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Work on your applications instead. You can't defeat your opponent with a fast form.Originally Posted by Thomas316
And regarding speed... There's not much to being fast. Everything you need to know can be shown in a few minutes. The problem is that most people just don't get it.
I tell the students, "There are no secrets. I showed you all that in the first day of class. You just need to practice."
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Did your teacher ever show you how to hit people fast? Just drill on that.
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Maybe people should share their modern day stories.
Here's a funny one about iron body conditioning. My training partner and I were the only ones in class to practice that regularly. The other classmates would see us train, and they'd say, "Oh, we should do that too." And they'd go at it sporadically.
At that time, we were in Golden Gate park. Sifu Adam Hsu and Sifu Doc Fai Wong had classes there too.
There was a student from one of the other classes that we thought was a little rude. He would walk up to our teacher and address him by his first name. He kind of looked down his nose at us, as if he thought he was better somehow.
We didn't talk to him, but we made sure to give everything we had when we did our body conditioning for warmup.(I guess that meant we had weak egos, because we really shouldn't have cared.) It got to the point that the other classes could hear the body impact from the other side of the park, and they would stop what they were doing and stare.
One of our classmates came over and said, "I should do that too. Can I join you guys?"
My partner went first. And I never had a chance to have a turn. The classmate came back a week later and showed us that the entire right side of his upper torso was purple and yellow from the impact of the body strike. In our minds, we kept an ideal for that training, which was something that Musashi said. "You should be able to kill your opponent with a body/shoulder strike."
Years later, my partner relocated to L.A. Our teacher sent him to become a student of Sifu Jiang Hao Quan.
One day he was paired up with a classmate who was much larger than him. They were supposed to be training a particular thing, but his partner kept doing some grapple/throw that he was not supposed to do. My classmate got tired of that, and the next time he got grabbed for a throw, he used the Praying Mantis short force body strike that we had trained. The other guy went flying, and he had no clue what had happened. Sifu Jiang had seen the whole thing, and he gave my classmate a disapproving half smile and a slight shake of the head meaning, "Don't use that on your classmate."
My classmate has since returned and we both teach at the park on weekends. Lately we've been bringing an 80lb heavy bag to the park for students to work on their power and their short force body strikes.
Shifu
quote from -N-Work on your applications instead. You can't defeat your opponent with a fast form.
and I love it!
KUNG FU USA
www.eightstepkungfu.com
Teaching traditional Ba Bu Tang Lang (Eight Step Praying Mantis)
Jin Gon Tzu Li Gung (Medical) Qigong
Wu style Taiji Chuan
Teacher always told his students, "You need to have Wude, patient, tolerance, humble, ..." When he died, his last words to his students was, "Remember that the true meaning of TCMA is fierce, poison, and kill."
(. Y .)
LOL
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that from my own Sifu... I'd be moderately wealthy.
(. Y .)
Try to go a little faster every time you do the form. Don't sacrifice correct technique for speed - go as fast as you can while moving correctly.
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That must have been a saying from the HK days, haha.LOL
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that from my own Sifu... I'd be moderately wealthy.
Talking and not paying attention was the start of the Ghost Kicker story that you've probably heard.
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And even applications aren't enough. Most people seem to have a problem with having the spirit to take out the other guy.
Chinese call it "having gall". Here we say having guts or having balls.
We have to work with students on this a lot.
GM of Hadaka Korosu
One thing that must be mentioned in regards to the speed attribute.
Doing a form in the air with speed is a great learning tool, but it can create some issues and bad habits ( like putting on the "brakes").
Speedy combinations on the air are one thing, doing them against resistance is another.
Ask any Kenpo guy
When resistance is added to the equation, be it a body or apd or HB, you will see that "vaunted" speed and smoothness suddenly "disappear", or what you have are "slaps" with very little behind them ( back to the kenpo analogy).
One MUST drill speed AGAINST resistance.
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !
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+1
Just say no to kung fu slap fighting.
GM of Hadaka Korosu
I always have in my mind a vivid memory:
We had a guy come in as a visitor at my old TKD dojang, he was a kenpo BB and friend of one of the guys there.
Fast hands was an understatement.
When we sparred the hands were just as fast, but weak and not enough force to do anything other than irritate.
I put him on his knees with a left hook to the body.
The again with a side kick to the ribs.
( We sparred full contact at red belt and above at that school).
He hit me more, just not hard enough to make much of a difference and he was a tad bigger than me ( I was 150 at the time and he was 180 from what he said).
Later on, when doing the bag after class, I saw that even on the bag his strikes were very fast but left no "lasting impression" on the HB either.
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !
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N, whats the ghost kicker story?
by the way, thanks for the responses. i will definitely try to perform my forms faster each time i perform them.
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Sometime speed is a good way to solve problem in a civilized way. If you can touch your hands on your opponent's face 5 or 6 times before he could even raise his guards, your oppponent may lose desire to fight you after that. Speed by itself may not be able to hurt people. But it can generate a scary feeling and that may be able to end a fight.
Prey Mantis Master Brendan Lai loved to use this trick to handle challenge fights. His famouse saying was, "In my next strike, I'll blind you." How many challengers are willing to take the risk to be a blind man for the rest of his life?
Last edited by YouKnowWho; 08-05-2011 at 05:52 PM.
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Doesn't take much power for eye(or groin) strikes.
He used to joke that when Praying Mantis and Eagle Claw fought each other, Praying Mantis would have to wear throat protection and Eagle Claw would have to wear eye protection.
Actually that reminds me of a story where he was betrayed and attacked by one of his own students. During the fight, he was about to blind the student with an eye attack. But he changed changed his move as he made contact, and used his fingertips to close the student's eyelids.
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He should just sent another student (or students) to do that job instead of having to do it himself.
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