The detriment of kung fu form vs. partner work....

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
21

There’s all kinds of full-contact competition for TMA’s like kung fu–San Shou, San Da, etc. It’s just not emphasized in schools.

I think it’s the training methods more than anything. I hate to sound like a cliche, but until ‘aliveness’ is restored to the TMA’s like kung fu, then they will continue to decline. It’s not like aliveness has been missing from most TMA’s that long. I’m just speaking about America, but most people you run across that trained in the period from the 50s - 80s have all kinds of ‘war stories’ about how hellacious the training used to be. Lots of hard-contact free sparring, etc. In today’s society most people aren’t willing to put in the sacrifice required to learn all of the intricacies of many of the CMA’s and take the banging required to become a proficient fighter.

22

It’s just the influence of the Communists. CMA used to have sparring in the U.S. until the Communists started coming over, and few of them did sparring because it was banned in China for many years. They’re the ones that tell you sparring and applications don’t matter.

23

What really gets my goat is how many people leave a tournament once the sparring starts. Wouldn’t you think that would draw the biggest crowd?

24

Aliveness=training with a LIVE partner.

25

So do it, Fu Pow, put the $$$ where your mouth is.

You have a school, allow people from other styles to come and work with your students.

Oh, I forgot, I’m on IGNORE even though I was the one who originally posted this topic.

26

Depends.

You can have sparring, even full-contact, that is worthless and proves nothing re:application of skill. Way too much kickboxing-style performances, where the participants stay at long range as much as possible.

Bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz5O0wy8Lx8

Good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbiyEQw-mnc&mode=related&search=

Optimal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W32CbEU5NOk

Say what you like about us, Daido Juku and Kyokushin guys tend to meet in the center of the mat, go toe to toe, and stay there until someone goes down. Much like in a real encounter.

Note: Go with the open-fist gloves, like Daido Juku does. It helps. A lot.

27

San da and San Shou is like wushu kickboxing. I’m talking about full-contact stuff utilizing the unique styles of kung fu.

I think part of the problem here is that the only modernization that has taken place with TCMAs has been from the communist government and Bruce Lee, whereas TJMAs have been modernized throughout the last 100 years by a lot of different people.

28

I wouldn’t say that TCMA needs modernization. The old training methods worked. Forms were done (and forms aren’t useless). However, forms were not what was exclusively done. They did lots of sparring, conditioning, and drilling. Many TCMA teachers don’t do this as much, in order to appeal to a larger market. Some still do these things the old way though.

29

San Da is progress.

They need to push the envelope more, but it’s a lot better than the WTF and JKA rules.

They can throw on as much gear as they want (and head/face protection is a must, IMO), just not on the hands and feet. For hands, cloth protectors (fingerless) are all you need.

Like so:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/W2006_03.jpg

30

“Worked” is the key word. The traditional way isn’t always the right way.

And last I checked, the harder forms of karate are pretty popular. No reason why TCMA schools can’t be just as tough as Kyokushin and its derivatives.

31

I couldn’t agree more. It’s not that hard. Take your standard 1.5 hour class and break it up like this:

First 30 minutes: warm up with forms then stretch
Second 30 minutes: Drills involving progressive resistance. Teach a technique from the form you were working on. Then drill it. Start with no resistance, then light, then medium, etc. If it’s a strike, use pads so you can feel the resistance. If it’s a takedown / lock / then work it with a partner.
Last 30 minutes: Sparring.

You could even split the last 30 minutes and do 15 minutes of sparring and 15 minutes of forms as a cool down.

I think many places get more off on step 2 than step 3. punching and kicking air in a line for 30 minutes is worse than getting 15 minutes punching and kicking on some pads or a bag. It’s so easy to partner people up and have them work pads with each other rather than have them just punch in air, and it really doesn’t change anything in your curriculum.

32

Exactly. I also think cross-school full contact competitions would benefit TCMAs as well. They have it for forms and point sparring, why not for all out full contact competiton? It would definitely raise the overall level of fighting ability, and more easily weed out the fakes and the frauds. Not that they would make much money anyway, since people would tend to flow into the schools that have the better fighters by default.

33

This’d be a more valid comparison if the first weren’t fairly light gym sparring while the next two obviously high level competition.

Of course, you could always come play MMA.

34

Daido Juku more than covers it, for me.

Best of all worlds, as we get to fight MT and BJJ guys on a regular basis. They both do pretty well, and provide the variety a well-rounded fighter needs.

Re: 1st video. Was meant as a rule-of-thumb example. Sparring like that is next to useless, unless you are training for NASKA-style kickboxing competitions. Throwing a couple of techniques from long range, then breaking contact and moving away, is not how it goes down in real life.

Illustrated rule: if it looks like that 1st video, it’s bad.

35

[ In today’s society most people aren’t willing to put in the sacrifice required to learn all of the intricacies of many of the CMA’s and take the banging required to become a proficient fighter.]

You’re right about that.
My Sifu has tried several times to introduce sparring into the main kung fu classses, the problem is that a large percentage (and not just the women either)just don’t want to do it and if he persists they quit (and if too many people quit the club won’t be viable). So instead there are two classes a week for sparring and the other classes are for forms practice (which includes two man forms.
A lot of people just do kung fu for the art or for health; they don’t want the bruises.
I wasn’t interested in sparring for years until I realised that it was the only way to really understand the forms and to improve. I still don’t enjoy it (especially not the occasional visit to casualty afterwards; improvement is a long time arriving), but I do it anyway.

Another risk clubs run if they have lots of sparring is being sued after an injury.
Injuries happen in sparring, but in today’s compensation culture even though we’re all insured there’s always the worry that someone will sue.

36

That’s kind of how my 7* mantis classes were. Most people wouldn’t touch hard-contact sparring. It was offered, though, to people who were interested.

I’m actually OK with schools that are this way. I think it’s fine, as long as the teacher is honest with his students. I still have the utmost respect for my 7* sifu because he was honest with his students. In the first few months, he made it 100% clear that we should be practicing all our techniques against a heavy bag (including weapons) so we know what it’s like to hit something with the technique. He also told us that if we pull our punches it will build up bad habits.

37

There’s been quite a few threads about this kind of thing lately. At my CLF school, there were a few people who were pretty keen on sparring, and we did basically everything I saw in that “optimal” video, with the exception of the submission holds, albeit with 12 ounce gloves, as our sparring was more sanshou oriented.

My school was open for 6 days a week, with only 2 of those days being form days. On form days, we would warm up for 15 minutes (including going over basic forms), then work on the form we were learning for 15 minutes, then go into about 5 minutes of three star before working applications for the rest of the hour.

One of the days was a “bag day”, where we would warm up for 20 minutes (with light calisthenics - 120 pushups, jogging, crunches, squat jumps, etc) and then kick bags for the next 15 (low/high round, side primarily) and then work 3-7 punch combos for another 15 and then work some two man drills.

The other two days were only sparring. You warmed up on your own, then put on the gear and did offense defense for 5 minutes each, then medium continuous sparring full gear for the rest of the class, switching partners, and sometimes breaking out the mat to do takedowns and full contact sparring. Often we would focus on close range fighting, since that was most unnatural for us. Some days we would just warm up and just go right away, skipping the offense defense and focus exercises. I was not as good as my little brother, who could easily go for 45 minutes continuously fighting sifu (not winning obviously, but not tiring either), but I could also go full speed for 20 minutes and more - the conditioning from going to sparring classes regularly was very very good. To get an idea of the intensity of the full contact sparring, many of us were also regular weightlifters - I am about 145 pounds and lift over 225 pounds in most directions, my brother is 200 pounds and lifts about the same in every direction except straight up - so we could and did dizzy people, although most often it was ourselves (no weight divisions in class). Oh and sifu was also 145 pounds and could bench over 315, so he had dynamite in his hands too.

Admittedly, the sparring days were the most sparse - there have been times when only me or my brother showed up at all! But typically there was about 6 people in those classes compared to over 20 on form days. My sifu was much more interested in sanshou and fighting, being formerly a sanshou fighter himself. I guess he also got disappointed with the lack of people dedicating themselves to learning to fight and ended up closing the school last year. But the sparring classes were very good and very intense.

My point is, I have heard that one of the other schools near my sifu’s school is also similar in their class schedule - and I’m not sure the problem of kung fu schools lacking live partner training is that widespread. Maybe not every kung fu school is as intense, and part of the problem definitely is in the student interest, but I think most kung fu sifu’s would like to do live partner training and sparring, as evidenced by the many instructors on this board. It really is up to the students, though, I think. If students show interest, then you guys can teach it!