Patterns / Kata / Forms - why do them / enjoy them?

Tim_Murphy · 23-01-2009 05:05PM

There are structural guidelines to its performance, such as for example say keeping the feet shoulder width apart. Now beginners practicing the form don’t, I teach them structure in stand up wrestling, and they get it, but when they move the stances get narrow and long, they over extend, leaving themselves open to punishment. You can, through trial and error when wrestling over a long period of time, discover this truth. Or you can practice the transitions of the styles in the form to acquire this skill as a natural ability. By performing the movements slowly the body first learns to feel the insuffiencies / over extensions in its movement, later after some time of correct practice, learns the measure / feel of good posture and balance, so when engaged in wrestling the opponent’s intentions can be immediately sensed and weighed. This was one benefit I gained from form practice.

I can't comment on San Shou or Tai Chi but in Karate/TKD style forms, the movements are generally either obscure or if they are not then they are often nearly the opposite of what good technique would actually be.
This of course makes the argument of using kata to learn fundamentals nonsensical. The most obvious example of this is of course the standard traditional style reverse punch. Just about every single thing about it is wrong in terms of good punching technique.

Niall Keane · 23-01-2009 09:12PM

"Just to be clear Niall - you are saying that practicing these forms was more beneficial to you and your students than actual wrestling sparring?"

In some areas yes.
Take the wrestling side of things and alignment of structure. I.e. being able to move dynamically so the opponents force is always transferred to the ground in a compressive as opposed to tensile manner. This is stressed in the form.
Now to someone who has this naturally it wont make a difference, but to a beginner, they could spend their lives sparring with incorrect structure, using more and more strength to compensate for bad “form” structure because they don’t believe the teacher and don’t trust in them selves, end up getting their asses handed to them by everyone all the time. I would have an ethical problem allowing such a situation. By learning form they are practicing correct posture and structural alignment, and the transition from one movement to another whilst keeping to the principles. So eventually I have found that this can feed back into their wrestling. They’re not spending a class doing form, they’re going home when there is no one to wrestle and when all the bag work weights etc etc is done practicing forms. They get correction from me when they ask after the class, or every few months I’ll organise a form class.

There’s a passage in the Tai Chi Classics, which discusses martial arts. It suggests that some schools are based on innate ability rather than trained ability – slow hands surrendering to fast, the strong bullying the weak.
So emphasis is put on trained skills rather than athleticism. Form to a lesser extent and Nei Gung to a greater extent programme the body in some of these skills. And it takes sincere practice over a long period. They wont teach timing, angle and range, that’s what sparring is for. But surely you have met people who increase their abilities purely by increasing strength and speed, and forever remain journeymen compensating bad postures, lack of strategy etc. Its subtlety, precision, strategy, awareness and such things that can certainly come with time and experience in sparring and more so in competition for those with ability, that can be accelerated with form and gung training but also such things can be taught to those without a natural flare. I have students who spent years in the background of various average martial arts classes, who have turned themselves into international champions. I obviously won’t name names, but some of them on arrival to my class seemed to be almost physically handicapped in their awkwardness and movements. Gung methods and form have and are curing this.

To summarise, I believe forms when practiced correctly can add that edge to fighters, but they are an addition not an alternative to the methods of training. For those less gifted, they can accelerate their progress remarkably. Put it this way, some people can jump of a bridge into a river and learn to swim, but most will drown because they don’t have the mechanical knowledge of how to swim.

"Isn't it possible that you have an emotional attachment to your forms that you are clinging to when your mat time is the real source of your ability?"

I defiantly have no emotional attachment to the form, it represents the public perception of Tai Chi Chuan, if I could abandon it, and further distance myself from the new age tai chi player brigade I would, but I do notice benefits, and get ideas from it too. As for real source of ability, the mats are paramount, but I have to admit that the techniques I am most happy to have pulled off in competition, the true softness overcoming hardness have been based on a coordination that I believe comes from Nei Gung and Form.

"I can't comment on San Shou or Tai Chi but in Karate/TKD style forms, the movements are generally either obscure or if they are not then they are often nearly the opposite of what good technique would actually be."

That’s what I meant by depends on the form, take Wushu forms, where they compete (I think form competitions are a bad idea), they hyperextend the knees when kicking. San Shou the mma type format of Chinese Kung Fu specialises in kick takedowns. Generally we’ll try to apply a knee lock on to the caught leg and twist throw the opponent into the ground. For this reason push kicks are delivered with a slightly bent knee and leaning down towards the opponent, so if the kick is caught, you’re weight can be applied on to your leg, breaking the hold and setting up a clinch. Obvious! If, on the other hand you do it the Wushu way, you’ll end up with a dislocated knee and your head fired onto the Lei Tai. I remember seeing this happen in Italy to an American “Shaolin Monk”. Their “master”, sorry I should say abbot, was a big fat white guy with the saffron robes and all. I don’t think any of his team made it past a single fight.
Which brings up the point it also depends on not just the material being taught, but who is teaching it? Tai Chi again is a perfect example of this. There are guys teaching it in Dublin, who have never fought and claim they can knock people over without touching them? Now what can any rational person hope to learn from such a charlatan?

ColinJennings · 24-01-2009 11:08AM

I do TKD and I do patterns regularly. The reason I do them is to practice the movements. If you practice a movement over and over again, the hands eventually learn to do it naturally. That point was hammered home to me a while ago when I learned a paricular strike only using the right hand in a pattern. I did the pattern hundreds of time and one day in training we were practicing the same move and I couldn't do it with my left hand to save my life.

I think that one of the problem with patterns is that people do not understand the movements, what they are supposed to be doing and why they are doing it. They just go through the movements as if they were dance movements. This obviously leads to people thinking 'Oh no, patterns again' and not putting any effort in and not getting any benefit from patterns.

I'll admit that if you just practice patterns, you'll be a useless fighter, but I also feel that if you just practice sparring, you'll use the same moves over and over. Your skill will increase, but for want of a better word, your skill set will stay the same.

In all martial arts, you spend so much time learning new techniques and applying those techniques in a non sparring situation, just to learn the move. In taekwon-do, this is generally done in a drill like manner. I can honestly say that while at home, I've never practiced moves in a drill like manner, but I have practiced my patterns. It just makes practicing the moves more enjoyable.

I do mix practicing patterns at home with working on a heavy bag, breaker boards etc, but I would mostly train using patterns at home. I do get satisfaction from them in the same way you get satisfaction from completing everything and the fact that you are doing the same moves over and over again you improve those moves.

They should be part of training, not the be all and end all of training.

yomchi · 24-01-2009 12:36PM

mark.leonard wrote: »

Pot - my God, your coated in teflon!
Kettle - yeah but I don't like patterns either.

The topic certainly has been done to death. I think both training methods can peacefully co-exist as long as Traditional Martial Arts don't pretend that Kata training improves fighting effectiveness. BY all means do them to preserve the history of your art, but don't lie to yourself or others about what their usefulness is and everyone (yourself included Charlie) will be so much the happier for it.

Post of the thread right there. If the rest of the thread can follow this particular argument put forward by Mark it'll turn out just right, without a big pad lock on the front door!

Jon

dlofnep · 24-01-2009 12:48PM

Hated them. Waste of time. Took up too much time for grading which could have been used for more practical things, like sparring.. or refining technique.

Tim_Murphy · 24-01-2009 03:48PM

ColinJennings wrote: »

I'll admit that if you just practice patterns, you'll be a useless fighter, but I also feel that if you just practice sparring, you'll use the same moves over and over. Your skill will increase, but for want of a better word, your skill set will stay the same.

Not if you have a good sparring coach. In any case, if you want to expand their range of techniques for TKD sparring then looking in the patterns for them isn't the best way to go.

getz · 24-01-2009 04:50PM

Niall Keane wrote: »

I guess it depends on the Kata / Form.
I practice Tai Chi Chuan, and we all know of people you practice the form alone in parks etc. Who can’t fight.
However I find that I have gained a lot of martial strategic knowledge and technique improvement from practicing the long form. There are structural guidelines to its performance, such as for example say keeping the feet shoulder width apart. Now beginners practicing the form don’t, I teach them structure in stand up wrestling, and they get it, but when they move the stances get narrow and long, they over extend, leaving themselves open to punishment. You can, through trial and error when wrestling over a long period of time, discover this truth. Or you can practice the transitions of the styles in the form to acquire this skill as a natural ability. By performing the movements slowly the body first learns to feel the insuffiencies / over extensions in its movement, later after some time of correct practice, learns the measure / feel of good posture and balance, so when engaged in wrestling the opponent’s intentions can be immediately sensed and weighed. This was one benefit I gained from form practice.
The form is strung together as a collection of orthodox techniques that each explores one power / application of force. E.g. step back and repulse the monkey, teaches (if practiced properly (maybe this is the problem)) the use of a vertical circle in attack, white crane spreads its wings a twisting of the waist integrated into a throw, and pat horse high the value of rubbing the spine trapping the hip and lifting / rotating the head of an opponent to throw with ease.
In practice I often combine the above 3 techniques, but it is a good way to teach skills to a student to break down the basic techniques, so they acquire or at least recognise and appreciate all the leverage principles etc. Of each technique. I can teach someone to be a reasonable sanshou kickboxer in about 3 months of hard training, lots of sparring etc. Sometimes they can do quite well, some have natural ability. However when up against a good technical fighter or a far stronger one they fall apart. They have tried to ape techniques, without discovering the principles that make them work. In other words they place emphasis in the wrong place, for beginners this is often speed and power and letting their own bodies fight itself.
Also I find that the form is an arsenal of techniques. They are placed in sequences that flow naturally, and techniques beside each other will always work if one fails, or can act as a counter to each other. I have studied this and developed faints/ draws/ counters etc. That have worked for me in competition. Now I obviously sharpened the skills / strategies on mats sparring first.
The arsenal of techniques also is a way of remembering the hard won techniques of past fighters. It has to be said out of the 48 orthodox san shou applications within the tai chi form I find several of them not to my liking, but I have passed them on and found that some of those techniques become the signature of some of my students. Without the form and spending time practicing orthodox techniques from it they would never have seen such techniques. E.g. I dislike the technique White Crane Spreads it Wings, out of 86 international sanshou fights and god knows how many wrestling bouts I have half used it once. My student Ha Nugen won a European championship in Chinese wrestling a few years back, successfully using it 5 times in one bout.

To summarise form has helped my fighting ability, but only after I could perform it correctly and start programming my nervous system. So the first 2 years gave me nothing, I was trying to remember the sequence, after that the structural lessons of form crept into the fighting, and finally I began to use it as a reference book of techniques and strategies etc. It is now like the Tai Chi Classics to me a teacher to be constantly revisited. Reading the classics won’t make a fighter, neither will practicing a form, but my fighting skill has improved from both of these areas.
I should add that I believe it to be additional solo practice (homework so to speak). I teach and use form in sanshou classes to warm down.

thank god there is some people on this thread-kata, forms ect are the most important part of martial arts otherwise most of the punches kicks blocks throws would be leftout of your style and be soon forgeten about less of the fight more of the art

Roper · 24-01-2009 05:03PM

Anyone want to come back to the Airport-tkd.com forum with me?

Ger Healy · 25-01-2009 12:48PM

Roper wrote: »

Anyone want to come back to the Airport-tkd.com forum with me?

I'll join you Barry

TKD SC · 26-01-2009 10:27AM

mark.leonard
"The topic certainly has been done to death"

Yes it has! Sorry about that - seemed like a good idea last Wed!

Worth it for some interesting and good posts from Niall Keane I think. From the handful of classes I did with Niall, I could see a couple of examples of how the tai chi forms are more practical with their movements and relate to real life body movement when sparring. Unlike tkd forms;

Tim Murphy:
"the movements are generally either obscure or if they are not then they are often nearly the opposite of what good technique would actually be.
This of course makes the argument of using kata to learn fundamentals nonsensical. The most obvious example of this is of course the standard traditional style reverse punch. Just about every single thing about it is wrong in terms of good punching technique."

Exactly.

Colin Jennings:
"The reason I do them is to practice the movements. If you practice a movement over and over again, the hands eventually learn to do it naturally."

"fact that you are doing the same moves over and over again you improve those moves."

Are you not just practising bad technique over and over again so?

Roper:
"Anyone want to come back to the Airport-tkd.com forum with me?"

No, but could you incorporate a few patterns into the bjj class please?!

Must learn how to multi-quote people!
Apologies again for bringing this topic up once more! Thought might be interesting to get differing MA views on it. And also, why Enjoy them, even if accepting they are not useful at all in sparring etc sense...

Simon

Tim_Murphy · 26-01-2009 10:42AM

Must learn how to multi-quote people!
Apologies again for bringing this topic up once more!!

You can type the quote tages, [$quote$]quote here [/$quote$] (without the dollar signs) or click the quote button ->

ryoishin · 26-01-2009 02:33PM

There are some good ponits about kata, like confidence building, technique focus, feel good factor etc.

But all of these can be achieved without the kata by good coaching!

pearsquasher · 26-01-2009 05:23PM

Kata have a pretty bad name in general - rigid, too choreographed, stylised, done for traditions sake, punching the air etc. The poor image is often used as an excuse - often a good one, mind - to leave the art for something less "stylish" por perhaps because the practicioner is impatient to "leave the form".

This common image in completely different to how we training in the Bujinkan, which has about 900 kata behind it.

That sounds like a lot but there are many cross-overs and thankfully we're only asked to "learn" 2 of them... basic ones which are nothing like the main bulk. You end up knowing a small percentage of the others though practice rather than "learning off".

The San Framcisco Bujinkan page describes the kind of kata we train in better than I could. You might find it suprising. This should explain how Bujinkan kata aren't static, empty or rigid.

Q: Does the training include kata or forms, as in karate?
A: Not quite like those. In the old arts such as ours, kata are generally performed by two (or more) partners and are quite brief, reflecting the reality of combat encounters. They teach an art's basic concepts: typical attacks and common ways of dealing with them. Kata may also refer to a class or set of waza (techniques), especially groupings which embody a particular principle or group of related principles. Kata are the starting point for learning the arts.

Q: How is it that the kata are the "starting point"? It seems that in most arts, the formal techniques and kata either are considered to BE the art or, alternatively, are considered to be a way of putting various techniques together without much relevance to actual combat. Do you mean "starting point" in this latter sense?

A: In the first case above, the approach is not so much that of traditional arts at the time they were being developed and used, as it is of the end of feudalism when kata became highly formalized and rigid as a way of preserving some semblance of an art in the face of pressures pushing it into disuse. . .not unlike (if you will pardon the imagery!) a virus going dormant and awaiting an opportunity to become active again. The second case seems to derive from the first, where the fighting methods used bear little or no relationship to the forms. Both indicate that the understanding of the kata has died.

The approach to kata training in taijutsu as taught by Hatsumi sensei is very different and reflects the Protean fluidity and dynamism needed in real, life-protective combat. First, the basic "transmission" form as recorded in the densho scroll is shown, and the student will have some time to simply work on the mechanics of the movements and the aspects of timing, distance and positioning, balance-taking, etc. which the base form presents. From that point, various "problems" will be introduced for exploration. Some examples would be: How might the kata change when a different distance is used? When you can't move to a "required" position within the form because of some obstacle? When the form is done with a particular weapon or weapons instead of unarmed? When you have a weapon and want to use it, but it isn't in your hand? When the opponent has the weapon and you need to keep him from using it, or want to use it against him yourself? When multiple opponents, or multiple opponents armed with a variety of different weapons (all with their own unique characteristics), enter the picture?

Part of the object here is to require the student to take continually more complex sets of relationships into account, while still maintaining the essence and "feeling" of the transmission form. In this way the student grows to truly understand and incorporate the principles of the form and can freely adapt them in actual combat as needed, instead of being hampered by a "fixed" sequence of movements -- or feeling that form is useless, irrelevant, and should be abandoned.

In a sense, one eventually learns to "transcend" forms by incorporating (literally "bringing into the body") their underlying concepts and principles. This is the difference between learning a particular system (which is what most people do) and becoming the art in one's own person

I do see other martial arts explore their kata dynamically.. most notably Patrick McCarthy's Karate and some other Classical Japanese Ryuha (like Kuroda Tetzusans sword kata) and some Chinese Arts and their forms.. but these aren't "new" ways of looking at kata/forms as far as I can see.. Just correct methods.

So to answer the questions given this info:

Why do them

.. because its how Bujinkan teaching is transmitted from teacher to student.

enjoy them?

.. very much so. Before teaching, for each grade I might see the same kata but I understand it better and get nearer to absorbing what it teaches so the kata's form can be left behind. It's all geared towards shedding form/style. When that happens you can really teach the kata and the cycle starts again.

ColinJennings · 27-01-2009 01:35AM

TKD SC wrote: »

Are you not just practising bad technique over and over again so?

That's why I attend training sessions, spar and break.

yomchi · 27-01-2009 10:22AM

ColinJennings wrote: »

That's why I attend training sessions, spar and break.

Which will inevitably lead to the question... why break?

Patterns / Kata / Forms - why do them / enjoy them?

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