Why Do we Practice Forms

[LoneTiger108]

So without taking some pages from the sport playbook you will not be even a little prepared for when the sh1t hits the fan.

I was a sports"child" dude, and found that both my Karate and Wing Chun training heavily depended on your cardio for one. They helped to maintain my health and fitness and gave me something extra too. I also played relentless amounts of football (soccer!) all through my teens.

Now, I hadn't competed for years and years, or even trained to compete with my Martial Arts EVER, but I guarantee you that when the sh1t hit MY fan I was able to use the martial arts I knew with no trouble at all with maximium effect.

Now I'm not saying that makes me a bada$$, or a competent coach, or even a good Martial Artist, but I will say that ALL I really knew at that time were katas and forms, and a little self exploration as to what they all meant! And that training alone saved my neck more than once.

[Yoshiyahu]

I love that you train drills, practice forms, punch and kick in the air. This is great. But this is only the beginning. As you master that add more to your training. maybe twice a week work on the basics above. Three times a week work on sparring and conditioning. Try running regularly, and try hitting a heavy bag, wall bag and wooden man with full force to develop different levels of power. Also add to that iron palm bag training.

Don't stop doing your forms, two man drills and punches and kicks in the air. But also along with chi sau, do light sparring and sometimes to full out hard sparring to see how well you do.

Hard sparring is an anerobic activity. If the extension of your deadly street techniques are practice ion drills. Chances are in a full out assualt you will not be able to apply them because you will be overwhelm by a younger and stronger opponent who knows nothing. Knowing the basics alone wont make you a better fighter. Fighting makes you a better fighter. Now you don't have the opportunity to actually fight for your life every day unless you live somewhere bad. But a person who spars frequently will have a greater understanding at what will happen oppose to someone who doesn't do anything. Just like the person who does chi sau every day for five years has a greater understanding of chi sau than someone who has only being doing it for one year.

Sifu's who have been doing push hands in tai chi or chi sau for over twenty years can attest a five year student is not on their level. So it is with those who spar or fight regularly. They have adavantage of actually having the experience. Even if you drilled techniques for chi sau for ten years. Until you actually start putting them into practice they are useless. An even then it will be awhile before you become accurate. The same with fighting! Those who spar have a greater advantage!

Traditional Wing Chun sparred other fighters of different styles back in the day. Not a chi sau match either. How can you chi sau with someone who doesn't know chi sau?