Drunken Monkey

you have said that forms is dead and to a certain point i agree with that but then forms are not really meant to be alive. you practice a form for the body; to develop agility, muscle memory, stamina etc etc. the original point of teaching in this way was because often, the sifu could not spend all of his time with every student. thus forms was merely a way for the students to learn the moves and practice the moves which the senior students can monitor. a lot of the confusion/argument surrounding forms today, comes from people taking the forms themselves to be the be all and end all of martial arts. it is just a record of moves.

how is it different? why do you have this thing against forms training?

yes. the moment you decide to put certain moves together you are creating a form. it is likely that you will keep practicing this particular sequence until you think of another one. sparring is a test of what you practiced. during this testing you will find holes which you will go and think of another sequence that might fill that hole. isn't this forms training? the only difference is that the olders tyles already have sequences for you to practice before you go and make your own.

ahhh, you will my child, you will...

yes but those without forms go and make forms of their own. that's what combos or what-ever you wish to call them are; another type of forms training. how many actually just practice competely loose moves? without any kind of follow through, chaining of moves stepping etc etc? by saying there are no forms suggests that you only train in singular punches, kicks steps etc without reference to everything else. my point is that forms is just a way of learning to move and use whatever you know. because you are practicing a seuence of moves, you should have equal experience of all of the moves in that particular sequence. for the record, i am not saying whether forms is good or not, just pointing out what forms training is for and what it achieves.

come on, will any sensible court actually humour a case like that?

and again you are confusing forms training with just moves. part of the training is about moving between techniques, learning to flow from move to move. the point of forms having attack/defence moves is to get the idea into your head that you have to move between everything. by having (nearly) every possible transition of moves in a form for you to practice, you should get used to moving from attack to defence, high to low, forward and back and change direction. the forms can also be practised in their entirety slowly to develop strength and accuracy/tidyness of technique.

but them outfits are cute. trying to get my girlfriend to go the j-pop way but she keeps saying no...

love is knowing that her smile is yours

whale rider looks to be a really good film... look for it

well, all this seems to be because of a bad translation of what the chinese and japanese use to call the styles (or what ever you prefere). for instance the chinese just call their arts by the name of the family followed by the general term "fist". hung gar kuen literally means hung family fist. wing chun kuen means wing chun fist. there is no real use of a word like style, system, method etc. there is also the tradition of calling your martial art by the name of the clan that it comes from i.e bak mei pai

i read some where something about giving sufficient warning about your ability to hurt them if they further their aggression...

kata/forms are not just drills. they are a record of moves. you do them not to drill a scenario but just to learn/remember/train/whatever a certain move. the point of this being to refresh your body and make sure the movements are clear. i keep hearing a lot of people saying things that are based on a misconception of what forms training is for.

well that's cos we have stupid laws in this country

well i think it's something to do what you are allowed to sell (which probably governs the size of things too). after all they can't control what you make at home...

this has been said elsewhere but sai are not farming tools. as for nun-chucks being rice flails, i can't say that anyone invented them cos the chinese have that weapon as well. as we all know, it was the chinese who taught them the martial arts.

not entirely sure about this but i heard there was something about the number of links you are allowed to have a set of chucks. for twelve inch chucks you cannot have more than 8 links but you are allowed to have twelve links for shorter chucks.

but then i stress again, my only experience with forms is in chinese styles where forms are just training methods that don't aim to simulate fighting.

well i always thought that the originators of karate were always learning rom each other and discussing with each other anyway? all of this hiding stuff doesn't sound very japanese to me.

maybe your sensei cheated and glued the pieces together!

i think the only time when videos are good are if you are already trained in a style and want to see how someone else does it.

now i always thought that tkd was developed/organised by choy hung hi while he was in the army? wasn't this after the occupation?

in my wing chun we are told about certain points that we aim to intercept (point before the elbow on the outside of the forearm, back of the hand, crook of the elbow) and some others for hitting. we aim for these points because it makes out blocks/intercepts more effective. as to whether or not they are pressure points, i have no idea but even applying a little more pressure on them does cause more pain.

okokok, that's enough about breaking wooden boards and the like. how about break-boards? or whatever you call them things that snap into two? i'm sure you know what i'm talking about.

did someone say he doesn't know who chuck norris is? man, first someone says he doesn't know inosanto is then this...