How much time do you spend practicing forms?

[phantom]

Seven star mantis has 89 forms total in it. I have heard that some mantis styles have over 100. However, I have heard that some of the more advanced forms in seven star introduce you to just one or two new moves. So how much time do you spend practicing forms? Thanks in advance.

[EarthDragon]

Forms have differnt emphasis's in different times of your training, so it depends on where your at to what you get out.

For the begginer they are great for hand eye coordination balance and flow. For the more advanced they help in fluidity of motion and energy transformation.
For the even more advanced they open concepts of fighting stratagies and oneness.
How long you spend on them is up to you, the more you put in the more you get out. I always like to go over forms just to remind me of my breathing and flexability. However You should not spend all your time on them for you need to use the applications correctly when fighting and that cannot be done if you are spending to much time on too many movments and not grasping what you have already learned

[Mantis9]

Personally, I say practice your forms a lot. The reason was already implicitly stated by Earthdragon. If you practice you develop understanding of the form, which leads to nuance and theme, rythm and power, conditioning and application. This, of course, is in conjunction with the whole curriculum that a competent practitioner would study and train.

Advanced forms with only small variations underscore this idea. These forms and their creators weren't necessarily trying to reinvent PM into something new, but show a new way to think; or perhaps solve a newly presented problem with PM as the tool.

It like good jazz. You know the song, but its still new to the ears.

Mantis9

[Shaolinlueb]

as much as i can. sometimes i bust out practicing my forms in the middle of the supermarket if im bored shopping. not like fulkl throttle. but jsut going through the hand movements and very high and light foot/stance work. even if i get a breaking point at work ill go through my forms at like half power and such.

[Vash]

A good 3/4 of my out-of-class training revolves around forms work. Mostly going through the form, with breaking down of specific series, drilling certain techniques, changing up footwork, that sort of thing.

[pest]

Hello
This confused me a little


However You should not spend all your time on them for you need to use the applications correctly

~EarthDragon


I do forms all the time, but I always thought forms are the applications one in sequence with another. Can you please clarify?

~Pest

[EarthDragon]

Pest allow me to elaborate,

I was refering to students that spend too much time practicing fluidity and movements only and not spending enough time on the fighting applications of such sets.

Knowing many graceful movments and sets is nice but not as important as knowing the defense aspects.

So I encourage my students to not spend all thier time learning too many sets, with no practical application

[pest]

Thank you EarthDragon for the clarification. :D

[steve7mantis]

i agree totally with what earthdragon says. i think forms are important but equally so are the techniques and applications within them. I tell my students and fellow kung fu brothers that they should try to aim to know at least one application for every technique they know. this is for the beginners. For guys who are advancing obviously you expect more applications per technique by changing direction of movement, yours and your opponents footwork and striking points etc. if your training alone phantom there are many ways of training your forms. In the SSPM system we are told to aim to fininsh each form within 45 seconds....ie blast through, but keeping good technique, stance and body mechanics. However i personally find training them slowly helpfull too, holding each position for 5 seconds then moving on, and also you can see what movements link well together for fluidity within your form. As earthdragon says its useless being good at forms and not knowing their meaning, so if you dont know the applications are you not simply doing another form of dance? A good training drill is to go through forms and just work on their applications one by one and if your not sure of any, ask your Sifu. i hope this is helpful.