No style

Kung Fu Wang

Sr. Grandmaster
MT Mentor
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You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick - front kick, side kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, hook kick, spin hook kick, inside crescent kick, outside crescent kick, tornado kick, jump front kick, ...,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?
 
Last edited:
You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?
For me the style would still exist. It's less about what I do and more about how I do it that makes it Jow Ga
 
Style is not so much about what techniques are included... but how those techniques are used. What is your goal? What strategies and tactics are you going to use to get there?

BJJ and Judo have many techniques in common... but one focuses more on the throw, the other on the groundwork after the throw. This is a difference in style... its a different goal, using different strategies and different tactics.

Karate and TKD both want to knock the guy out. One wants to do so with a kick, the other will take a kick or punch. Same goal this time, but different preferred tactics... requiring different strategies... this means different styles.

You can have all the techniques in the world... but if you don't know how or when to use them or how they fit together... it won't do much good. Style is about how you assemble your techniques. What you are trying to do and how you want to go about doing it... is what the style is all about.
 
Same goal this time, but different preferred tactics... requiring different strategies...
You can add into that list with:

- strategy,
- principle,
- ...

It's still a finite list.

Why can't we come up with a book that include all the information from all MA systems?
 
You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?
A "style" is just an approach to training. It's really just a shorthand term for an organized version of the stuff you wrote on that piece of paper.
 
You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick - front kick, side kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, hook kick, spin hook kick, inside crescent kick, outside crescent kick, tornado kick, jump front kick, ...,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?

So are you an expert in all of this? Are you better at some things than others. Are you just mediocre at everything?

Why is 1 punching, 5 locks, and 7 ground game? Why not make ground game, locks, and throws first?

How do you teach these? Do you teach everything at once? Or in manageable chunks?

This is what makes a style.
 
Style smyle, striking arts are punch, kick and all the other stuff particular to whatever school you train in. And I’m convinced that if you have a decent instructor and you’re a fairly dedicated student, you’re going to be successful. Just have to put the time/years in.

I believe there’s a lot of unnecessary complication in the world of striking arts. I’ve trained in a lot of styles, have belts in most of them, but at the end of the day getting punched in the mouth or kicked in the head pretty much feels the same way. Just makes me want to block or evade better.
 
So are you an expert in all of this? Are you better at some things than others. Are you just mediocre at everything?

Why is 1 punching, 5 locks, and 7 ground game? Why not make ground game, locks, and throws first?

How do you teach these? Do you teach everything at once? Or in manageable chunks?

This is what makes a style.

I don’t think @Kung Fu Wang was listing these things in order of importance, he was just listing them.

I also agree with his post.
 
You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick - front kick, side kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, hook kick, spin hook kick, inside crescent kick, outside crescent kick, tornado kick, jump front kick, ...,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?
I have found 'style' to be a mental roadblock. Too many people are selling one for me to buy.

Train attributes, not styles, to be the best version of yourself.
 
Train attributes, not styles, to be the best version of yourself.

I agree, pre planned statergies, are just that, training a style limits your movement to the peramiters of that style, move how you are supposed to move, and pressure test, pressure test, pressure test, build your skills around yourself.
 
I agree, pre planned statergies, are just that, training a style limits your movement to the peramiters of that style, move how you are supposed to move, and pressure test, pressure test, pressure test, build your skills around yourself.

I think this is fine and dandy for those who have a lot of experience and know which rules to break.

This is very bad advice for a beginner.
 
move how you are supposed to move, ...
If you move "how you are supposed to move" and not "move how you feel like to move", you are follow a "plan".

- Without a plan, when your opponent punches you, you will punch back.
- With a plan, when your opponent punches you, you will kick back (leg is longer than arm).
 
If you move "how you are supposed to move" and not "move how you feel like to move", you are follow a "plan".

- Without a plan, when your opponent punches you, you will punch back.
- With a plan, when your opponent punches you, you will kick back (leg is longer than arm).

I mean, many people have a plan to punch back.
 
I mean, many people have a plan to punch back.
As long as you have a plan, if your plan help you to succeed in the past 100 matches, it may help you to succeed in your 101 match.

Plan means you know your own strength and weakness.

An old man told me his life long plan. When the match start, he will use his leading leg to touch his opponent's leading leg (establish leg contact). He then touch his hands around his opponent's wrists (establish arm contact). The match will start from there. I like that plan very much.
 
People have many reasons for training Martial Arts:

- self defence
- tornement fighting
- mastery of an art

If your goal is to master an art, then it serves no purpose to mix, it would be like mixing Jazz and Tap Dancing, or Piano and Guitar. I'm not saying you can't become an amazing fighter by mixing, but one must set ones goals: choose mastery and being a good fighter or choose mixing and being a possibly better fighter- possibly.

You can find a piece of paper and write down all the

1. punch - jab, cross, hook, uppercut, back fist, hammer fist, side punch, ...,
2. kick - front kick, side kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, hook kick, spin hook kick, inside crescent kick, outside crescent kick, tornado kick, jump front kick, ...,
3. footwork,
4. block,
5. lock,
6. throw,
7. ground game,
8. ...

After that, the term "style" will have no meaning to you. Your thought?
e
 
If your goal is to master an art, then it serves no purpose to mix,
If a WC guy is good in protecting his center from inside out, do you think he is not interested in protecting his center from outside in?

If I can write a program in C, I would like to know what will be the PRO and CON if I can write it in C++.
 
This is very bad advice for a beginner.

I don't think this is bad advice for a beginner, know yourself, and be yourself truly, overcome your fears, master yourself mentally and physically. Try not to fight, but know it's Ok to, if you have to.If a beginner believes to be able to defend themselves properly, they need a preconceived, or planned stratergy, then very quickly they will be in for a suprise. To go into a fight, thinking I'm gonna feint the left, strike with the right, and as they recoil I will move in for a sweep or a leg grab, are going to get hurt.
 
If I can write a program in C, I would like to know what will be the PRO and CON if I can write it in C++.
Okay. Lets make a book that has all the languages in it: C, C++, Fortran, Cobal, Pascal, Lua, Python, Ada, Basic... The book will have all the instructions for all the languages, all the keywords, all the particulars. But, having that book, or even reading that book won't make you a great software engineer. You need to have more than just all the instructions for all the languages. (you even need more than all the data structures and coding patterns)

You need to learn how to use each thing. How to use the basic things to make the more complicated things. You also need to know when you are making things too complicated. Its also very easy to get hyper focused on one thing or one aspect... and end writing terrible code, even though it compiles and runs.

This programming analogy is actually pretty good. When you learn to code, you learn in a small set of languages. If you learn correctly, you learn how to engineer software. Pretty soon you don't care what language you use. You care that you are using the right language to solve the problem at hand. The different languages are better at solving different kinds of problems. When teaching people to code, they are never taught all languages. They are taught one or two, possibly three... most of the time will be spent in one language though. Once they go out and start coding for real, picking up another language is not so hard, if you know how to engineer software.

Are you going to learn to code in Java? C? C++? Pascal? Fortran? All of these styles of coding have produced great software engineers, many of whom write code in many other languages than what they studied in. Conversely, I have seen people learn things just to collect "coding tricks"... they write code that "works" but is truly horrific code, because they were more concerned with using the new trick, than they were about engineering the correct solution.
 
I don't think this is bad advice for a beginner, know yourself, and be yourself truly, overcome your fears, master yourself mentally and physically. Try not to fight, but know it's Ok to, if you have to.If a beginner believes to be able to defend themselves properly, they need a preconceived, or planned stratergy, then very quickly they will be in for a suprise. To go into a fight, thinking I'm gonna feint the left, strike with the right, and as they recoil I will move in for a sweep or a leg grab, are going to get hurt.

To tell a beginner, who has no concept of footwork, a rudimentary understanding of striking, and no training in the finer details of grappling to just go and figure it out? Why bother having instructors at that point?
 
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