Originally Posted by
GeneChing
Actually, I only have contention with this sentence. Form and fighting can be completely different activities, but they can be one and the same too. Dare I say that the real masters master both? Or perhaps for real masters, there is just no distinction.
I suck at both, but maybe sanjuro_ronin can chime in again, as he says he's had success at both.
I should have qualififed that I was referring to TMA of course.
Systems that don't do forms are different of course.
But, look at an elite boxer, more often than not, his shadowboxing will have picture perfect form, but that isn't really the same thing.
What I meant was that, in the TMA that use both forms and fighting, I have found that the best fighters were also very good at forms and that didn't always translate in the reverse.
Maybe it was just me...
I got first place in BB forms in the N.American ITF TKD championships back in the late 80's.
I got first place in BB forms in a couple of Kyokushin competitions.
Just to name a couple.
My instructors tended to advocate forms though, they believed that good form = good fighting skills, of course they never taught flashy forms so...
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !