Training

[SevenStar]

coincidentally, today during luch, I was at the gym and ran into a friend of mine that I lift with sometomes. The company gym recently began teaching a TKD class, and he was wondering if I had anything to do with getting classes started there, as I'd suggested MA classes before. As we talked about MA, he told me how he thought karate was a waste of time (and TKD) because all they do is forms. I bet he would've said the same about kung fu, but since I train in CMA, he didn't want to offend me. He did some boxing while he was in high school and also a little kickboxing. He perked up when I told him that I had trained in MT before also and have done some grappling. He said that he believes the only true way to learn properly is through sparring, and that form really has no place, because you are not working it aginst someone, only performing techs in the air. He did agree that they can have some benefit however, if your teacher constantly drilled you in various form applications to ensure that you can apply them in a fight.

[Mr Nunchaku]

Man, I really screwed up the first post of this topic.

Earth Dragon, just like Apprentice, you misunderstood my post. It is not ME asking these questions but many people who do not understand. The point of this topic is for you to give your view and answers to these questions. I have my own answers to these questions which I have not yet posted, so you don't know about that. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

In my TKD class we DO talk about these things and go deep into them and it HAS taught me a lot. I am not the one asking these basic questions but many others who do not understand (it is all of you whose answers I would like to hear). You don't know my interpretations of this because I have not said it. Again, I am really sorry for my post being so ambiguous. I added a little note to the end of the post.

[Mr Nunchaku]

What about conditioning? I would like to hear more about people's opinion on that. How far is too far? Should we condition our hands to be a super strong calloused mess?

[EARTH DRAGON]

I am sorry for my misreading of your post. to add on the same train of thought as my earlier post, conditioning is Ok to a point as long as it is done properly. I have seen disfigurment in guys hands who punch rope tied around trees to toughen thier hands. I asked why do this the say to toughen the hands for punching, so I said why spend all that time on conditioning if your eventual goal in the martial arts is not to fight? for beating up people is easy. but in all reality you should spend time on training to make yourself better becuse lets face it training for a long time you surpass the attitude of fighting in the early stages of your life. All the time you spend on sharpening your knife by the time its razor sharp you wont have a desire to cut. So you should spend your time more constuctively and train for the future.

if you are stuck on conditioning just make sure its done properly,use dit dat jow and massage the hand and breath properly when striking. When you train right the density should be in the bone not the skin. Like iron palm for example, a true iron palm practioner shows no calouses or toughening for it is internal and in the long run it is the chi thats breaks not the toughen hand so again improper traing is a waste of time.