With your statement about principles and powers, I agree wholeheartedly. I just don’t see what has changed about human anatomy to make techniques outdated. If you concentrate on doing forms, then, I think you are doing you style WRONG. You learn the forms, then you do them as drills. (so really, it’s a semantics thing, Yeh, you still concentrate on forms in a way when you are drilling the techniques from them.)
OF course in Xing Yi, all the forms are short enough to already be drills! (at least in the beginning)
Say, if someone done a drill of hitting tree with your fists repeatedly left and right for a year, he would be a far better fighter than someone who learned 3-5 forms during that period but nothing else
Well, you see, that’s a good example of learning forms the WRONG way. What if you learn ONE form in the first couple of months of training, and then spent the rest of the year pounding out a couple of striking techniques from the form?, that’s the real training.
When I talked about the techniques being outdated, I didn’t mean that it has been any change in the human anatomy, but in the human mindset and training.
It’s not that the technique is completely useless, but there are techniques that, if you keep on doing it like the old times, without changing its attributes to suit them to actual situations, it’s not gonna work.
And Xing Yi forms are known to be drills of principles since the beginning of the style. That’s why their basic forms are short.
you learning ONE form in the first couple of months of training, and then spent the rest of the year pounding out a couple of striking techniques from the form, that’s the real training.
“you learning ONE form in the first couple of months of training, and then spent the rest of the year pounding out a couple of striking techniques from the form, that’s the real training.”
“You, sir, are correct”
Can’t really speak towards when & why, but one thing is probably certain:
Way back, when communications and travel were likely a lot more difficult, you might have only known 1 form, so you practiced that for upwards of five years+ before running across someone who knew another… imagine if that was how you learned, how good you could become at just that 1 thing.
And, of course, how trying to your patience that would be. We’re luckier now, I guess…
Personally, I like to practice the entire form till I’m too tired to do the whole thing in one shot. Then I break it down into drills, and drill those drills till I’m fully spent.
Generally, I drill whatever section of the full form I am the weakest on.
I like to
warm up
condition
work some basics, like kicks or light stance work.
Then I do the forms as described above.
If I have a training partner, I like to work self defense at least as long as I drilled my forms, if not as long as the warmup, conditioning, basics and form combined.
I’m guessing THAT is probably about as close to the old ways as it gets.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with training forms perse.
The real problems, IMHO, are:
1.) Not doing the forms correctly.
2.) Misunderstanding of what the forms can give you.
A lot of the McDojo will emphasize the forms as other things like Zhang Zhuang and similar doesn’t pull in the crowd.
Even if it is taught many students will skip it, or do it half-heartedly while watching TV or similar.
Same thing with forms, how many students really try to do them as low and as slow (in TJQ) as possible.
Hence they are often asked to do more till they get it right.
If the forms are trained correctly a few a day will be more than enough with plenty of time for other types of training.
From what I can se 300-400 years ago, most systems had maybe a dozen forms at the most. Now many oF those same systems have 30,40 or even 100 or more forms. I think each generation adds forms to the system, and afetr a wile, they really start to pile up. That’s why I always look for the original system when I can. There is less material to learn.
I’d say the concentration on forms is a modern thing to replace the barbaric act of fighting…Then came the UFC
I also agree that many MA have become bloated with Forms, especially the short forms.
Besides having many forms I get the feeling that many students are rushed through them and don’t get the essence of them.
OTOH, it might be a re-curing stage during the evolution of the MA in general.
Fighting and the socio-economical scene has changed a LOT in the last 100yrs and the MA need to find new ways to adept to them.
Add with that the modern way of instant gratification, over-bloated egos and similar …
I am not so sure that we are actually seeing a new trend, but rather a recuring trend of growth followed by weeding out of techs and forms.
This naturally would happen during more peaceful times, when notes could be compared with other styles.
When you read a book you start with the first paragraph.
You finish the first chapter.
Then the entire book.
At each step of the way you can summarize each paragraph, chapter and then the entire book in fewer words than it took the author to write. You gain an overall understanding of what the author was trying to say.
True, but what we have today is more like the Starwars Trilliagies. Over all, we have 6 really good movies, but everyone is also writing thier own books with a star wars theme.
Sure, these new books are all good, but shouldn’t one know the original movies well first to better understand the new books?? And if someone really knows the first 6 movies well, don’t you think the new books are not over kill?
Yes, there are probably too many forms in most systems today. But, from the research I’ve done, most sifu’s will say that there are 6 or 7 forms that are all you really need to know to get a good handle on a system.
I was trying to point to why I felt forms are a good part of any system. If it’s an older form from created by a pivotal figure in the system then, after learning the entire form, you can get an idea of what that person was trying to do with the art.
As far as learning a bunch of forms, I think that is only limited by the amount of time you have to practice each of them. Knowing 100 forms that you only practice 15-20 of regularly means that 80 of them aren’t doing you a heck of a lot of good.
I think it’s an interesting contrast that tai chi systems will have, nominally, 1 form and other kung fu systems, especially hard/external systems, will have many. I don’t know what that means exactly (and don’t anyone throw the ‘it’s better to know one form blah blah blah’ out there ) but it’s interesting to think about.
I can almost generalise that forms not as important to the Western Artists but have been emphasised greatly in the east. Also, Eaterners tend to repeat the forms over and over again, more so that Westerners, who learn many different forms.
I think many Westerners come into MA with the “martial” aspect of it as emphasis. Many Easterners enter MA with the philosophy of it as the emphasis. Hence whilst Westerners takes a year to get strong physically, and spend more time bulking up muscles and increasing strength for fighting, the Eastern approach emphasises more on getting the minute movements right in forms.
It was immediately clear when I moved from my home country to here.
