the surface is skin deep.
but you see. those that teach wushu, teach wushu.
people go there because thats what they WANT. so of course they will pay for it.
generally speaking, you have to be a complete dolt to go and start learning modern wushu, thinking its nothing more then a compulsory performance sport.
lunch time.
It’s only a waste of time if you want it to be. When you’re given something, it’s up to you to make something out of it. If you view it as meaningless, then it is exactly that.
Remember, martial arts is the study of energy. Whether you are learning how to traingle choke someone trying to pass your guard, or learning a rising block w/an upward palm, it is all in the science of energy. It’s all connected. The two scenarios might seem totally unrelated, but they are not, if you look really closely at what energy is used to get from point A to point B.
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Their main business is teaching children. In that case, yes, forms are a big part of the money makers.
Adults are a different story.
EDIT: I’m referring to successful schools that have 100+ students.
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the threading punch from road 3 of 12 spring legs: hitting someone with this is like running into them in a car lol. get someone on the button with this and they go down without even time to groan. i used it on a person who waited all night for me to close down my bar and come outside to go home. put him down to sleep on the asphalt, like naptime in kindergarten.
i learned it in a form, huh, go figure. The reason the technique is so powerful is that it uses energy from the move before to set up the real power. i have never practiced the move on its own so i can only attribute it to tan tui practice…and it came out by itself when needed. can you ask for much more than that?
anyone can say that forms are categorically pointless and without merit. I derive cardio and conditioniong benefits from forms, plus i find useful techniques to file away. you can’t start a fight planiing to do a long sequence of moves from a form on somebody, but when you see the opportunity to use a move, you do it. Like in chin na… you can’t say. i am going to do lift lantern hand on this guy, because you don’t know what form his attack will take. but if you find the guy tries to grab your wrist, wel then go ahead and hit him with little silk wrap fist: because that is an appropriate response in that context.
i enjoy sparring and chin na practice
** edit, had to stop in order to continue an argument with the gf :mad: yahh i know, my priorities…
anyway I enjoy sparring and chin na technique practice as much as forms, but i like doing forms also. some more than others. Forms also serve to attract new people into the MA, when they see them performed in demos.
as long as we are questioning the validity of this method, what about two man fighting forms? are they also outmoded, useless vestiges left over from the bad old days? lmao.
The purpose of form: to lose the importance of martial arts.
My master always says China’s specialty is losing it’s good stuff. Perfect example, they discover gun powder and other nations come in and develop it to a higher level.
Personally, I believe the government emphasised form, good form = champion, as a way to curb a nation of millions of martial artists. Over time, you lose everything. The best part, is that you have people fighting over it’s importance today … who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
ray-
fighters win and lose all the time.
some people are not so good at it, some people have no ability and skill that can be measured in anything but drops and other people have a lot of those traits and still lose in fights.
everyone loses fights. and when they do, it’s because they can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. 
forms are not just wushu. that’s where a line needs to be drawn. Form is just a shell, a pattern. It is either brought to life or not by the player of it. It is either analyzed and used by the one who is interested or performed as a dance by someone who is not so interested in the aspect or meaning on another level.
it’s a method of practice, that’s all it is for me. Apparently, some people are really offended by this method and will go to great lengths to point out the inadequacies of it based on venues that have little to do with it.
one doesn’t bring a gun to a wrestling match, but any martial artist can try their hand at their pleasure in seeing if what they have learned is effective. Or one can decide they don’t need to or want to do that but still enjoy using the method.
Millions of people hit a heavy bag and do a ‘boxers workout TM’ and will never step in a ring. It is not really necessary for all martial artists to step into a ring fighting venue. People play paint ball, people fence without any undue harm coming to them.
I think maybe the issue is people who just play form who ‘think’ they can find but won’t step up. I don’t think everyone who trains using forms is like this.
How many times you get hit is not the measure of your martial experience either. Nor is how many times you hit someone else. Sometimes it’s just the pleasure of training. In fact, for anyone, doing any martial art, 99% of it all is training and not fighting or sparring. sparring is another method, boxers don’t always spar. They don’t always fight. UFC guys spend more time training and drill than in competition fight environments.
The more I hear about your teacher the more I think he’s a smart man.
gunpowder was the example?
your master sounds traditional. lol
not to mention, you call him ‘master’.
No offense, but what’s the purpose of being a ‘master’?
Master is usually just an honorary title, except if the person can actually fight and is a ‘master’, which it sounds like this guy is.
Gunpowder was a very good example. China was stupid because they had a lot of technology. They had huge ships, great armies. Nobody in Asia could match them. Then during the Ming dynasty they decided they would close off the country and they effectively lost 400+ years of development. And they got taken over by the Manchus.
Then everybody in the world came over to take them over and the only reason they didn’t totally get taken over is everybody was fighting over who it would be. Ray’s teacher sounds very smart.
My master never asked me to call him master, he only told me not to call him sifu, because that title is for when you live together, etc. He asked to be called Mr. Chan, or teacher.
I called him teacher until he did something that caused me to drop to my knees and call him master. I know it sounds corny and very Shaw Brother’s but what I saw was mastery … period.
On a side note, he told me to get up and never do that again, but I’ve done it a few times since for similiar reasons. Every once in a while I get to see the Holy Grail and I’m thankful for it, and humbled by it.
I have never called anyone else master in my entire life. It would take something awesome for me to adress another that way.
As for martial arts and how I measure my ability: who can I beat, who can’t I beat (yet!!!) and why? Then I study and train more to fix the problem.
It is not how often you hit or be hit, that is correct. It is the level of your martial skill. Form is no way to measure it at all, not even a little bit. And I don’t say this because I am not good at form, quite the contrary, I believe my form displays good power. It’s because I displayed good power in my form and won a medal and been TKOed on the same day … how do you think I felt martialy that day? Like showing off my form medal? Or going back and reviewing the film and seeing what went wrong?
I hate these discussions because I believe inside every martial artists knows this and they argue it away for their ego alone. Or to keep their students. I for one am done walking on egg shells for these people. And for those who say, well, I’d be better if I didn’t have a girlfriend, or a wife, or a serious job. Get over it!
ray-
you’re never gonna be able to beat everyone.
I would only reiterate again that form is a method, not the ends.
There’s worlds between not being able to beat everyone and not being able to beat anyone.
I’m sorry, I know too many form practicioners with no balls. Now, this in itself would not bother me at all; fighting is not for everyone. But the reason why I don’t surf 100 foot waves is because I’m scared; not because I don’t have to because I learned everything there is surfing 4-foot eastcoast wind slop. I can admit that.
And because of that, when they start talking about waverunners to tow into these giant waves and special boards, I don’t talk about how untraditional it is (many surfers take this view and I see the cross over into MA) … I keep my mouth shut and listen because they have taken my hobby to a whole other level.
I love doing forms, they are a link to an older time.
I also agree that forms are mis-used and mis-understood a lot of the time.
As for the argument that forms don’t work, I suppose that is a personal experience. In my school we train applications from the forms constantly, and students really come to like their forms. My teacher won’t let you learn anything new unless you can show that you know what the forms are for.
It’s all about intent in forms. If you know what the movement is for, you can express it on the form powerfully and gracefully. Forms are, I guess, an easy way of teaching a series of techniques. An old school seminar. Most forms I know have a theme, multiple attackers, guy with spear, etc.
That being said, you have to drill the applications over and over again, not just know them, but be able to live them. So I guess it all comes down to how your instructor teaches and what emphasis he/she places on the forms.
I believe the main reason that people put down forms is becaus ethey have a lack of understanding. This is not entierely their fault, as they only know what their teachers taught them. (I say not entirely, because they should be bright enough to do some research as well) This is why there are so many misconceptions about form.
In the past few hundred years, Martial Arts has been, with very few exceptions, intentially taught a$$-backwards. A simple look at history will explain this:
Several hundred years ago-China is separated into warring kingdoms. Battles upon battles. If you are a General/Warlord,etc. what are you going to train your soldiers in-forms first, or drills, drills, drills, conditioning, applications, fighting?
This should be a no-brainer.
Ok, fast-forward a few hundred years, or whatever. Manchus invade China, rebels are trainig to overthrow the Ching, restore the Ming. What do you train first-forms, or drills, drills, drills, conditioning,applications,fighting?
Again, the answer is easy.
Fast forward again-School is fighting school for superiority of their names and a place in the community-but they are fighting in the streets. Waht do you teach first-forms? or drills, drills, drills,conditioning,applications and fighting?
see a pattern yet?
Ok-last journey through the Time Tunnel-Schools are now trying to stay open-attracting students, etc. They put on public demonstrations. What do you think they will be showing? A bunch of guys hitting baggs, or drilling? Yeah right. Who wants to see that? So they demonstrate their forms. “Wow! I wanna learn the Tiger Form!” “I wanna learn the Dragon!”
-and when they join the school, what do they learn first? yep-forms.
So now you have all these well-known "Masters’ teaching forms, then maybe some applications, a few drills, and how do their students fight? Like kickboxers.
Nobody even knows how to use their Kung-Fu-not even the teachers.Why? Because most teachers these days are already another generation created by this mess. The only thing that resembles Kung-Fu are their forms and their t-shirts.
So yes. For them-forms are useless, antiquated, outdated, etc.
Traditionally forms are only taught last, to round out the student’s training, to teach further concepts,fluidity,variation of technique, and to catalogue the system so that it can be passed down for the next generations intact. And not everybody learned them. There was no need to. If they wanted to fight-they fought, if they wanted to teach, then they were taught the entire system. Many of the higher skills as well were passed down in the forms. There are forms that dealt specifically with dim-mak, iron body,hei-gung etc and were not given out freely.
So the next time you hear someone speak with authority on how forms are useless, don’t argue with them. That is a battle that can’t be won. Let it go.
These are very good points. When you put it this way, I wouldn’t say that forms are useless then if you consider it like a catalog.
Forms should be used to reinforce the combat principles you already should have gotten through combat drills (incl sparring). Use what you practice, and practice what you use.
If there is little relevance to the forms you learn with the combat drills/principles you learn, then yes, form is meaningless, because it is existing as its own entity, not a compliment to the other aspects.
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I don’t agree with the statement that if you don’t train form you don’t know form. My master has trained since he was 5. He started with Hung Gar, studied WC with Yip Man (before getting kicked out for asking too many questions), Mantis, so many stles… he didn’t get his good stuff he said until he was 45 years old. He still trains today.
He knows form. He shows applications of taiji like its no ones business. But we all see people performing form and it’s mindless, no power. No connection.
If you’re breaking down the form and training the applications right, why spend the time with the form? I know people say it’s a catalog of technique … fu(k technique! Technique is a dime a dozen. Technique you can get from a book or video, just like the form.
What is behind the technique? What fuel’s the technique? That’s what makes the martial artists.
Nobody ever loses a fight and says “The other guy had more technique than me.”
No, it’s always the other guy was bigger, faster, stronger. He was better. These are ways of talking around that fact that the other guy was made of better stuff, better material.
This is the truth.
I have nothing to lose or gain by promoting or dissing form. I could teach my students Isshin-ryu form, Hung Gar form, Mantis, Wing CHun and Bak Mei form. Why waist all of our time. I train with my students, do everything they do. Form is a waist of time … which is why a lot of teacher promote it so well.
Through my experience in training Black Tiger style for close to five years I have observed several things about forms and traditional training (my Sifu refers to it as old school).
From day one you are beginning to strengthen, condition, and stretch the body to face the rigors of training. You are also engaging in one to one self-defense, situational drills, and kum la sao or joint locking. As well you are learning all the basic kicks and punches, footwork, etc. In fact, we have a class a week in which I instruct the class and we work on these things ad nausem (sp?). These, minus a few other things, are the basics including standing meditation and breathing.
After some time you begin to learn basic forms that gradually become more and more complex sets of movement all training specific qualities for fitness, health, and fighting application. Black Tiger has eight empty hand forms. Each one takes a good year or two to learn and you drill these forms, and every movement as you learn it, a lot. Obviously in and around the time one has practiced their basics etc, free sparring starts. This goes from no contact at first and slowly builds as one gets comfortable and more experienced. For the most part this is done with no gloves or other equipment but occasionally we wear gloves. As this point when I spar with a fellow black sash I think to myself that if I’m not careful and really paying attention, this is going to hurt…a lot.
So you see that by training application and basics from day one, including contact with your peers in varying degrees of aggression and force, you are preparing for a reality of fighting. The applications are taken from the sets so that when you learn one you start to put the pieces together and the applications come easier (although I must admit that self-defense and application, other than free sparring, comes the slowest to me for some reason!).
Forms, at the very least, give one some exercise that replicates and ingrains the motions that one will use in fighting. Sifu is strict on using the art in sparring and so these things must be done. Why go running for hours, skipping rope for days, or lifting weights for months, when everything is put together in one or several packages that are second to none in terms of sport specificity? I am not against other training methods, I enjoy a variety of physical endeavors, but for martial arts, nothing beats training the movements over and over again.
I am fortunate that this is how I am taught…self-defense and basics along side forms and style…I don’t think there is a better combo!
My first sifu used to beat us with ‘technique’. Meaning, he had a lot of experience and he knew what we were going to do. Even though his students were younger than him, stronger and faster, he could still beat them.
But he didn’t get that way through doing form. He got that way by sparring a ton. We still did ‘form’, just to keep the tradition, I guess.
At the time I thought forms were mainly for women because they always seemed to do them better, like dancing. That’s why I’ve always called people who do mainly forms ‘forms queens’.
Edit …
Actually, I didn’t start that phrase ‘forms queens’. That’s what we always called people who could do forms but not fight. I think one of my sifu’s sifus must have invented it.