How many moves or forms are enough?

[SPJ]

There are so many moves or techniques and forms in CMA.

So how many one has to learn to be enough?

A. In the old time, there is a school of thoughts that only one move will defeat all moves. Use no changes to deal with ten thousand changes. Yi Bu Bian Yin Wan Bian.

Yang Lu Chan or Yang Wu Di with Bang Lan Zui in Tai Ji.

Guo Yun Shen with half step Beng Quan in Xing Yi.

Single exchange palm in Ba Gua.

B. Everybody knows that one has to vary and be flexible or to change. However, in order to change, one has to have some basic moves to change from.

So how many basic moves or just one move is enough in your school of MA?

:confused:

[SPJ]

The reason I started this thread.

I was asked often enough that how many are enough.

We are in an instant culture.

Not that many people have time to devote to MA practice as in the old time.

Most people want something fast, effective or good results with shortest possible time.

Everyone knows that there is no short cut.

I was asked that she wanted to learn Tai Ji fighting methods in 6 to 10 months. She did not want to do 108 form etc.

I said that I only stand in one posture, the Tai Ji Huen Yuan Zhuang for 6 to 10 months and nothing else, when I first started.

She asked why. Tai Ji is about Yi intent and Qi cultivation. The cultivation and development of the whole body Peng Jin and ability to be in stillness. Use things in stillness to overcome things in movements. Yi Jin Zi Dong.

Let me rephrase the questions at hand.

How many moves will be considered minimally enough from your school of MA?

How long would it take to make you ready or effective with these moves?

:D

[ricksitterly]

i dont see any harm in learning many different techniques.

but i would say that a person should only work on mastering one at a time.

[David Jamieson]

3...no wait..2!

No! Just 1! no wait..

6!

Nope....hmmmnnn

:D

[Fu-Pow]

In the beginning you need many, in the end you need none.

In the end you need body mechanics and experience.

However, the pathway to body mechanics is thru training form.

When you spar or fight you need to forget about form and not think about "moves."

Let your natural body flow and experience be your guide.

[yenhoi]

13 should be enough, but YI is a hard thing to learn about so many people need lots of variation.

:confused:

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

i taught six techniques to one of my 7 year old daughters and she crippled a kid several years older than herself.

i split a man's sternum with a brush knee push.

i stopped a master's attack in two manuevers.

i taught a form to one of my younger brothers its around forty or fifty manuevers. just basic ass kicking stuff. simple techniques he does really expertly. he does it so well i don't think there's a person on the continent that can stand up to someone like him. he teaches it as a first fighting form. i originally designed it for my vicious little girl and it combined with her six techniques is called "Vicious Little Girl". else where there's a comment on it and it does validify the form it is compared to, which i learned after dvel'g VLG. however, the form it is compared to isn't as concentrated in close formation and long attacks with dragon-leopard or dragon-tiger principles.

when sparring with my teachers and thier friends it can last an hour using everything in the book of common experience. fifteen seconds if you're dirty about it.

[Golden Tiger]

i taught six techniques to one of my 7 year old daughters and she crippled a kid several years older than herself.

How did the law suit come out?


i split a man's sternum with a brush knee push.

:rolleyes:


i stopped a master's attack in two manuevers.

Had to be:

1. Lock
2. Load


i taught a form to one of my younger brothers its around forty or fifty manuevers. just basic ass kicking stuff. simple techniques he does really expertly. he does it so well i don't think there's a person on the continent that can stand up to someone like him.


Sorry, but it is statements like these that make me :rolleyes:

Perhaps its time to switch to decaf.

[WanderingMonk]

form: 3 is enough
a beginner, an intermediate, and an advance set.

[rogue]

Anywhere from zero to however many makes you happy. Techniques and principles live outside of forms, with forms being just a box to put them in.

[Asia]

I don't think a lot of forms is really a good thing, unless you like to do forms. Bajiquan only had 4 when it was founded and now it has 13 (not counting weapon forms) The majority of those are recent. I don't personally see the need for them because a great majority of the arts principles are summed up in two forms. (Da baji & Xiao Baji)

[David Jamieson]

I've learned close to 20 forms including weapons.

I practice only 2 empty hand forms and 2 weapons forms and spend most (9/10) of my actual training time doing "alive" training with my partners.

The 2 empty hand forms consist of one for core strength and the other more for co-ordination and speed. the weapons are staff and sword, these two things transpose onto everyday items fairly easily.

The rest of the stuff i'll walk through now and again but just to remember it more than to cultivate it because there isn't really anything in all the rest of it that isn't in the 2 I've picked to focus on.

As I grow more, I move further away from form practice and things are getting shortened up and tightened up considerably. But I would say form is good for beginners and intermediate practitioners just to get in touch with their bodies, especially when they have not much connection between mind and body. Form helps bind the two in early on practice. As you reach new level, you move away from patterns and start moving more naturally. Techniques are gleaned from form as well, but form is not actually necessary to garner these techs, the techs can be worked individually.

frankly, there are too many outcomes to rely on technique. Better to get in tune with ranges, develop speed, strength, structure, force issuance and the like.

[Fu-Pow]

As I grow more, I move further away from form practice and things are getting shortened up and tightened up considerably. But I would say form is good for beginners and intermediate practitioners just to get in touch with their bodies, especially when they have not much connection between mind and body. Form helps bind the two in early on practice. As you reach new level, you move away from patterns and start moving more naturally. Techniques are gleaned from form as well, but form is not actually necessary to garner these techs, the techs can be worked individually.



Brilliant!

[Wong Ying Home]

Eagle Claw has 3 core forms that breaks the whole system down

1 Teaches you the system/style
2 Teaches all the possible techniques from the one core form on both sides
3 teaches you applications as a two man form from the above two forms

However if you practice the whole eagle claw faan tzi system there are at last count including, single person, dual, multiple and varied weapons forms around 60+

80% of any system is redundant only the heart of it is contained in the 20%

[count]

Forms are not what everyone here thinks. But I hear stories of one is enough. Personally, I could spend a life time on one gua but I need all eight. Walk 100 miles of beng chuan and that should be enough.

[Wong Ying Home]

Count,

Maybe you could offer your view on forms ?

[count]

Count,

Maybe you could offer your view on forms ?
I think I did in the 12 page thread about traditional forms (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35485). But I find when speaking to people from China or Taiwan, that when they speak of forms, they are usually speaking of one movement or a short combination and not about sets or ta luo. ie: "grasp the swallows tail" as opposed to the whole Yang 108.

[Wong Ying Home]

I agree 100% regarding you statement on forms. re your other post
I guess my answer was a little more or less the same if one practiced them systematically breaking each component down for pure applicable combat.

style, technique application. Any form at the core of any system is about this, of course all the other associated combat skills strengths, mechnics, conditioning, strategies must be built in with the core training.

few people practice the full breadth of martial skills correctly and even fewer know their systems deeply.

regards

Wong Ying

[lkfmdc]

The answer is 17....

discuss........

[MonkeySlap Too]

I thought the answer was 42... or was that a bigger question?

[David Jamieson]

The answer is God save the queen. :D

If you don't understand you never will.

Also, never trust anyone who says "trust me". :p

[lkfmdc]

why does Canada think it has a queen? the world may never know :rolleyes:

oh, and in the US, a "queen" is something else entirely :eek:

[MonkeySlap Too]

I thought that was what Kung Lek was referring too :D

[David Jamieson]

'cause she's on our money.

but then, she's on australias money too, and the falklands, and gibraltar, and...yeah a lot of us know the states is full of queens!

Isn't part of NYC named after that anomoly? :D hardeeharhar.
Shoulda been a part of san fran, but hey, who's counting?

[phantom]

I would think that the more you pick up, the harder it would be to be good at all of them. How could you devote enough time for 1000 forms?

[David Jamieson]

if you know 1000 forms, you probably suck at all of them. :D

hmmmm, who does that describe? takers?

shiny nickle to the man or women (If there are any on the internet at all) who gets that right. hee hee ;)

[lkfmdc]

We've got a friggin pyramid on our currency, so I guess lord save the pharoh? :cool:

[David Jamieson]

that's because you're godless heathens dave!

your money is covered in masonic symbolism, which as we all know is just another branch of the international bank of great satan. :D

true story! lol

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

Kung Luk:

i generally agree with your statements about advanced practice for most students and repetition within groups of sets/forms. but i disagree with you in that when you mainly practice just one or two forms you end up limiting your ability as certain nuances that might exist in one form are dropped or lost unless you remake your forms for one or two really challenging forms. then i might agree with you.

Golden Tiger:
i'm sorry your experience with martial arts is so limiting. the form i'm talking about is taught at harvard now as part of the chinese culture studies program. yeah, the kid who was crippled did try to sue me after failing to win against my ex wife. but they failed on me, too. my daughter was expelled from public schools in the state she resides for eight years. but we got her assailant to pay for her private school. your 'lock-n-load' uphamism is pretty close to what i did to the guy: but it was just for fun and we weren't trying to hurt each other. just testing a theoretical strike using external chi focused through several variations of the same basic strike. He teaches it to his advanced students.

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

kung luk:

i'll reply for maybe two cents worth of the knuckle you offered because i don't remember the guy's name but he advertised a form in excess of 1000 manuevers in addition to having seen (or knowing) around 300 sets...is this the guy you're thinking of? The Gee Tong sifu in Beijing/Honk Kong? -or... no, he's the guy with over 10,000 students... Iyip tested to near 70 for his three style five principle mastership...Hsu/Jao has around 100 open hand sets...don't keep us in suspense...

[Shaolinlueb]

Eagle Claw has 3 core forms that breaks the whole system down

1 Teaches you the system/style
2 Teaches all the possible techniques from the one core form on both sides
3 teaches you applications as a two man form from the above two forms

However if you practice the whole eagle claw faan tzi system there are at last count including, single person, dual, multiple and varied weapons forms around 60+

80% of any system is redundant only the heart of it is contained in the 20%

yeah i agree with the 80% thing.
you can learn all the forms and techniques you want. but if you dont train them right, when you get into a fight, you will freeze and not know what to do because you have all this stuff but dont know how to use it. ive seen it happen.

[lkfmdc]

Just because I sacrifice a goat every time the moon is full, and drink its warm blood doesn't mean I'm a pagan, gosh, how close minded :eek:

[David Jamieson]

maybe not a pagan, but pretty much a chupacabra! :eek:

a san da chupacabra on the loose in NYC.

watch for th enquirer head lines!

YuanZhideDiZhen-

"kung luk" - i love it when people call me power 6! sounds like a superhero anime chi blaster dude!
Anyway, form does not equate to fight. In order to use what is in form to fight you must extrapolate it to the individual techniques. or combinations.

forms are essentially collections of techniques and many systems reiterate techniques over and over again as progress through the forms is developed.

some systems are disparate and borrow from other styles, so the methodological approach is not employed and extrapolation of indie techs becomes even more important.

I don't think I limit myself by not doing all the forms I know. In fact, there is plenty of stuff inside the forms I do know that is not useful at all for fighting. It is likely that much of it was not designed for fighting anyway and instead represents interwoven hard chi kungs to augment strength development, bone growth, cardio, breathwork in general and other such additional work that aids in overall development of kungfu.

Like I said, I'm happy with just a few forms nowadays, and even more interested in "alive" training, sparring, drilling and that sort of stuff. To me, that is where it's at in my training and sitting in a horse breathing outslowly while focusing on my dantien ain't where it's at unless I wanna do some meditation type stuff or stress relief or what ever.

We all approach our kungfu from different angles. I'm just telling mine. I am not looking for validation or approval, I'm just saying. :P

cheers and in teh words of G~ "Find your peace in practice"

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

yeah i agree with the 80% thing.

so how many empty handsets without pairing are there in eagle claw?

[Shaolinlueb]

so how many empty handsets without pairing are there in eagle claw?

ive been told a lot. but some of them have jsut the slitest change in them that they were forgtotten and now there are about 20/30 hand sets. i hear there were up to 60/80ish. correct me please if i am wrong, i am not too well versed on this.

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

ShaolinLeub:

since you practice eagle claw which do you think are the more difficult/skillful or most meaningful forms for use against intermediate and advanced artists?


there are a few eagle claw techniques embedded in the forms i practice in both taichi and clf, combined with a few escapes but not a full chin na form. enlighten me please? :)

[cranebeginner]

First come your principles, then come techniques

[Royal Dragon]

MS is right, the answer is 42!!!!

Unless ur a Shaolin guy, then it's 18

8 for a Bagua guy, and only five for a Hsing I guy.

Long Fist guys need 32, etc...

[mantis108]

Using no form as form and using no way as way. So, the answer is - None. ;)

Actually, I am torned between paper, rock, and scissor or the 3 stoogies style. So...

Mantis108

[mickey]

Greetings,

It really depends on the person who is learning. Some go for great variety; others need to work with a small amount of material. Then there are those who can do more with less and those whose zeal and enthusiam appear to be without limit. Let us not forget the lazy and those who, regardless of how much or how little you teach, will remain as stupid as a stone.

The real governing factors to your question are the person's intelligence, creativity, desire, receptiveness, and ability.

mickey

[SifuAbel]

Fighting is in the realm of the abstract. Stop counting.

[bing bang pow]

If you understand movement, mass and energy you will be able to create a huge amount of correct techniques, like punches, blocks and kicks. Whatever forms or techniques you are learning, you have enough when you understand one of them completely. This is deeper then you think. You need to pay attention to your movement carefuly.

[Sifu Darkfist]

are you selling belts or teaching fighters?
If selling belts than you have to have otns and tons and tons
but a fighter needs to keep life simple, find his talents and use them, look for his weaknesses and avoid them.

to many forms only take away from a combatants concentration.
Now there is an exception and this is the true artist, those that do it for arts sake, and dont sell belts or fight. I know quite a few of them, but they dont pretend to be fighters they enjoy the movements for the movements sake.

[TonyM.]

Sixty four postures has been plenty enough for me.
Ikfmdc. Did you forget about the Trudeaus'? Pick either one.;)

[SPJ]

An ideal set of moves will cover, your front, rear, left, right, high mid low in turns or in sequence and change.

Oops, that is Ba Gua.

Single palm set in Ba Gua is actually consisted of several postures.

There are even mother palm sets that gave rise/birth to more palm sets.

---

:eek:

[Blacktiger]

Natural spontaneous movement :)