Improbability of the "Refinement" Theory

[JowGaWolf]

TCMA (never mind VT) is defined by strategic approach and conceptual base.

To the best of my knowledge Jow Ga doesn't have a strategic approach.

If a guy had one arm and came into your school to learn wing chun and because of his one arm he had to alter some of the techniques to fit his limitations, then would he still be doing wing chun? If your school was the only place where he was learning martial arts, then it would mean that he made the changes by understanding Wing Chun techniques that you taught him and how to best use Wing Chun to fight with one arm.

 

[guy b]

If you study the TRUE WSL-VT you will understand and agree. However, if like ...possibly David Peterson? ....you do study WSL-VT and still don't agree with exactly what we say and do, then you obviously either didn't study TRUE WSL long enough, or for some other reason just weren't able to comprehend it.

David Peterson understands how the system should look and he would agree that doing it that way is best. He just can't do it because he hasn't learned long enough.

I later learned from many other folks, including Rene Latosa, and also Martin Torres of DTE, just how universal the core concepts of combat are, and that nobody has the absolute TRUTH. To believe that is arrogant and ignorant in any field of human endeavor.

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In the early years of BJJ in the UK some people from Brazil came over and started teaching it. People enthusiastically joined the classes. After some years questions started being asked about the results of the training. When the real BJJ guys came to the UK (Mauricio Gomez to start), some of the fake teachers had a horrible time and were kicked out. In any system there is doing it right, and doing it wrong. Wrong doesn't work. Of course some variation is possible but the basics need to be there. VT is quite a pared down system and the fact that massive chunks of information are missing from some interpretations does not inspire confidence.

 

[guy b]

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I'll just touch on one example, because the reply to each would be the same. You referred to music. Any good musician will tell you that every musician plays a bit differently, even when they are emulating someone. There's always a significant difference unless they replicate the exact playing for an exact piece of music, and then it gets very close...but never exactly the same. In fact, the same musician won't play it exactly the same twice. Surely you're not going to argue that any instructor teaches every single possible sequence of events to near-exact precision. To do so for only a few score variations of responses would require every waking moment of a lifetime.

None of your responses even come close to explaining how both motor movements AND strategy AND theory can be replicated without error. That's not how the human mind works. If you really need me to, I'll be happy to go pull a couple of juried journal articles that make it clear. It's boring reading, but I'll be happy to pass it along if you actually don't believe it exists.

Within the bounds of acceptable variation, as mentioned in my post, psychomotor skills can be reproduced exactly from teacher to student. When a very tight envelope of variation is required (e.g. brain surgery, fighter piloting), training takes a long time. When a wider envelope is ok (driving) training is shorter. VT training takes a long time.

 

[Transk53]

Another click bait thread then.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Within the bounds of acceptable variation, as mentioned in my post, psychomotor skills can be reproduced exactly from teacher to student. When a very tight envelope of variation is required (e.g. brain surgery, fighter piloting), training takes a long time. When a wider envelope is ok (driving) training is shorter. VT training takes a long time.

Okay, so let's go down that rabbit hole. All you're talking about in that scope is the ability to reproduce the punch. Yes, small bits like that can be reproduced within a reasonable tolerance. But that's not the art, is it? You, yourself, have said that WSL VT is not an application-based art, so exact replication of the specific movements isn't the art. The mental portions (strategy, principles, etc.) and how the movements are selected and stitched together in situ (based upon the correct use and interpretation of the mental portions) would be the art. And that's the part that cannot be replicated exactly.

Either the movements are the entire art (which you've made clear they aren't), or the art - like every other bit of mental learning - cannot be precisely reproduced. Like everything else we learn, WSL VT is affected by the deficiencies in human communication, understanding, comprehension, retention, and recall. It may be cohesive enough to suffer less than other systems, but without removing the humans, you cannot change the fact that transmission is always flawed.

 

[LFJ]

Like everything else we learn, WSL VT is affected by the deficiencies in human communication, understanding, comprehension, retention, and recall. It may be cohesive enough to suffer less than other systems, but without removing the humans, you cannot change the fact that transmission is always flawed.

Did you miss my post about the style in China that split between two villages that have been isolated for 500+ years, but the style has remained remarkably similar despite evolving independently between the two lineages?

It's not impossible to change little even after centuries. I have seen VT through at least 5 generations from YM remain intact. I think it's gonna be fine. All it takes is full learning of the system.

 

[guy b]

Yes, small bits like that can be reproduced within a reasonable tolerance. But that's not the art, is it?

As Philipp Bayer has said, chi sau is the soul of VT. Not learning it in this way is the reason that someone like DP doesn't have the system. It is learned physically and passed from those to have it to those who do not over a long period of time. The physical movement is the main part of the system, yes. It is an automatic error correcting system. It is a work of genius.

The conceptual base and strategic understanding are both simple and profound. Not too hard for anyone to remember once explained. But without the physical, they are nothing.

You, yourself, have said that WSL VT is not an application-based art, so exact replication of the specific movements isn't the art

This is where the fact that you don't understand the learning process of VT is important. Without that understanding you don't know what you are talking about. In this case it is an odd decision to jump in and argue without listening first. It appears as if arguing is more important than learning for you?

The mental portions (strategy, principles, etc.) and how the movements are selected and stitched together in situ (based upon the correct use and interpretation of the mental portions) would be the art. And that's the part that cannot be replicated exactly.

Great, tell me more about this system you don't understand and have never experienced.

 

[guy b]

Either the movements are the entire art (which you've made clear they aren't), or the art - like every other bit of mental learning - cannot be precisely reproduced.

WSL VT is a system that is learned physically. As I have said before, an idiot can learn VT from a good teacher.

Like everything else we learn, WSL VT is affected by the deficiencies in human communication, understanding, comprehension, retention, and recall. It may be cohesive enough to suffer less than other systems, but without removing the humans, you cannot change the fact that transmission is always flawed.

I don't really understand why you are so keen to tell me about WSL VT from your position of no experience, and so resistant to learning anything about it before you comment.

 

[Transk53]

As Philipp Bayer has said, chi sau is the soul of VT. Not learning it in this way is the reason that someone like DP doesn't have the system. It is learned physically and passed from those to have it to those who do not over a long period of time. The physical movement is the main part of the system, yes. It is an automatic error correcting system. It is a work of genius.

The conceptual base and strategic understanding are both simple and profound. Not too hard for anyone to remember once explained. But without the physical, they are nothing.



This is where the fact that you don't understand the learning process of VT is important. Without that understanding you don't know what you are talking about. In this case it is an odd decision to jump in and argue without listening first. It appears as if arguing is more important than learning for you?



Great, tell me more about this system you don't understand and have never experienced.

Poor response Guy B. Why don't you something constructive and elaborate on the latter of the post, rather than pour scorn on anything that does not sit with you?

 

[LFJ]

watch at around the :31 mark...the dude on the left seems to use what you would call a secondary or ancillary(?) action as a primary action to the guys attacking punch.

Not even a secondary/auxiliary action. That was a remedial action used at an inappropriate time.

But that was a snippet from a university lecture and we couldn't see or hear what was being read from the projector just before they said "go".

It was probably a section on timing and showing first what some people expect can be done when using things out of order.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Did you miss my post about the style in China that split between two villages that have been isolated for 500+ years, but the style has remained remarkably similar despite evolving independently between the two lineages?

It's not impossible to change little even after centuries. I have seen VT through at least 5 generations from YM remain intact. I think it's gonna be fine. All it takes is full learning of the system.

I never said it was impossible for it to change little. I said it was impossible for it to be transmitted perfectly. Again, if we are looking at the movements, those can, in fact, proceed without change. Mind you, a lack of change over 500 years speaks of a lack of evolution and a clinging to what once worked regardless of changing circumstances, which in my opinion, leads to obsolescence. But that's a different issue. If the strategy and choices made remained quite close, that's a remarkable example, and probably speaks to over-limiting of choices. If we rule out enough options, then there are only a certain number of variations that can result, and statistically speaking we should expect to occasionally see the same procession between some unconnected lines. A single case study doesn't overturn the principle. "Statistically unlikely" does not equate to "impossible", so while it is highly unlikely to have two unconnected lines to find the same result after 500 years, it's not impossible, even with the small changes that will inevitably occur along the way.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

As Philipp Bayer has said, chi sau is the soul of VT. Not learning it in this way is the reason that someone like DP doesn't have the system. It is learned physically and passed from those to have it to those who do not over a long period of time. The physical movement is the main part of the system, yes. It is an automatic error correcting system. It is a work of genius.

The conceptual base and strategic understanding are both simple and profound. Not too hard for anyone to remember once explained. But without the physical, they are nothing.



This is where the fact that you don't understand the learning process of VT is important. Without that understanding you don't know what you are talking about. In this case it is an odd decision to jump in and argue without listening first. It appears as if arguing is more important than learning for you?



Great, tell me more about this system you don't understand and have never experienced.

You're dancing around the fact that people simply cannot transmit anything exactly from one person to another. With ONLY physical motion, it can get close, but never exact (especially given the differences between individual human bodies). You can say that the physical motion leads to the strategy, but that's ignoring the fact that the strategy is actually NOT physical motion, but a concept, and concepts are more problematic in transmission. Your reference to the teaching styles is not pertinent. I don't need to know HOW it is taught, nor to understand the system in order to make the statements I make. My statements are based upon the science and research about how the human brain works. That is fact, and your attempt to point at what I don't know doesn't change that.

Here's a last attempt to bring this discussion back to a logical flow: If an engineer can calculate the strain a load produces on a support beam, given the characteristics of the load and the beam, he doesn't need to understand the geology of the ground the edifice is constructed upon to be able to state that the beam cannot support the load. Bad geology (unstable ground, etc.) could make it less likely to support the load, but no amount of fantastically good geology can make a beam capable of supporting a load it otherwise could not. My statements have to do with whether the beam can support the load, and you're arguing that the geology is so good in the area that the beam's ability to support the load is irrelevant. A change in the structure of the edifice could change the calculations in favor of the beam, but the geology cannot.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

WSL VT is a system that is learned physically. As I have said before, an idiot can learn VT from a good teacher.



I don't really understand why you are so keen to tell me about WSL VT from your position of no experience, and so resistant to learning anything about it before you comment.

I've not tried to tell you anything about WSL VT. I've simply commented that it is subject to the same limitations as EVERYTHING humans teach and learn. There are no exceptions to that, so I don't need to know anything about WSL VT, nor even about martial arts, to be able to make the statements I make.

 

[guy b]

With ONLY physical motion, it can get close

VT is transmitted by physical motion. Base concept is written down for the avoidance of error. Strategy is simple, and written down for reference.

I don't need to know HOW it is taught, nor to understand the system in order to make the statements I make.

You do need to know, since VT is transmitted physically. Within the envelope of error that is acceptable to VT, transmission can be exact. It just takes a long time.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

VT is transmitted by physical motion. Base concept is written down for the avoidance of error. Strategy is simple, and written down for reference.



You do need to know, since VT is transmitted physically. Within the envelope of error that is acceptable to VT, transmission can be exact. It just takes a long time.

Okay, since you've chosen to ignore the pertinent sections of my last two replies, I'll just accept that you're not interested in understanding the concept. As long as what you're doing works for you, there's no reason you need to.

 

[guy b]

My statements have to do with whether the beam can support the load, and you're arguing that the geology is so good in the area that the beam's ability to support the load is irrelevant. A change in the structure of the edifice could change the calculations in favor of the beam, but the geology cannot.

You are assuming that VT is built in the normal way with beams and whatever. It is not.

 

[guy b]

Okay, since you've chosen to ignore the pertinent sections of my last two replies, I'll just accept that you're not interested in understanding the concept. As long as what you're doing works for you, there's no reason you need to.

You are avoiding the fact that VT is transmitted physically. Psychomotor skills can be transmitted exactly to within an acceptable envelope of error, which you already agreed. You seem to want me to say that VT is something it is not now.

 

[guy b]

Disagree x 1 gpseymour

Lol, what are you disagreeing about? You said it yourself:

Again, if we are looking at the movements, those can, in fact, proceed without change.

Go and give yourself a big red x as well please

 

[guy b]

Poor response Guy B. Why don't you something constructive and elaborate on the latter of the post

The bit about chi sau is elaboration

 

[guy b]

You can say that the physical motion leads to the strategy, but that's ignoring the fact that the strategy is actually NOT physical motion, but a concept, and concepts are more problematic in transmission.

Strategy is automatic in VT, it comes out via the physical training. It isn't something that needs to be pondered or consciously thought about. The only people approaching VT in this kind of "if this, then this" manner are those who never learned correctly and who are filling the gaps.