What Good are Forms?

[JowGaWolf]

De escalation is not commonly taught. Nor is it fully viable in all situations.

De escalation techniques are big money. Law enforcement gets training in that all the time, because shooting up the place should never be the only option.

De escalation is viable in all situations. Even in fighting. Here's an example

When anyone comes in to try to break up a fight they are using de-escalation techniques. Here's another example,

De-escalation should always be used when possible. Because it greatly reduces your risks. Here are some quotes from the Art of war that follow along those lines.

• The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
• Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
• If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need to do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.

All three are shown in this video. People expect certain reactions but when they get something that's not what they are expecting then they really don't know how to handle it.

De-escalation isn't about being afraid, it's about taking control of a hostile situation by reducing your attacker's desire and will to fight you or someone else. There are many ways to accomplish this.

The point of de-escalation isn't about not getting hit or attack. If that's why a person uses it then they wont be successful. But if the person understands that it's about taking control of a hostile situation, he or she will be more successful with it.

 

[CB Jones]

makes some smug remark

Wasnt intended to be smug.

Just that often times we miss the actual intent or purpose of something...but that does not mean the intent or purpose does not exist.

 

[JowGaWolf]

While true, the danger is in people who think that the performance of pretty forms translates into fighting ability.

That's definitely the risk, especially when the school helps create that image. But it looks like it's been getting better. MMA help set the standard of what it looks like to train to fight. Gives people a good reference for comparison.

 

[JowGaWolf]

That's definitely the risk, especially when the school helps create that image. But it looks like it's been getting better. MMA help set the standard of what it looks like to train to fight. Gives people a good reference for comparison.

Ignore the bob cat. It's from a different response I was typing right before the power went off.

 

[Mitlov]

So some dude that doesn't train in anything makes some smug remark that the guy that came up in a form heavy ma 'doesnt understand their purpose' because he doesn't like me calling ******** on his sons hobby.

And some sensitive Nancy offers me a dislike and a scolding for it.

Am I supposed to care?

So to be clear, when someone says your post was rude and unproductive, you swear about somebody else's children and also call someone you don't know a Nancy?

If you want to convince people on an internet forum that your opinions have value, this is an interesting strategy.

For the record, there's a big difference between saying "the forms training in my old style had no value for me" and "no style's forms training could have any value for anyone."

 

[Mitlov]

Ignore the bob cat. It's from a different response I was typing right before the power went off.

This is bad advice. Never ignore the bobcat. They're stealthy predators.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Further, I do understand the purpose of forms and kata. To convolute and extend training times to keep the sensei dollars rolling in. As it has been for generations now.

Why teach in a week what they will pay you 200 bucks a month for a year to learn right?

Again, a blanket statement. I challenge you to make that make ANY sense regarding my use of forms, for instance.

Forms have many uses. I know pretty much nothing of your training, so I can't say whether the forms were used well or not with you. I do know that you entirely dismiss them - as a whole - on arguments that don't hold universally true. And often your argument is along the lines of "There are other ways to do that", which is fine, but is also true of literally every drill and training exercise ever used.

Forms can be used to extend training times, keep people dangling between ranks, etc. But where I've seen them, the instructors had real purpose in their use, evident in the way they practiced them, themselves.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This is bad advice. Never ignore the bobcat. They're stealthy predators.

Sage advice.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

REMINDER TO ALL POSTERS:

Insults and baiting are contrary to the guidelines you agreed to when you registered. Continued action along this course may result in thread locking, warnings, and/or points.

-------------
Gerry Seymour
Martial Talk Moderator
@gpseymour

 

[pdg]

Also the irony is i used something from a TKD form once in light free sparring and i hurt myself more than i hurt the other person. It was a knife hand step back to the foot. Also i don't really know the point in the TKD forms, granted not asked about 4 directional punch/block but from me thinking about it i came to my own conclusion, and the move i used was from a version of that. (trying not to dox myself so i have to keep the sub orginsiation out as its a semi small sub group of ITF)

And i do know the 4 directional punch and block, i have done it enough times i just need a refresher more than anything. Its not really directly applicable to fighting.

Yeah, that sounds like you tried to use a knife hand low block...

It's a valid technique once you know how and where to apply it. And how to shape your hand (protip, it's not dead straight).

The 4 direction punch and 4 direction block exercises aren't considered patterns (forms/kata/whatever), they're just introductory exercises to familiarise yourself with the most basic of movements.

You saying you don't know the point in the forms is mostly down to you having only done a few lessons - no white to yellow belt is going to have an in depth discussion as to "the point".

 

[JowGaWolf]

It's a valid technique once you know how and where to apply it.

I went through a lot of this type of learning. I knew the motions of the technique but didn't know how, where, and when to apply it.. It took quite a bit of trial and effort to figure it out.

The biggest thing I notice is that the "demo" of what a technique is used for isn't always the most practical use for that technique. I'm not sure how that came to be.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

Yeah, that sounds like you tried to use a knife hand low block...

i did and i aint doing that again. It hurt like hell.

It was taught as part of the form in the style i went to though as a counter kick action. If i needed any neuances etc to do it right, then it should have been taught upon introduction to the knife hand to the foot, not at a later date, that is just stupid to me. Why introduce someone to a technique and not teach them how to do it right?

It how ever was not into another TKD style i tried, the former being a ITF offshoot. but then the latter style had me do the reset to belt punch each time.

As above i would rather practical application for the pattern be taught there and then or else there is no point, whats the point if you learn it 4 belts away? you are just doing it wrong for those 4 belts and if you ever need it you dont have it. I think there was a case in American kempo where there was a technique in a form that they learnt two belts from learning the form with it in, thats just silly. By that i meant the form was first then learning the technique in it.

i would call it a introductory pattern, as it is listed under patterns. And that is basically the conclusion i came to as to why it exists. you could also just get me to walk forwards and backwards and not bother with a pattern for it... (or the official/formal naming of it)

Obviously i lean towards not liking patterns, i understand their point etc they just have to be done right and introduced right, plenty of less savory places have used belts to milk people out of money. That doesnt mean i hate them, i just dont like them.
Also skimming back up, you know someone is going to want to try all this in actual situations so its probably better to teach them how to not hurt themselves doing it ASAP.

Edit: And yes, some of these are probably mitigated if i got a belt or something in one of the styles. I might give it another shot at a later date, that is TKD.


Also @JowGaWolf My point wasnt that it doesn't work, but rather its not appropriate in some situations, if someones kicked in your door, you are probably going to want to meet them with force 9/10 times rather than try to talk them out of not doing what ever they were planning on doing after they kicked your door in. Or if someone refused to leave your property your going to have to move them. (or call the police to remove them)

 

[pdg]

@Rat - well there's the problem really.

You want everything right now and don't seem at all prepared to do any work toward it. By not bothering to do more than a few lessons you won't learn much of any use at all.

It's the same in almost anything I can think of - a few introductory classes give you a couple of basics that could be developed into something useful later, but in isolation aren't much good.

You can stop/deflect a kick with a knife hand 'block', but the instructors are using the exercise to get you to move the correct foot rather than instant application.

(Btw, the 4 direction exercises, all 3 of them, aren't listed under patterns - they're called fundamental exercises...)

 

[skribs]

i did and i aint doing that again. It hurt like hell.

It was taught as part of the form in the style i went to though as a counter kick action. If i needed any neuances etc to do it right, then it should have been taught upon introduction to the knife hand to the foot, not at a later date, that is just stupid to me. Why introduce someone to a technique and not teach them how to do it right?

It how ever was not into another TKD style i tried, the former being a ITF offshoot. but then the latter style had me do the reset to belt punch each time.

As above i would rather practical application for the pattern be taught there and then or else there is no point, whats the point if you learn it 4 belts away? you are just doing it wrong for those 4 belts and if you ever need it you dont have it. I think there was a case in American kempo where there was a technique in a form that they learnt two belts from learning the form with it in, thats just silly. By that i meant the form was first then learning the technique in it.

i would call it a introductory pattern, as it is listed under patterns. And that is basically the conclusion i came to as to why it exists. you could also just get me to walk forwards and backwards and not bother with a pattern for it... (or the official/formal naming of it)

Obviously i lean towards not liking patterns, i understand their point etc they just have to be done right and introduced right, plenty of less savory places have used belts to milk people out of money. That doesnt mean i hate them, i just dont like them.
Also skimming back up, you know someone is going to want to try all this in actual situations so its probably better to teach them how to not hurt themselves doing it ASAP.

Edit: And yes, some of these are probably mitigated if i got a belt or something in one of the styles. I might give it another shot at a later date, that is TKD.


Also @JowGaWolf My point wasnt that it doesn't work, but rather its not appropriate in some situations, if someones kicked in your door, you are probably going to want to meet them with force 9/10 times rather than try to talk them out of not doing what ever they were planning on doing after they kicked your door in. Or if someone refused to leave your property your going to have to move them. (or call the police to remove them)

This is why I've told you in numerous posts you have to train. You can't learn all of the nuances as a white belt. It's impossible. There is so much information a martial art can give you, you can't learn it in one class. I've been taking Taekwondo for over 10 years, I've been putting in 15+ hour weeks at the dojang for 5 of those years, and I am still learning things.

You can't take a month of classes and know all of the stuff you need to know. It takes time to learn everything, it takes time to train.

You want everything now, right in front of you. You want to know how to fight after just a few classes. It's not going to happen. It takes years and years of training in any art to develop that proficiency. It takes experience to be able to read other people, it takes sparring and drills to know your timing and distance, and it takes practice with the techniques to hone them into something correct.

Most white belts don't do techniques correctly. They have poor timing, distancing, angles. They have sloppy technique that makes them more likely to hurt themselves. They kick roundhouse kicks with the side of their foot, they kick with their toes, they have loose fists, all sorts of bad habits that get weeded out over years and years of practice. A white belt should never be going full force on a pad or another person, because they are more likely to hurt themselves. A white belt needs the patience to work on their techniques before moving on.

The white belt curriculum teaches you the foundational skills you will need. As you advance through the ranks, you will learn more about those skills:

• How to do them properly
• How to add in speed and power
• Get rid of bad habits
• How to do them in combination with each other
• How to apply them in different scenarios

This takes time, and it doesn't come all at once. A white belt is already "drinking from a firehose" in terms of how much info we throw at you. There's no way you can learn this all at once. It's just like language. You don't expect a three year old who can barely say "I'm hungwy, I want bweakfast" to be able to read Shakespear. It takes time to learn the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of the words, it takes time to learn grammar and sentence structure, and to be able to piece more and more complicated concepts together into a story.

You've been on this forum over a year now. If you would have kept up with the classes when you started here, like we recommended, you would be well on your way to that journey. You would have learned a lot more about the techniques you're learning. It's not about keeping it secret from you, it's not about milking money from you. It's about teaching you things when you're ready for them, instead of overloading you with everything at the start.

I mean, it sucks that you got hurt. But it's not because you were taught wrong, it's not because the curriculum is bad. It's because you tried to get ahead of yourself instead of trusting the lesson plan.

 

[skribs]

@Rat - well there's the problem really.

You want everything right now and don't seem at all prepared to do any work toward it. By not bothering to do more than a few lessons you won't learn much of any use at all.

It's the same in almost anything I can think of - a few introductory classes give you a couple of basics that could be developed into something useful later, but in isolation aren't much good.

You can stop/deflect a kick with a knife hand 'block', but the instructors are using the exercise to get you to move the correct foot rather than instant application.

(Btw, the 4 direction exercises, all 3 of them, aren't listed under patterns - they're called fundamental exercises...)

Whether they're "exercises" or "patterns" is largely school-specific, in my understanding. (Unless you trained at the same school).

As I hinted at in my post above, you learn more about the blocks in drills and training. A low knife-hand block (which isn't in any of our forms until later on, we use a low closed-fist block in our basic and intermediate patterns) can cause you to be injured in a variety of ways:

• If your hand is loose
• If you catch the shin instead of the thigh
• If you hit with your fingers instead of your wrist/blade

Like you said, pdg, it takes time. Which he didn't want to spend, and now he's a year behind where he could have been.

 

[pdg]

Whether they're "exercises" or "patterns" is largely school-specific, in my understanding. (Unless you trained at the same school).

It's how they're listed in the encyclopedia of taekwon-do, so not school specific at all.

If you're ITF, that's how they are.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

You want everything right now and don't seem at all prepared to do any work toward it. By not bothering to do more than a few lessons you won't learn much of any use at all.

Thats not the case, i haven't really found a style which fits me due to lack of accessibility to them. i have also done TKD for 1-2 (maybe 3) years on and off, earlier i did more big bulks of it than i did later or it was usually a bulk sessions time off, bulk etc. I just don't really like the belt system to begin with and all of that.

Fundamentally speaking, i don't think the training system for TKD fits for someone focused on learning to fight 9/10 times. And in addition to that, i still stand by you learning any technique done in your form for your belt level, if you don't learn it, it shouldn't be in your belt, seems like wasted space.

And if you compare training time and where people are on average between styles and systems where does TKD sit with others for fighting on average? You cant really look from the top of it as the validity for it as a begginer, if it takes 4 years to get sufficient skills to fight someone and thats your focus and you need it before the 4 years are up? pretty much screwed, where as other places might give you it in a quicker time frame so mitigate that issue. Taking into account you are going to have to supplement some of these with some grappling component to account for that sector and cost in both hours and money to learn that to a sufficient degree and how well it will blend etc.


Also i might give it another shot, me falling out of doing is a mix of a disdain with the style and its training method and personal reasons, probably going to do some boxing sessions to get fundamentals in that then go back to it so i at least have a good standard of punching and the rest of the things boxing teaches. What would honestly be enough time to scout out TKD to see what it offers? at what approx belt rank would it be where i get to see the fundamental full picture?

I mean, it sucks that you got hurt. But it's not because you were taught wrong, it's not because the curriculum is bad. It's because you tried to get ahead of yourself instead of trusting the lesson plan.

i would state, it was me trying to apply a TKD technique in a light sparring match, which you should expect anyone who takes it serious to try to do. Like you would expect someone who does boxing to try and weave, hook uppercut etc if they spar someone.

I do honestly think the training in TKD takes too long for what it delivers. I dont want to have to give 4 years of time to get the fundamentals down, this isnt a degree of mastery it is the fundamentals of how to fight someone else. Granted you cant learn it over night, but there is a clear disparity in training regimes as people seems to learn it quicker in some places than others on average. (taking into account time dumped in the styles and personal intelligence etc)

I have also covered both of these above in some capacity as i have combined the responses. Im not entirely sure if this is still ontopic for this thread as its more issues with one style more than forms as a whole.


Oh and the amount of offshoots for TKD annoys me. It gets confusing after a while.

 

[Headhunter]

i would state, it was me trying to apply a TKD technique in a light sparring match, which you should expect anyone who takes it serious to try to do. Like you would expect someone who does boxing to try and weave, hook uppercut etc if they spar someone.

Yeah but that's the thing you didn't take it serious...you did it on and off for 1-2 years your words. That's not taking it serious so of course you haven't got the technique worked properly because you never put the work in for it

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

i did and i aint doing that again. It hurt like hell.

It was taught as part of the form in the style i went to though as a counter kick action. If i needed any neuances etc to do it right, then it should have been taught upon introduction to the knife hand to the foot, not at a later date, that is just stupid to me. Why introduce someone to a technique and not teach them how to do it right?

It how ever was not into another TKD style i tried, the former being a ITF offshoot. but then the latter style had me do the reset to belt punch each time.

As above i would rather practical application for the pattern be taught there and then or else there is no point, whats the point if you learn it 4 belts away? you are just doing it wrong for those 4 belts and if you ever need it you dont have it. I think there was a case in American kempo where there was a technique in a form that they learnt two belts from learning the form with it in, thats just silly. By that i meant the form was first then learning the technique in it.

i would call it a introductory pattern, as it is listed under patterns. And that is basically the conclusion i came to as to why it exists. you could also just get me to walk forwards and backwards and not bother with a pattern for it... (or the official/formal naming of it)

Obviously i lean towards not liking patterns, i understand their point etc they just have to be done right and introduced right, plenty of less savory places have used belts to milk people out of money. That doesnt mean i hate them, i just dont like them.
Also skimming back up, you know someone is going to want to try all this in actual situations so its probably better to teach them how to not hurt themselves doing it ASAP.

Edit: And yes, some of these are probably mitigated if i got a belt or something in one of the styles. I might give it another shot at a later date, that is TKD.


Also @JowGaWolf My point wasnt that it doesn't work, but rather its not appropriate in some situations, if someones kicked in your door, you are probably going to want to meet them with force 9/10 times rather than try to talk them out of not doing what ever they were planning on doing after they kicked your door in. Or if someone refused to leave your property your going to have to move them. (or call the police to remove them)

I disagree with just about every sentence in this, and dont have the energy to explain why.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Thats not the case, i haven't really found a style which fits me due to lack of accessibility to them. i have also done TKD for 1-2 (maybe 3) years on and off, earlier i did more big bulks of it than i did later or it was usually a bulk sessions time off, bulk etc. I just don't really like the belt system to begin with and all of that.

Fundamentally speaking, i don't think the training system for TKD fits for someone focused on learning to fight 9/10 times. And in addition to that, i still stand by you learning any technique done in your form for your belt level, if you don't learn it, it shouldn't be in your belt, seems like wasted space.

And if you compare training time and where people are on average between styles and systems where does TKD sit with others for fighting on average? You cant really look from the top of it as the validity for it as a begginer, if it takes 4 years to get sufficient skills to fight someone and thats your focus and you need it before the 4 years are up? pretty much screwed, where as other places might give you it in a quicker time frame so mitigate that issue. Taking into account you are going to have to supplement some of these with some grappling component to account for that sector and cost in both hours and money to learn that to a sufficient degree and how well it will blend etc.


Also i might give it another shot, me falling out of doing is a mix of a disdain with the style and its training method and personal reasons, probably going to do some boxing sessions to get fundamentals in that then go back to it so i at least have a good standard of punching and the rest of the things boxing teaches. What would honestly be enough time to scout out TKD to see what it offers? at what approx belt rank would it be where i get to see the fundamental full picture?




i would state, it was me trying to apply a TKD technique in a light sparring match, which you should expect anyone who takes it serious to try to do. Like you would expect someone who does boxing to try and weave, hook uppercut etc if they spar someone.

I do honestly think the training in TKD takes too long for what it delivers. I dont want to have to give 4 years of time to get the fundamentals down, this isnt a degree of mastery it is the fundamentals of how to fight someone else. Granted you cant learn it over night, but there is a clear disparity in training regimes as people seems to learn it quicker in some places than others on average. (taking into account time dumped in the styles and personal intelligence etc)

I have also covered both of these above in some capacity as i have combined the responses. Im not entirely sure if this is still ontopic for this thread as its more issues with one style more than forms as a whole.


Oh and the amount of offshoots for TKD annoys me. It gets confusing after a while.

How old were you when you trained tkd for 1-3 years? Reason i ask is, like i said in another thread recently, theres a difference between training at 4-7 years old vs 10-12 vs 15-18 vs. 20s vs. Above.

And the amount of detail a 4 year old is taught is different than a 15 year old, since at 4 you're still learning basic motor skills.