as one progresses to the intermediate levels. When you progress to advanced levels of training, I think it’s time to pick a Major and concetrate on that. It helps round a person out. You’ll note I’m talking about TCMA’s. I used to train in Goju and Tang Soo Do and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t mix those with what I’m doing now. One disadvantage is that the Baji flavor permeates everything a little. Thats a beef other people have with our mantis that is legitimate. We could be accused of worse.
Like others have posted, a lot depends on your focus.
I really, really liked my Kuntao Silat training and would have been content to study it longer. However, my instructor moved away and the school closed.
I tried some other schools but did not find what I was looking for, at least not until recently.
My current focus is application and practical skills. (i.e. fighting / self defense), and less on performance (i.e. competition and katas - this is not to say katas aren’t part of training, they’re just not the focus.)
In some ways I am having to empty my cup to learn new ways of doing things. In other ways, I am pouring from my cup into the cups of others.
Nothing I had learned in the past is wasted, everything I am learning now applies. I feel I am better off having the foundation I started with.
My focus now is putting new ideas into practice while still applying techniques I learned before.
for me, learning more than one style was a forced necessity, but one for which I am better off.
O.K., I dont think that studying multiple styles is bad, but if you want to look
at it in such a “logical” light, then how much do things like body type factor
in? A lot of focus on “self defense”, and people who don’t buy into the
non sparring practability of certain arts is what you see on a lot of these
forums, but how much is a thin, light person going to benefit from a style
that favors weight? Theres two sides to the “I cross train to be a well rounded, modern ma” coin.
Originally posted by sapphire tygre O.K., I dont think that studying multiple styles is bad, but if you want to look
at it in such a “logical” light, then how much do things like body type factor
in? A lot of focus on “self defense”, and people who don’t buy into the
non sparring practability of certain arts is what you see on a lot of these
forums, but how much is a thin, light person going to benefit from a style
that favors weight? Theres two sides to the “I cross train to be a well rounded, modern ma” coin.
I tend to be of the bigger / heavier framed person. We have students who are as big as me and some that are much smaller.
Techniques that work for the smaller lighter / faster people do not work as well for me. Ditto for the reverse.
Our school does not focus on emphasizing one physique over the other. Techniques are taught for all the different types.
Find a school that understands this. (not a simple task, but they do exist.)
Originally posted by sapphire tygre O.K., I dont think that studying multiple styles is bad, but if you want to look
at it in such a “logical” light, then how much do things like body type factor
in? A lot of focus on “self defense”, and people who don’t buy into the
non sparring practability of certain arts is what you see on a lot of these
forums, but how much is a thin, light person going to benefit from a style
that favors weight? Theres two sides to the “I cross train to be a well rounded, modern ma” coin.
that shouldn’t really be a factor. your style should have techniques that you can use regardless of build. you have to search the style and find them. judo, for example has throws that I can pull of easier because I am med height, stocky and very strong. judo also has throws that are not suited well for me, but tall people can pull them off with ease. the same can be said of bjj and shuai chiao.
I believe that this is again a question of knowing what is one’s goal. There is nothing inherently wrong or evil about practicing multiple styles or skipping from one style to another if that is what one enjoys doing. Also, there is nothing wrong with trying to learn a single art to the exclusion of all others if this is what one enjoys. Combat effectiveness will come second in importance to what one enjoys.
Combat effectiveness will require much more training than many of us actually do. If we’re not putting in the hours training, in single or multiple arts, we will not be truly effective. If we’re not going to be effective anyway, we may as well do what we enjoy.
Having said this, I’ll agree that it’s important to fight with a very tuned and cohesive strategy. It’s my impression that most martial arts have a strategy to fighting but one may not learn that whole strategy for many years. Worse, in some martial arts the strategy requires the ability to feel and move the body in ways that normal life has taught us not to. Dedicated practice is required to get ourselved tuned to move in accordance to the strategy.
Here is a rather mediocre analogy. Let’s take a competitive speed skater (a sprinter say) and a track sprinter. Let’s first put the track sprinter on skates with the speed skater and have them race. Anyone guess the result? Now take the speed skater and put them in shoes on the track with the runner and have them race. Result? Both have the same goal in their respective competition but their strategies and tools are different. They need to each dedicate themselves to their strategy which necessarily is derived from their tools.
How many of us are putting ourselves in a situation where this level of dedication required?
There’s absolutley absolutely wrong with flitting aimlessly from style to style absorbing only the most basic and gossamer ideas the style has to offer instead of buckling down and sticking it out with blood, sweat and tears until you reach a true and deep philosophical understanding of the MA in question – and not just the shiny veneer that drew you in the first place.
No, there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with that…if that’s what you want. Nothing whatsoever. Many people do it. Many are happy. Many are fullfilled. Many are satisfied.
Originally posted by Prairie
[B]I believe that this is again a question of knowing what is one’s goal. There is nothing inherently wrong or evil about practicing multiple styles or skipping from one style to another if that is what one enjoys doing. Also, there is nothing wrong with trying to learn a single art to the exclusion of all others if this is what one enjoys. Combat effectiveness will come second in importance to what one enjoys.
Combat effectiveness will require much more training than many of us actually do. If we’re not putting in the hours training, in single or multiple arts, we will not be truly effective. If we’re not going to be effective anyway, we may as well do what we enjoy.
Having said this, I’ll agree that it’s important to fight with a very tuned and cohesive strategy. It’s my impression that most martial arts have a strategy to fighting but one may not learn that whole strategy for many years. Worse, in some martial arts the strategy requires the ability to feel and move the body in ways that normal life has taught us not to. Dedicated practice is required to get ourselved tuned to move in accordance to the strategy.
Here is a rather mediocre analogy. Let’s take a competitive speed skater (a sprinter say) and a track sprinter. Let’s first put the track sprinter on skates with the speed skater and have them race. Anyone guess the result? Now take the speed skater and put them in shoes on the track with the runner and have them race. Result? Both have the same goal in their respective competition but their strategies and tools are different. They need to each dedicate themselves to their strategy which necessarily is derived from their tools.
How many of us are putting ourselves in a situation where this level of dedication required? [/B]
Difference is, A speed skater will never have to sprint and a race and vice versa. A striker may get into a fight and end up on the ground. Conversely, a grappler may have to remain standing.
good grief, that saying is tired. does anyone have a working definition of ‘mastery’ to go with this saying? what does that mean?
that you can use your art in any situation? i think i’d have to see demonstrable proof of that. knives, multiple attackers, blah, blah, blah. not to say that a more eclectic approach guarantees anything either. it’s just odd to me that this little catch phrase gets so much airplay. in practical terms, what does it mean to have mastered one given art?
Difference is, A speed skater will never have to sprint and a race and vice versa. A striker may get into a fight and end up on the ground. Conversely, a grappler may have to remain standing. [/B]
Point well taken and I do admit that the analogy may not have been the best. The point of the analogy was merely on the point of dedication to particular skills. Perhaps it wasn’t a good analogy at all.
In anycase, my belief remains that for most of us we just need to do whatever makes us happy. Also, I don’t mean to imply that training in multiple arts can’t be effective - but there are no short cuts and the hours have to be put into training whether in a single art or multiple arts to make them truly effective.
(guess yall know that lol)