Your own form

[tshadowchaser]

How many have made up their own form? I'm sure most of us have at one time.
Was it made up because of a requirement in your system or just because you wanted to?
Looking back at that form how many times do you think you have changed it over time?
Do you still do that form and have you taught it to anyone else

 

[clfsean]

How many have made up their own form? I'm sure most of us have at one time.
Was it made up because of a requirement in your system or just because you wanted to?
Looking back at that form how many times do you think you have changed it over time?
Do you still do that form and have you taught it to anyone else

Nope... I have enough to do as it is without adding to mix.

 

[mook jong man]

I would not be so presumptuous as to think that I could add anything of value that had not already been thought of by all those that have came before me.

 

[Omar B]

We have this in Seido, it's called (and forgive my spelling) Techneshiai (tech -nee- shi - ai), pronounce that phonetically and you'll have it. But basically we are sometimes given assignments to create a kata showing offensive and defensive maneuvers you have learned at your current belt level and we are usually asked to keep it in the standard "I" formation.

 

[rlobrecht]

Our school requires this for 1st kub and up grading.

 

[Namii]

Never had to. I have enough forms as is to remember and improve on.

 

[shima]

I've always done a custom form for weapons when I do my Iaido. Since the iaido forms are so short, I like doing a combination of 2-4 iaido forms and then a free style portion to stitch it all together. But that's purely for tournament purposes. I don't do my own forms at the school.

 

[fyn5000]

In Taijiquan, no I haven't created any of my own forms (I have quite a lot to practice already). But last summer, I created a short form to practice quarter staff.

Fyn

 

[Kong Soo Do]

How many have made up their own form? I'm sure most of us have at one time.
Was it made up because of a requirement in your system or just because you wanted to?
Looking back at that form how many times do you think you have changed it over time?
Do you still do that form and have you taught it to anyone else

This is a great question.

In our system we have only one form. Many of the early Karate masters believed that a lifetime of study was possible in only one (or a very few forms). That is our belief as well. We wanted only one form for our students to study that covered what we felt were to most applicable SD situations from typical fighting distance to grappling distance. The form is tailored to each individual student.

 

[Sensei Payne]

I think that after a set amount of time in to a Martial Art, and you have a working knowledge of the Bunkai and breakdown of the technique. Then you are qualified to create your own viable form/kata.

Sometimes you can even just modify a current kata, such as my instructors Nihanchi Shodan with a Twist.

As shown here
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93739


So creating or modifying a kata can be fun, and show application/knowledge. Just don't forget your Origionals, because they have been around for a few thousand years. There are reasons as to why they are the way they are.

 

[tshadowchaser]

Kong Soo Do
I must agree with some of those old masters that a few forms may be enough for a lifetime of study. That makes me wonder why I teach so many different forms, even after trying to remove the ones that are almost the same from what I instruct.

That being said it is sometime fun to mix up some of the knowledge and creat a new form just to put aspects of my knowledge into a different pattern.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I have made several kumdo forms over the years. Most were for demonstrations, but some were just for fun. I have taught one of my demo forms to a former student who asked if he could use it for a demo at the school where he trains now.

Daniel

 

[Sensei Payne]

I have found that most people who have been in the Arts for most of there life develop a "Family kata" that is only passed down to certain individuals.

Those are mostly passed down to the oldest son, or Dai Sempai(Most Senior student)

 

[geezer]

I've put together a few forms for Eskrima. In the system I train, there are no formal, traditional sets so I have adapted the basic movements into some practice sets. They are good for teaching, good for warm-ups, and for demos.... and something you can drill when there's no partner around and you get tired of beating on the tire stack or trees. I encourage my students to experiment and work out their own sets. Now when it comes to my other core art, Wing Chun.... I wouldn't mess with the sets, ever. They are ancient and deep.

 

[K831]

Yes, it was requirement at one of my past Kenpo schools. Every few belt tests required the student to display a short form of their own, or a technique of their own. I enjoyed it, it was designed to see if you were "getting" the system, or merely memorizing what someone else created, without seeing the bigger picture.

 

[Kemposhot]

Never made one up myself, although had a friend who used to make them up in tournaments and see how well he would do. Sometimes they came out ok, other times it got shaking heads from the judges lol.

 

[Kong Soo Do]

Kong Soo Do
I must agree with some of those old masters that a few forms may be enough for a lifetime of study. That makes me wonder why I teach so many different forms, even after trying to remove the ones that are almost the same from what I instruct.

That being said it is sometime fun to mix up some of the knowledge and creat a new form just to put aspects of my knowledge into a different pattern.

Uechi Kanbun brought three kata back from his 13 year stay in China (10 of which was learning, 3 teaching). Those kata were Sanchin, Seisan and Sanseiryu. I believe he once stated that Sanseiryu was all that was needed to 'know' karate and that it was enough to last the practitioner a life time.

I also remember that Sanchin alone, which was the first one he learned, took literally months to finish because the training was so slow and intense. Just the opening movements took weeks of training. Not that Sanchin couldn't be learned in a hour, but rather by such intense study the movements were fluid and performed with incredible power. One of the stories of his reluctant demonstration of Sanseiryu at a public gathering relates that he performed it with such focus and power that no one was willing to follow the demonstration with their own kata.

His son Kanei added five additional katas to the system after the death of his father. The storyline was that it helped bridge the gap from one form to another. I personally do not believe this explaination. There is a story from that time of a house fire that destroyed (among other things) the written material Kanbun had prepared for his son about the system (Pangainoon). I suspect that perhaps Kanei did not fully understand the depth of the system or the kata. With this lack of depth he used 'filler' kata to lengthen the time of training, rather than the slow methodical methods his father learned.

I equate this to the plethora of forms that other systems have developed over the years. For some, I fully believe are nothing more than class fillers with a testing price tag attached. I'm one of those folks that believe that forms have deeper meanings beyond just block/punch/kick. Not necessarily 'hidden' movements, but rather forgotten movements. I know that the topic is sometimes controversial, but that is my opinion.

So we decided to develop just one form, covering what we considered (from personal experience with determined attackers) to be the most common attacks. Each movement of the form (25 total) can be used at arms distance or at grappling range. Standing or on the floor in many cases. It covers principles as well as specifics. It was designed to be broken down into 5 sets of 5 drills for ease of teaching. It is in no way, shape or form a competition form. And the form will differ from person to person. The skeleton remains the same, but it is fleshed out and tailored to each student based upon their strengths and/or limitations. We have modified it a bit over the years. As we learn (and to us it is continual education), so do our students.

 

[Xue Sheng]

How many have made up their own form? I'm sure most of us have at one time.
Was it made up because of a requirement in your system or just because you wanted to?
Looking back at that form how many times do you think you have changed it over time?
Do you still do that form and have you taught it to anyone else

Not intentionally, I have too much to do as it is just in Yang style.
The closet I have ever came to creating my own form was when I did a bit of Northern Wu Style Taijiquan. No matter what I did Yang or Chen it always had a Northern Wu look to it and somewhere during the form I would all of a sudden find myself doing Northern Wu…much the reason I no longer train any Northern Wu style

 

[Noah_Legel]

In Shuri-Ryu we had what we called "juju-undo" or "free exercise" where we would basically perform techniques in whatever pattern we liked and many of us would have something that we routinely did for this. Other than that, no, although if I did I suspect it would likely consist of mostly techniques from Naihanchi and Seiunchin because MY karate comes mostly from those kata. That said, I have enough kata from Shorin-Ryu to worry about remembering in addition to practicing Seiunchin (which is not part of the Shorinkan curriculum) to worry about mashing things up into my own kata. Besides, I'm not exactly a master karateka to be putting together forms.