What are the levels in your system?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I’m curious about the levels in different systems.

It seems that in the system I’m studying, they don’t actually teach any real sets for the first couple of years, and you don’t spar for the first 6-9 months.

The justification for this is that you have to learn the basic movements (punches, kicks, blocks, etc.) and have to condition your body to the point at which you can actually do them well, before going on to sparring and then to learning the real sets.

After 5 years, it seems, people have learned about 3 of the real sets, but not necessarily the full versions – there seems to be a “sifu version” of each set with more details and more techniques in it.

Apparently there are more than 20 sets, yet people who have been in the system for 7 years or so know only about 5-7 of them.

Is this unduly slow, or does it make sense to you? How does this compare with your system?

2

We study basic, large movements for the first 3 levels. At the 4th level (after 3 exams) you can begin to learn versions of the techniques that can be applied in more aggressive situations.
Freestyle application also begins at this level.

Weapons classes usually cover advanced material, so the beginning forms you must learn on your own by asking senior students to help you after class.

It takes about 3-5 years to get a black belt, which is considered a real beginner.

You cannot test for a 2nd degree black belt for 2 years after receiving your first.

At third, you must be able to teach…perhaps 300 techniques and variations.

It is a slow process.

3

Hello Syre, what system do you study and who with?
I am in Wing chun, and in my school, it takes atleast a year beforea we do any sparring or any real chi sau. We do a lot of Dan chi sau, basically for the same reasons. We have to have a real solid base before we are allowed to move on.

4

I want to remain fairly anonymous (it’s an online thing), but I’m studying 8-Step Praying Mantis, and I’m a fairly new student.

I just get a little disheartened when I hear a 5 year student saying that he’s only learned 3 sets and is looking forward to learning the “real” versions of them.

5

Hmmm, generally it takes 12-18 months before I will let my students fight. This is largely because without the fundamental training, they just don’t develop skills properly. This is not to say that they can’t fight - usually a one year student is awfully tough - but really fighting using the material - that takes a while.

In my school things are taught in layers. How you understand and practice something after 1 year is considerably different than how you understand and practice it after 5 years. There is a lot of information, and you can only internalize so much at a time.

I find that sticking to the old way produces better fighters. It also weeds out the weak minded and sometimes turns lambs into wolves.

6

Hi.

No Levels in my System.

We start the Students on Push-Hands after about 4~6 months, prior to that we use the Puhs-hands to aid in rooting.

It takes us 5~8 yrs to learn the 8 basic sets.
Once these are done we start in earnest on sparring and fighting training.

To become a Sifu takes betweem 8~10yrs minimum.

7

Are all real martial arts this slow?

It seems as if from what you guys are saying, it would take about 10 years to become somewhat effective and proficient in any given style.

8

Hi Syre.

You can use the Arts before than in a fight, but in order to become good at it takes years.

Is it that different from boxing,archery, fencing and similar??

In the I-Dan(Belt ranking) system the 1st BB signifies that you have mastered the Basics, and now are starting your real training.

Normally takes 3-6yrs to get there in a proper school.

Yes, MA take a long time and plenty of hard work.

Don’t get discouraged by it.

9

[SIZE=3]This is not a flame[/SIZE]

But why is it that MA’s like Muay Thai (whose effectiveness is undoubted) take only a year or so to become proficient and maybe four to five years to become excellent? Is it because they are simple & efficient? Why do CMA’s (of which I am a student & I love) take so long?

Do I really need 10 years before I am able to effectively use what I know? Will Joe Mugger wait politely until I am ready? Doesn’t it make more sense to learn an art that is quick & efficient?

One thing I have noticed. Young people fight more than older people. At age 18 I was in a lot more fights than I am at age 24. I hope that my aggression and bullheadedness will be even less at 34. So what I am saying (in a roundabout manner) is that it makes more sense to learn a MA with quick proficiency time. Sure, you might be able to kick ass like nobody’s business at age 35, but how many fights are you realistically expecting to get into at that age anyhow?

Personally Syre if the length of time is getting you down then go & train something like Muay Thai at the same time you train your other stuff. It’ll take care of you until you can use the rest of it. I honestly hope that I will never get in a fight ever again. I would be stoked. But if I get in one tomorrow it’ll be my Muay Thai that I’ll use. In two years it’ll be my Wing Chun. Or hopefully some hybrid of the two.

These are genuine questions that have preyed on my mind a lot. What do other people think? Let it not be said that I flame CMA 'cos I think they’re the most comprehensive and the best.

But why so long to become proficient? I can understand mastery taking a long time (like this has!) but proficiency? I’d rethink something that took me years to become proficient at.

The impatience of youth…:smiley:

10

"But why is it that MA’s like Muay Thai (whose effectiveness is undoubted) take only a year or so to become proficient and maybe four to five years to become excellent? Is it because they are simple & efficient? "

Actually, muay thai is quite complex. To answer your question though, it’s the nature of the training. If you are in a school that works stance for a year, then forms for a year, then drills for a year, then finally sparring (this is just a far fetched example) then you will not be learning to fight as quickly as someone who begins working techniques from the outset, and begins sparring after a few months. by the time the former begins sparring, the latter already has a few years of sparring experience on him. Remember that there is more to traditional styles than just fighting. There’s a spiritual aspect, health aspect, etc. muay thai tends not to focus on that as much, and jumps right to the fighting. Also, aspects of CMA build on eachother, such as the importance of good stance. That’s not looked at as much in muay thai, so while you may be perfecting your stance, or doing iron body, the thai boxer is sparring and getting conditioning at the same time.

They are merely just two different paths to the same end.

11

This is becomming a Thai thread :wink:

I agree with SB. It is the way they train and condition themself that stand out. I used to train thai but there were just to many injuries because of the extremely hard training. It wasn’t uncommon for people at the thai gym to puke after the training

If I were around 16years old and wanted to kick ass I would definitely choose thai.

12

When I was 16 and wanted to kick butt, I did take Thai Boxing lessons :).

Taking a few hundred of those shin kicks or neck wrestling (clincing) with those guys will really teach you something about yourself.

It does take a long time to learn any of the more “traditional” styles, and I think that it is becuase the goals are not so clearly defined. With Muay Thai, disabling your opponent through percussive attacks while absording their blows is generally what you are looking to be able to do. However, MA can have a lot more to offer. What do I mean by that? Well, that’s up to the individual who is training.

13

Teachers Philosophy

I think it all has to do with the instructors philosophy. That will be greatly influenced by the MA’s overall philosophy but different instructors will have their own interpretation.

While I think that 5 years to learn 3 sets seems a little excessive I can see a logic behind it. Having trained a few different places I have seen what happens when you have a bunch of students who have questionable basics wanting to learn a new form every two weeks. The volume of material they “know” is staggering but they look like rank amateurs executing it.

Since my school focuses primarily on forms we tend to learn alot. In the last 10 months I’ve learned 3 forms completely and 3 more anywhere from 50-75%. Because of the mixture of levels in each class there is alot of review, or basics, then people get called out to individually perform. In those instances Shifu critiques or, as he calls it, polishes your technique. The more advanced you get the more subtle the suggestions are.

My attitude is I am there to learn what Shifu wants to teach me. If I train hard he will reward me with teaching me more. If I truly felt like he was holding me back I would leave, but I’m not so arrogant as to think that I have mastered anything he has taught me.

14

Originally posted by Nichiren
[B]

I agree with SB. It is the way they train and condition themself that stand out. I used to train thai but there were just to many injuries because of the extremely hard training. It wasn’t uncommon for people at the thai gym to puke after the training

[/B]

Sounds like Shuai Chiao to me

15

“Sounds like Shuai Chiao to me”
Really, that’s interesting. Do you train on a hard floor or mats?

16

Mats usually. Although we’ve been known to take a fall just about anywhere. Besides, after about 50 throws, it doesn’t feel like a mat anymore, LOL

17

My Shuai Chiao teacher loves Muay Thai - he was always pushing me to learn it, but there were no qualified gyms near where I lived.

If your CMA teacher is REALLY sharing information with you, and you are REALLY training hard, there is no reason you can’t be in the ring in 18 months. But there are SO many variables at play there.

For one - CMA often requires special conditioning on top of the fact that most westerners are really soft and need toughening. This gradual progression gives you something that can last a lifetime,

Two - there is a psycological aspect. In order to keep students you need a progression that does not scare them away too soon.

Three - what are you training for? Muay Thai is a great martial art. But it focuses it’s training on specific ring skills - and in my humble opinion does a GREAT job. Most legit CMA take a broader picture on what you are training for. More skills to learn - longer time in training.

There is an advantage to ring training - but in my experience it does not pay to start it early in CMA.

I realize that I am in a minority in that my core is CMA, but I like pretty much all martial arts that produce effective results.

I think the biggest drawback in the CMA world is teachers who don’t teach well, or fully understand what they are doing. We need to teach better and more openly, or the arts will be lost. Why? Because our competitors like Muay Thai and Sambo and BJJ are highly technical in thier teaching methods. Why would someone want to ‘wait’ to see if what they are doing is logical? (I realize that there is a progression - but the progression needs to give the student a path that they can see.)

18

Syre- Our system has a similar time frame in the begining. You spend a minimum of 2 months practicing very basic techniques then you test on them. Then you spend a minimum of 3 months Learning the very basic forms. So the first 5 months is spent on very basic information without sparring. During this time you do learn applications and practice drills though. By the end of five years in my system you should know all 12 of the forms but we have people who don’t train much and they learned maybe 3 or 4 in 3 years.

This statement doesn’t sit well with me

“I just get a little disheartened when I hear a 5 year student saying that he’s only learned 3 sets and is looking forward to learning the “real” versions of them.”

It’s not the fact that the students know only 3 forms in 5 years, this means they spent alot of time learning it and get quality not quantity. That’s what makes good martial artists.

But they don’t have the real versions?
If your instructor hides the real information for the “worthy” than I say leave the school. There are plenty of CMA instructors out there willing to share 100% of what they have with you from day one(100% of what’s on your level of course). The “secrets” he is holding back can easily be learned elsewhere, why spend your time and money with someone who isn’t willing to teach you.

I can’t see why in these days of openness why students stick with masters who hide things from them when they can learn these things elsewhere

19

By the 4th week, I want you to be able to get in and have faith in the basics- that means you will be sparring by end of the first month.

In my lineage, if you can’t use the basics, you will not learn anymore. But the way our style (Bak Hsing CLF Gung Fu) is taught, it is a quick and natural progression based on the student challenging themselves. Where do more techniques come from? Patterns.

It’s a wonderful circle of progressive learning in a controled environement.

It is the teacher that must instill form and bring out the fighter through careful systematic instruction. Forms alone will not instill the warrior’s spirit- that takes time through reconditioning.

The process is fairly easy. And does not require years of dedication before one can be…effective. A blend of Yin/Yang.

nospam.
:cool:

20

Well said SD

I have to be honest with you, many systems originally only had ONE form. Granted, it was realy long, but only one none the less.

Students worked and reworked it a section at a time and then tried and tested each technique in the set over and ver and over again untill absolute mastery.

When you look at it Li Hu Pa Fa, it has basically 1 form. BUT it is 700 techinques in length. Now, If 700 thechniques have 3 variations each, that’s an unbeliveable amount of knowledge!!!

In my style, we have 6 core forms for the Southern system, and some lines have 2 more. If you were to take them all, do them in a row , that’s quite alot of movement too. The first three are simple short forms for building basics, and there is no reason to not be able to learn all 3 in 6-9 months, but then the next three are more complicated, and you could spend 9 months to a year learning and perfecting just 1. That includes the combat application of the forms as well as variations of those techniques (Sd, rember how many different applications we came up with for just that ONE technique in Nan Tai Tzu’s first form?)

My attitude, if you want to collect forms, fine video them and shelve them untill your ready to WORK them. But spend the time and concentrait on the form for your skill level and don’t be in such a hurry to learn it all.

Also, on the “Sfu” version thing, of couse Sifu’s version has more, he’s the Sifu!!! Some schools teach alot of forms, others teach the same form in different levels. The advanced version of the form is the (Dare I say it?) Advanced level, silly. You will get all the finer details as you progress, and comprehend what you are currently learning.

Think about it, did you learn to read entire books in one lesson? NO, you spent years in elementary school learning to read, starting with the alphabet, and them those silly D’ick and Jane books and on to more and more sophistcated things. Now, you can read an entire bible if so inclined. Could a 1st grader do that? Nope, and you could’n t teach him to either. It’s just too much too fast.

In other words, you need to understand the “Simple” version of the form FIRST, and then detail is added slowly as you are ready for it. Before you know it, you have the “Sifu” version and YOUR teaching the simple version to YOUR beginner or intermedeiate students. That how it works in system that have only a few forms anyway, in systems tha have lots of forms you are just doing the same thing, only using simple to advanced forms instead of one form taught in a simple to advanced mannor.

RD