how did you find the "right" style for you?

[shaolin_allan]

i know people say there is no right style but the right sifu. if you chose your school based strictly on style first, what style did you pick and why? did you have a gut feeling that was the one for you? or if not your only style, your favorite one?

[Drake]

I would likely be happier with the Buk Sing CLF group, despite some nasty back and forths that happened a few years ago. They are warriors, and I like that.

[YouKnowWho]

The day when I realized that

- TKD roundhouse kick is faster and more detail than longfist roundhouse kick, I switch my longfist roundhouse kick to TKD roundhouse kick.
- MT roundhouse kick is more powerful than TKD roundhouse kick, I switch my TKD roundhouse kick to MT roundhouse kick.

After that experience, I only look for the most effective way to train. The word "style" no longer have any meaning to me.

[jimbob]

I tend to agree with what John says above, but I think it's a good question all the same.

I was so young when I started I didn't have a clue what the differences were between styles - just that some wore different clothes.

After a few years of brainwashing you hear all your training buddies talking about how your style is the best style and everyone else sucks - until you see your training buddies getting beaten by someone from another style!

I started in CLF because it was something a cousin was doing. I know after 10 years I consciously went looking for more infighting and spent a few years with Chow Gar Tong Long, but as much as I think it's a great system, I always doubted my own ability to make it work, and I never felt my mentality fit all that well with it.

My taiji teacher taught me in the park every morning as his pet project - I never went looking for it.

Maybe there is something out there that is 'better' for me, but I haven't really looked. I still enjoy doing what I do now. If I had the chance I'd find a good grappling school - I enjoyed the grappling I've done and never had a chance to do it before, but who can say if there is really a 'right' style for you, or if you make the style 'right' for you after you've spent some time with it?

[Frost]

pure luck i suppose

My first style was a kung fu system very popular here in the UK (lau gar), I was lucky enough to train with the master of that style and his most senior student for almost a decade and become a senior student under him, I travelled for hours each week to train with them but I got frustrated because of the lack of hard contact the more senior you got so moved into MMA and grappling and found I had a love for clinch work grappling and close range fighting and spent another decade concentrating on that and again travelling miles and miles each week to get good coaching

I then went back to a teacher I had trained with for a year or so alongside the lau gar who actually taught just round the corner from where i live. He taught hakka close range arts, as I have always been fascinated by Bak Mei and Lung Ying and never really stopped raining them on my own and thought that would blend well with my MMA and clinch work. And they do but I am lucky enough that he also teaches CLF and hung gar and although I never thought id say this I have as much interest and enthusiasm for those two arts as I do the hakka ones.

My passion is and still continues to be clinch work (both pure grappling and MMA) but seeing how both the long arm and short arm stuff blends with that passion is what I really like doing, so for me its probably more about having such a knowledgeable teacher who also has a passion for grappling than it is the specific arts, or maybe I was just lucky enough that I found the arts I like being taught in the manner I want, but it did take 20 years to find lol

[Jimbo]

My first exposure to MA was when we took my older brother to judo. I was 3, and to me, MA was judo. Most of my male relatives trained it, too, and my dad was a nidan (2nd degree black belt), but I didn't care to learn anything about it until I was 10.

I took up kenpo karate at 13. I just thought karate was karate; it was the closest school. I was lucky, because the teacher was very good, and emphasized moderate to hard-contact sparring and lots of conditioning. He was very hands-on, and very much a no-BS kind of guy. Unlike many kenpo schools, he completely eschewed "point fighting". He also boxed very well and had wrestled, and often had boxers, kickboxers, etc., around during the classes and sparring sessions. It was also his interest in CMA that got me interested in learning kung fu.

Went to Taiwan to live and trained Northern Mantis for many years, and loved it. I actually had two Mantis teachers there; the first only taught forms. That was NOT what I wanted, so I wised up, left, and it was my second Mantis teacher who I stayed with and really learned a lot from. I consider him to be my true Mantis teacher.

Back home, I was planning to learn more about northern styles, maybe move to the Bay Area for that. But I ended up training CLF right here, and once again feel I lucked out at having an excellent teacher and system. I had met him through a good friend, who was a senior student under him. I originally had no interest in nor intention to learn CLF. But it was the teacher, his knowledge and abilities, and how he presented his system, which sealed the deal for me. Like my other teachers, he was also practical-minded and no-nonsense.

For a while, I tried to maintain both the Mantis and the CLF, but ended up discontinuing the Mantis. I prefer to concentrate on and develop in one art. There's only so much time in a day. Besides, although I don't train the basics or sets of Mantis anymore, the general principles are still with me. I didn't just drop everything that worked for me before when I took up CLF. And CLF is a very flexible art in that regard.

It's important that, as you develop in an art, you must make it your own. Styles by themselves are just theories and sets of movements/skills until you bring them to life for yourself. All of your experiences make up who you are now.

[Marcelo-RJ]

I used to be a happy Wingchunner until I watched this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm_DuRzmgGc
Then I could not help visiting Sifu Wong and switching to Choy Lee Fut!
Simple like this.

[tungmojingjung]

I found the right style, when I formed my own, no new style, but combining skills from different disciplines that felt natural for me, now I feel with I can utilize my skills as a coherent system of martial application that works well for me to which now I truly feel confident with.

[YouKnowWho]

To me, to find the "right" style make no sense. I still remember a line in "Starship Troopers" movie. The keyword is "I'll' take it, till ... find ... better".

Carl Jenkins: "I hear they need a new lieutenant, want the job?"
Rico: "I'll take it, till I get killed or you find someone better."

That's the correct attitude for MA training. Since no single style can provide you with all the tools that you will need in your toolbox, you will need to learn more than one MA style in your life time anyway.

[JamesC]

I used to be a happy Wingchunner until I watched this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm_DuRzmgGc
Then I could not help visiting Sifu Wong and switching to Choy Lee Fut!
Simple like this.

Who's that guy?

He seems very good

[Marcelo-RJ]

Who's that guy?

He seems very good

That's Sifu Wong Zen Yem, who's nowadays living and teaching in Brooklyn, NYC (I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, BTW, but try to visit and learn from him as much as I can).

You can find more videos on his youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/choyleef

[Runlikehell]

The first school I became a part of was run too much like a business, and after a few months I felt it wasn't working out. Was always more down to the school than the actual style. Looked around for a while after, thinking I'd find different instruction in that style. Didn't work out.

Last year, got into contact with an instructor of another style who wasn't running classes in my area at the time but was very helpful in some matters. Early this year I'd heard that they had started running local classes. Signed up soon after.

I feel much more comfortable with the style, and the level of instruction. The style fits me better as well. I'm glad I held out.

[charp choi]

Well.......................

I started off in 2004 with a local Lau Gar Kung Fu class. It helped me lose some weight and increase my fitness levels. Something was missing though. It was great training BUT for some reason it wasn't the ONE. In 2009 my sifu went to have a look at another class run by an ex student of his. By this time I was a CMA junkie and had loads of books and dvd's of various styles and I was really intrigued by Chow Gar SPM. The class my sifu went to look at was Chow Gar SPM. I went to a class and after 2 months knocked the Lau Gar on the head.

Chow Gar SPM is the ONE as far as I'm concerned.

[SteveLau]

Which is the right style for you much depends on what your MA training goal is? To me, the goals are health promotion, self-defense and self-knowledge. So the Hung Ga style which I have been training for decades works for me. It is a practical fighting art. And it fits the philosophy of JKD - being flexible. The style is an all-round art rich in content with many sub-styles. Therefore though there are other good styles around, but I have no intention to shop around or jump boat.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[Runlikehell]

Which is the right style for you much depends on what your MA training goal is? To me, the goals are health promotion, self-defense and self-knowledge. So the Hung Ga style which I have been training for decades works for me. It is a practical fighting art. And it fits the philosophy of JKD - being flexible. The style is an all-round art rich in content with many sub-styles. Therefore though there are other good styles around, but I have no intention to shop around or jump boat.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

Excellent way to put it.

[Jimbo]

For many, it can take a while to find "the one" that is the art that either is their sole art, or their specialization. Also, if your goal is to learn about combat, IMO it's necessary to at least have had exposure to other systems' practitioners at some level, either through training with them, or getting together and having exchanges. It isn't always that one wants to 'jump ship'.

Some people marry their first high school sweetheart and live happily their whole lives together into old age. Others need to date or marry several people to find the right one. Many simply enjoy the process.

What matters is that you're able to develop properly to achieve your goals.

[SteveLau]

Yep, it is a good idea to shop around first. This enables us to compare styles as well as get to know ourself. At the end of the day, we need to answer questions like:

Is my physique fits the requirements of the style?

Are the style's theories and techniques my cup of tea?

Does the style meet my training goals?



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[specialed]

The day when I realized that

- TKD roundhouse kick is faster and more detail than longfist roundhouse kick, I switch my longfist roundhouse kick to TKD roundhouse kick.
- MT roundhouse kick is more powerful than TKD roundhouse kick, I switch my TKD roundhouse kick to MT roundhouse kick.

After that experience, I only look for the most effective way to train. The word "style" no longer have any meaning to me.

If this was true, how many of you would be practicing TCMA today with no evidence of efficacy?