Originally Posted by
Shaolin Wookie
Here...let me put it another way that doesn't sound so critical (and I wasn't criticizing you personally as an MA, JP, just to make that clear).
Learning MA through the use of forms in any of its branches (Karate, TKD, Hung Gar, Wing Chun, SD, CSC, etc.) is very frustrating. It's frustrating because when you get a handle on underlying principles, you always feel like your teachers are teaching you the material "wrong." You imitate the ideal, and you always end up with garbage that doesn't work. You have to get a handle on the principles, and then ALL techniques and forms "work," even if you're doing BJJ, boxing, or whatever. It's always the same. It's the monkey-man technique that all higher apes employ in fighting.
In reality, "ideal" forms are always wrong. There's always something missing. That "thing" is me.
I'm not grateful to the Master of my school because he knows a lot of forms. I'm grateful to him for helping me understand the underlying principles that find expression in form and technique. He can't get inside my head and implant those principles, but by stressing principle over "ideal" forms at every turn, he teaches how to make all "ideal" forms find expression. All I try to do when I go to class for lessons is to figure out how to express underlying prinicples in new ways. Forms and techniques are really "useless" as "ideal" things. They have to be my things, and I have to express principles instead of mere "technique" or "structure."
Once you grasp the underlying principles, all questions like "when do I do this technique?" or, "what if my opponent shucks instead of jiving?" go right out of the window. Why? Because you already know that the principles will find expression if you've got them in your back pocket.