Mantis forms

[mantid1]

Does anyone think that teaching the two man drills and applications out of a form are enough without teaching the whole sequence of the form?

One reason I ask is that teaching froms eats up valuble class time. Then when the student does practice it seems like a waste of time. It just seems easier teaching the drills and apps.

I am not saying give up the forms all together, just keep them for the ones who practice and who want the whole sequence.

......and of couse this does not apply to ling sets which I find even harder to get students to practice. That is probably why many do not teach them anymore.

Yushan

I know your style does many of these two person drills. What are your thoughts on this.

[Oso]

Does anyone think that teaching the two man drills and applications out of a form are enough without teaching the whole sequence of the form?

No.

This is my opinion on that: A form does more than teach form and application. It teaches the flavor of the form in a way that the individual techniques can not.

Just teaching apps w/o the form would be like me giving you a raw pecan and telling you how the whole pie would taste.


One reason I ask is that teaching froms eats up valuble class time. Then when the student does practice it seems like a waste of time. It just seems easier teaching the drills and apps.

I think not a waste of time. Forms are the books within which the pages (apps) of a system are contained. You would be talking about throwing away the entire book and only retaining some pages and would so lose some of the essence of the set.

I take this stance because I break down a form into apps this way:

Let's number the movements in a form like so: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9.

Let's call each number a sentence. Groups of sentances form paragraphs, blah, blah, blah...you get the point. :D

Within '1' and '2' etc. are of course individual movements (blocks, parrys, strikes, foot and body movements). We'll get to those in a moment.

While traditional apps might exist within '1' or '2' or by combining '1' and '2' you also need to look at 1-3-5 or 9-6-2 type combinations of movements to really rip a form apart to see what it's made of.

Now, getting to the individual movements within in a sentence , I would think about movement '1' as having 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d and movement '2' might have 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e (for example)

IMHO, to truly examine what a form is really trying to tell you you should look at how things flow from, say, 1c through 2b.

Now, this flies in the face of traditional convention but I feel that there are some things to think about:

A - none of us really know exactly what some old chinese guy was thinking when he combined sets of movements into a form.

B - This sort of examination of a form is how evolution of the art will take place. Evolution is mandatory. Everything either evolves or dies out.

C - personal 'flavor' can be achieved this way and still rely on the base ingredients of the art.

As a teacher, you would be limiting your students personal growth by removing the opportunity to eventually examine a form for themselves to see what THEY see in it.



I am not saying give up the forms all together, just keep them for the ones who practice and who want the whole sequence.

I can agree with that as well. For me and my school the line gets drawn between just doing forms and fighting though.


......and of couse this does not apply to ling sets which I find even harder to get students to practice. That is probably why many do not teach them anymore.

why do you think it's harder to get them to practice ling sets?

My students would rather practice ling than solo.


Yushan

I know your style does many of these two person drills. What are your thoughts on this.

[mantid1]

80% of my students love the ling forms. The problem is that only 5% of them want to put the time into training to get them right. I train two person sets at least 5 days a week and I dont think that just a couple of days a week is enough for a student.

I agree about hte forms being the core. The problem I have is that I do this full time and I have about 80 students. I know this isnt many but it is still alot to manage and keep quality Kung Fu.

Many of these people just want to come to class a couple of times a week and just get a work out.

My question would be is it cheating the average student to just teach them the manits two person drills and apps without making them memorize a long sequence that they probably dont want to put the time into anyway. They want the form but just dont want to put the time in.

Even taught this way I think the student will get more from studying mantis this way than at a chop suey or tae kwon do school.

[-N-]

My teacher's main focus was on drills and application.

He'd make up whatever drills for us to practice. Later, when we got to more advanced forms, he'd laugh, saying in chinese, "Oh, I already taught you this! Learning many forms is useless. You have to extract the applications and drill them to death. I already gave you many advanced things. Practice so you can use them."

I pretty much do it the same way with my students. I do provide more verbal explanation than my teacher did, though.

N.

[edit]

Ok, I should add that in his earlier years, my teacher put more emphasis on teaching forms in class. In the latter years, his main emphasis was applications.

I could see that applications were more fun and interesting to him. He commented that he got sick of teaching students the same beginner sets over and over after one batch quit and another started.

I'm selfish. Applications are more fun for me as well, so that is what we do in class :)

[mantis108]

I believe Classical Tanglang of Liang Xuexiang has two or three long forms maxium. It also has Mizhou 90 hands or 90 secret hands which are san shou (not the sport) esque material. So it's quite obvious that Classical TLQ is pragmatic in nature.

I personally think that Tanglang can be totally drill based similar to any fight sport if need be. I know that most people are not comfortable with that idea but it is entirely doable. The overall technical integrity (ie street applicability) might somewhat suffers though. Not to mention there would be very few times you can strikes a cool mantis looking pose for photo ops. ;) It may be too heavy a price to pay for some people.

Just some thoughts to start with.

Mantis108

PS Mantid1, glad you find my forum helpful. Thanks for the support. :D

[Oso]

80% of my students love the ling forms. The problem is that only 5% of them want to put the time into training to get them right. I train two person sets at least 5 days a week and I dont think that just a couple of days a week is enough for a student.

indeed...1% of 1% and all that.


I agree about hte forms being the core. The problem I have is that I do this full time and I have about 80 students. I know this isnt many but it is still alot to manage and keep quality Kung Fu.

totally...I have 14 students and have a hard time getting more than 1 or 2 who really want to do enough repetition to get it down right.


Many of these people just want to come to class a couple of times a week and just get a work out.

and that's fine...they can pay the bills so you can teach the 'inner door' folks.



My question would be is it cheating the average student to just teach them the manits two person drills and apps without making them memorize a long sequence that they probably dont want to put the time into anyway. They want the form but just dont want to put the time in.

no, i wouldn't say it's cheating the 'average' student who doesn't really have thier eye on the prize so-to-speak anyway.

this seems to be segueing into an issue of how to run a commercial school and stay true to art.

my belief is that you have 1% of the population that will even step into a school for longer than a week and of that group you only have 1% that really wants to train kung fu.



Even taught this way I think the student will get more from studying mantis this way than at a chop suey or tae kwon do school.

undoubtably. but, i wouldn't lump ALL TKD schools together. I have a student who came out of one with some decent skills and a smart attitude about fighting and self defense.


I could see that applications were more fun and interesting to him. He commented that he got sick of teaching students the same beginner sets over and over after one batch quit and another started.

my goal now, as a new school owner, is to identify those that want more and cultivate them so that eventually, I don't have to be teaching tan tui routines every bloody week.

and freaking hill climbing stance....i'm getting so tired of repeating the same thing over and over again about proper foot placement and weight distribution....so i definitely feel your teachers angst there.

[mantid1]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

As you can see by my other threads that I am trying to stay true to the mantis, true to my students and to myself.

I know........almost impossible

[Oso]

maybe...but we gotta try, right ?

If it were easy, what would be the point?

:)

[yu shan]

In my opinion forms are our encyclopedia of techniques. Our forms need alot of attention. We spend 30 minutes out of a 2 hour class on forms. These forms do include the ling side to most, so there is the ling side to learn also. I am a drill freak, so we drill two person alot. Whether it is kicking drills or two person hand drills... this is my passion. But forms need to be worked. We also emphasize conditioning.

[shirkers1]

Well to tell you the truth I don't even have a true ling side set yet!!!! I never picked one up... I'm doing just fine not having the ling sets, why? Because my teacher specialized in breaking down the forms and drilling the individual tactics two man... That is how you are going to apply them in combat any ways. Not in a sequence, after 3, 2, or even one move we all know the situation changes so why get in a routine of having to go into the next movement in the form? Combos are great should be what you are thinking about always... never one tactic but many, but with that said you still need to have the sensitivity to change up when need be which is what sparring is for....

Where you have two man drills you have conditioning... conditioning of the body, mind etc.

[BeiTangLang]

From what I saw in Ohio, some pretty soft arms. I was not empressed at all. The intensity factor was next to nill.

I'll bang arms with you! :D

Some folks don't get into the arm training for one reason or another...don't let that discourage you from thinking other aspects of their training are not there though (in some cases). Just remember,...some train to use, others train just to do something other than sit in front of the t.v. . Either way, it's better than not training at all.

Best wishes,
~BTL

[-N-]

Not everybody wants to put the time into body conditioning. In my own class, only one senior classmate and I did it regularly.

It's good if you have a regular partner; each helps the other to improve, though it might not be noticeable right away. When we did conditioning, the choy li fut class on the other side of the park would hear the crashing noises and stop to see what the heck we were doing. We thought it was fun to go even harder to make them think we were really crazy.

One day, another classmate asked to do conditioning with us. My regular partner paired up with him and did a routine that included short range shoulder strikes. After a couple strikes from my partner, the other person had enough. When he came back to class a week later, the entire right side of his upper torso was a purple and yellow bruise.

Nowadays, I don't emphasize conditioning as much for students that have trained for a while. I make them focus more on blending and sensitivity. I'll have the newbies do it because they need something to help save their butts until their skills improve :)

N.

[yu shan]

BTL

I`ll take you up on that... although I outweigh you ;)

Nice story -N- you are one cool dude.

[-N-]

yu san,

LOL... nah, just youthful exuberance at that time :)

My classmate and I both loved Musashi's Book of Five Rings. Musashi talked about using a shoulder strike to knock an opponent 20 paces. He told his students to train so that an opponent could be killed with a shoulder strike.

My classmate and I wanted to be able to do that :) So we trained to be able to throw powerful shoulder strikes using mantis vibrating waist power when in clinching range.

N.

[shirkers1]

Yushan, were you talking about me having soft arms and that you weren't "e"mpressed? Where did that come from? I wasn't trying to disrespect you in any way about the conditioning comment bro... Being that I had to stop conditioning my arms because of the tats my conditioning wasn't where it should have been for that event. As for what you saw in ohio by myself was me trying to do other peoples stuff and how they go about their training. I would have loved to work out with you before hand to show you how intense I go about my training but you guys got caught up in the snow and got in late.

As for the ling side comment I made I stand by it. I've seen the sets, I've trained parts of the sets, and that is how I like to do them. Individual movements, not pieces strung together in long sequences. Because bottom line is it's not going to be like that in a fight. I'll argue that till the day I die, I know you don't think that it is this way or I'd go further with that argument. I just wonder where the hostility came from.. Or maybe it's just late and I'm reading into what you said wrong, if so I'm sorry. Hit me up in a pm if you want to talk outside this topic.

mark

[Oso]

easy fellas.

Mark, in Pong Lai, Ling is just one step along the way. We break the form down into shorter two person drills both before and after the student learns the ling side. If you read my long ass post up thread then you also see how I personally break a form down into application. The problem is getting a student who is willing to spend enough time every month to get through it all to a point where they could actually utilize it.

In Pong Lai, our most basic hand drills impart the basic fighting skills. The most basic of these aren't derived from any particular set (so far as I've seen anyway) but the individual movements are in almost every set.

*****

conditioning is as tough a topic as any other.

The arms and hands in particular are going to be the first thing in contact with an opponent in a fight.

conditioning is hard. it hurts. very few people want to hurt, much less actually 'like' hurting. and, be honest, it's a sick little disease most of us here have :D

but, w/o the proper conditioning you won't survive the first block you make on someone who is bigger and tougher than you!

-N-, I agree totally that blending, etc. is the way to go but is a much harder skill to aquire and requires fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the first thing to go in a real fight so it's important to have the conditioning as back up. One of the things I like best about Pong Lai is that the basic arm drills are built around gross motor skills vs. fine motor skills and therefore will be there in that real fight when the more recent stuff that hasn't been trained as long disappears.

When I started learning Pong Lai a bit over a year and a half ago me and my students spent over a year in steady condtioning via our arm drills. Then, at the first of this year I planned an Open House and demo and we spent almost no time on arm drills as we concentrated on more showy stuff. In just two months I feel we all took at least a 6 month backward step. So, I feel that conditioning must always be a part of the training program for anyone that is training with martial intent.

*****

But, that brings up the point of how many people are really training with "real'' martial intent?

I'm not counting the people who think that doing some forms and kickign a bag everyonce in a while counts as martial training.

BTL, while I agree that any training is better than no training I have a hard time watching students give themselves the illusion of martial prowess when they aren't really training for martial ability.

I just wonder a lot whether we who are running commercial schools for money are perpetuating both the illusion of martial prowess in students who won't really train and thereby sealing the fate of TCMA as useless crap.

Yet, how many students would some of us have if we walked into class and told them they were wasting their time because they don't train hard enough to really build the fighting skills to a point where they would survive a real encounter?

sorry for the rambling....

[18elders]

my thoughts on the forms.

If you do not pay attention to your forms, you will be missing out. There is more to the form than just the applications. YOu first need to learn how to move, and i mean move PROPERLY. If you ingnore your form and just do applications, you will not have the proper body movement and flavor. You have to drill the hell out of our forms, get your fa jing, waist movement, timing etc., down and implement it into your applications or you will not apply it CORRECTLY.

If you execute your form, you should be tired when your done even if you did it once. You have to put 100% energy into it, jing , speed etc. Your students should get a work out from doing their form if they put it all into it. Not just go through the movements with no energy or feeling.

Ling side-
another important part of your training. This also teaches you timing, movement: IF YOU DO IT CORRECTLY LIKE YOUR TRYING TO HIT EACH OTHER, NO PATTY CAKE BS.

You can't properly understand how your block will be unless someone is throwing a full blown punch, kick etc. you will learn quickly that you cannot execute your technique if you didn't stop that block, this also teaches timing, but like i said, no patty cake stuff. you will see a big difference if u execute it correctly.

As for being "stuck" in a pattern, that is not true, people really don't understand ling forms. It is to train you to react without thinking, YOU ARE NOT STUCK TO A ROUTINE, at anytime you can finish your opponent off, go into a take down etc.

If you understand the form and the ling form, you will know how to apply every single move in your forms.

[mantid1]

oso

The commercial school thing is very much about what this thread is dealing with.

Why take the time to teach the long sequences if you can teach smaller drills and apps. It saves time and if you can get the core of "mantis" with the drills why spend time teaching a long sequence people will not practice?

I feel the commercial school will do as much if not more to spread mantis styles than the small clubs.

I think the percentage of people who take thier training seriously will be the same in a small club as in a bigger commercial school.

If I come into contact with 500 students over a 5 year period and another person comes into contact with 50 over the five years, I think I will be able to produce many more serious students than the guy with the small club.

My goal is to develop as many serious students as I can. That is the reason I started the thread.

The arm banging is an importnat part of training. I think some may put to much emphasis on it only because most students do not want to do it. If you break it down less than 5% of the people will get into a fight in the course of thier lives. Most people do not want to spend so much time conditioing thier arms.

If you do hard arm pounding in the beginning you may drive off many students who would have become dedicated. They may not have been ready for that type of training.

I personally would prefer doing yin jin jing or some other type of "iron body" training which conditions the whole body not jjust the arms. It would be more beneficial. Pracitcing break falls would probably be the most effective. I conditions the body somewhat and everyone will fall down in the course of thier lives.

I want to produce quality Mantis students in the most effecient way, with a maximum profit.

Maximum effect, minimum effort. Just like a fight.

Can that be done by teaching drills to the masses and forms to the dedicated without losing the essence?

[shirkers1]

Oso: I honestly don't know where the hostility is coming from, if anything I was just re stating what was already said... I AGREE with what you guys are saying about two man drills and conditioning. I'm the last person who will ever say conditioning is bad. Go back and do a search and you'll see that iron arm and conditioning drills is a must and it's something I love to do. Unfortunately I had to back off when I got the tattoos on my arm for a little bit. ;) But any way,

18 elders, I see your point and I agree with most of what was said. The only thing I would slightly vary is that you are better off sparring then doing ling forms when training yourself for actual combat. I've seen videos of mantis practitioners trying to use a "line" out of a form in a fight... That is obserd to think that someone is going to react the same way 6 moves in a row down the line. Now this person didn't understand what he was doing. You shouldn't even anticipate a single move your opponent is going to do much less 2 or 3 moves down the line. Hell take something as simple as a cross hook cross combo. Easy right? Well what happens when someone slips and sticks a jab in your face mid combo.. Everything changes. So to think that complex tactics done in a row for a long sequence being a way to train for combat isn't right. BUT I do know that you are saying it's a part of the puzzle for you guys and you do both. ;) I'm defending why I didn't pick up a ling side yet. To me it's just another form and I'd rather train my two man individually. Make sense?

If that's the way you've trained yourself, to be able to stop and finish your opponent off in the middle of your sequence without thinking about not going on to the next move then great.... That is what's working for you. All I am saying is that it's not right for me and my way of training. :D I would rather spar or do some sort of un thought out sticky hands type of touching hands to gain that sensitivity. How many times are you going to actually fight a mantis guy that is giong to react like the ling side of the forms? Everyone will react differently when a tactic is coming at them etc. Just playing your guys drills in ohio I know I would react completely different then how you guys were playing the drills. Even the way you guys played your ling bung bo, we do differently. Is any one right? No just different.

As for patty cake patty cake, I think there is a healthy medium. Not to soft as to be all slappy, fast and not doing any damage. Or not too hard and clubby, because the hard clubby guy if he makes the right contact will hurt the patty cake guy. But the patty cake guy will play off of the hard stuff through sensitivity, get inside and put you on your ass in a way that the clubby guy isn't used to playing. So I think there should be a healthy medium. Hard so that when you do make contact the opponent feels it, but soft enough to be sensitive to flow onto the next tactic.

In ending in no way am I trying to offend any one. I like you guys, and I'm just putting out another view. Just like you guys are. No one person is wrong here, there are just different ways of doing things and each person has to do what fits them best.

[Oso]

good posts, everyone....I'm running hard today at work so I probably won't be able to respond at length till maybe late tonight or tomorrow morn.

good topic, I definitely want to explore the commercial school side of teaching traditional mantis and the type of training needed to actaully use mantis in self defense or in competition...IMO, there should be no difference between the two.


I would refer to the article Kevin Brazier did in MQ regarding the use of Ling side in a complete training program. I can't remember which issue it was and I don't have them at work.

[Frogman]

Definitely a good topic. I think someone was talking about the lack of good topics lately.
I know many here are familiar with the WL method forms, forms, forms… but that’s not all we do. I have had the privilege of teaching class for the last six months. Now I’m just an intermediate student but I enjoy leading class. Admittedly I am just figuring out the basic so when I do class that’s what we work on. Personally I love doing forms. I go to the school and work on my forms on my own for hours. In class I prefer to do line drills solo and two person. It is amazing how you can show someone a solo technique and it goes right over their head then have them do the same thing but throw a punch at them and it like oh, that’s what I’m doing. Better understanding sometime comes from doing something you don’t understand and then have it hit you, now I get it. One of my favorite drills is cum na sow. Very simple but versatile, I tell the other students particularly the newer ones, that even this simple move can get you out of a lot of trouble. We have a basic exercise for this technique and it can be found in many of our forms. When doing drills I emphases that this one simple technique can work inside or outside, as block strike or grab arm bar. Most important thing is to not get punched. This is where two person drills come in handy. No doubt you can do forms all day long but if you don’t know what a punch coming at you looks like well your gonna eat one.
As far as commercialization of your school I can not really comment from an owners stand point but as a student… Seems if all you want is kick and punch there’s plenty of that out there. I think any half way serious KF student is looking for more then that. So staying with tradition is important. You will also have those that just happen across your school and don’t know what they want. You should not try to cram TCKF down their throat as they most likely won’t last. The first years or the tender years will give you as the teacher time to see who is on the next level and who is just looking to workout. Nothing wrong with either, just the serious student will require more of a challenge. Like anything in MA it takes balance.

Just my two pennies and that leaves me about broke. :D

fm

[Oso]

Oso- The article on the two person set is in MQ volume one issue one. Good info!

ok, then everyone has access to that online at the MQ site.

[Judo_iaidoka]

Nah arm conditioning should be done as soon as possible, who cares if students dont like it? I guess mantis or any other Ma is not for them, thats like me going to judo and saying i dont like takeing falls or doing muay thai and not wanting to get hit its apart of the training who cares if people dont get into fights its irrelevant because your thier to teach a martial art. Ive been going to wah lum for only a month and I have done forearm conditioning as well as application drills ive only learnt half the basics and half a form exercise though but at least I feel when I get to do the form I know why im doing the movements.

[Paul T England]

I would ask why you do forms?

Here are my reasons.

1) They are required by my teacher to progress in grading. As a student this may be the least important reason but for a teacher I want the whole system so I can one day pass it on.
2) They teach body unity and linkage (Hands and legs, hips and waist etc. jumping and kicking etc.)
3) They help with coordination, mantis forms are very complex compared to many other styles
4) Even after doing bung bo for many years I still learn from it. If you give someone an application it can be only that. If you give them a form you can pull out many applications. If you combin the form and theory you should be able to work many things out for yourself.
5) I also enjoy the fitness side and think it helps with relaxation.

I also think that if you are training people the forms need to be rounded out with basics, paired techniques, sparring drills and free sparring.

I normally cover basics, paired work, applications and forms as a minimum but if students are up to a level they will do pad work, sparring drills, weapons and free sparring.