Does TKD make you stiff so you Kungfu looks bad?

[zijin_cheng]

I'm still not getting the answer Im looking for, but maybe that's just me being a noob, I'm not even sure what to do now. I guess ill just ask my WC

 

[J W]

clfsean actually gave you a pretty good answer to your question:

As far as practice a short hand structure versus a long hand structure... they are different. Both are CMA, but are totally different. Is a circle detrimental to a square? No... they're different. You train in one, the other will feel different. You train one long enough & deep enough, the other will be totally new when picked up & kept easily apart. Don't try to blend them. Focus on what you have (coached WC). Put the other on a shelf until you can get to a teacher.

Personally I found enough to practice in Wing Chun that I stopped practicing everything else so I could focus 100% on it. Since you have someone teaching you Wing Chun, I would agree with clfsean that you should focus on what he is teaching you and shelf everything else. You can dust off the Wushu (or whatever other CMA it was you practiced before) later when you find a teacher for it. In my opinion, it will only serve as a distraction right now.

As for fitness, get out there and run. Or hit the gym. You don't need kung fu forms for fitness.

 

[zijin_cheng]

Oh ok now it makes sense.

Last question, promise, I stretch and do TKD kicks mainly for fun and keep my flexibility.
Will this distract from WC training?

 

[jks9199]

As I read this, you're practicing some forms you learned a while ago, to keep them in memory and for exercise. But you don't have ongoing guidance and correction in them, and you're having problems with bleed over from your TKD practice when you were a kid. Meanwhile -- you've got someone teaching you wing chun.

You seem like you're trying to blend all of these things together, and, not surprisingly, it's not working well. Each has different underlying principles. Put the majority of your practice in the wing chun; you've got a teacher who can correct and guide you. Practice the rest occasionally, once or maybe twice a week, mostly to keep the forms in your memory for when you get back to training in them.

 

[zijin_cheng]

Sweet thanked to all of you guys.

I finally kknow what to do.

 

[clfsean]

As I read this, you're practicing some forms you learned a while ago, to keep them in memory and for exercise. But you don't have ongoing guidance and correction in them, and you're having problems with bleed over from your TKD practice when you were a kid. Meanwhile -- you've got someone teaching you wing chun.

You seem like you're trying to blend all of these things together, and, not surprisingly, it's not working well. Each has different underlying principles. Put the majority of your practice in the wing chun; you've got a teacher who can correct and guide you. Practice the rest occasionally, once or maybe twice a week, mostly to keep the forms in your memory for when you get back to training in them.

Didn't I say exactly that??

Man... I need to work on communication skills better...

 

[zijin_cheng]

Its the part about the circle and the square that threw me off, now when I read those 2 as separate ideas it is much clearer.

 

[Cyriacus]

Just answering overall, even though enough has already been said, some people are just stiff. The difference is that some MA dont mind, and You essentially cultivate Your own stiffness. Others promote being relaxed. Some people are just relaxed, as well. A naturally relaxed person will become more relaxed, a naturally stiff person will become less stiff. But it could be a long time and alot of work to change it to being fully relaxed.
Therefore, on some level, if You do TKD, Youll be doing it as You learnt to do it.
If You are learning WC, LEARN WC. Or You will keep doing what You learnt to do in a totally different system. Dont think of Yourself as someone who did TKD as a kid. Think of Yourself as a blank canvas learning WC that wants to relax more.

 

[J W]

Oh ok now it makes sense.

Last question, promise, I stretch and do TKD kicks mainly for fun and keep my flexibility.
Will this distract from WC training?

Maybe? The kicks in WC are completely different than those in TKD (not surprisingly). When I started Kenpo a couple years ago, I was able to take my TKD kicks with me (since they are very similar; the Kenpo guys just kick lower) and I quickly had the best kicks in the class. When I moved over to WC, though, I had to start from scratch with the kicks. TKD didn't help me.

So if you do practice your TKD kicks, you will need to understand that WC kicks are completely different; don't try to TKD-ize your WC kicks.

 

[zijin_cheng]

Hey sure man, thanks for the advice.

 

[mograph]

You might want to consider standing-on-stake (zhan zhuang), to learn where you are holding tension in your body. In the beginning stages, you learn to stand without pain (eventually!) by distributing the work of standing throughout your body. You do this by finding the parts that are doing too much work (back, thighs, shoulders?), or doing unnecessary work (neck, hands?), then relaxing them and letting lesser-used body parts (usually complementary to those mentioned) assist as you adjust your posture slightly. The end result (of the early stages) is that you learn to relax your body parts when you need to do so, you get to know your body better, and you learn to distribute force throughout your body more efficiently. After that, you can learn other techniques if you want to continue.

At least that's what I've found. Your mileage may vary.

 

[blindsage]

Doing a style like TKD doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be stiff. As was said previously, some styles mind less that others. I come from a Kyokushin Karate background, and in my experience there are a lot of stiff people from TKD, Karate, Muay Thai, etc. But the best always learn a significant degree of relaxation in their movement and power expression, it comes with understanding economy of motion and where actual power comes from (maybe not as much a some TCMA ask of you, but a good amount). If you are really stiff, IMHO opinion, you just haven't stuck with anything long enough, under a qualified teacher to understand why doing anything that way is more detrimental that beneficial. If all of your TKD kicks are really stiff, then your mechanics are flawed. You should be able to do them without a ton of tension. If you can't, then you need to do more, but again, under a qualified instructor that can refine the flaws in your technique. Power and speed come from technique and relaxed movement, not tension, and a good instructor can show you that.

 

[jks9199]

Didn't I say exactly that??

Man... I need to work on communication skills better...

Sometimes, it just takes a different way of expressing the same idea. I also was posting around a 3 year old, so I think I started that post before you got your post up...

 

[zijin_cheng]

Doing a style like TKD doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be stiff. As was said previously, some styles mind less that others. I come from a Kyokushin Karate background, and in my experience there are a lot of stiff people from TKD, Karate, Muay Thai, etc. But the best always learn a significant degree of relaxation in their movement and power expression, it comes with understanding economy of motion and where actual power comes from (maybe not as much a some TCMA ask of you, but a good amount). If you are really stiff, IMHO opinion, you just haven't stuck with anything long enough, under a qualified teacher to understand why doing anything that way is more detrimental that beneficial. If all of your TKD kicks are really stiff, then your mechanics are flawed. You should be able to do them without a ton of tension. If you can't, then you need to do more, but again, under a qualified instructor that can refine the flaws in your technique. Power and speed come from technique and relaxed movement, not tension, and a good instructor can show you that.

Agreed. It was what I was always thinking but afraid to admit. In between moving countries and then university, I never have had any long enough periods of time where i hhave steady free time, only now that I'm working do I have free time every day, hence the starting up of wingchun again

 

[GaryR]

I learned TKD until brown belt when I was 11 and stopped. In grade 10 i started Chinese martial arts.

Cool, which Chinese Martial arts? How old are you now?

After about 2 years many of my friends had graceful movements when doing forms, while I didn't and still looked like a block when doing them.

This is a very standard product of TKD, and many Karate systems for that matter. But, at this point, it's what's functional, not what's graceful that counts!

(This place I went to emphasized more on beauty than usefulness, they had wing chun for usefullness)

Modern "Wushu" is typically focused on form over function. WC is quite the opposite.

Although I was unmatched in kicking power, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't be graceful, is it because TKDs movements are very powerful but stiff?

If you were unmatched in kicking power, then clearly what you were doing is more function that this Wushu place. Grace be damned, if your faster, deliver more power pound for pound, and have better movement / methods then that is what matters.

My advice; There are exceptions, but at large the TKD system is a sport. It can be stiff, particularly the upper body. The mechanics will be contraindicated with those of Kung-fu for the most part, but if the kung fu is not functional, I'd stick with the TKD if you never want to go the functional-fu route, TKD can be fun otherwise.

G

 

[zijin_cheng]

Cool, which Chinese Martial arts? How old are you now?

Sorry for the late reply, I'm 21 and it was just general martial arts, learned some forms (didn't know the names until now)
, basic tan tui, changquan, compulsory staff/dao, monk's fist (can't find this one anywhere)

This is a very standard product of TKD, and many Karate systems for that matter. But, at this point, it's what's functional, not what's graceful that counts!

Yea I know, I was training my kicking power so the kicks that mostly scare/annoy people would have a little more "oomph" in them. But I've always been fascinated by the grace employed by CMA practitioners, and want to be able to do at least 1 form with 1/2 as much grace as them, no matter how unuseful, just for kicks

Modern "Wushu" is typically focused on form over function. WC is quite the opposite.

Agreed, I just found that WC is extremely effective in that even a small guy or girl can generate tons of power without a lot of telegraphic movement.

If you were unmatched in kicking power, then clearly what you were doing is more function that this Wushu place. Grace be damned, if your faster, deliver more power pound for pound, and have better movement / methods then that is what matters.

My advice; There are exceptions, but at large the TKD system is a sport. It can be stiff, particularly the upper body. The mechanics will be contraindicated with those of Kung-fu for the most part, but if the kung fu is not functional, I'd stick with the TKD if you never want to go the functional-fu route, TKD can be fun otherwise.

G

True, but sometimes when you are fascinated by "cool" looking CMA forms on TV, you want to be able to do at least 1 form like them, so I was hoping that I could become graceful enough that I could do a form and look "cool enough" to myself.

And in addition, I usually sparred with my friend who took "practical shaolin" martial arts, where forms were learned but sparring was a big part. We were quite evenly matched even though he had only be taking it for 5 months because his training was very combat oriented whereas my TKD + CMA was very form oriented with very little combat application. Then I sparred a WC friend, and tried to go all push hands on him and got absolutely destroyed, and was hooked.

Oh additional question, correct me where I'm wrong, but I find TKD, karate, MT etc all employ telegraphic movements to gain power, and hypothetically if a TKD went up against a WC guy of the same "skill level", would you say the WC guy would gain the element of surprise for at least a second or two because an experienced TKD/karate dude would rely on telegraphic movement to be able to effectively block/dodge, whereas a WC can just hit you with enough power without a large swing?

 

[J W]

Oh additional question, correct me where I'm wrong, but I find TKD, karate, MT etc all employ telegraphic movements to gain power, and hypothetically if a TKD went up against a WC guy of the same "skill level", would you say the WC guy would gain the element of surprise for at least a second or two because an experienced TKD/karate dude would rely on telegraphic movement to be able to effectively block/dodge, whereas a WC can just hit you with enough power without a large swing?

I would disagree with this. TKD, Karate, MT and pretty much all martial arts (that I am familiar with, anyway) train to develop non-telegraphic techniques. This isn't exclusive to Wing Chun. When I studied TKD years ago, we definitely worked to avoid telegraphing. Same with boxing; telegraphing your punches there could be a quick way to end the fight (but not the way you want it to end).

If you were to go up against an experienced TKD/Karate/MT/etc guy and expect him to be telegraphing his movements, you might be in for a surprise.

 

[mook jong man]

There are no pre movements in Wing Chun , and the striking is so directly aimed at the opponent that it makes it hard for the human eye to detect.

The stance or posture in Wing Chun is integral to non telegraphic movement.
With the body square on and the feet equidistant to the opponent , either side of the body has equal opportunity to strike the opponent , this adds a factor of unpredictability.

In comparison with a side on body structure , the lead leg and hand are the most dangerous to you because they are closest , the rear hand and leg although they will deliver a more powerful blow have a greater distance to travel and are more at risk of being countered.

 

[zijin_cheng]

I would disagree with this. TKD, Karate, MT and pretty much all martial arts (that I am familiar with, anyway) train to develop non-telegraphic techniques. This isn't exclusive to Wing Chun. When I studied TKD years ago, we definitely worked to avoid telegraphing. Same with boxing; telegraphing your punches there could be a quick way to end the fight (but not the way you want it to end).

If you were to go up against an experienced TKD/Karate/MT/etc guy and expect him to be telegraphing his movements, you might be in for a surprise.

Well, I find that I move at lot less during WC class compared to TKD or class, and i can throw a lot more punched in an hour with WC than I can with TKD because u really don't get that tired doing WC punches, so wouldn't more movement when initiating an attack mean more telltale signs and/or telegraphic motions.

There are no pre movements in Wing Chun , and the striking is so directly aimed at the opponent that it makes it hard for the human eye to detect.

The stance or posture in Wing Chun is integral to non telegraphic movement.
With the body square on and the feet equidistant to the opponent , either side of the body has equal opportunity to strike the opponent , this adds a factor of unpredictability.

In comparison with a side on body structure , the lead leg and hand are the most dangerous to you because they are closest , the rear hand and leg although they will deliver a more powerful blow have a greater distance to travel and are more at risk of being countered.

Thanks for that, it really explained lots.

 

[GaryR]

I understand, cool is fun, and fun is part of it. My suggestion would be to find the kung-fu form you like the best, learn it, keeping mind how you might use it, then find someone else to teach you application - and play with application, then blend.

The WC guy destroyed you because he had the tactile sensitivity to "listen" to your movements and act more effectively-and knew how to use the angles decently.
Additionally, there are numerous tactile drills contained in the Neijia arts that go way above and beyond what is contained in WC - i.e. Taiji four planes push hands, bagua rou shou, etc..fun stuff

As to your additional question;

You are definitely not wrong; by comparison, the movement of those arts is very telegraphic. Surprise, speed, and power all count. Power is generated by proper biomechanics, use of momentum, centripetal / centrifugal force, torque, etc. WC makes very good use of the foregoing by comparison to TKD / Karate in general.