form useless without trial?

[beautifulvaley]

Do you rely on your forms or training to work in real fight. do you just take sifus or masters word that it works, or have you tested it out in the ring, or on the street.

[Maboroshi]

Well, I dont learn combat uses for my Taiji yet, but I am always thinking about the forms, and I see many ways to use them.

So other that imagining the uses, I play with them on my sister, of sometimes on of my coworkers that also studies a different kind of MA.

I am getting the hang of using the taiji to hurt people. but only trough trial and error. I feel that the only way to learn the combat uses of the fom is to try and use them.

[Jimbo]

I doubt there are too many people who think all they have to do is do forms, then they can automatically fight. Forms training is important in kung fu, but it's only one part. You also need basic training, power/impact training, application practice, and the various levels of sparring to make the skills into natural reactions. Then outside of the school how you test it is up to you.

Getting into street fights to test the effectiveness of your art is not, IMO, very smart. Even if you keep winning, and you don't end up in prison, sooner or later someone will beat you badly, or send you to the morgue. Competitive fighting can be an option if that's what you like. Try to find a way to fight within the rules but by adapting your art to the rules. If you just kickbox then you will never have the experience or confidence to fight with your kung fu.

[Kilik]

To be honest, I haven't been in a real fight since i've started training. I guess i just don't look for trouble anymore... but i find in sparring it is possible to use those techniques when a certain amount of precision is exercised.

And those techniques do work as i find myself messing around with my friends that do train in a social setting and those techniques come outta know where, and its like "hey, that came from that form or that one"

Its pretty cool cuz you can actually feel yourself improving

Cool ****!:D

[Liokault]

Maboroshi

By the sound of it you will never use your Tai Chi for fighting.

If fighting with Tai Chi is your aim then you need to go to a school that has the same aim from day 1. I do not mean just showing you the applications for the movements of the form but also grappling (freestyle and techniques) sparring and stamina training.


If you cannot find a class that can show you all of that (and i only touched the surface of what tai chi involves as a fighting art) then do not worry, most people do not do tai chi as a fighting art.

If this is true of you then thats ok....but try calling it somthing other than tai chi chuan, May be tai chi dancing or somthing.

[David Jamieson]

Testing forms...hmmmn.

Beautifulvaley, you may be missing the point and purpose of learning form.

Form teaches the practitioner about themselves as well as teaching a string of techniques.

Kung Fu training is an iterative process.

i.e- you start with no tools, from this you build some tools, with these new tools you build better tools and with the better tools you build more refined tools and with those refined tools you build precision tools.

One doesn't count on a single technique. And as Kung Fu is also a transformative process, not everyone who practices, wishes to compete. There simply is not a desire or a need to compete or fight at all with many who practice martial arts.

Fighting both competitively and "for real" are learning processes and will teach the person a thing or two, provided they are able to learn from the experience to begin with. However, there is truth in the statement "The best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend". Or, ..."the best way to win is not to fight at all"

Testing should be done in a safe environment at first imho and then taken outside of the environment at a later time when the practitioner actually has developed some skill.

I do not think there are many who would leave a martial art wholly "untested". Be it in fighting or for health benefits.
It is good to just practice and do the arts. There is benefit over and above competitive fighting with Kung Fu.

peace

[Maboroshi]

you mean to tell me that my taiji is not good because I am not learning the combat uses?

does it matter where I learn the 108 steps at first? I can always learn the combat uses for them later. Taiji is so complicated, I wouldnt want to learn the combat uses so soon anyway. I find it difficult to move smothly, slowly while correctly breathing. once I master this, I may look for a Yang combat school in Houston.

[rogue]

Maboroshi, do you do much push hands in your school?

[Liokault]

Maboroshi


Im not saying that your tai chi is not good but maybe that its not tai chi with so much left out.

Also there is much more to it than being shown you @combat uses" of the movements from the form.

[No_Know]

"Do you rely on your forms or training to work in real fight."

Forms is Training.

If I'm given it, I can find a use for it.

Forms is a series of concepts and tried and true reactions. These with the other tens of fators that might be involved in a real fight benefit me I would think.

[General Kwei]

Beautifulvaley - What exactly do you mean by this? I would have to say that I utilize what I get out of my forms in training and in fighting? Does that make sense? You wont see me assume the karate kid position when I am attacked but hopefully the thing sI do in training, including forms practice, will translate directly.

[beautifulvaley]

yes makes sence and answers my question.thanks for the replies

[orion_steel]

What a lot of people have said in this thread is correct, you do need to have your basic training but also you can do a form on it's own merrit.

In college i worked as a bouncer with my teacher and several other students. This gave us some opportunities to test our stuff.

I know for a fact that many of the applications out of Pa-kua work like a charm, even the really weird ones


:D

[PHILBERT]

One way we do it at my school (my style has only 6 forms, 3 empty hands, 1 wooden dummy and 2 weapons) is we show different ways to use the techniques in a confrontation. Right now I am on my first form and will be on it for at least a year. Im not saying *every* class we spend 2 hours doing the form, but we learn to use the stuff from the form.

[orion_steel]

That is something that i like to do, after i teach a form i break it down move by move and try to interpret the moves in several different ways.
1.) Traditional applications
2.) the applications/techniques that i was tought
3.) other appllications that i may have picked up
4.) any applications that the student has seen (that they can come up with "off the top of their head"

then i open the floor (so to speak) and let everyone play with the idea of coming up with totally new ideas for it, including myself. Sorta, thinking outside the box for martial arts.

:D

[beautifulvaley]

ok thinking about what practical uses of what your forms or other training does not cut it . when u get i a real fight be on the street or in the ring your gonna get the beating of your life. go test ur stuff out visit some some boxing gyms and get hit in the head, the first few will hurt but after a while you'll like it. then u can really apply your form when u under stand the body mechanics.

also visit a greco roman gym and get body slammed a few times.

I don't mean to be rude but the first time u really get hit or slammed u don't want it to be with someone who wants to destroy you.

[grifter721]

Just Spar a wholeot with anyone that will spar with you, keep a look out for what punches look like kicks etc, spar with peop,e that dont even know anything they are the people that will surprise ya, not teh people that know something...but get used to seeing how the body reacts when it attacks and you can do anything if you are good enough,

[The Willow Sword]

that there are 3 levels to a form or application thereof.
1. the obvious outside appearence of the technique.

2. a varient or combination of the technique

3. the way the technique was originally designed to do.

forms will contain aspects of the combat but not all combat forms have fighting moves. there will be transitions to other techniques and blending of the movements to cooincide the next. but to really KNOW your forms you have to dissect them after you have at least mastered the form(mastered as in you can do the form with out having to stop and tyhink about what the next move is)

then there is the testing ground,,,the kwoon. if it works then it works if after a few attempts it does not,,you throw away that technique and create another one.

it is said that the shaolin masters of old looked at wild animals fighting each other and molded thier fighting techniques after them. but i think also that they witnessed,and this would be for all masters, people engaged in fights or combat,,,in war.
took what they saw as reliable and applied it to them.

in my hsing i forms they are simple and direct. not alot to think about when moving. not alot to memorize. just the basics of combat techniques altered to an internal way. i learn from my fighting experiences(and i have not had many).

i would like to know from the members here if the forms that you have learned you have actually tested, and if they worked or they didnt. i found alot of what i learned at SD to be effective to a degree. depends on the mind and spirit and body at the time.
if your spirits are low,,your fighting prowess will be low
if your mind is troubled you will lose EVERYTIME( i know this all too well)
if your body is not in shape,,guess what? re-read the last two sentences.

Many Respects,,,The Willow Sword

[jun_erh]

My forms and fighting classes are seperate w/ 2 different teachers. During applications (if you don't know, it's two person self defense drills ie if they do that you do this) I've recognized that alot of the movements have counterparts in hung gar forms I've learned. Hope that makes sense