Tightening up

[David Jamieson]

How do you take your traditional text book moves and tighten them up?

Does anyone feel that traditional must be abandoned to make functional fight ability? Or does it simply get altered in shape?

I also find that tehre are many so called non-traditionalists who although they do not like forms, they don't actually practice "realism" either. there is quite a lot of compliance in their drills.

Not that I think that sparring should be a head smashing fest, but I think there should be considerable juice in your give, take and jam when you are exploring realistic fight material.

So, where do you make your bridges?

[rogue]

Altered. It's also how you train the traditional moves.

[David Jamieson]

ok. I agree, It is altered, mostly to fit the self that is issuing the attack or defense.

If the foundation is set, I think pretty much any tech can be done in teh air within a few minutes, onto a bag or wooden dummy to understand a little further, ionto a drill and finally free flow in contact sparring.

I really think this can happen in teh space o a single lesson and that various and multiple things can be learned this way.

however, I find that the traditional is the foundation. It is the strength, the conditioning and the will that is built through those methods. The application is easy after the theory has been hammered in.

so, would you say that to be able to tighten up your traditional stuff would involve a great deal of precursors? Or do you think a person could get good at fighting from only air/drill/forcefeedback/spar consistently and diligently?

[David Jamieson]

What is traditional CMA? Everything that we have seen in the past 200 years is modern and not traditional. During the Sung dynasty (before the Mongolian dynasty), general Yuan Fei thrown away all the fancy weapon moves and only concentrated on the real fighting moves in military training. All forms were created in the last 200 years after the "cold weapon age" ending and the "hot weapon age" started. Those "cold weapon age" CMA guys could not make a living so they created a lots pf forms to keep their students as long as they could. I won't call those arts "tradition" and I won't say those who do not like forms are anti-tradition either.

The important is not the forms but the information inside the forms.

In US anything is antique if over 100 or 200 years old. In China, they are talking about 1000 or 2000 years.


I think most of us generally get the idea of what "traditional" is.

first it is about learning from someone who is teaching the way they were taught. the clothing, the methods, the trappings etc, etc. all these remain in a format as handed down by a given founder. This by definition is "traditional".

It can be so even with only 3 generations, IE: teh founder/inventor > first student > next generation student of first student.

So, by 2nd generation, if what is taught is still what founder/inventor taught first student, then it is now by definition traditional.

Having said that, this is not the actual format. Because we are looking at multiple generations that make "traditional".

Styles such as Hung Gar, Wing Chun, Choy Li Fut, Bak Sil Lum, and derivatives of these or many others are Traditional Kungfu styles. All these styles use a method that is based in traditional Shaolin Kungfu. the method followd is generally:

Basics of the style, the static stances, the basic punches, the basic kicks, moving in stances, building strength in areas that will compliment the functionality of the given style, conditioning, and of course the largest part of any "traditional" style is it's forms.

the forms of traditional styles are said to be libraries of the styles techniques. Forms are used as an efficient way to transmit a lot of techniques, but it is argued that this is in fact counterproductive because it takes so long to learn a style if it has too many techniques and the studnt winds up chasing smoke and learning all these techniques without ever getting good at applying the basics.

I personally think this is a fault in how the transmission is made and that given my druthers, after the basic , everything should be taught in teh same timeline with emphasis on that which results one seeks to achieve.

I think tere are some schools that do this too, but tere are also schools who teach forms without teaching application or how to extrapollate or if they do, it is very late in the students development, sometimes it is too late altogether and the student never learns to apply and only benefits from the physically transformative aspect of traditional kungfu. Which is fine if that is the goal, but for many, that is not the point. After all it is "martial" first and "art" second.

I am wary of discussing 200 years ago. First because there is virtually zero reliable documentation on any of that and second, because I'm a here and now kind of guy. I really don't care about past masters disconnected from me by 100 years beyond that they continued to propogate kungfu and it eventually made it to me. I know the form I got it in was likely nothing like the form they did it in and to ponder it too much is a waste of time. Better to take the principle (the known truth) for what it is and not put so much effort into trying to emulate dead people.

Now, having said all that, there are schools of modern martial art who take principles that have never been touched in anyway by traditional martial arts and immediately apply them and make their transmision that way and subsequently dominate in contact fighting venues. This cannot be denied. I find this point interesting, what I find even more interesting is that one can take the transmission they received via the traditional methodologies and in a relatively short span of time make their application dominate as well.

This is what I mean by tightening up ones traditional kungfu. It is not a question of the advent of the gun, the obsolescence of technique, or so on. Just what steps have you taken to alter your shape in order to apply your martial art or have you done this at all?

[wdl]

It's altered. There's no other choice, a fight is dynamic. If your not dynamic you get beat, or die.

-Will

[SPJ]

Usually there are 3 steps of learning.

1. (Zhuo Su) To mimic and familiarize the moves. We focus on Shou (hand) Yen (eye) Shen (body) Fa (mind) Bu (stance and steps) or 5 requirements.

We do the moves over and over and until we do everything right every time. My hands are there and so are my steps when I see the opportunity. Yen Dao Shou Jiao Dao.

2. (Leng Dong) To understand. To study and practice to know how Yi leads your Qi flow, and how Qi pushes your Li or Jin (forces). To understand Jin flows of the opponent and deal with them.

3. (Shen Ming) To gain proficiency.

So every move or moves are done this way. Which means one move may take 3 to 6 months of practice every day or for as long as it needs to.

To fight, you may need to get a few moves in your repertoire initially and make them work for you in sparring. Over time and experiences you may add more as needed.

Which means fully exploring what you master first then expand or add more
moves.

In short, drill some basic defense and counterattack to have a foundation or base and then build on those over time.

Drilling of your basic moves is from Day 1 and everyday. Why? b/c it is your base or foundation.

Only with a strong root, may one grow into a big tree.

If you forget about your root or the root is rottening, then all the branches and leaves are merely "flowery" and will not last long.

Maybe tightening up means to have a good foundation and maintain it everyday.

:D

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i couldnt read every response yet simply because i never found it to be something that required much thought. granted i havent trained in a long time due to health reasons, but when i was training i just drilled the crap out of whatever technique i liked and then focused on using it in light/medium contact sparring. after doing this for a while id find it coming out here and there in full contact sparring and id say yay.

if it worked out well enough often enough it became my signature techniques or whatever. if not no biggie.