I taught myself a form today...

[hkfuie]

I have to teach myself all my forms at this point. Then when I get together with my instructor he can make corrections.

I have my own ideas on them, too, so I really enjoy bringing my own point of view to the table. Even if he doesn't agree with me, he appreciates that I am actively learning new things. That's encouraged in our tradition at BB.

I usually use printouts and a find a video on youtube that I can tolerate. Using them both usually gets me close enough to maximize my time with my instructor.

 

[Makalakumu]

Out of sheer curiousity, what form did you teach yourself?

Kong Sang Koon. I was going to learn this form and O Sip Sa Bo before I left MN and my teacher, but we could never get together to make this happen. I've been looking for TSD instructors here in Hawaii, but its not a very common art out here...as weird as that sounds. Also, I'm not really interested in this or that federations version of the art anyway.

 

[Tez3]

Kong San Goon I've done before in it's other guise as Kushanku. It's one of the ones I have done on my own as it's fairly easy to change the moves from Wado to TSD, along with the applications.

 

[Xue Sheng]

What does every one think? Would you ever teach yourself a form? If so, under what circumstances? If not, why not?

Back when I was training Changquan (Long Fist) I got a video called Chung I Chuan and I taught myself the form but it was a best hollow without the basics to go with it

 

[Tez3]

The beauty of Kang San Goon though is that it's basically made up of all the other kata you will have done as a lower grade so you have all the building blocks plus the plan to put it together, the problem is as with all katas/forms/patterns learning the order of the movements. If you have done TSD before this form is probably the easiest to teach yourself.

 

[Makalakumu]

The beauty of Kang San Goon though is that it's basically made up of all the other kata you will have done as a lower grade so you have all the building blocks plus the plan to put it together, the problem is as with all katas/forms/patterns learning the order of the movements. If you have done TSD before this form is probably the easiest to teach yourself.

This is a good point and its one of the reasons why I decided to tackle it by myself. The other thing to consider is that most TSD doesn't teach application any way. I've had to go elsewhere or learn these by myself.

 

[Tez3]

This is a good point and its one of the reasons why I decided to tackle it by myself. The other thing to consider is that most TSD doesn't teach application any way. I've had to go elsewhere or learn these by myself.

I found Jin Do easy to learn by myself too because that's the same as Chinto more or less. At risk of offending anyone I have to say the TSD forms are less complicated than the Wado ones. I don't know if anyone else finds this?
I get all my applications knowledge from Iain Abernethy's videos, books and forum. He does a free magazine Jissen as well.
And I've even plucked up the courage to actually go on one of his seminars, I spoke to him via his forum and am looking forward to training with him sometime early next year.

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is a good point and its one of the reasons why I decided to tackle it by myself. The other thing to consider is that most TSD doesn't teach application any way. I've had to go elsewhere or learn these by myself.

If you have an extensive background in a style you can teach yourself a form. Not necessarily as good as you would get with a teacher but you could do it. If someone already knows Chen Laojia Yilu and if I decided to go learn Chen Zhenglei's 19 or Chen Xiaowang's 38 it is likely they could do it quite easily. And if they had a good understanding of either the 19 or the 38 it is likely they could figure out Laojia Yilu but it would be a bit more difficult take a lot of attention to detail and one would have to be quite diligent. And even after that I would suggest finding a teacher to correct the form.

But knowing Laojia Yilu I would not recommend trying to learn Laojia Erlu or any of the Xinjia or Xiojia forms on your own

 

[Lynne]

Last night, we worked on the first half of Chil-Sung Sam. I have our school's Chil-Sung DVD and am going to see if I can learn the rest of the form from the DVD.

This week we aren't working on Passei Sol, so I am going to see if I can learn it from the red belt DVD and the red belt book.

I expect to be baffled but maybe I can at least familiarize myself with new movements (like that crane stance in Chil-Sung Sam).

 

[Gi1]

I'm planning on teaching myself one too, I'll go over it intensively with Masters when I've learnt the moves. What hyung is it that you taught yourself?

 

[JWLuiza]

I taught myself Gojushiho Dai (what O Sip Sa Bo hyung is derived from). I find it easy now with youtube, friends in other styles and a broad base in my art. It took about an hour to get the whole sequence down, obviously longer to get it fully up to speed.