Forms Develoment Question

[Lucas]

So you read these historical accounts of 'sword dances'. I remember when reading years ago through the records of the grand historian, during the warring states period you would periodically read of people performing sword dances, for what ever reasons. i would assume that generally a sword dance is just a compilation of what ever that man knew in regards to sword fighting, and put it to a choreographed dance.

do any of you think that these dances are the roots to the 'idea' of forms?

this isnt a bout mma vs cma, or forms vs no forms, but more about where the idea of forms in general.

[David Jamieson]

structured choreographed physical exercises in martial arts exist pretty much across the board.

Asia seems to have refined the fist fighting stuff somewhat since the late 1500's

Methods expressed through set movement, short or long go back before that though.

There are manuals from renaissance Europe that show sword techniques and what amounts to forms for development.

check it: http://www.thearma.org/manuals.htm

[Drake]

Change the word "form" to "drill", and they might be interpreted differently.

[David Jamieson]

Change the word "form" to "drill", and they might be interpreted differently.

forms is a pretty new term anyway.

Typically, the correct transliteration is "fist law" or "fist method" (Kuen Po, Chuan Fa, et al)

Tao Lu etc are fairly new designations.
Many old style's forms were drills of a few movements that could be learned and used quickly.

forms as a catalogue is a different way than to develop the techniques within.
Forms are meant to be broken down and drilled.

Quite often people do not have the time or inclination to undertake such a path of study. Usually it can be attributed to impatience lol, often it's just petulance though and some stupid sense of entitlement that people have.

Other people reject them entirely for whatever reasons.
It's all good.

[bawang]

form is a dance. general qijiguang in his 1565 book calls solo training as "solo dance"

freestyle drilling of techniques is called drilling. "training handwork" or "lian shou fa". training with a partner is called "training footwork" "lian bu fa"

choreographed solo form is called "solo dance". choreographed partner form is called "partner dance"

forms from southern kung fu also mimic movements and tempo from village magic rituals.

[David Jamieson]

form is a dance. general qijiguang in his 1565 book calls solo training as "solo dance"

freestyle drilling of techniques is called drilling. "training handwork" or "lian shou fa". training with a partner is called "training footwork" "lian bu fa"

choreographed solo form is called "solo dance". choreographed partner form is called "partner dance"

chinese terms for these last two are?

[bawang]

dan wu and shuang wu单舞,双舞

[Lucas]

form is a dance. general qijiguang in his 1565 book calls solo training as "solo dance"

freestyle drilling of techniques is called drilling. "training handwork" or "lian shou fa". training with a partner is called "training footwork" "lian bu fa"

choreographed solo form is called "solo dance". choreographed partner form is called "partner dance"

forms from southern kung fu also mimic movements and tempo from village magic rituals.

thats kind of what im getting at. the dancing.

so, at some point someone had to go 'hey lets take all our empty hand techniques and choreograph them into a dance'

this is documented as being done on a personal level with weapons a VERY long time ago with sword dances. often performed for generals, leaders, emperors and the like performed by accomplished warriors.

at some point it seems like someone figured 'lets do that without weapons'

do you think there is a direct connection to the sword dances in terms of the idea of doing this without weapons?

do you originally think this was developed for performance only and not for training purpose, then somewhere along the lines the line was blurred and the training aspect began?

[bawang]

do you originally think this was developed for performance only and not for training purpose, then somewhere along the lines the line was blurred and the training aspect began?

military recruiters are government scholars and dont know anything about martial arts. they liked to promote and recruit people who give very flashy demonstrations.

[GeneChing]

You see plenty of short stick and quarterstaff in European folk dances. You also see pole arm (like spear typically) in African and Asian tribal dance.

[David Jamieson]

You see plenty of short stick and quarterstaff in European folk dances. You also see pole arm (like spear typically) in African and Asian tribal dance.

The scots have quite a few varieties of sword dances.
Most of the classical weaponry stuff has been relegated to ritual dance with teh exception of asian martial arts which still uses it a lot in traditional and non traditional exercises.

Western stuff has all been narrowed down to fencing and other sports where the weapons have been repurposed into something else (hammer throw, shot put, discus [the indian version of it], javelin, et al)

i am of the opinion myself that if you want to learn the ways of sword play in a relatively economical length of time, then the three blades of fencing will get you there.

In Kung Fu, my experience in more than one school has been:

staff first, then big knife, then take your pick for what's next if you want more weapons study and there are a lot of weird and obsolete weapons in tcma lemme tell you although you already know!

All techniques from the 3 blades of fencing carry over to Chinese straight sword work quite nicely, with perhaps minor differences regarding the finesse stuff.

[bawang]

drilling with weapons especially in unison is very intimidating. thats why people prefer dancing

[GeneChing]

I used to make swords for belly dancers. That was some serious fun. Belly dancers had some unusual requirements.

[TenTigers]

I used to make swords for belly dancers. That was some serious fun. Belly dancers had some unusual requirements.

at the Fall Fair this year, there were belly dancers balancing swords on their heads while they dance.

[Lucas]

did you forge them? what kind of swords did they want? or was it more of a fleshy sword you gave them? in that case i dont want to know any of the unusual requests.