Anyway, I don't really need to rethink my statement. Sparring can help overcome it, sure. But why bother creating a bad habit that needs to be broken.

Its only a bad habit if one is retarded enough to think the pattern will repeat itself. The whole concept is flawed beyond measure.

Its only a bad habit if one is retarded enough to think the pattern will repeat itself. The whole concept is flawed beyond measure.


Lol, now I am confused. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?

I'm agreeing that only someone silly would assume that what one did in two man sets will happen in sequence in reality.

To expect anything is silly. The whole point of forms is just to introduce you to movement.

"eventually you will develop the habit of expecting a round punch after countering a punch with a kick."

Your assumption that this will happen is WRONG. Only a fool would expect a strike because it happens to be that way in a form.


I concur.

Here is how it was explained to me that i try to keep in mind and pass down day 1 when i am forced to play with the new folks (Sorry, I am selfish :) ).

While I feel this is very true for Xing Yi, it MUST be true for so many others I will use XY but feel free to substitute for point.

Learning XY is not unsimiliar to leanring language and writing skills. First you learn to pronounce and "make the drawings" for the letters. You then learn words, then sentances. Sentance level is the "kickin ass" :). Forms are taught that way. You have to be so anal in your movements because when you are learning your alphabet and say cursive, everyone's is supposed to be the same. Eventually, like handwriting, you fall into your own. No 2 XY practioners do things the same way; 100% exactly the same, just as no 2 bodys are the same. Just as no 2 handwritings are the same. However you have to learn the "perfect" way before you can own it.

Now to relate the diatribe above to the subject at hand.

If you buy the anology above, then 2 man forms, whether dead or alive (if i understand the Thorton definations from this thread), are just part of the way to learn your letters and words. To say it is useless is crazy. Do you OUTGROW them? I could argue that is true in a way. Just the same way that you outgrow that 1st grader paper with the 2 big fat blue lines and the dotted line in the middle that had like a 1 inch space to write in. Even still would we all benefit by going back to the fat paper now and again? Sure, would improve upon the things you knew.

I have to say I'm glad you came back. Except for our differing views on sparring, we agree with much more than I thought.

Wasnt a leave as much as it was a loiter. I just didnt understand the.. passion behind some posts and frankly took it a bit more...personally then I should have.

But that is more the way of this board.

And you are right, you and I agree on a great many things

Here is how it was explained to me that i try to keep in mind and pass down day 1 when i am forced to play with the new folks (Sorry, I am selfish :) ).

While I feel this is very true for Xing Yi, it MUST be true for so many others I will use XY but feel free to substitute for point................

Nice post; it acually made sense. That means it will probably be ignored by most of the folks who visit these boards.

Nice post; it acually made sense. That means it will probably be ignored by most of the folks who visit these boards.

I agree, it's a well-thought-out and good argument, but I still disagree with the conclusion. While I agree that two-man forms are not useless, in my view they do more harm than good, and there are many better ways to be spending your training time that don't develop the bad habits that these drills do. Essentially, they fail my cost-benefit test for a useful activity to do.

...Two years ago I tried an experiment. I seperated all my groups (kickboxing, SAMBO, and Kung-fu) into two different learning groups. One would learn by pure modern orthodox practice and live sparring and the other would learn via two man sets.
We found better results from the guys doing the two man sets (yes choreographed fighting). As soon as we took the group that learned modern orthodox method and taught them the sets their game improved dramatically. Sorry dude, but two man sets are an excellent drill for teaching and learning.
One more vote for elaboration on this, sir...

I agree, it's a well-thought-out and good argument, but I still disagree with the conclusion. While I agree that two-man forms are not useless, in my view they do more harm than good, and there are many better ways to be spending your training time that don't develop the bad habits that these drills do. Essentially, they fail my cost-benefit test for a useful activity to do.This is what I was looking for IMO. I think it is a good tool but, to many people use it as a replacement for sparring.

**** it, screw this edit ****, have fun being a fucking nazi pig. I'm not posting in this sub board anymore.

This is what I was looking for IMO. I think it is a good tool but, to many people use it as a replacement for sparring.

It's not a replacement for sparring but it's a way to integrate responses to certain types of attacks. For this training to be effective I think it's important for the one attacking to really be trying to hit the other person - like if they aren't truly blocked the guy gets hit. I also think it's important to use substantial force in these drills. Otherwise it is pretty useless.

I'm returing to this really late, but this is for Omar:

Obviously, learning the basic mechanics of boxing's Big 4 isn't a big deal for someone with an MA background. However, like anything else, the mechanics of doing them really well can be quite subtle. I was just giving Rudy a hard time for implying that anything from kung fu was this miniature sonata, whereas anything from boxing merely involved going from Point A to Point B.

This is what I was looking for IMO. I think it is a good tool but, to many people use it as a replacement for sparring.

No question about it. There IS no replacement for sparring but sparring.

But in reference to SifuJason's post where he mentions that the practice is a poor use of time and forms bad habits, I disagree wholeheartedly.

You dont teach a child to swim by tossing them in the deep end of a pool and making yourself a sandwich. Even if the kid makes it, he will be terrified of the water, of you and who knows what else.

Take a guy who has little to no contact experience and put him in a sprring situation after showing him a form or two and he will get many MORE bad habits from this. Not only that, (while the student would never admit it) you have made sparring a stressful situation. You place him in a public arena (whether it is just you or 20 other students) and the anxiety that would come from that as well. It just isnt a good way to teach.

2 man forms is a great bridge and a good way to introduce contact withn the context of the system. The students also become comfortable with the contact from their fellow classmates and realize they are not trying to kill or hurt me, even if injury does occur.

You can then place them in a learning spar situation with people they are comfrotable with, without the fear of looking stupid (even if they did they dont care, they are comfortable with them and can laugh about it) and get to some serious contact work.

When they are comfortable with the contact work then you can have them spar with people they dont know much about and really do good work.

DwHomp,

I completely disagree with your view on sparring. It is completely possible to teach sparring from the beginning, with scarring students away or forming bad habits with them. We start day one in my school with sparring. It's touch/light sparring with me or other senior students, and people almost universally enjoy it. Over the course of a couple of weeks, people then pick up light sparring with other students. There is no need for 2-man forms. We of course have 2-man drills, but as I have said, I think those are fundamental learning tools.

Can we get a sticky of the form drill and set previously posted

DwHomp,

I completely disagree with your view on sparring. It is completely possible to teach sparring from the beginning, with scarring students away or forming bad habits with them. We start day one in my school with sparring. It's touch/light sparring with me or other senior students, and people almost universally enjoy it. Over the course of a couple of weeks, people then pick up light sparring with other students. There is no need for 2-man forms. We of course have 2-man drills, but as I have said, I think those are fundamental learning tools.

In essence, we are not in that much disagreement. As I mentioned earlier in this thread i believe (and from my short time in the forum) I only speak from a Xing Yi point of view and if I discuss something else i try very hard to qualify it with the fact that I am not sure.

If people watched XY 2 man forms, they would most likely call them drills. We dont, they are forms. Now, one instructor in XY i had, taught this 2 man like chin-na form. It was like 50 movements. While I never said anything, I hated it. I thought it had no purpose and was a waste of time. I still feel that way. So think in comparision, we are not apple to oranges. Calling XY 2 man work as drills instead, we are.

Let me also adjust what i said about sparring...sparring can certainly be introduced in a good teaching way. I am not saying that at all. But 2 things:

1. Not everyone learns the same way. As a teacher you should have as much in your toolbox as possible

2. 2 man forms taught in a functional way is another way and as I mentioned in my post, might even be superior in that you are teaching the same light contact as you do in sparring, yet the student has the system movements of the form as a frame of reference.

And again, I am not saying 2 man forms OVER sparring.