Different 'focus' in forms training

[Kung Fu Wang]

If you have trained forms all your life, when will you start to create your own form? When you are 40?, 50?, 60?, 70?, ... or never?

Your thought?

 

[dvcochran]

Never for me. I find I can be amply creative with the forms we already do. Much like @isshinryuronin 's recent post, I enjoy discovering different ways to see or even do moves or sequences within forms.
Frankly, we are forms poor. Adding up just all the TKD forms I know approaches 50 forms and I have a hard enough time keeping up with them.

 

[_Simon_]

If you have trained forms all your life, when will you start to create your own form? When you are 40?, 50?, 60?, 70?, ... or never?

Your thought?

It's a tough one huh... some say you need to have mastered an art (whatever measure that even means), and have a deep understanding of it before you can even consider it. Some say you have no authority creating forms (unless it's for your own style). And some go willy nilly and create a bunch!

And how does one know for oneself when we can create a form? Who knows! I'd say it'd be a good practice in displaying, but ALSO in exploring, the fundamental principles of the art you know... a teaching tool for oneself perhaps!

I'd love to give it a go, not because I have any authority to nor the master level experience whatsoever, if not just for fun and for exploring how I could apply principles I've learned in different creative ways.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If you have trained forms all your life, when will you start to create your own form? When you are 40?, 50?, 60?, 70?, ... or never?

Your thought?

When you have a use/need for one that you don't see (might exist somewhere, but not in your experience), and feel like you're able to create it.

I think anyone with middling experience can - and perhaps "should" - create their own form. It might just be a temporary one putting together a sequence of moves that create a specific challenge for them - perhaps to rehab an injury, work on specific transitions, or improve the balance in the left leg. For these things, it needn't be an excellent form, so long as it fills the need.

And any good instructor could - with a bit of care - create one or more forms for their curriculum. The question there becomes whether they are a good idea or not. I wouldn't want to see someone add more forms to a form-heavy curriculum, just to add their own stamp to things.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Never for me. I find I can be amply creative with the forms we already do. Much like @isshinryuronin 's recent post, I enjoy discovering different ways to see or even do moves or sequences within forms.
Frankly, we are forms poor. Adding up just all the TKD forms I know approaches 50 forms and I have a hard enough time keeping up with them.

We have 8. It is more than enough.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

When you have a use/need for one that you don't see (might exist somewhere, but not in your experience), and feel like you're able to create it.

I think anyone with middling experience can - and perhaps "should" - create their own form. It might just be a temporary one putting together a sequence of moves that create a specific challenge for them - perhaps to rehab an injury, work on specific transitions, or improve the balance in the left leg. For these things, it needn't be an excellent form, so long as it fills the need.

And any good instructor could - with a bit of care - create one or more forms for their curriculum. The question there becomes whether they are a good idea or not. I wouldn't want to see someone add more forms to a form-heavy curriculum, just to add their own stamp to things.

In house kata are fine. We have several. But they are not part of the system, and we ensure we explain that.

Learning to use weapons such as sai, I performed some of our open hand kata with the weapon, which required me to think differently about the meaning behind each block, strike, stance, transition, and so on, I find it valuable. It's not part of the curriculum however. Just an exploration.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I think anyone with middling experience can - and perhaps "should" - create their own form.

What's the purpose to create a form? One reason is to record some valuable information that's not in your form.

I like to develop "entering strategy" and "finish strategy". Unfortunately, most forms are not designed for this purpose. Most form has step in and kick, or step in and punch. It doesn't consider how your opponent's standing posture and guarding posture.

For example,

If your opponent has left leg forward with boxing guard, and you have right leg forward. How will you move in?

You may

1. Use right hand to grab on your opponent's left wrist (his left hand can't hit you).
2. Use left hand to jam on top of his right elbow joint (his left hand can't hit you).
3. Guide his left arm away from your entering path.
4. Release your right hand wrist control and use your right hook punch to hit behind his head to knock him down.

If your opponent has right leg forward with boxing guard, and you have right leg forward. How will you move in?

You may

1. Use left leg to sweep his right leg (his right leg can't kick you).
2. Use left arm to jam his right arm (his right arm can't punch you).
3. Punch his face with your free right arm.

Since this kind of combos are not in any form that you have learned. You like to record it somewhere so you won't forget. After you have collected enough those kind of combo, if you combine it together, you have created a form.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Another reason to create a form is to group techniques that is mapped from a certain principle.

If you have collected 30 different ways to apply "foot sweep", you may group it all together so people in the future won't have to find one foot sweep here and another foot sweep there.

When I was in school, one of my projects was to find all sorting method, compare the difference, and then create a new sorting method.

• Selection Sort.
• Bubble Sort.
• Recursive Bubble Sort.
• Insertion Sort.
• Recursive Insertion Sort.
• Merge Sort.
• Iterative Merge Sort.
• Quick sort.

I had created "Matrix sort" in that project.

Can you create a "side kick" form that contains all the set up, follow up combo sequences?

- side kick, spin back fist.
- side kick, neck chop.
- side kick, back kick.
- side kick, spin hook kick.
- side kick, flying side kick.
- roundhouse kick, side kick.
- upper block, side kick.
- ...

During your form creating process, your knowledge for "side kick" will keep growing.

 

[isshinryuronin]

We have 8. It is more than enough.

Eight kata would have been considered a lot by some of the old masters. It's possible that the original katas reflected more profound concepts than we realize today. Motobu Choki thought that naihanchi kata embodied practically his entire system. But I think a few more, reflecting some additional concepts, may be in order, even if not part of the style's original curriculum, but should be kept in a secondary, supplementary, role.

As for making up one's own kata - fine as a personal project, but don't pass it off as anything but that. It was part of my black belt test to make one up, and it was enlightening to compose something effective, with a theme, and that flowed. It was fun and I thought it was pretty good, but never did I think it compared to the forms devised and passed down by the masters.

 

[dvcochran]

Eight kata would have been considered a lot by some of the old masters. It's possible that the original katas reflected more profound concepts than we realize today. Motobu Choki thought that naihanchi kata embodied practically his entire system. But I think a few more, reflecting some additional concepts, may be in order, even if not part of the style's original curriculum, but should be kept in a secondary, supplementary, role.

As for making up one's own kata - fine as a personal project, but don't pass it off as anything but that. It was part of my black belt test to make one up, and it was enlightening to compose something effective, with a theme, and that flowed. It was fun and I thought it was pretty good, but never did I think it compared to the forms devised and passed down by the masters.

I have always found it intriguing how many styles use the Naihanchi form set, as well as other forms. I always took things like that to mean there are more similarities than differences in most styles.

 

[Flying Crane]

Never for me. I find I can be amply creative with the forms we already do. Much like @isshinryuronin 's recent post, I enjoy discovering different ways to see or even do moves or sequences within forms.
Frankly, we are forms poor. Adding up just all the TKD forms I know approaches 50 forms and I have a hard enough time keeping up with them.

How is 50 forms being “forms poor”?

 

[Flying Crane]

I wonder if the Masters who created the kata/forms were Masters when they did so.

I wonder what they would think of those kata/forms, if they could look back after 50 more years of experience, or if they might have designed the same kata/forms differently if they had not created them until they had 50 more years of experience.

Even the Masters were human, and subject to the same failings as we all are. I don’t feel that the creation of forms is automatically out of bounds for anyone. If the form proves to be useful and is taught to one’s students and is kept, then it can become part of that particular lineage.

At the same time, I feel that a lot of modern kata/forms are garbage, poorly designed and not worth practicing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

In house kata are fine. We have several. But they are not part of the system, and we ensure we explain that.

Learning to use weapons such as sai, I performed some of our open hand kata with the weapon, which required me to think differently about the meaning behind each block, strike, stance, transition, and so on, I find it valuable. It's not part of the curriculum however. Just an exploration.

I love doing a kata with a different setup - so I'll try doing the strikes kata with sticks or staff. The footwork is the same (it is in all my kata), but trying to find a way to do hand movements from the strikes kata with a staff requires some thought, if it's not to be haphazard movement.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Another reason to create a form is to group techniques that is mapped from a certain principle.

If you have collected 30 different ways to apply "foot sweep", you may group it all together so people in the future won't have to find one foot sweep here and another foot sweep there.

When I was in school, one of my projects was to find all sorting method, compare the difference, and then create a new sorting method.

• Selection Sort.
• Bubble Sort.
• Recursive Bubble Sort.
• Insertion Sort.
• Recursive Insertion Sort.
• Merge Sort.
• Iterative Merge Sort.
• Quick sort.

I had created "Matrix sort" in that project.

Can you create a "side kick" form that contains all the set up, follow up combo sequences?

- side kick, spin back fist.
- side kick, neck chop.
- side kick, back kick.
- side kick, spin hook kick.
- side kick, flying side kick.
- roundhouse kick, side kick.
- upper block, side kick.
- ...

During your form creating process, your knowledge for "side kick" will keep growing.

I'm not a fan of trying to create forms as a catalog - perhaps because I've never experienced it. But it seems like it requires learning (and memorizing) material that is somewhat removed from what you're trying to actually pass along. A list (on paper and/or electronically) seems to be a better method in today's world.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I wonder if the Masters who created the kata/forms were Masters when they did so.

I wonder what they would think of those kata/forms, if they could look back after 50 more years of experience, or if they might have designed the same kata/forms differently if they had not created them until they had 50 more years of experience.

Even the Masters were human, and subject to the same failings as we all are. I don’t feel that the creation of forms is automatically out of bounds for anyone. If the form proves to be useful and is taught to one’s students and is kept, then it can become part of that particular lineage.

At the same time, I feel that a lot of modern kata/forms are garbage, poorly designed and not worth practicing.

I often wonder how many of the "traditional" forms were masterworks - the best of a great master's teachings - and how many were just what that teacher was using at the time, that they never tossed out. If any of my students go on to teach, I sincerely hope they reinvent all of my forms along the way, because mine are definitely not masterworks.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

How is 50 forms being “forms poor”?

It's like being "house poor", where you buy so much house that you have little money left for anything else.

 

[Flying Crane]

It's like being "house poor", where you buy so much house that you have little money left for anything else.

Ah, gotcha, of course. Living in California, and San Francisco Bay Area in particular, I know all about being House Poor, even with a tiny house.

 

[Flying Crane]

I often wonder how many of the "traditional" forms were masterworks - the best of a great master's teachings - and how many were just what that teacher was using at the time, that they never tossed out. If any of my students go on to teach, I sincerely hope they reinvent all of my forms along the way, because mine are definitely not masterworks.

I sometimes wonder how much of what has become formalized curriculum was never intended to be that. It was just what the teacher was working on at that moment, meant to be explored and then moved on from, not formalized. But some student was taking notes and kept doing it exactly the same forever after.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I'm not a fan of trying to create forms as a catalog.

Today I was thinking about how to teach "under hook" in my tomorrow class. What can you do after you have obtained "under hook" from your opponent?

You can apply

- hip throw,
- leg break,
- leg lift,
- leg twist,
- shin bite,
- knee seize,
- knee down inner hook,
- downward shoulder pull,
- outer twist,
- leg spring,
- leg spring, shin bite,
- leg spring, tie,
- leg spring, double legs,
- leg spring, foot sweep,
- leg spring, outer hook,
- ...

Should I create a form to "group" all those application that can be started from "under hook"? How about over hook, head lock, bear hug, waist wrap, single leg, ...? Nobody has ever done this before in the past. If you go online, you may find one technique in one clip, another technique in another clip. You just don't see all possible techniques that can be applied from a certain clinch in one clip.

Someone told me that there is a book of "81 different ways to set up single leg". Today, I still have not be able to find that book yet.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

where you buy so much house that you have little money left for anything else.

Assume there are 36 different ways to do a foot sweep. If you try to develop your foot sweep in 36 different ways, you will find out that you no longer have time to work on your 50 forms.

After all, those 50 forms were created by someone else. It's not yours. Your understanding of foot sweep is your true knowledge. It's clear where you should invest your training time in.