Brute Strength
Talking about styles that have an overwhelming number of forms. I have a friend that kinda did same as Sin The', meaning, he trained in many kung fu styles (like 12) and combined all the forms, etc into one main style of his own. The problem I see with him, his students, & style is that there is too much brute strength in everything that they do (technique). Of course, this is not all bad, but there's a time and place for this type of force to be applied, especially in CMA. Luckily he's a good friend of mine and didn't take my critism offensively when I brought this to his attention. For the next year he focused on trying to become more natural within his art. He even preached this to his students, but in the end, there was still too much brute stregnth being applied and focused on during execution of there techniques. He called me about 6 months ago and wanted to sit down and discuss some possible solutions or methods to correct this aspect of his style. We met and discussed various things, but in the end it came down to one significant fact, Too many forms! The point was this, too many forms allows one to practice many techniques and repitions, but doesn't allow one to mature in there training principles. Variation is important, but only after one can gain the skill and understanding of the previous. Understanding develops skill, not the other around. When one understands a punch can be horizontal, vertical, up, down, to the side, angular, etc then one doesn't need 10 forms to train 10 different ways of punching, in short. Point is, my friend re-structured his style cut down the number of forms, etc to black sash and placed the other half of the system throughout the black sash levels for members to speacialize in after the core training. His members can choose what they want to specialize in after black sash and receive the appropriate certification. Its been another year since we've sat down and talked shop. He is excited. He himself, as well as, his students have come a long way since our first conversation a year ago. Everyone has started to develop naturally with speed, power, force, hard, soft, etc. There's something to say about this. Its not about all the forms one can learn or pratice, its about developing skill through understanding the blue prints (so to speak).
I only bring this up due to posts concerning styles with tons of forms. Repition is great and offers much benefit, however, people should be careful how they perceive this principle.
You guys have fun and play hard.
CS
The Style Doesn't Make The Master Famous. The Master Makes The Style Famous!
Originally Posted by naja
Too many forms if you ask me. I recently quit SD because of the abundance of forms. Here's a link to the school I went to, with the testing requirements - http://mullins-shaolin.com/technique/techique.htm
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