Forms: A total fighting system?

[kidswarrior]

Do you believe a form or group of forms can contain a complete fighting system?

 

[exile]

Do you believe a form or group of forms can contain a complete fighting system?

Historically, that's exactly what the forms were. Both Iain Abernethy and Bill Burgar point out that in Okinawa at the turn of the century, individual kata were not considered to be `part' of the fighting system but the actual `style'. I'm not fond of quoting myself, seems a bit arrogant, but since I wrote something a while back that expresses exactly what I want to say on this topic, I hope the following passage isn't taken that way. In the original Okinawan setting where Matsumura, Itosu, Azato and other karate pioneers got their skills, the only way any techniques were transmitted was by the kata themselves. The kihon line drills through which virtually everyone in the West who learned MAs in the current era was taught—the bread and butter of dojo/dojang/studio teaching methods everywhere—were unknown. From all available accounts, including his own autobiography, Funakoshi's training for the first decade with Itosu consisted solely of practicing the Naihanchi kata set and working out their bunkai (even though Motobu didn't think much of Funakoshi's analysis and suspected that Itosu had withheld the most effective applications from him; but then again, Motobu seems to have loathed GF personally); where else would he have learned his techs from except Naihanchi?—that's all he had to work with! And as Abernethy notes, Motobu wrote in Okinawa Kenpo Karate-jutsu that `the Naihanchi, Passai, Chinto and Rohai styles are not left in China today and only remain in Okinawa as active martial arts'. That comment makes it pretty clear that these kata were not regarded as `parts' of a martial art, add-ons so to speak, but were thought of as complete stand-alone fighting systems on their own. In a way, `karate' originally corresonded to a general description (in much the same way that the generic term kung fu covers an enormous variety of specific CMAs regarded by their practitioners as quite different from each other) comprising the various kata, each of which was a style unto itself. And as Burgar points out in his book,


the fact is that before circa 1880 it was the norm for karateka to know a small number of kata. We also know that each master of karate was capable of defending himself. Therefore his one, two or three kata contained all of the knowledge that he would have needed to achieve that goal. This means that each kata (or small group of kata) was a `style' in its own right.'

(p. 29). Motobu also mentions in the same 1926 book that `a master usually only had one kata in his style'.

So it seems to me that kata, and forms in general, have to be seen as constituting fighting systems on their own; the question is, do karate kata constitute a complete fighting system? And what makes a system complete. I've seen it argued, over and over again, that there are no complete fighting systems (karate/TKD/TSD is weak on groundwork, aikido is weak on strikes, this or that style is hopeless at this or that fighting range...), but while I think that you need to train against attacks designed to take you to the ground, or that use empty hand techs that your system doesn't, I don't think that every MA has to contain the whole kitchen sink to be complete. A complete system has to provide you with ways to deal with attacks and ranges even if that system doesn't use such attacks itself, or train you to stay in those ranges (as vs. giving you the goods to get out of those ranges and back to familiar territory, which a complete system definitely has to).

So with karate, Abernethy and other bunkai-jutsu practitioners have shown, in great detail, how you can use karate in the ground game—not to `win' in the ground game, but to get off the ground that your untrained, but violent and dangerous attacker has taken you to, before he does. Abernethy's detailed book Grappling for Strikers does exactly this, and there's an increasing literature on how traditional karate-based techs (including those of the karate-based KMAs) can help you keep the fight at the stand-up CQ range that karate was designed for.

So that's why I checked the top option in the poll choices...

 

[Flying Crane]

Yes, but forms PRACTICE alone is not enough.

You learn the curriculum of your art thru the medium of forms, but you still have to practice your basic techs, hit the heavy bag to develop power and conditioning, and dissect the forms and practice the useage on a real partner. In addition, you need to do some kind of drills that develop spontaneous useage and reaction. If all you do is practice forms, and never do anything else, you are missing some important parts of your training. But if you practice your forms, you are practicing and reviewing the "textbook" of your art. But the texbook alone won't teach you to use your skills and knowledge effectively and spontaneously.

 

[kidswarrior]

So it seems to me that kata, and forms in general, have to be seen as constituting fighting systems on their own; the question is, do karate kata constitute a complete fighting system? And what makes a system complete.

Should have known you'd be the one to ferret out the central issue.

I've seen it argued, over and over again, that there are no complete fighting systems (karate/TKD/TSD is weak on groundwork, aikido is weak on strikes, this or that style is hopeless at this or that fighting range...), but while I think that you need to train against attacks designed to take you to the ground, or that use empty hand techs that your system doesn't, I don't think that every MA has to contain the whole kitchen sink to be complete. A complete system has to provide you with ways to deal with attacks and ranges even if that system doesn't use such attacks itself, or train you to stay in those ranges (as vs. giving you the goods to get out of those ranges and back to familiar territory, which a complete system definitely has to).

So with karate, Abernethy and other bunkai-jutsu practitioners have shown, in great detail, how you can use karate in the ground game—not to `win' in the ground game, but to get off the ground that your untrained, but violent and dangerous attacker has taken you to, before he does.

I believe this is a critical, and usually overlooked part of the oft-argued point about what is 'weak' or lacking in certain styles.

 

[kidswarrior]

Yes, but forms PRACTICE alone is not enough.

I agree Michael, in the sense that forms practice in the West usually means going through the motion of the form, solo, 'in the air'. And I think this is maybe what you're saying in the next part:

You still have to... dissect the forms and practice the useage on a real partner. In addition, you need to do some kind of drills that develop spontaneous useage and reaction.

I know I took some liberties with your quote :uhyeah: but am hoping it's OK, since I'm attempting to reinforce your point.

 

[Flying Crane]

I agree Michael, in the sense that forms practice in the West usually means going through the motion of the form, solo, 'in the air'. And I think this is maybe what you're saying in the next part:

I know I took some liberties with your quote :uhyeah: but am hoping it's OK, since I'm attempting to reinforce your point.

yup, and yup again.

 

[Sukerkin]

I certainly believe that the forms of a style ipso facto define the whole of the style.

It can't be any other way if you think about it. What I feel tends to missed by those that dismiss 'kata' derisively is that part and parcel of the form is the bunkai and sparring applications that go with it. If you don't know the bunkai then many movements will seem senseless or utterly unnecessary because you've only got half of the picture. If you don't do the sparring then you don't see how certain things sharpen and adapt when used against a moving and resisting opponent.

The forms educate you as to how a 'perfect' technique is performed. I always term them as the 'toolbox'. The bunkai tells you how that technique fits into a combative situation - the 'manual' for the tools if you will. Applications in the context of sparring teach you how the tools and manual go together in a fluid situation - like a tradesmans apprenticeship after college.

You learn how to recognise the tools and how to use them. You then begin to appreciate what the tools can be used for and finally you start to put it all together to create the style.

If you refuse to see that fluidity you end up with a false impression like the OP of the recent "Blocking" thread because you see a handful of pieces rather than the puzzle picture they actually go towards building up.

I trully believe that that is the major cause of the myriad "What if?" monkeys that invade dojo's on a regular basis.

 

[exile]

Yes, but forms PRACTICE alone is not enough.

You learn the curriculum of your art thru the medium of forms, but you still have to practice your basic techs, hit the heavy bag to develop power and conditioning, and dissect the forms and practice the useage on a real partner. In addition, you need to do some kind of drills that develop spontaneous useage and reaction. If all you do is practice forms, and never do anything else, you are missing some important parts of your training. But if you practice your forms, you are practicing and reviewing the "textbook" of your art. But the texbook alone won't teach you to use your skills and knowledge effectively and spontaneously.

This is exactly right and the textbook/practice dichotomy contains the secret of the answer to those people who insist that kata has nothing to do with the `martial' content of the MA. I think of it along the lines of learning a branch of physics: you can read the `text' part of any given chapter without doing the many exercises at the end of the chapter. But you aren't going to be able to answer a simple question about what is the value of what, given some description of a physical situation, unless you do those problems. Knowing about physics, or math, or geology, or whatever, which just reading the text can lead to, isn't the same as actually knowing physics, math, etc. The latter is a lot harder and takes a lot more work. And that's true for every branch of knowledge under the sun. Learning the kata is like learning the basic mathematical relationships in some branch of science; training the kata—applying the bunkai that you've worked out for the forms to the problems posed a noncompliant training partner simulating a realistic physical attack on you—is like doing the often hellishly difficult problem-solving that leaves you, in the end, really understanding just how those mathematical relationships play out in real physical situations.

No one ever got an engineering job just because they knew how to take a first derivative. And no one ever really learned a TMA just because they learned how to perform a number of kata. There's a dry-cleaning place near our house that has one of those marquees on which they post wise/witty saying, you know the kind I mean; but whoever owns that place has better taste in wise/witty sayings than most such businesses. The one he currently has up is, `Nothing works unless you DO it.' And really that says pretty much everything about the role of forms: you have to take the techs they embody and DO them—practice them under unpleasantly realistic circumstances, hundreds or thousands of times. Combat Hapkido doesn't have forms, but they do have drills, and it's the same story: you have to drill, drill, drill, no matter how well you understand just how the biomechanics of the moves work. If people thought of a form as just a set of drills, drills which have been `chunked' into a single long sequence as a mnemonic convenience, then their view of how such forms could themselves amount to a MA on their own, and what you have to do with the form in order to get martial benefit from it, would probably be a lot more practical—and a lot more in line with the intent of the original masters of the art who constructed the forms....

I wrote the above and when I got back to the thread, Mark had posted this:

I certainly believe that the forms of a style ipso facto define the whole of the style.

It can't be any other way if you think about it. What I feel tends to missed by those that dismiss 'kata' derisively is that part and parcel of the form is the bunkai and sparring applications that go with it. If you don't know the bunkai then many movements will seem senseless or utterly unnecessary because you've only got half of the picture. If you don't do the sparring then you don't see how certain things sharpen and adapt when used against a moving and resisting opponent.

The forms educate you as to how a 'perfect' technique is performed. I always term them as the 'toolbox'. The bunkai tells you how that technique fits into a combative situation - the 'manual' for the tools if you will. Applications in the context of sparring teach you how the tools and manual go together in a fluid situation - like a tradesmans apprenticeship after college.

You learn how to recognise the tools and how to use them. You then begin to appreciate what the tools can be used for and finally you start to put it all together to create the style.

If you refuse to see that fluidity you end up with a false impression like the OP of the recent "Blocking" thread because you see a handful of pieces rather than the puzzle picture they actually go towards building up.

I trully believe that that is the major cause of the myriad "What if?" monkeys that invade dojo's on a regular basis.

This is, in somewhat different words (but not all that different, now I think of it) , exactly what I'm saying here and what FC was getting at, I'm quite certain, in what I cited above from him.... and what Kidswarrior was getting at when wrote that

forms practice in the West usually means going through the motion of the form, solo, 'in the air'.

Burgar, Abernethy and numerous other karateka (and progressive TKDists of that school) complain very insistently about just this point—the emphasis on `performing', rather than analyzing the kata to determine its applications and then practicing those applications in a tough-minded way, with partners who aren't going to just go along with you to make you feel competent....

 

[kidswarrior]

So with karate, Abernethy and other bunkai-jutsu practitioners have shown, in great detail, how you can use karate in the ground game—not to `win' in the ground game, but to get off the ground that your untrained, but violent and dangerous attacker has taken you to, before he does. Abernethy's detailed book Grappling for Strikers does exactly this....

In addition to Exile's extensive explanation and resources, wanted to mention Abernethy's short book, Arm-Locks for All Styles, as another venue in which he puts side-by-side photos of a 'pretty' form done in the air to perfection, with photos of the same basic movement used in a 'messy' application on an 'opponent'. It's been very enlightening to me, helping me get out of the form-as-ideal mode, and opening up the form-as-fighting-system way of thinking.

 

[Sukerkin]

That sounds like an interesting read, Kds.

Am I interpreting you correctly in that the central tenet of it is that the form does not change when applied in a fight?

If so, despite the fact that above I said that the kata is the form executed perfectly whilst in application the form adapts, I think I do agree. Because of the mobile and changing nature of sparring, it might seem that the forms are being adapted to circumstances but the actual basic techniques are the same.

My sensei has actual talked about this sort of thing recently in relation to karate wherein he was pointing out that the 'technique' is not executed until just prior to contact. So the path you choose to get to that point of execution is largely irrelevant. Like we said in the "Blocking" thread, blocks don't start with your fist down at you hip as you do in basic kata i.e. the technique of the block comes into play as you execute the contact.

Oops, the missus is calling me to dinner ... best go as, even with my swords on hand, I'm not certain of victory if I raise her ire by wasting her cooking :lol:!

 

[Flying Crane]

...side-by-side photos of a 'pretty' form done in the air to perfection, with photos of the same basic movement used in a 'messy' application on an 'opponent'. It's been very enlightening to me, helping me get out of the form-as-ideal mode, and opening up the form-as-fighting-system way of thinking.

Interesting comment.

My wife is training kenpo alongside with me, and I have been trying to help her with this. She has only been training kenpo since about January, is a yellow belt and will probably test for orange within the next couple weeks or so.

The kenpo curriculum centers around a series of self defense techniques, sort of pre-set responses to specific types of attacks. Many of these techs are also found within our kata, but the techs themselves can sort of be viewed as Mini-kata.

So she has a list of these techs already that we work on, and I let her practice on me to get them right. But of course this is the ideal phase/stage of the tech. So recently I've begun working with her to develop a more spontaneous response.

I have her stand facing away from me. I will attack in some un-announced and random way, bearhug, armlock, grabs, pulls, pushes, chokes, etc., and see how well she can use her techs. Sometimes I tell her to turn around and face me, and I launch an attack from the front, a punch or kick or grab or push from the front. It's not "street intensity", but it's a step in the direction in learning to simply respond effectively to something unexpected and unknown.

I tell her that ideally I would like her to use the techs as taught, but really what is important is that she simply defend herself. If she blanks on her techs, then just DO SOMETHING TO DEFEND YOURSELF! I don't care what it is, just something that makes sense.

At one point, after she successfully worked a defense against me, she commented, "hey, that was really sort of like 'XYZ" tech!" Yup. It wasn't pretty like it's taught, it was only a piece of it, mixed with other stuff, but it really was that tech and it worked.

The form teaches the material in the ideal. It cannot address all variations or circumstances, or it would never end. But it gives you that base to work from. But you still need to be able to adapt it. And it is usually messy and ugly, as fighting really is.

 

[exile]

...wanted to mention Abernethy's short book, Arm-Locks for All Styles, as another venue in which he puts side-by-side photos of a 'pretty' form done in the air to perfection, with photos of the same basic movement used in a 'messy' application on an 'opponent'. It's been very enlightening to me, helping me get out of the form-as-ideal mode, and opening up the form-as-fighting-system way of thinking.

Good point, Mark, I think I ran across a reference to this book somewhere, but it went right out of my head again, for some reason. Thanks for mentioning that source (groan, something else I gotta buy... :uhohh

Abernethy is particularly good at explaining this stuff very sensibly and straightforwardly, with a minimum of mystification or invocation of questionable `hidden moves', and always with a good understanding of the historical background to the technical content he presents.

 

[kidswarrior]

Interesting comment.

My wife is training kenpo alongside with me, and I have been trying to help her with this. She has only been training kenpo since about January, is a yellow belt and will probably test for orange within the next couple weeks or so.

The kenpo curriculum centers around a series of self defense techniques, sort of pre-set responses to specific types of attacks. Many of these techs are also found within our kata, but the techs themselves can sort of be viewed as Mini-kata.

So she has a list of these techs already that we work on, and I let her practice on me to get them right. But of course this is the ideal phase/stage of the tech. So recently I've begun working with her to develop a more spontaneous response.

I have her stand facing away from me. I will attack in some un-announced and random way, bearhug, armlock, grabs, pulls, pushes, chokes, etc., and see how well she can use her techs. Sometimes I tell her to turn around and face me, and I launch an attack from the front, a punch or kick or grab or push from the front. It's not "street intensity", but it's a step in the direction in learning to simply respond effectively to something unexpected and unknown.

I tell her that ideally I would like her to use the techs as taught, but really what is important is that she simply defend herself. If she blanks on her techs, then just DO SOMETHING TO DEFEND YOURSELF! I don't care what it is, just something that makes sense.

At one point, after she successfully worked a defense against me, she commented, "hey, that was really sort of like 'XYZ" tech!" Yup. It wasn't pretty like it's taught, it was only a piece of it, mixed with other stuff, but it really was that tech and it worked.

The form teaches the material in the ideal. It cannot address all variations or circumstances, or it would never end. But it gives you that base to work from. But you still need to be able to adapt it. And it is usually messy and ugly, as fighting really is.

This is exactly what Abernethy illustrates, Michael. Seen side by side, even a dimwit like me can't miss the implications and possibilities. It's just a collection of photos (with explanation) that point to messy applications taken in bits and pieces from precise solo forms such as the exercises you're providing for your wife (wish someone had done that for me at orange belt! You'd think some of my BB instructors would've thought of it--but I doubt many have done so even yet). You're way ahead of my learning curve. :ultracool

 

[arnisador]

Yes, but forms PRACTICE alone is not enough.

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

 

[kidswarrior]

Good point, Mark, I think I ran across a reference to this book somewhere, but it went right out of my head again, for some reason. Thanks for mentioning that source (groan, something else I gotta buy... :uhohh

Well, don't want you tapering off and letting Amazon.com languish...:lfao:

Abernethy is particularly good at explaining this stuff very sensibly and straightforwardly, with a minimum of mystification or invocation of questionable `hidden moves', and always with a good understanding of the historical background to the technical content he presents.

True, but I mostly just look at the pictures, then color in the margins (it's true, my wife'll gladly tell ya')

 

[Flying Crane]

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

good to see you around once in a while, sir.

 

[Flying Crane]

...such as the exercises you're providing for your wife (wish someone had done that for me at orange belt! You'd think some of my BB instructors would've thought of it--but I doubt many have done so even yet). You're way ahead of my learning curve. :ultracool

One of my favorite things she did was a defense against a bearhug from behind, arms pinned. She knows one defense for that, and I came up behind and grabbed her. She spaced out on the defense she knows, but whipped out something else off the cuff. She sort of apologized for doing something "wrong" (she's still getting used to the idea of being spontaneous and sometimes forgets that it's never "wrong" as long as it's effective). The thing is, what she did was very very similar to another of our bearhug defenses, that she hasn't learned yet. I thought it was pretty funny that she apparently has grasped some basic ideas and it just flowed out of her automatically, even tho she hadn't "learned" that one yet. brilliant!

 

[Flying Crane]

...(wish someone had done that for me at orange belt! You'd think some of my BB instructors would've thought of it--but I doubt many have done so even yet). You're way ahead of my learning curve. :ultracool

Actually, this is a drill that I remember from my first kenpo teacher from almost 23 years ago, when I was all of 13 years old. He had another student in the next town over who was teaching his own students. My teacher had visited that school, and apparently they had not been doing this kind of drill. He expressed that he felt our progress was noticably better than the students at the other school. When he tried this with them, they had a lot of difficulty with it, even those with comparable training time as we had.

 

[jks9199]

I can't answer the poll question...

There are different types of forms. Some forms are purely demonstrations; they should embody solid principles of a style, but they're done for show, not to teach. Kind of like precision rifle drill like the USMC Silent Drill Team does; you ain't gonna toss rifles around in combat! Other forms are catalogs of proven approaches and solutions to particular combat problems. These forms do contain the system -- but whether one single form contains an entire system depends a lot on the system.

And, then, there are the ones that are just plain silly like lots of what shows up in XMA events...

 

[Steel Tiger]

"Forms: A total fighting system?" I would certainly like to think so. The style of bagua that I have been taught has an interesting approach to this. There are linear forms which anyone would recognise as a form, kata, what have you, but there is also walking the circle.

Circle walking has forms and palm changes all of its own. These are aimed at teaching the essential movement principles of bagua. I think this is because the movement principles of bagua are so complex that they need to be focused on.

Therefore I have linear forms that emphasise offensive and defensive techniques and circle walking which emphasises the fundamental principles of bagua movement.

As a result I have about half a dozen forms that encompass the entirety of the unarmed aspect of my art, but they are disjoint. So, as Flying Crane has pointed out study of them alone will not garner the understanding of bagua that is essential. They must be examined, combined, pulled apart, and absorbed. A technique done in the form is very different once the bagua movement principles are applied to it.

Is this all a way of hiding the valuable information? Probably, but other styles of bagua don't do things this way.