I agree (am a brown belt in shotokan karate), but just as he said, a cardio workout as good or even better could be done with some running or rope jumping, and in less time
@@caiorocha1049 actually traditionally in Karate and kungfu in ancient times, the form was taught after the students got the individual teqniques down and did some sparing.
As a practitioner of traditional okinawa karate , I agree 100%!. Aimless forms are useless. What makes the kata functional is its bunkai,we are always taught to utilise the bunkai while sparring
Safdar Kh same here. Shobayashi Shorin-Ryu. Btw, my students that train traditional karate and mma with me show superior sparring over my strictly mma folks and strictly kata foljs.
I'm thankful for people like Iain Abernethy and Jesse Enkamp who are re-exploring traditional karate forms and teaching how to properly apply them. The form is not the fight, just like the musical scale is not the song. It has things that can help when properly understood, but you have to comprehend what is going on behind each form move and how it is intended to be practiced in a street situation.
Absolutely, J.Dean. I come from an English background rather than music, but i tell my students much the same thing. A form/hyung/kata isn't an 'instruction manual' so much as a dictionary that contain all the 'words/vocabulary' of a particular system. If you don't understand the hyung/form/kata and are unable to see beyond the sequence of movement in the form, then No, of course the form is useless -- no one is ever going to attack you in a way that you would use even a short sequence of moves from any given form... but that's not the point. That's not how forms work. Again, to the dictionary metaphor, if you read a dictionary front to back it would be the most boring book you've ever read in your life... but we all know that that isn't how a dictionary works. However, if you could learn all of the words in the dictionary, those words could be arranged to write any book on any subject in that language... and THAT is how a form should properly be understood. You practice hyung to 'learn the vocabulary' and to integrate those 'words' (techniques) into you lexicon (toolbox) of techniques from which you can 'create' words and sentences as needed.
No martial art has actually been used in actually fighting in centuries in the strict sense of martial. However eastern martial arts are used regularly and successfully in modern combat sports.
Amen, when i trained up to 2nd Dan the explation of kata was awful, literaly just a set of moves that were only good for devopling mental focus, but the resurgance of Practical kata bunkai has really opened my eyes and im dying to try it for myself, Abernethy and Enkamp really made kata make sense, moving from the basic recipe of kata to useful defence techniques as the were originaly developed by itosu, funakoshi masamura ect
I was at a "self defense" site a few months ago and there were many people arguing that you don't need sparring, or heavy bags, punching mitts, or any training aids people use nowadays. It left me flabbergasted.
That stuff is attractive to lazy, out of shape people who are completely out of touch with reality: scrawny nerds with ponytails and fatass dudes in camouflage.
They were under the assumption that many of the martial artists from a traditional background that were in the UFC, didn't subscribe to modern training techniques. Until I showed them that even the specific fighters they mentiond, did use modern training techniques. Their last post was that I should challenge Sonny Puzikas. And even in the Systema gyms I find, they all have some modern training techniques. I believe they don't really understand what is going on during a sparring session.
Kata has value in terms of capturing and passing on information. The problem is that people have made learning the kata as an end in itself. Instead of a starting point, a way of reminding you of important information. You then need to take this information and train it as you suggest. This is whats the old masters used to do. Which is why when you see the rare videos of them training, for example the video of funakoshi (founder of shotokan) doing the heian shodan form he looks pretty rubbish by todays standards. But I would bet he knew how to apply it and practicing it with partners is probably where he spent his time. Spending time making kata look perfect to the point that all meaning is lost which is a modern phononemen. The problem of people prioritising the form over the function is seen in the fact that many karate people come up with frankly rediculous applications for their kata. The explainantions they come up are often divorced from reality and so the value of the kata is lost. Where as if you look at the work of someone like Patrick McCarthy you get a much better idea of what you should actually be doing. The problem isn't that kata doen't have value. The problem is that perhaps only 1% of karate people actually understand how to use it and then take develop their training into dealing with opponents in a realistic way.
Guess this applies to so many TMA practisioners. E. g. lots of the movements in taiji or kungfu have a grappling application. But these are often ignored or the real meaning got lost in one or another lineage.
This is basically why I quit karate after 12 years. I liked kata because I had a teacher who was very keen on it having to be functional, and that all the basic kata stuff was useless unless practiced on a resisting opponent. And we also did at least 10-20 minutes of sparring every practice, somewhere between medium to full contact. The basic interpretation of a kata was only for learning it, and then the advanced form, or as my teacher said "the real form", with the more nasty stuff came. He was very keen on making us understand that the kata was just a way to preserve some different combos or locks or throws, or some basic ideas on how to engage in a certain situation, and that you should only really practice the kata to maybe move your body (good warmup?) and to make sure you had the catalogue of more complex moves. But over the years, it changed. More and more weight was put on kata and point scoring fighting. We used to have one whole training session per week, with only sparring for contact fighting. It became more and more ridiculous point scoring with a million illegal techniques and no contact at all. All the kata became about passing graduation tests so you could get the next belt, and to live up to the "standards". I didn't pay much attention to this change, until I travelled abroad for 2 years. In my years away, I joined some gyms and tried other form of martial arts. I sparred a lot with a few MMA guys, some Kyokushin karate people, I tried Aikido and Judo, and I just started realizing how much karate had changed in my dojo over the years. When I got back home, basically all contact was gone. I was brought up with the idea that the attacker should always strike to hit. Not break the other persons teeth or anything while doing drills or kata, but at least with so much contact on the body that the defender would get the air knocked out of them if they didn't make it work. In the first week of training, I knocked 3 people down just by hitting them in the gut. They had completely lost all ability to block a punch that was intended to hit. We used to do a form of fixed stance sparring, with full body contact, which was meant to "fix" the problem that most karate fighters have - they are "out fighters". So this sparring was meant to make sure we would not panic in close quarters, and it was done during every practice for at least a few minutes. When I got back, it was basically gone. In the 6 months I trained, we did it once, and I was told I was being too rough. In all honesty, I was holding back. And then when we did some sparring with point scoring rules (no contact) I kept chasing everyone around the mat, because no one could handle close quarter fighting. And I will run the risk of sounding sexist, but over the years all the men had more or less left the dojo. Most of the people there were skinny women, and no matter how much you stretch your imagination, a woman who is 50-65 kilos won't offer much practice to a dude who is 75-80 kilos and 15-20 centimeter taller than them. At that point I decided to quit doing karate, despite having spent 12 years on it. The style I had practiced had gone from being a very realistic (if you ask me at least) form of martial arts, to being something that was hardly any more than dancing. I still think it has some of the best martial arts basics I have seen in anything I'v etrained, if trained like an actual fighting system, but as my old teacher used to say: "If you take the fighting intention out of karate and kata, it is just dancing, and then you might as well go to the dancing school next door"
Once you become any good, you have to hold back, otherwise you end up hurting your training partner. I teach that you should learn how to do the technique that will create serious pain. Once you know you know. Then you practice this moves on your Kata all by yourself. To learn any new move you need a good teacher a good partner that you can practice with. I recommend you find one of them.
Excellent video. Lots of great points brought up here. Iain Abernethy has a 4 step process to learning kata that is reminiscent of what is mentioned here. If you're going to practice kata: 1. Learn the form. 2. Drill the application with a partner varying the degrees of resistance. 3. Identify the underlying principles so you can adapt and vary e.g. getting off line, closest weapon closest target, limits of joints, off-balancing etc. 4. Practice applying the kata in live sparring. If you can't apply the form in sparring than you haven't learnt it. Drilling it live and doing this often is vitally important. Of course, all that is assuming the information contained within the form(s) is actually sound. I have no doubt that many forms are not at all combatively applicable. That being said I always wince when I see throws, leg picks and clinch work seen in pre- WW2 karate being applied as weird double blocks and chi blasts today.
Yes. But what has a 15yo to expect, when he's entering a dojo for the first time (especially in the 80s)? He's gonna believe everything the 'master' is telling him and he's gonna follow. Shame on these so called masters!
My rule of thumb: if people know how to "use" the form they will teach that, if they don't then they will teach how "do" the form. The placement of the pinky mentioned in the video is a great illustration. That said, I've seen people with 10 years of experience with forms just use two upper body strikes and a kick when sparring. I honestly think they would have been better to do 3 months of boxing than 10+ years of karate.
I am a traditional kung-fu martial artist, 20 yrs in. I would say the issue with many schools is that too much emphasis is put on forms. With that said I would not call it a waste of time. The problem is that people do not understand the forms or there function and things become too abstract. Forms are not shadow boxing. Forms are built to categorize and help learn specific movements and principles. You need resistance training with a partner, and you need sparring. Most people learn form and can't use any of the movements in fighting. With that said I would not say it was designed for lazy teachers. Many teachers may not know the true purpose of the movements. Maybe you had bad teachers or just bad experiences but don't totally knock forms.
Luis KungFu kung fu is overrated.... better to just learn muay thai its proven time and time again in the past to be a kung fu killer and yet the moves are less elegant/stylish, but easier to learn and harder to train in.
K Ismail nope forms have been the traditional way of transmitting techniques in the east and even in the west where they where called Etudes.Its just with the forms in Asian arts not to many people these days do not know how to break the form down and apply the techniques and counters found in the forms
Fed up with the TMA strawmanning. It really is mostly people bitter about getting stuck in a bad school (or schools), or maybe just don't realise good schools exist. My experience practising kata has been totally different. For the aspect of our system that used it, I found it reminded me of the principles of techniques, improved breathing habits, was good meditation, and increased the variety of techniques that come out in sparring. Definitely not a waste of time.
I agree with you to an extent, but to be honest if you learned as many forms as you say, of course they're useless! Even over 30 years, I have a hard time believing that you would benefit much from that many forms. Where would you ever have the time? Look, forms are a slow burn. It could take someone 30 years to get to the bottom of ONE. Therefore, forms are a lifelong and personal practice. Striking, mitt work, bag work, sparring and shadowboxing are your daily bread and butter. Conditioning holds it all together, especially as we age. You CAN have both, and you should. All martial arts thrive on balance! I do respect and understand your opinions, but I don't think it has to be all one way or the other. I hope to see a day where eastern and western approaches can coexist better. Have a great day!
I am a mixed martial artist and have done both sides of training, the more western style of boxing and hitting heavy bags and lifting weights, and i have also done kung fu where we did forms, and i still incorporate the forms for maybe 30 minutes to my daily training, mostly for the fancier kicks that help me to stretch out by kicking and doing the splits in the air, those forms help so just my legs dont get stiff and slow, plus it looks beautiful which is the art part of the martial ARTS
I agree with you completely I used to do northern shaolin and sanda 25 years ago. many many forms,acrobatics etc...but now.. I am into forms again from a teacher that actually has forms that help me understand more about my body.posture ,structure, etc. so I agree with what you're saying. but the forms I'm learning now every move is connected to internal principles about the body and the more I understand them the more I value these forms. and besides that I just really enjoy doing forms to pass the time. I really regard it as a supplement..but if anyone thinks they learn to be a deadly killing machine by taking in huge amounts of forms..it's just ridiculous.
Lol Tell that to the 7 year old I watched beat down 8 teenagers using nothing but kata over in south side park the other day 😂😂😂From his style I think he was involved in some form of Wu Shu and Parklour Kid was fucking them up with that baseball bat though And his flips were on point!!😂 Shit only lasted like 10 minutes if that the other little shits started running away I got the fuck out of there once the police started showing up 😂😂😂😂
Katas and forms were traditionally(ancient times) taught after the teqnique and application was taught. Forms were supposed to be taught at the end for body coordination training. Today the forms are taught in the beginning to market the school.
I know it’s gonna sound like I’m judging you dude I apologize in advance but the fact that you let these moves go is really an insult to your teacher. You learn these moves overtime he took the time and effort to instruct you and by you letting it go it’s like you didn’t appreciate the gift like you really didn’t think it had any value. I learned Goju katasBack in the late 70s and 80s and practice them every day open to the present time to honor my teachers commitment to me and the artist self. Yes I practiced combat exercises and sparring also but the art is important is not useless because you can’t use it for fighting. Like I said earlier post you appreciate the forms as you enter your senior years and it’s not really an option for you to go rounds like you did when you were younger I’ve seen elderly Chinese people do phenomenal things with their bodies in their old age while Americans the same age are the ones with walkers
This misses the point. Kata is to develop muscle memory, to get your body used to moving as a practitioner of the martial art. Nobody does these techniques naturally. Nobody moves that way naturally. Kata develops that and allows you to be able to apply it in kumite. This has been my experience studying karate for 41 years. I can't speak to Kung Fu. This is a disappointing viewpoint from a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner that I have a great deal of respect for.
It's the exact same way in Kung Fu. AND my shifu always explains the application of every step that we learn. The applications are single sided either, they're just suggested situations but the movements are open to adaptation and adjustment to fit other situations as well. I think this guy clearly went to a bad school and is letting his personal experience cloud his common sense. Heck, we even run drills and spar often to make sure that what we're learning is applied in fighting.
Nick Smith yes there is, show me one bjj instructor who has respect for other martial arts and doesn’t claim to practice the best, all conquering, all surpassing form.
Great video! I also trained Hung Gar, before eventually moving to BJJ. We didn’t do forms right away, it was mostly conditioning and drilling conceptual motions, which we’d apply to multiple situations. After a few weeks of that, we started Gune Gee Fook Fu Kuen, which contained the same motions we’d been drilling before. It seemed a good way to learn, much better than the forms collecting you see so much of in traditional kung fu. The group disintegrated when my teacher discovered BJJ, and nine years later is a brown belt, heh.
Supermomo2007, no I haven’t trained Hung Gar since my teacher moved on to Judo and BJJ. I don’t blame him in the slightest, he had been teaching us for effectively nothing for years and it was his turn to be the one with the empty cup.
it is sad. i train in hung gar in a legit lineage of lau family. we have often live sparring after doing forms, application drills and weapon training. last time i took few judo black belts down with my low stance and won a fight against a thai boxer with using chin na.
Not familiar with Lau family style, it’s all Wing Lam’s Lam Sai-Wing system here. My teacher had grown disillusioned with what he’d learned, and struck off to learn more on his own, and that’s what drew me in, as pretty much all other Kung Fu options out here are OK at best. Glad you’re enjoying your training, it’s great to hear of Hung Gar being applied realistically and effectively.
thanks. lau family was teached by lam sai wing. the trick is to use protection for whole body like cup for nuts, for body, face and knee. we can use then the deadly movies in high speed. knowing western boxing could help, too. it gives you idea to hung gar strategies against modern fighters.
Let me first say I totally agree just learning a form does not prepare you for combat sufficiently. However, I ALSO DISAGREE with being taught one form a year or some such frequency. (I learn on average one form a month in my current style) That being said, Forms are NOT useless. 1. They were taught traditionally so as to pass down techniques to generation after generation of student, as a way to retain that knowledge. 2. They are wonderful physical exercise, keep the body limber, teach you balance and discipline, as well as train your memory. 3. The forms I'VE learned have application embedded in each move. IF the Sifu or Sensei or whatever, does not teach them to you, THAT is lazy teaching. I'm not saying every technique in the form is practical. For instance, if I choose not to train in the extreme for Iron Bone and other techniques where there are finger strikes an what-not, some are impractical for self defense. But, that does not negate their usefulness for passing down the technique to SOMEONE who may be able to utilize it. Other forms are weapons training, some of which can be migrated practically in self defense. But, most are just fun and build strength in your sinews and muscles, flexibility and power (like swinging a heavy Guandao up, down, around, thrusting and parrying). So, if you want to be a practical fighter, sure, ignore Traditional Kung Fu and Karate. Go do MMA or boxing or something. But, if you really like Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc, etc Martial Arts, it is a fun way to stay in shape and can DEFINITELY give you great self-defense skills over the average assailant, if you train to apply it.
I get the most out of Kata by the balance and strength development. Body development. Same idea as pushups or weight training. Basics feed into good Kata. Good Kata feed into better sparring. We spend lots of time on basics, kata, and sparring. I get value out of Kata.
I think both are SUPER important 1: to preserve the art and 2: hookup a better communication between mind and body. It's the mental conditioning that goes on when training katas and forms. The learning to pay attention to detail so it's easier to see openings and telegraphed moves. THAT'S why it's important. You can be strong at technique, have the strongest punch or kick, be the fastest, but if you can't pay attention, your gonna get knocked out.
100%! all my life did martial arts, now bjj black belt did every thing under the sun u are correct boxing judo jiujitsu Japanese and Brazilian wrestling sambo kick boxi. muay thai its cousin lethwei. Real okinawin karate with real sparring ect ect the things that are real are proven ! No death touches 😂
I’m a TKD black belt and didn’t really appreciate the value of forms until I began to study Okinawan Goju Ryu and learnt the true meaning behind the forms or kata. Kata by itself isn’t enough but in my opinion neither is sparring. Sparring is basically competition style fighting but irikomi sparring from goju ryu is more effective for street self defence in my opinion. I lost faith in traditional martial arts for many years but eventually came to realise that they do have a lot to offer if they’re trained and taught in the right way
Time would be much better actually teaching the practical application and using the techniques in a training sparring / stress situation, rather than teach students to memorise a sequence of moves which have no context. Problem is 99.99% of instructors have no clue what the kata is showing ,or interpret it very poorly. Yes you have memorised all those moves in the correct sequence, here is a black belt for having such a good memory! Now give me your £30 for the grading.
I did shotakan karate for many years getting to brown 2 stripes. Gave up when I just couldn't get to the Dojo as often as usual. Anyhow it's pretty useless. Had many fight's. It all goes out the window in a real street fight. Boxing is the way to go.
Historically speaking, the preset kata of karate that he is ranting against is a modern invention that came about with Itosu to teach okinawan school children. Then taken over by Japanese karate as the only way to kata. The pre-itosu kata were free form with naihanchi(fighting on a rice patty) or bassai(fighting a skilled defensive opponent) for example, being ideas for the free form kata. Free form sparring was also a 20th century invention the Japanese added to karate. It was considered too dangerous to spar. When a fight or challenge did occur there were no rules and could be to the death.
Hell, man, didn't your parents teach you that if you keep falling into the same trap over and over again in different places, it might be time to start asking if the problem is in you, not those places? I mean it's one thing to accidentally end up in one or two bad schools. But if you've really studied all these legit styles you list and still have such fantasies about what taolus are for - you're either very bad at choosing your schools or just have some mental block and don't really listen. Cause what you discribe about the way you were taught forms - that stuff has zero connection to reality. That has very little to do with how and why we actually practice taolus in real traditional schools. P.S.: the applications you show in the beggining, btw, look pretty decent to me. But I guess you're mostly just projecting your current knowledge and skill onto the old memories)
+John Doe Shotokan is mostly the same though. Even as it was first created based on traditional line, it soon became a tool for the Japanese government national propaganda. And for that purpose it made much more sense to turn it into a modernized sport, which they did. If you want authentic karate, look into Okinawan styles. Senseis in Shorin, GoJiu, Uechi usually have no problem explaining and demonstrating the methodology of kata and it's uses.
Depends when you started .... in the 70,s and 80,s ...it was bad I did traditional styles many .... and almost all my teachers were bad ..why did I stay ? I was seeking and finally found a good style ... I did it for 5 years and never got past orange because we changed affiliations 3 times by the end of it I had no interest in any form or kata only sparring and we did that every class ... the teacher was Reggie Toussaint an American Karate champion .... but a good form can be fun and it's fantastic for balance and coordination...not fighting
I feel bad for you. You are telling people not to waste their time with forms, but it seems like you wasted 30 years of your life learning whatever garbage you learned. Just because you had poor teachers and are just finding that out doesn't mean you should ridicule a system that has worked for centuries.
I don’t think they’d disagree, at least not vehemently. They’ve got a much better balance of kata and live pressure testing than the vast majority of karate-ka out there.
Totally agree, kata is more of a memory game than anything functional. Far better to practise sharpening your attributes and sparring than wasting time on fantasy fighting.
Don't know about other arts but in wing chun there are many benefits of the forms. They are not suppose to be fun. 1. Trains to stay calm 2. Focus 3. Correct position 4. It is an alphabet as you don't always use every position in sparring. 5. To move correctly in wing chun to move and lead with your elbows not your hands. 6. Stance. More and more. Yes you have to spar but sparring can cause bad habits specially in positioning since sparing is too fast to ever get to the correct position exactly. Using the example you used about the boxer practicing the same thing over and not being a boxer. Well if that boxer did a simple jab slowly paying attention to release, feet position, hip, etc and see how everything moves together. He will understand it better, his body will understand better, thus his execution will be better. It's like a drill but on one's self. Taking another quote from Bruce Lee, "I fear not the man who's practiced 1000 kicks, but the one who has practiced a kick 1000 times" that is what forms in wing chun do. That's why forms in wing chun are slow, relaxed, and effortless to make sure you do the exact thing everytime. So forms I believe are an everyday importance, but as you say only once of twice on each form. Musicians practice scales on a daily basis, to them these are their forms. Aviously without actually playing music they wouldn't be musicians but they would never disregard their scales. Dancers have types of forms too and they do them because they won't do every step in every dance but need to know they have it ready when need it.
While I agree that forms have little use for street fighting, I'm a bit disappointed in this video. First, if you trained traditional martial arts at places that only sparred once or twice a year, then I'm sorry but you trained at bad places and this seems to have informed your opinion of traditional arts. I've trained at many places and they all had free sparring (not just step 1, step 2, etc.) almost every day, so please don't assume your experience is the norm. Second, while I agree that sparring is more important, and that forms have little or no street use, forms do have value in providing a structure for focus, discipline, balance and muscle memory for kids/family classes, and even give some novice adults help in those areas (especially in the first 6 months or so). So, does it make sense for seasoned practitioners to spend much time on forms ? No, but forms have some use. Look, I love BJJ too, but I'm continually perplexed about why my fellow BJJ practitioners feel so much need to take shots at traditional martial arts.
I trained at quite a few different places. At some schools they went so far as to do Chi Sao or Sticking Hands practice, but that's still different from sparring. And although I'm a BJJ guy I would argue that boxing, kickboxing, MMA and wrestling all have live training. How many karate masters would want to go up against even a 10 and 2 boxer?
If you weren't free sparring multiple times a week, you went to bad places and you should have switched -- even if it meant to a different striking art. BJJ also has drills, and no one argues that BJJ drills aren't worthwhile - even though the drills you do with a training partner or alone don't always translate to the exact positions you are in while rolling. Forms allow a class full of people to move in synch to drill multi-step combinations with some semblance of order -- but no argument that they are less about the street and more for foundational training and should be emphasized less than sparring.
robtw1970 The point of the matter is the investment of time in moves one does not apply in sparring. So, you do spar a lot, but do you use kata-sequences or do you do something entirely different?
robtw1970 A lot of BJJ practitioners have been brainwashed, fact of the matter is standing up or on the ground practicing to get a hold /lock on someone is practicing forms essentially
They are useful. You just have to know how to modify them for a real situation. People, saying that forms are useless, don’t understand that they’re textbook models to execute a movement. In real life situations, you modify those moves to fit the situation.
Isn't kata also a way of meditation so you'd learn to relax your muscles and using hip rotation and for kime (creating as much power as possible in the shortest time you can )
Why do you keep belaboring this point but never ever talk to anyone who competes with their kung fu? If competition is the measure of success for you and kung fu forms keep being rant worthy, why have you never hoped over William CC Chen's Tai Chi school and met with any of his world class sanda and push hands students? It's literally 3 blocks from Marcelo Garcia's NYC school, and you seem to have no trouble visiting that.
I like that wing chun only has three forms in the entire system, and each is pretty short. I started off in Tang Soo Do, and I see value in forms. They promote good and proper technique. For that reason, I am all for them - until they become way too many! So I have my limit. They also help the solo martial artist to stay in shape.
I HATE forms and kata, ESPECIALLY if they're required to get to the next belt. A higher belt should be a better fighter- not because he knows more forms. I especially hate forms and katas created by the club
MrParkerman6 I don't mind doing short combinations of 3 to 5 techniques but I hate doing long combinations of 10 moves and using techniques I'll never use like front kick from low stance or downward blocks
Then perhaps you're missing the point of those forms. Look at what the kata is supposed to teach you. At the most basic level, it's a handful of self-defenses. Maybe they include moves or strikes that you haven't been taught before. I have a kata where the second half is the exact same as the first half except done on the other side, and that shows the importance of working the technique on both sides, not to favor one side over the other. Internalize that principle, and that will help you be a better fighter. Other katas and forms will teach different lessons beyond what's immediately obvious.
I trained karate for about 5 years, and now i want to learn boxing. Kata is the reason i stopped training, no, i don't want to spend the entire training session doing a dance, let me put on gloves and spar with someone!
I learnt more in kickboxing for 2months than I did doing ITF taekwondo for 3years. Absolute waste of time. Forms,forms,forms…. Every frekin lesson. Than more the next.
I have 35 Years of Traditional Kung Fu. My Sifu is 5th Generation Master in Canton. I continue to practise every day and I have to say that everything you say in this video is 100% correct. A few generations ago- it was all about conditioning, fighting, and a few sets at the advanced level as a mnemonic of tactics and body mechanics (at that time there were no videos, and many of the practitioners couldn't read or write, so sets and 'poems' were a useful memory aid) Somewhere when martial arts began to be sold as 'cultural treasures' or 'health practises' it all went horribly wrong...Keep spreading the good information!
I have trained 9 national champions in traditional kung fu and MMA. I have run a full time school for 25 years. Perhaps I suck, but have yet to see a single person become a great fighter from just learning forms. Plus, many teachers use the forms as a 'carrot', exactly as Stephan describes. If you go back 3 generations, it was not like this. Conditioning and fighting training was a much more important part of the curriculum than collecting sets.
9 national champions, huh? How many national championships have you personally won? Forms are incredibly important in order to develop muscle memory and understand the tactics that come with the different styles. You can't possibly suggest to me that Crane and Tiger are used the same way, that means they require differing techniques to accommodate these tactics. Sparring is important, but it's only half of the equation to understanding practical martial arts.
David Rogers Sifu, I myself practice Hung Kuen under Jeroen Kloppenburg Sifu. I started doing this after having trained with a fake cultlike "kungfu" teacher type wich cost me 13 years of training after wich I got destoyed in the first sparring session in Hung Kuen. I sometimes wonder what the forms are really for, we practise lots of drills and conditioning wich I agree, would benefit more in a fight then just forms. What is your reason for still practising them if you don't think they're useful for fighting if I may ask?
Hi ezra- that's a really good question. I don't want to hijack Stephan's page (I think his stuff is excellent) I may do a video myself on why I practice sets, and I do think they they have benefits- depending on your reasons for training. It's just the idea that someone who can't fight learns some sets and turns into someone who can fight is a myth from the movies that has unfortunately been sold to a lot of students.
I think you and Iain Abernathy would get along well. His video on the training matrix and the 4 stages of kata are mirroring exactly what you are talking about. The best part is how much he quotes past pioneers of the art of karate to support the fact that kata was never intended to be what it has become. Might be a good resource to point to for people who wish to stay connected to Karate for their martial arts training but have a more functional training methodology. Thanks for the video!
Combat is learning to fight someone else. Kata is learning to fight yourself. In practicing Kata, you learn stamina, balance, speed, body control, precision, always be in a rooted stance, agility, focus, how to control your strength, memory, reflexes (etc.). I agree, that it is only the first step, but it is an important step. If you skip it, and start to fight other people as a beginner, your body will not be ready. Regarding your Bruce Lee quote: ever tried to throw a kid in the pool so it will learn to swim by itself?
I do Wing Chun and at training it's pretty obvious which students do forms regularly and who don't. The ones who do forms regularly need less time to adapt to new drills, or even old drills from some time ago. Those who don't do forms at all, have difficulty even punching properly. Forms are a form of cataloguing all techniques in a system. It hones muscle memory and structure, but it's not a fighting application. If we divide training into yin and yang, then forms are the yin, while combative training is the yang. In some schools forms aren't taught at all, yet they still produce good students. However I know from experience that forms can help you SO MUCH, that if I ever become a teacher, I'll always be teaching forms.
Forms are good as a form of meditation, not for a real fight witch is unpredictable . Styles don't say anything in a fight, people do. Thanks for uploading the video.
For me, the forms are a fun part of the tradition. Like, to do the same movements as historical figures within the tradition. I've never thought of them as very applicable. They're just a catalogue of techniques, though there are some good combinations. Look at Kyokushin. We would learn forms, but the sparring had almost nothing to do with it.
I took several years off from my training. I trained in traditional karate back in the day and was up to 3rd Dan at a time when there were no kids in the martial arts. My training was at a very high level and tough. When I got back into it, I decided to make my training realistic fighting centered. Honestly, I only had vague memories of the 30 odd forms I had learned. I decided to relearn just two forms, one because I just liked it (Tekki 1), and the other because I wanted to (Bassai Sho). Okay, I still do my original first H pattern form, because that one is so basic that even after not training how could you forget that :-) and I think it's good for balance and hip movement. So anyway, of course I agree with you about forms being unnecessary, especially if you only have so much time to train. I concentrate on conditioning, technique, and application. Just promoted to 4th Dan :-) Thank you!
Docinaplane Say, do you feel betrayed for getting up to 3rd Dan, essentially wasting countless hours - self-defense wise? I'm asking, because I think it's a huge responsibility to teach someone to fight and if done wrong, they're doing way more harm than good.
That's a good question, John! Of course, I didn't know any better at the time, and I had a lot of time. I trained 6 days a week. I didn't stress this, but my original teacher was a Korean man who had also trained as a boxer in Japan, so he knew what real fighting was. When I think back, I didn't appreciate him as much as I should have :-) My next teacher was out of San Jose, Ca and his school was known for producing the best fighters. We trained with no equipment except a cup and groin was a legal target, and in those old "point fighting" tournaments we threw hard! I can't speak for others, but what I learned worked in the street the few times I needed to defend myself.
John Doe I feel somewhat betrayed. I trained shotokan for 7 years reaching 1st Dan. Bunkai was a rare occurrence, although we practiced a lot on reactionary drills and sparred a lot. My teacher came from kyokushin and goju ryu so I believe he knew what he was doing and any practitioners we met outside of the club who were also black belts were in a sorry state fighting wise as they just couldn't fight so it definitely counted for something. However I always felt if I had to fight any trained fighter outside of karate I.e. Boxing and mma, that id get my arse handed to me. There is a serious need for traditional martial arts to start incorporating real fighting for it to be of use. We sparred but because of lack of headgear you get afraid to commit to attacks for fear of injury to both parties. There's a new form of karate called kudo daido juku. They seem to have the right idea but need more drilling in reactionary movements as their fights can get sloppy.
Kata and forms are very helpful for the development of.....BODY..MIND..SPIRIT ...being fluid with movement creates energy. Energy/ Chi is real!!...During these forms, we practice fighting and self defense technics.Over years of training, these technics become second nature to us. Its not all about kickin ass......Remember who gave us Martial Arts........Spiritual Buddist Masters/Monks.....Forms and Katas are very relevant in the development of BODY..MIND and SPIRIT..and the more we throw and practice kicks, punches etc......The better we become at it!!.....Please keep sparring in your training.......This is also crucial in a good Martial Arts School.....Peace & Love First Always Brothers n Sisters....
@Dee Bee Mornin Bro....Dude....thats totally kewl with me Man....I like to investigate the origins of my interests. Through my discovery I found Very Spiritual Masters teaching US their methods of Self Defense throughout History. Not only are original Martial Arts used for Self Defense and many other reasons, they were and are used for Spiritual development and Virtue.....I ve hated, kicked ass and had my ass kicked enough........to now have a desire to delve more into the deeper more meaningful things in this life....Theres alot to be said about and for...........Peace and Love Brother......Of coarse you dont need to believe in anything Spiritual to be a Good Human.....I myself find much strength in Spirit......and this Universal Presence shows Itself to me Daily!....lol.....its ALL Good Bro!.....Keep training and dont hurt anybody unless you have to.....Body.....Mind......Spirit.......Health and Peace on 🌎......
So do you think that samurai spent so much time rolling like in so called bjj? Definitely not because in that type of combat too much rolling training was mostly useless. Don't get me wrong newaza has its place but when you throw weapons into the equation as well as multiple warriors on the battlefield, rolling is mostly useless. I agree though on the importance of resistance training. FYI Judo has many Kata.
All martial arts are useless when you throw weapons into the equation...infact bjj is probably much safer because you won't be deluded enough to think you can take on multiple attackers with weapons.
There's a reason Hideyuki Ashihara (Founder of Ashihara Kaikan, a full-contact Karate) changed the forms, Takashi Azuma (Founder of Daido Juku Kudo, a full-contact that resembles MMA with space helmets and headbutts thrown in) abandoned them for the same reason.
Dipayan Degtyarev that's true but have you seen the techniques of the kudo karate guys in competition? They are not as sharp as kyokushin who train kata, and not near as sharp as shotokan or Conor mcgregor/Lyoto machida who come from traditional karate. Kata has its purpose in refining technique but the cake has to be about real fighting at the end of the day.
@@LutherTaylor As someone who trained MMA and Enshin Karate (Ashihara Karate Offshoot) I can tell you it's not from not training Kata. It's because they are strikers and grapplers. Grapplers tend to go all out, which could make striking look less clean.
I mean, you make an argument about how NOT to do forms, and then seem to go onto make points about 'maybe' they can be useful - if you visualize the opponent and know the application. If boxing were outlawed tomorrow, and boxing schools were dispersed, it is hard to find people to practise boxing with, people would start to codify hook punches, jabs, etc into a...FORM so that it could not be forgotten. Shadow boxing would become elaborate or even disguised. This happened to kung fu, karate, and filipino martial arts, among others. Then... if and when boxing is allowed again, we get back together and practice the application to re-tune the techniques (drift occurs sure). Right so hung gar, a sao choi (you know that one) is a pretty effective strike yes? Most people think so. I've not been to kung fu in about 10 years because there arent any schools near where I live, but I still know how to do a sau choi, and that's because of a FORM, that I still do about once a week. AND yes, when i learned kung fu we sparred at least once a month, and Sifu would come and knock us over when we did bad techniques in the form. It was 75% application 25% form.
I've been learning and teaching American Kenpo for fifity years (but only adults, kids can't appreciate martial arts or do what I like to teach). The first thing I did when I hadd my own school was eliminate all the forms and it hasn't hurt me a bit. I'm 5'2", slim and I've had physical attacks many times of the years and with one move or strike, the fight was over. Anther time, a guy grabbed my shoulder and tried to punch me. I did a quick Kenpo move and broke his elbow. Although no forms, I always teach a form of shadow boxing as if actual fighting and using your knowledge. Do you have to spar? Well I did sparing ther first five years and then I decided no more, I hated getting hurt and hurting others. But I use the heavy bag for all kinds off punches, strikes elbwos, kicking, even low small bag for Kung Fu strike to ankle. When I teach a technique, we do it on each other, but with control. We get more eye to eye coordination by using rubber sticks for sparing . But katas are not necessary if you want to learn to fight and protect yourself. Sparring should be done lightly so no one gets hurt. But as long as the art works on the street, and mine does then great. I've added many joint locks and ground techs and other weapons so I call my art AKJ-American Kenpo.. I still teach privately in Puyallup. I love practicing all the self-defense techniques. Take care. Sifu
To be quite honest I agree 100%. I wont pretend that I am a martial arts expert or that I know everything. I have very little experience in Karate (about 4 years) and I just began Judo. But one of the things I lobe about my classmates its that they like to spar alot and pressure test things to make a plan A, B, C to even Z to know what to do when a move fails. I never agreed in forms again and again, because you become more of a prop rather than a fighter or even a better person. I do respect Katas or forms in martial arts such as Karate, kung fu, taekwondo, muay thai, etc. But Katas should be work outs, not fighting moves.
Care to explain why? I mean I explained my own reeasons and I also never said I know everything. If you think im wrong atleast explain why. Martial arts isnt a simple as saying "your right" or "your wrong" If you like katas and forms and think the benefit in a fight then by all means continue. I like forms and like how they benefit one own being. But unless you spar against your classmates and other martials arts, your fancy poses aint worth squat unless you prove they work. Again im not am expert and I never being in a karate tournament but in my very brief time, No one did katas in a fight, we just did what a fight is supposed to be like. Still by all means, explain why im wrong and at the same time give a link or something to watch a kung fu guy using a working pose in a guy or atleast trying to do some bad boxing.
I've been around Taekwondo schools my whole life, and none of them advertise forms as a method of self defence. They teach it as part of the curriculum as a method of demonstrating technique.
Sorry. You can know all the forms or katas, in the world. but if you don't train against an opponent that doesn't follow your same patterns, you will achieve close to nothing...
You have a reading comprehension problem. I'M SAYING FORMS ARE NOT FOR COMBAT PURPOSES! IN OTHER WORDS I'M AGREEING WITH YOUR COMMENT. What I'm saying is that they are for DEMO purposes.
Kata's and forms are great for developing balance and technique. When you do a kata or a form you put all of your energy into it. They are also like the art, of martial arts. Almost disgusting how people just throw away the usefulness of kata's and forms.
I've been doing M/A for about the same time as Stephan and how I HATED forms ! Just spend the time you would have wasted on kata, drilling , sparring and hitting the heavy bag and you'll get ten times the benefit.
If you view forms as a catalog of techniques, that's a bit better, because you can extract those techniques and practice them with a partner. It's a shame that most TMAs don't do this because having studied quite a bit of form applications myself, some forms contain interesting ideas that could be adapted for modern fighting. All that said, I've never trained in a system where we didn't spar. I trained in traditional taekwondo and we sparred (both hands and feet) on a regular basis. I was never led to believe that just doing forms would make you a better fighter; forms were more for personal training outside of practice. I was told that before modern protective equipment, forms were a way to practice striking at full force without hurting your partner.
All forms are useless, they are dance, not martial art. Real fighting is all about lightning reaction, is about adapt, is about knowning what to do what you apponent do this or do that. Training froms are not helping at all. Kung Fu is definitlly not useless, but people are ruining them with unscientific training. Some forms are used to create muscle memory, but these kinds of training is not adaptive at all. That's why some unexperienced Kung Fu guy losts their form and forgets what they have been taught at once when they are facing real fight and make Kung Fu seems useless.
I know a friend who receives pirvate lessons of wing chun. Apart from the forms, the sifu spar and drill with him. Serval months the main three forms were taught. And my friend developed reflexes to defend and press forward...thr vital part of fighting.
You're wrong about the origins and meaning of kata. But you're right on everything else. The thing is, when even 9th dan karate-masters don't know what they're doing and just collect loads of (empty) kata to proove their expertise and to keep the students busy, it's nothing a beginner could ever know or even imagine. To question them was equal to blasphemy and still is to this day. I'm not ashamed for believing a Sensei would know what he's teaching. I think, they should be ashamed to call their dance-lessons 'martial art'. Aaand... I subscribed! Keep up the good work, man!
John Doe eh. Some senseis really aren't fighters. A 6th dan if i am not wrong started getting into mma and sparred with us for the first time and you would see him struggling with average amateurs that did a year or two of thai boxing
the problem is that they teach them the wrong way and you can't just do forms as someone once said (i don't remember who) "Martial arts are about controlling yourself and controlling your opponent" forms are only the first part about that and also you can't just try to do one move. Let's say for example you want to use a push kick and you are trying to do that all the time. It doesn't work like that you can do that when you have an opening for the kick the same thing with forms people teach their students that they should use kata in self defense. if you have a chance then do the move but don't try to do it all the time sorry for bad English
I’m a lifelong martial artist I’m 62 years old started when I was 11 years old and studied Goju, tai chi, jkd concepts, Filipino martial arts and street boxing also known as the 52 My karate teacher emphasized kata and kumite equally. He taught us that anyone can fight forms enable you to pass on the art and to demonstrated to others. Forms become especially useful when you are older and have health issues like I do now. Because of forms inTai chi practice I went from barely able to walk to being able to walk the length of two football fields in a very short period of time when I reintroduced myself to thwart Any martial arts form can be extrapolated to single techniques that you can use get a combat drill much in the same way like a boxers jab cross jab cross hook jab cross hook upper cut all single movements but using sequence makes up a usable method of shadowboxing that translate easily into combat.
I like your mentions of Bruce Lee and Wing Chun! I would like to hear your comments on Jeet Kune Do. I've been practicing JKD for almost two years now. I like its directness, fluidity, and Wing Chun hands in combination with boxing footwork. Our classes include frequent partner drills.
Here's an explanation of shadowboxing. Maybe Karate and Kung fu people could practice in a similar way instead of traditional katas? Shadowboxing explained: ua-cam.com/video/17s54i5lDto/v-deo.html
I think a lot of people have a misconception and misleading understanding about forms and what Bruce Lee says about forms. Believe it or not, Bruce Lee practiced his kung fu forms, but never publicized it. I've trained in Shaolin Kung Fu, Wing Chun, Filipino Martial Arts, JKD, and currently I practice Shotokan Karate...traditional authentic Japanese shotokan. I used to have the same mentality about forms and kata before I trained with my sensei and from what I've learned is there is a huge difference in what the actual interpretation of the (bunkai) application of each movement in a kata is that it does not necessarily apply in the same fashion and movement as you would do in the form or the kata. It is pretty much a metaphoric and not entirely literal interpretation of what you would actually do in the street so that it becomes functional. A lot of westernized instructors and even some japanese sensei's teach poorly when it comes to form and kata application and it gives a bad impression of how people perceive karate or kung fu. PLUS kata and doing forms is to teach and train you to do combinations. The only thing I 100% do agree with you in this video is the fact of training with resistance, because how else would you train your techniques to be effective....plus weight training and conditioning too, is important.
The best exercise for fighting is fighting. But in order to fight effectively you must have great technique in order to maximize your strikes and minimize you getting hit. Forms teach you how to maneuver how do use proper body mechanics how to align yourself so that you can use it in combat that you can’t tell me that these forms which are hundreds of years old and used by actual warriors as a training method for warfare is useless. If it’s useless I see there must be something wrong with our application of them warriors don’t waste time practicing something that doesn’t benefit them on the battlefield and these forms have stood the test of time it’s up to us to extrapolate them and to use them
First, who says kata is solely for the purpose of combat, 25 years in Karate I have never heard of that before. If it is not, how is it completely useless? From another perspective, Why does leg works, weight training and yoga good for your martial art / combat and self. People who says kata is unless unfortunately have not done a kata property to truly appreciate it's benefits but only think how it can look good to others or how do I apply this and that in combat. Balance, breathing, posture (a big one), flexibility, transit from one movement to another efficiently etc. Too many to list. Just like when I hit the gym or do yoga, I don't think about how my biceps can kill someone or how my flexible muscle can hurt someone, I just enjoy the workout and guess what, the result is those workout can totally transform your performance in combat.
Right with everything! .... I fully agree! Most people don´t understand that kung fu forms NEVER were made for training purposes!!!!!!! It was made for keeping ideas in mind! Not more and not less. Maybe to teach and explain the movements! But if one really use a kung fu form as a training method it is really a big waste of time!!! As a teacher one should first teach applications and how to fight and then teach the forms the best students or your son that they can keep all these techniques in mind and that they are able to teach others.
On the East Coast it was different, most Kung Fu schools I trained or visited did sparring one to three times a week, did full contact to light contact continuous tournaments one to three times every six months. In NYC the Kung Fu competitions of the sixties and seventies were gloving up and fighting to the knockout or knockdown long before the advent of full Contact Karate. So yes if you only train forms your Kung Fu sucks, and the forms will be useless. But the Kung Fu people were sparring in the orient since the thirties if not before.
Forms should be preserved and practiced but they should only be one component of training. You have to be sparring and practicing against non-compliant opponents, absolutely agree. The Chinese martial arts need to be reformed and fast.
This view is all over martial art video posts and I attribute it to the rise of mma. The gist is a pragmatic argument against the utility of traditional styles. The problem is in modern times the only real way to win a fight is with a conceal carry. Assume you will be shot. How well does mma work against that? So I think the pragmatic argument fails. Forms and beauty are the reason for martial arts to bring fitness and peace to the practitioner. Not to make a fight winner.
Forms are an artistic exercise. It’s not for combat. If you have a esthetic sense for them practice by all means. They work on muscles and coordination as well and are good for children and elderly especially.
Feel as though the benefits of proper form practice are vast and far outweigh any reasons one may have to not practice them. Creation of neural synapses, increased learning curve, improved memory, focus, speed, accuracy, timing, muscle memory, pattern recognition, cardio, explosivity, overall agility and athleticism,stress relief, mental health, self expression, storytelling, life skills, relaxation, coordination, breath control, respect, discipline. It's not just about fighting, however, good teachers can break down every application many different ways, bring them full circle and convey the essence of it through drilling, sparring and pressure testing to find what's useful to them at the time. Kata becomes more sophisticated the more you're exposed to other arts and bridges the gap between them. My understanding of kata 10x's almost every 3 years as ive continued to keep my practice after nearly 30 years. I used to hate it in the beginning but now im very grateful for everything kata has given me. Kata is an encyclopedic reference for teaching and offers philosophies for approaching life. Respectfully 🙏
This "expert" leaves much to be desired when it comes to knowledge of kata. Kata is the PERFECT EXECUTION OF A GIVEN TECHNIQUE FOR SELF-DEFENSE. I emphasize SELF-DEFENSE. Many of the people teaching forms today don't know the true techniques involved. It makes me glad this knowledge is restricted. Why? Because I saw the real applications from OKINAWAN masters like Shinpo Matayoshi. Example: My hi-school friend used to train under Ben Otake of the Shotokan school, here in PR (1969). They used to spar every day. Well, one of my other friends learned the kick-to-the-knee-strike from the Goju Ryu Seisan kata. During sparring he kicked the first guy on the knee and crippled him so badly he has to use a cane and can never practice karate again. How about that biz on the uselessness of kata? Of course he was thrown out of the school. I kept hearing, " if you don't spar how do you know it's effective?" Well, it was effective enough because our school was forcefully closed by the Police's Riot Squad under armed guard because the Socialists took a few months of training and were fighting them during local civil unrest. Sincerely
I think the most reasonable argument frames forms as a sort of "physical dictionary" rather than a sort of imitation of real-life fighting. If I remember correctly, they say that in olden times printing manuals was expensive, the padded training aids we have today didn't exist, and along with another set of pedigogical reasons I can't recall right now. Obviously this doesn't excuse the modern hyper-focus of them in TMAs. However, even then I think there are flaws in this argument. Teaching a form as a "dictionary" is still less useful than teaching techniques as they are (e.g. X, Y, & Z punches, and these blocks are for defence against certain strikes, and this submission can make a man pass out, etc.). I'm sure the concept of "shadow boxing/fighting" existed ever since the first humans were smart enough to teach themselves and each other skills; and that is probably far more effective as a "physical dictionary" than a form could ever hope to be. I just don't see any pedigogical advantage to it.
I agree 100% . I feel happy that a person with such amount of experience like you raise this issue. Talking about karate, how many age uke, soto uke or uchi uke have we seen lately on a WKF tournament? - the techniques that traditional school teaches us are useless in a real confrontation (kumite or street fight) I compare that kind of practice with the one used in judo. From the very begining you are supposed to fall, throw or be thrown, practice randori and learning by doing the techniques that later on you would apply in a tournament or (for God´s sake, no!) in a street fight.
What do you think of a Karate Dojo(with Karate based on Shotokan, boxing, jiu jitsu, and judo) that is 1/4 kata, 1/4 sparring, 1/4 technique, 1/4 self defence applications(although from what I remember the self defence was bullcrap) do you think that is a reasonable ratio of practical-theoretical
It sounds like you had some terrible teachers in martial arts. Here is what I learned from practicing the very first kata of Shotokan karate: (I am currently at step 1 of the second kata. after several years of practicing the first kata.) 1) Each form represents principles of a combat system. - Jumping from kata to kata, learning the forms makes you miss the point completely. Stay with a kata/form until you completely master the techniques and principles from that kata. - If you just try to learn as many kata's as possible, or don't have the patience or stomach to really learn a kata you are like the guy who practices boxing one week, muay thai the next, tai chi the week after, BJJ the next week etc. getting some experience but completely missing the point in any and all of the forms he practices. 2) Training a form consists of 4 steps. - 1: Learning the moves (Sadly this is where most dojo's stop.) - 2: Learning the Bunkai (and practice using Kihon.) - 3: Think of other ways to use the moves in the kata/other ways to use the principles taught in the kata. (Practice it as well in Kihon) - 4: Apply them in full contact kumite. Example: Heian Shodan (First kata of Shotokan Karate) - Attacking enemies at different angles. (45 degree angle especially) - Attacking the center line - How to keep control of the fight - Proper distancing - How to keep balance - Making it hard to detect your moves - Joint manipulation by overextending the joints. (Arm bars) - Throws by Manipulating the joints and rotational force over your hip or back leg. - Block and counter attacks - Breaking Rhythm in fighting to confuse your opponent and land more hits. - Proper hip rotations and power generation for martial arts. - Different vital points/nerve points to strike. - Putting pressure on opponents by always moving forward. - Breaking the guard and structure of the opponent to create openings. Now let me ask you: If you master that one kata (the beginners kata that most people skip.) and master the principles taught by this kata. What kind of fighter do you think you are? I would say you're probably a better fighter than the ones in your local cage fighting and mma competitions, and you would be sufficient prepared for most self-defense scenario's that do not include weapons. Did I say this is just the very beginners kata?
Today, just like Apple has numerous fakes as it is the most trusted, popular and quality-oriented brand, similarly, Karate has been one of the most popular martial art forms since a very long time. Because of so many versions and revisions in Karate, the original (deadly) Karate form has almost gone extinct. I would love to see someone bring back Karate to life, like it was in the past. Yes, Karate had it's enormous glory for a reason! The original art form was both lethal and very apt for dirty street fights. Apart from punches and kicks, the art form also included wrestling and grappling movements. It was meant to be a complete way of fighting. But, coming back to today's day, even Karate practioners don't trust the art form. Sad! Final words: Karate's present will be Muay Thai's / Jui Jitsu's tomorrow, unless the practioners carefully preserve the authenticity of these art forms for the future generations to explore, wonder and learn.
I praticed some traditional kung fu forms for a couple of years and then I abbandoned all that stuff and practiced more real fight stuff. And then I was pretty convinced, for most of my life, in what you're saying in this video. BUT, after not being practicing any kinf of martial arts for a time I started to LEARN JAPANESE. And then I realize that you are RIGHT, but just to a certainextentl. Maybe that's something that you're missing that I mayself was as well. If anyone here are not familiar with Japanese look up in the FSI ranking of the most difficult languages for a English native speaker (wich I'm not, but it's quite similar anyway) and see how much more time you'll spend in laguages ike Japanese an Chinese than other languages. Just to start you have 3 alphabets. Two of then are phonetic. And one is KANJI. You have lieterally, in Japanese, around 3 THOUSAND kanjis to learn, each very complicated to write and various pronunciations, just to be able to READ. Each kanji is very complicate to learn and each has even a proper order to write every single stroke. At he beggining seems that doesn't matter this fucking order. But aftersometime you'll realiza that you commited a GREAT error if you didn't pay attention to the proper storke order! For us in the Ocident that's sounds just crazy and you're gonna think that's is simply IMPOSSIBLE to learn it, that this kind of language, as you said about traditional martial arts, is "impractible". But, guess what, they really learn and comunicate and make poems and all the shit with that complicate system that seems impossible to even learn. So maybe you're gonna beggin to think it's only possible for native learners, that learn it from childhood. But, guess what again, a lot fo foreigners REALLY become able to learn and use that complicate language in a usefull time. You have to spend months, or, with you have no time enough to spend (and a it demand A LOT of dailly time, HOURS per day) even YEARS just to dominate even the APHABETS (that you could call "the forms" fo this asina languages). And then even have spent so much time and struggled SO MUCH to know all this symbols, the right way to write then and the various different readings for each symbol used ALEATORILLY in ech randon word (each kanji has at least 2 readings, and it can get easy to 8 to 12 readings, EACH!) you can't understand, read or hear even a BASIC SENTENCE! And so you discover that after all that time and effort the grammar andd the vocabulary necessary just to comunicate in the same level AS A CHILD will take much more time and effort yeat! As I said, I don't practice martial arts anymore. However, after learning Japanese these recent years I realize that I (and maybe you) could be worng. I sincerelly think that what you describe is like try to learn Japanese JUST learning the 3 thousand kanjis, how to recognize each, with luck remember how to write (becasue you'll forget, even natives forget!) and how to pornounce each pronunciation of the amazing amount tha each one can have and then realize that it's not enough and now you have to learn how to acttually USE them all inside te language. You don't know yeat a shit of grammar and let alone vocabullary, even the most common words. Now that I know some Japanse, all that forms seemns very LITTLE to me, and I think they are just like I have described: like the kanjis in the Japansese language. You HAVE to learn, And it will cost an incredible and painfull amount of time, constancy and effort to learn. But that it's just only PART of EVERYTHING that you have yeat to elarnto be able to communicate in Jappanese even at the level of a silly dumb foreigner. And just to add, maybe that's the reason they have those kinds of martial arts. Leraning languages LIKE THOSE all that stuff in katas looks pretty easy. Maybe here in the other part of the world we just have the advantage to be very practcal and the disadvantage to be TOO LAZY.
Here are good styles. Western Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Jiu jitsu, Wrestling, Hapkido, Krav Maga, and maybe Kyokushin Karate and ITF Taekwondo. ATA Taekwondo is bull shit.
Well, yeah. Choreographed forms in a freestyle fight are gonna be useless.😃😅😅😅 But forms were never MEANT for fighting, that would be absurd. You're literally " debunking" something that isn't a fighting method and never was.
Any art can be good or can be bad. It all depends on how it is trained. Most people know multiple arts these days. I started in wrestling, then Karate, then Hung style, then Tai Chi, then wing Chun, then Escrima, then Silat, then knife combat then played with martial artists with boxing and Judo backgrounds. In my opinion, all of the arts were good. The forms are just a way they handed down the arts. They didn't use to have videos or even good books on many arts so forms were a way to pass down someone's theory about fighting and that's all. Just a reference book. But to learn to fight, in every art you have to learn the use by fighting. Not many arts can prepare you for real combat which could involve multiple opponents, weapon attacks, gun and knife violence, acid attacks, getting run over by a car, a girl getting abducted by 3 people. Even MMA does not prepare you for all the things that real-life survival entails. Tai Chi is considered one of the most useless arts on the planet however my teacher taught many competitive JUdo players and they thought it helped their Judo. Most of the time was not spent training forms but were spent in two people practice. But let's not discount all those people doing these things for the beauty of form or health, which of course you are not doing. Wing Chun basics can be taught in a month and after that, you just fight people from different arts. THat's how you learn to fight. It's not by doing Wing Chun forms all your life. If you do the forms all your life and nothing else, that is fine but as you said, that does not lead to fighting proficiency. For real fighting, you have to go out of the box eventually. Many people just don't have the mentality that it takes to survive a life-threatening situation. That is more important than some movements from some art. Just yesterday in New York some random guy ran up to a young Indian lady and throw a cup of acid in her face. What could have prepared her for that? How do you train for that? If you want reality, then Gladiatorial combat or modern army combat in war is really fighting. But do we want to go back to those days?
I agree in100%.Man belowe me has a spirit.Probably in a bottle.So he likes it.Kata or forms will not teach you how to fight.Fighting, sparing will teach you how to fight.Guess how many forms we have in boxing?Zero.How many sparings?Fucking all the time.This is training not a bullshit.How many forms in Ju Jitsu or Judo or Wrestling?People, start thinking or you will finish in pieces.
I have a request. I am so sick and tired of people saying Jiu Jitsu isn't real fighting, and that Martial arts like Krav Maga, Kung Fu San Soo, all these martial arts that play dirty to a point where they look good on paper, but from my experience I was able to tap a practitioner in less than 30 seconds, and he bit me. Personally I would consider them useful and realistic, IF THEY ACTUALLY SPARRED, most dojos claiming the moves are too dangerous to spar with n' well that's just where the problem lies. As a Jiu Jitsu purple belt I could definitely make a video myself taking out one of these practitioners, but ur video would be more viewed and it would probably educate people more than I actually could.
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I will say if you do your forms with intent, its definitely a good cardio workout.
I agree (am a brown belt in shotokan karate), but just as he said, a cardio workout as good or even better could be done with some running or rope jumping, and in less time
@@caiorocha1049 actually traditionally in Karate and kungfu in ancient times, the form was taught after the students got the individual teqniques down and did some sparing.
As a practitioner of traditional okinawa karate , I agree 100%!.
Aimless forms are useless. What makes the kata functional is its bunkai,we are always taught to utilise the bunkai while sparring
Safdar Kh Awesome! I practice Matsubayashi Shorin-Ryu wbu???
ToTheBatmobile shorin ryu of course! . Seibukan 😀
Safdar Kh So cool! Check out my new dojo channel man. I uploaded the first two Kata of our system. Academy for Youth Empowerment Karate-Do
ToTheBatmobile will do
Oss
Safdar Kh same here. Shobayashi Shorin-Ryu. Btw, my students that train traditional karate and mma with me show superior sparring over my strictly mma folks and strictly kata foljs.
I'm thankful for people like Iain Abernethy and Jesse Enkamp who are re-exploring traditional karate forms and teaching how to properly apply them. The form is not the fight, just like the musical scale is not the song. It has things that can help when properly understood, but you have to comprehend what is going on behind each form move and how it is intended to be practiced in a street situation.
Absolutely, J.Dean. I come from an English background rather than music, but i tell my students much the same thing. A form/hyung/kata isn't an 'instruction manual' so much as a dictionary that contain all the 'words/vocabulary' of a particular system. If you don't understand the hyung/form/kata and are unable to see beyond the sequence of movement in the form, then No, of course the form is useless -- no one is ever going to attack you in a way that you would use even a short sequence of moves from any given form... but that's not the point. That's not how forms work.
Again, to the dictionary metaphor, if you read a dictionary front to back it would be the most boring book you've ever read in your life... but we all know that that isn't how a dictionary works.
However, if you could learn all of the words in the dictionary, those words could be arranged to write any book on any subject in that language... and THAT is how a form should properly be understood.
You practice hyung to 'learn the vocabulary' and to integrate those 'words' (techniques) into you lexicon (toolbox) of techniques from which you can 'create' words and sentences as needed.
No martial art has actually been used in actually fighting in centuries in the strict sense of martial.
However eastern martial arts are used regularly and successfully in modern combat sports.
Amen, when i trained up to 2nd Dan the explation of kata was awful, literaly just a set of moves that were only good for devopling mental focus, but the resurgance of Practical kata bunkai has really opened my eyes and im dying to try it for myself, Abernethy and Enkamp really made kata make sense, moving from the basic recipe of kata to useful defence techniques as the were originaly developed by itosu, funakoshi masamura ect
Iain abernethy is a bit of a bellend and jesse cuod be a tad better too
Jeet Kune Do -- as far as I know -- is the best 'martial art'
I was at a "self defense" site a few months ago and there were many people arguing that you don't need sparring, or heavy bags, punching mitts, or any training aids people use nowadays. It left me flabbergasted.
Win94ae It's completely ridiculous that people actually argue that at all. I cant ubderstand the resoning, what exactly is their thought process?
Adam Mills They are lazy and or afraid of getting hit.
That stuff is attractive to lazy, out of shape people who are completely out of touch with reality: scrawny nerds with ponytails and fatass dudes in camouflage.
They were under the assumption that many of the martial artists from a traditional background that were in the UFC, didn't subscribe to modern training techniques. Until I showed them that even the specific fighters they mentiond, did use modern training techniques. Their last post was that I should challenge Sonny Puzikas. And even in the Systema gyms I find, they all have some modern training techniques.
I believe they don't really understand what is going on during a sparring session.
Win94ae gg fighting is critical!
Kata has value in terms of capturing and passing on information. The problem is that people have made learning the kata as an end in itself. Instead of a starting point, a way of reminding you of important information. You then need to take this information and train it as you suggest. This is whats the old masters used to do. Which is why when you see the rare videos of them training, for example the video of funakoshi (founder of shotokan) doing the heian shodan form he looks pretty rubbish by todays standards. But I would bet he knew how to apply it and practicing it with partners is probably where he spent his time. Spending time making kata look perfect to the point that all meaning is lost which is a modern phononemen. The problem of people prioritising the form over the function is seen in the fact that many karate people come up with frankly rediculous applications for their kata. The explainantions they come up are often divorced from reality and so the value of the kata is lost. Where as if you look at the work of someone like Patrick McCarthy you get a much better idea of what you should actually be doing. The problem isn't that kata doen't have value. The problem is that perhaps only 1% of karate people actually understand how to use it and then take develop their training into dealing with opponents in a realistic way.
Guess this applies to so many TMA practisioners. E. g. lots of the movements in taiji or kungfu have a grappling application. But these are often ignored or the real meaning got lost in one or another lineage.
This is basically why I quit karate after 12 years.
I liked kata because I had a teacher who was very keen on it having to be functional, and that all the basic kata stuff was useless unless practiced on a resisting opponent. And we also did at least 10-20 minutes of sparring every practice, somewhere between medium to full contact. The basic interpretation of a kata was only for learning it, and then the advanced form, or as my teacher said "the real form", with the more nasty stuff came.
He was very keen on making us understand that the kata was just a way to preserve some different combos or locks or throws, or some basic ideas on how to engage in a certain situation, and that you should only really practice the kata to maybe move your body (good warmup?) and to make sure you had the catalogue of more complex moves.
But over the years, it changed. More and more weight was put on kata and point scoring fighting. We used to have one whole training session per week, with only sparring for contact fighting. It became more and more ridiculous point scoring with a million illegal techniques and no contact at all.
All the kata became about passing graduation tests so you could get the next belt, and to live up to the "standards".
I didn't pay much attention to this change, until I travelled abroad for 2 years. In my years away, I joined some gyms and tried other form of martial arts. I sparred a lot with a few MMA guys, some Kyokushin karate people, I tried Aikido and Judo, and I just started realizing how much karate had changed in my dojo over the years.
When I got back home, basically all contact was gone. I was brought up with the idea that the attacker should always strike to hit. Not break the other persons teeth or anything while doing drills or kata, but at least with so much contact on the body that the defender would get the air knocked out of them if they didn't make it work.
In the first week of training, I knocked 3 people down just by hitting them in the gut. They had completely lost all ability to block a punch that was intended to hit.
We used to do a form of fixed stance sparring, with full body contact, which was meant to "fix" the problem that most karate fighters have - they are "out fighters". So this sparring was meant to make sure we would not panic in close quarters, and it was done during every practice for at least a few minutes.
When I got back, it was basically gone. In the 6 months I trained, we did it once, and I was told I was being too rough. In all honesty, I was holding back. And then when we did some sparring with point scoring rules (no contact) I kept chasing everyone around the mat, because no one could handle close quarter fighting.
And I will run the risk of sounding sexist, but over the years all the men had more or less left the dojo. Most of the people there were skinny women, and no matter how much you stretch your imagination, a woman who is 50-65 kilos won't offer much practice to a dude who is 75-80 kilos and 15-20 centimeter taller than them.
At that point I decided to quit doing karate, despite having spent 12 years on it. The style I had practiced had gone from being a very realistic (if you ask me at least) form of martial arts, to being something that was hardly any more than dancing.
I still think it has some of the best martial arts basics I have seen in anything I'v etrained, if trained like an actual fighting system, but as my old teacher used to say: "If you take the fighting intention out of karate and kata, it is just dancing, and then you might as well go to the dancing school next door"
It seems it was just a matter of finding a better Karate Dojo.
Once you become any good, you have to hold back, otherwise you end up hurting your training partner. I teach that you should learn how to do the technique that will create serious pain. Once you know you know. Then you practice this moves on your Kata all by yourself. To learn any new move you need a good teacher a good partner that you can practice with. I recommend you find one of them.
Excellent video. Lots of great points brought up here.
Iain Abernethy has a 4 step process to learning kata that is reminiscent of what is mentioned here.
If you're going to practice kata:
1. Learn the form.
2. Drill the application with a partner varying the degrees of resistance.
3. Identify the underlying principles so you can adapt and vary e.g. getting off line, closest weapon closest target, limits of joints, off-balancing etc.
4. Practice applying the kata in live sparring. If you can't apply the form in sparring than you haven't learnt it. Drilling it live and doing this often is vitally important.
Of course, all that is assuming the information contained within the form(s) is actually sound. I have no doubt that many forms are not at all combatively applicable.
That being said I always wince when I see throws, leg picks and clinch work seen in pre- WW2 karate being applied as weird double blocks and chi blasts today.
Adam Mills could not agree more !
That would definitely be the way to jump from swimming on dry land to swimming in the water!!
Yes. But what has a 15yo to expect, when he's entering a dojo for the first time (especially in the 80s)? He's gonna believe everything the 'master' is telling him and he's gonna follow. Shame on these so called masters!
My rule of thumb: if people know how to "use" the form they will teach that, if they don't then they will teach how "do" the form. The placement of the pinky mentioned in the video is a great illustration.
That said, I've seen people with 10 years of experience with forms just use two upper body strikes and a kick when sparring. I honestly think they would have been better to do 3 months of boxing than 10+ years of karate.
If you can't swim on dry land, you are doin g it wrong!
I am a traditional kung-fu martial artist, 20 yrs in. I would say the issue with many schools is that too much emphasis is put on forms. With that said I would not call it a waste of time. The problem is that people do not understand the forms or there function and things become too abstract. Forms are not shadow boxing. Forms are built to categorize and help learn specific movements and principles. You need resistance training with a partner, and you need sparring. Most people learn form and can't use any of the movements in fighting. With that said I would not say it was designed for lazy teachers. Many teachers may not know the true purpose of the movements. Maybe you had bad teachers or just bad experiences but don't totally knock forms.
Luis KungFu
Exactly
Luis KungFu true very true
Luis KungFu kung fu is overrated.... better to just learn muay thai its proven time and time again in the past to be a kung fu killer and yet the moves are less elegant/stylish, but easier to learn and harder to train in.
Luis KungFu,
Wrong. Form is almost useless.
K Ismail nope forms have been the traditional way of transmitting techniques in the east and even in the west where they where called Etudes.Its just with the forms in Asian arts not to many people these days do not know how to break the form down and apply the techniques and counters found in the forms
Fed up with the TMA strawmanning. It really is mostly people bitter about getting stuck in a bad school (or schools), or maybe just don't realise good schools exist. My experience practising kata has been totally different. For the aspect of our system that used it, I found it reminded me of the principles of techniques, improved breathing habits, was good meditation, and increased the variety of techniques that come out in sparring. Definitely not a waste of time.
This video killed my interests in martial arts but your comment brought it back to life. THANX.
I agree with you to an extent, but to be honest if you learned as many forms as you say, of course they're useless! Even over 30 years, I have a hard time believing that you would benefit much from that many forms. Where would you ever have the time? Look, forms are a slow burn. It could take someone 30 years to get to the bottom of ONE. Therefore, forms are a lifelong and personal practice. Striking, mitt work, bag work, sparring and shadowboxing are your daily bread and butter. Conditioning holds it all together, especially as we age. You CAN have both, and you should. All martial arts thrive on balance! I do respect and understand your opinions, but I don't think it has to be all one way or the other. I hope to see a day where eastern and western approaches can coexist better. Have a great day!
Also, I'm really sorry you had crappy teachers that carrot dangled and manipulated you. That isn't right.
well said
I am a mixed martial artist and have done both sides of training, the more western style of boxing and hitting heavy bags and lifting weights, and i have also done kung fu where we did forms, and i still incorporate the forms for maybe 30 minutes to my daily training, mostly for the fancier kicks that help me to stretch out by kicking and doing the splits in the air, those forms help so just my legs dont get stiff and slow, plus it looks beautiful which is the art part of the martial ARTS
I agree with you completely I used to do northern shaolin and sanda 25 years ago. many many forms,acrobatics etc...but now.. I am into forms again from a teacher that actually has forms that help me understand more about my body.posture ,structure, etc. so I agree with what you're saying. but the forms I'm learning now every move is connected to internal principles about the body and the more I understand them the more I value these forms. and besides that I just really enjoy doing forms to pass the time. I really regard it as a supplement..but if anyone thinks they learn to be a deadly killing machine by taking in huge amounts of forms..it's just ridiculous.
Lol Tell that to the 7 year old I watched beat down 8 teenagers using nothing but kata over in south side park the other day 😂😂😂From his style I think he was involved in some form of Wu Shu and Parklour Kid was fucking them up with that baseball bat though And his flips were on point!!😂 Shit only lasted like 10 minutes if that the other little shits started running away I got the fuck out of there once the police started showing up 😂😂😂😂
Lyoto Machida is still doing Katas.
His Crane kick is Superb
I'm sure he does way more than that to prepare for a fight.
he may be also doing calligraphy. Or ping-pong. Means nothing
Katas and forms were traditionally(ancient times) taught after the teqnique and application was taught. Forms were supposed to be taught at the end for body coordination training. Today the forms are taught in the beginning to market the school.
He also has an extensive background in Muay Thai, boxing ,Blackbelt in BJJ,sumo wrestling..Thats why he is efective..Not because of his shotokan..
I know it’s gonna sound like I’m judging you dude I apologize in advance but the fact that you let these moves go is really an insult to your teacher. You learn these moves overtime he took the time and effort to instruct you and by you letting it go it’s like you didn’t appreciate the gift like you really didn’t think it had any value. I learned Goju katasBack in the late 70s and 80s and practice them every day open to the present time to honor my teachers commitment to me and the artist self. Yes I practiced combat exercises and sparring also but the art is important is not useless because you can’t use it for fighting. Like I said earlier post you appreciate the forms as you enter your senior years and it’s not really an option for you to go rounds like you did when you were younger I’ve seen elderly Chinese people do phenomenal things with their bodies in their old age while Americans the same age are the ones with walkers
This misses the point. Kata is to develop muscle memory, to get your body used to moving as a practitioner of the martial art. Nobody does these techniques naturally. Nobody moves that way naturally. Kata develops that and allows you to be able to apply it in kumite. This has been my experience studying karate for 41 years. I can't speak to Kung Fu. This is a disappointing viewpoint from a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner that I have a great deal of respect for.
It's the exact same way in Kung Fu. AND my shifu always explains the application of every step that we learn. The applications are single sided either, they're just suggested situations but the movements are open to adaptation and adjustment to fit other situations as well. I think this guy clearly went to a bad school and is letting his personal experience cloud his common sense. Heck, we even run drills and spar often to make sure that what we're learning is applied in fighting.
He is a jujitsu instructor what do you expect? Have you ever met a humble and balanced one in your life?
justin tan only one way left to sort this out
Nick Smith yes there is, show me one bjj instructor who has respect for other martial arts and doesn’t claim to practice the best, all conquering, all surpassing form.
Well that's the point, the kata that they're training is not at all practical even if it is completely drilled in.
Katas are a waste of time. Tma is going backwords i left tma to go to mma because i knew my time was being wasted
Great video! I also trained Hung Gar, before eventually moving to BJJ. We didn’t do forms right away, it was mostly conditioning and drilling conceptual motions, which we’d apply to multiple situations. After a few weeks of that, we started Gune Gee Fook Fu Kuen, which contained the same motions we’d been drilling before. It seemed a good way to learn, much better than the forms collecting you see so much of in traditional kung fu.
The group disintegrated when my teacher discovered BJJ, and nine years later is a brown belt, heh.
do you still train hung gar?? why your teacher didnt train hung gar and bjj together?
Supermomo2007, no I haven’t trained Hung Gar since my teacher moved on to Judo and BJJ. I don’t blame him in the slightest, he had been teaching us for effectively nothing for years and it was his turn to be the one with the empty cup.
it is sad. i train in hung gar in a legit lineage of lau family. we have often live sparring after doing forms, application drills and weapon training. last time i took few judo black belts down with my low stance and won a fight against a thai boxer with using chin na.
Not familiar with Lau family style, it’s all Wing Lam’s Lam Sai-Wing system here. My teacher had grown disillusioned with what he’d learned, and struck off to learn more on his own, and that’s what drew me in, as pretty much all other Kung Fu options out here are OK at best. Glad you’re enjoying your training, it’s great to hear of Hung Gar being applied realistically and effectively.
thanks. lau family was teached by lam sai wing. the trick is to use protection for whole body like cup for nuts, for body, face and knee. we can use then the deadly movies in high speed. knowing western boxing could help, too. it gives you idea to hung gar strategies against modern fighters.
Let me first say I totally agree just learning a form does not prepare you for combat sufficiently.
However, I ALSO DISAGREE with being taught one form a year or some such frequency. (I learn on average one form a month in my current style)
That being said, Forms are NOT useless.
1. They were taught traditionally so as to pass down techniques to generation after generation of student, as a way to retain that knowledge.
2. They are wonderful physical exercise, keep the body limber, teach you balance and discipline, as well as train your memory.
3. The forms I'VE learned have application embedded in each move. IF the Sifu or Sensei or whatever, does not teach them to you, THAT is lazy teaching. I'm not saying every technique in the form is practical. For instance, if I choose not to train in the extreme for Iron Bone and other techniques where there are finger strikes an what-not, some are impractical for self defense. But, that does not negate their usefulness for passing down the technique to SOMEONE who may be able to utilize it. Other forms are weapons training, some of which can be migrated practically in self defense. But, most are just fun and build strength in your sinews and muscles, flexibility and power (like swinging a heavy Guandao up, down, around, thrusting and parrying).
So, if you want to be a practical fighter, sure, ignore Traditional Kung Fu and Karate. Go do MMA or boxing or something.
But, if you really like Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc, etc Martial Arts, it is a fun way to stay in shape and can DEFINITELY give you great self-defense skills over the average assailant, if you train to apply it.
👍
I get the most out of Kata by the balance and strength development. Body development. Same idea as pushups or weight training. Basics feed into good Kata. Good Kata feed into better sparring. We spend lots of time on basics, kata, and sparring. I get value out of Kata.
I think both are SUPER important 1: to preserve the art and 2: hookup a better communication between mind and body. It's the mental conditioning that goes on when training katas and forms. The learning to pay attention to detail so it's easier to see openings and telegraphed moves. THAT'S why it's important. You can be strong at technique, have the strongest punch or kick, be the fastest, but if you can't pay attention, your gonna get knocked out.
100%! all my life did martial arts, now bjj black belt did every thing under the sun u are correct boxing judo jiujitsu Japanese and Brazilian wrestling sambo kick boxi. muay thai its cousin lethwei. Real okinawin karate with real sparring ect ect the things that are real are proven ! No death touches 😂
I’m a TKD black belt and didn’t really appreciate the value of forms until I began to study Okinawan Goju Ryu and learnt the true meaning behind the forms or kata. Kata by itself isn’t enough but in my opinion neither is sparring. Sparring is basically competition style fighting but irikomi sparring from goju ryu is more effective for street self defence in my opinion. I lost faith in traditional martial arts for many years but eventually came to realise that they do have a lot to offer if they’re trained and taught in the right way
What is the difference from irikomi sparring from goju ryu to other forms of sparring?
Abrasax Palante lol. Bigger you are the harder you fall that’s why most bodyguards get knocked on their ass 😂😂😂😂
Time would be much better actually teaching the practical application and using the techniques in a training sparring / stress situation, rather than teach students to memorise a sequence of moves which have no context. Problem is 99.99% of instructors have no clue what the kata is showing ,or interpret it very poorly. Yes you have memorised all those moves in the correct sequence, here is a black belt for having such a good memory! Now give me your £30 for the grading.
you havent been doing martial arts for 35 years, you look like you've trained for about a year
I did shotakan karate for many years getting to brown 2 stripes. Gave up when I just couldn't get to the Dojo as often as usual. Anyhow it's pretty useless. Had many fight's. It all goes out the window in a real street fight. Boxing is the way to go.
I like Bunkai but I agree it won't work unless you do it against resistance
Historically speaking, the preset kata of karate that he is ranting against is a modern invention that came about with Itosu to teach okinawan school children. Then taken over by Japanese karate as the only way to kata. The pre-itosu kata were free form with naihanchi(fighting on a rice patty) or bassai(fighting a skilled defensive opponent) for example, being ideas for the free form kata. Free form sparring was also a 20th century invention the Japanese added to karate. It was considered too dangerous to spar. When a fight or challenge did occur there were no rules and could be to the death.
Hell, man, didn't your parents teach you that if you keep falling into the same trap over and over again in different places, it might be time to start asking if the problem is in you, not those places? I mean it's one thing to accidentally end up in one or two bad schools. But if you've really studied all these legit styles you list and still have such fantasies about what taolus are for - you're either very bad at choosing your schools or just have some mental block and don't really listen. Cause what you discribe about the way you were taught forms - that stuff has zero connection to reality. That has very little to do with how and why we actually practice taolus in real traditional schools.
P.S.: the applications you show in the beggining, btw, look pretty decent to me. But I guess you're mostly just projecting your current knowledge and skill onto the old memories)
Check out 'Nakayamas Legacy' here on YT. And prepare to cringe. This is the elite of Shotokan, so, no Rex Kwon Do or Ameri Do Te.
+John Doe Shotokan is mostly the same though. Even as it was first created based on traditional line, it soon became a tool for the Japanese government national propaganda. And for that purpose it made much more sense to turn it into a modernized sport, which they did. If you want authentic karate, look into Okinawan styles. Senseis in Shorin, GoJiu, Uechi usually have no problem explaining and demonstrating the methodology of kata and it's uses.
Depends when you started .... in the 70,s and 80,s ...it was bad I did traditional styles many .... and almost all my teachers were bad ..why did I stay ? I was seeking and finally found a good style ... I did it for 5 years and never got past orange because we changed affiliations 3 times by the end of it I had no interest in any form or kata only sparring and we did that every class ... the teacher was Reggie Toussaint an American Karate champion .... but a good form can be fun and it's fantastic for balance and coordination...not fighting
Sean Kelley wow we've found a very hostile mma thug right here
I feel bad for you. You are telling people not to waste their time with forms, but it seems like you wasted 30 years of your life learning whatever garbage you learned. Just because you had poor teachers and are just finding that out doesn't mean you should ridicule a system that has worked for centuries.
Wonder what the guys at Karate Culture and Iain Abernathy have to say.
I've got to reach out and talk to those guys at some point!
Self Defense Tutorials Please do, I would love that collab!
I just reached out to him and it looks like we’ll be doing something in mid August!!
I don’t think they’d disagree, at least not vehemently. They’ve got a much better balance of kata and live pressure testing than the vast majority of karate-ka out there.
Stephan Kesting That's fantastic, I'm glad to hear it :)
I give you credit for saying what a lot of us have unfortunately experienced as students of the martial arts business.
EXCELLENT learning to swim on dry land
Totally agree, kata is more of a memory game than anything functional. Far better to practise sharpening your attributes and sparring than wasting time on fantasy fighting.
Don't know about other arts but in wing chun there are many benefits of the forms. They are not suppose to be fun.
1. Trains to stay calm
2. Focus
3. Correct position
4. It is an alphabet as you don't always use every position in sparring.
5. To move correctly in wing chun to move and lead with your elbows not your hands.
6. Stance.
More and more.
Yes you have to spar but sparring can cause bad habits specially in positioning since sparing is too fast to ever get to the correct position exactly. Using the example you used about the boxer practicing the same thing over and not being a boxer. Well if that boxer did a simple jab slowly paying attention to release, feet position, hip, etc and see how everything moves together. He will understand it better, his body will understand better, thus his execution will be better. It's like a drill but on one's self. Taking another quote from Bruce Lee, "I fear not the man who's practiced 1000 kicks, but the one who has practiced a kick 1000 times" that is what forms in wing chun do. That's why forms in wing chun are slow, relaxed, and effortless to make sure you do the exact thing everytime. So forms I believe are an everyday importance, but as you say only once of twice on each form.
Musicians practice scales on a daily basis, to them these are their forms. Aviously without actually playing music they wouldn't be musicians but they would never disregard their scales. Dancers have types of forms too and they do them because they won't do every step in every dance but need to know they have it ready when need it.
Totally Agree
Thanks for this explanation. It covers all the aspects involved. PS: TMA training without any sparring really sucks!
While I agree that forms have little use for street fighting, I'm a bit disappointed in this video. First, if you trained traditional martial arts at places that only sparred once or twice a year, then I'm sorry but you trained at bad places and this seems to have informed your opinion of traditional arts. I've trained at many places and they all had free sparring (not just step 1, step 2, etc.) almost every day, so please don't assume your experience is the norm. Second, while I agree that sparring is more important, and that forms have little or no street use, forms do have value in providing a structure for focus, discipline, balance and muscle memory for kids/family classes, and even give some novice adults help in those areas (especially in the first 6 months or so). So, does it make sense for seasoned practitioners to spend much time on forms ? No, but forms have some use. Look, I love BJJ too, but I'm continually perplexed about why my fellow BJJ practitioners feel so much need to take shots at traditional martial arts.
I trained at quite a few different places. At some schools they went so far as to do Chi Sao or Sticking Hands practice, but that's still different from sparring. And although I'm a BJJ guy I would argue that boxing, kickboxing, MMA and wrestling all have live training. How many karate masters would want to go up against even a 10 and 2 boxer?
If you weren't free sparring multiple times a week, you went to bad places and you should have switched -- even if it meant to a different striking art. BJJ also has drills, and no one argues that BJJ drills aren't worthwhile - even though the drills you do with a training partner or alone don't always translate to the exact positions you are in while rolling. Forms allow a class full of people to move in synch to drill multi-step combinations with some semblance of order -- but no argument that they are less about the street and more for foundational training and should be emphasized less than sparring.
robtw1970 The point of the matter is the investment of time in moves one does not apply in sparring. So, you do spar a lot, but do you use kata-sequences or do you do something entirely different?
robtw1970 a
robtw1970 A lot of BJJ practitioners have been brainwashed, fact of the matter is standing up or on the ground practicing to get a hold /lock on someone is practicing forms essentially
They are useful. You just have to know how to modify them for a real situation. People, saying that forms are useless, don’t understand that they’re textbook models to execute a movement. In real life situations, you modify those moves to fit the situation.
Isn't kata also a way of meditation so you'd learn to relax your muscles and using hip rotation and for kime (creating as much power as possible in the shortest time you can )
JKD is actually derives from the martial art of wing chun and it is extremely effective
Why do you keep belaboring this point but never ever talk to anyone who competes with their kung fu? If competition is the measure of success for you and kung fu forms keep being rant worthy, why have you never hoped over William CC Chen's Tai Chi school and met with any of his world class sanda and push hands students? It's literally 3 blocks from Marcelo Garcia's NYC school, and you seem to have no trouble visiting that.
Jack McKenna
Good point and it’s Marcelo Garcia not Gracie
jamespohh thanks!
And hahaha I correct it. Guess my head autocorrects all bjj players into Gracies lol
I like that wing chun only has three forms in the entire system, and each is pretty short. I started off in Tang Soo Do, and I see value in forms. They promote good and proper technique. For that reason, I am all for them - until they become way too many! So I have my limit. They also help the solo martial artist to stay in shape.
I HATE forms and kata, ESPECIALLY if they're required to get to the next belt. A higher belt should be a better fighter- not because he knows more forms. I especially hate forms and katas created by the club
Then you might as well not even do martial arts, technically everything in martial arts is form.
MrParkerman6 I don't mind doing short combinations of 3 to 5 techniques but I hate doing long combinations of 10 moves and using techniques I'll never use like front kick from low stance or downward blocks
I do BJJ and there's no semblance of forms. They're not an intrinsic part of practicing martial arts.
MrParkerman6,
You're just a butthurt form hugger.
Then perhaps you're missing the point of those forms. Look at what the kata is supposed to teach you. At the most basic level, it's a handful of self-defenses. Maybe they include moves or strikes that you haven't been taught before. I have a kata where the second half is the exact same as the first half except done on the other side, and that shows the importance of working the technique on both sides, not to favor one side over the other. Internalize that principle, and that will help you be a better fighter. Other katas and forms will teach different lessons beyond what's immediately obvious.
I trained karate for about 5 years, and now i want to learn boxing. Kata is the reason i stopped training, no, i don't want to spend the entire training session doing a dance, let me put on gloves and spar with someone!
I learnt more in kickboxing for 2months than I did doing ITF taekwondo for 3years. Absolute waste of time. Forms,forms,forms…. Every frekin lesson. Than more the next.
I have 35 Years of Traditional Kung Fu. My Sifu is 5th Generation Master in Canton. I continue to practise every day and I have to say that everything you say in this video is 100% correct. A few generations ago- it was all about conditioning, fighting, and a few sets at the advanced level as a mnemonic of tactics and body mechanics (at that time there were no videos, and many of the practitioners couldn't read or write, so sets and 'poems' were a useful memory aid) Somewhere when martial arts began to be sold as 'cultural treasures' or 'health practises' it all went horribly wrong...Keep spreading the good information!
You must suck then. None of this information is correct.
I have trained 9 national champions in traditional kung fu and MMA. I have run a full time school for 25 years. Perhaps I suck, but have yet to see a single person become a great fighter from just learning forms. Plus, many teachers use the forms as a 'carrot', exactly as Stephan describes. If you go back 3 generations, it was not like this. Conditioning and fighting training was a much more important part of the curriculum than collecting sets.
9 national champions, huh? How many national championships have you personally won? Forms are incredibly important in order to develop muscle memory and understand the tactics that come with the different styles. You can't possibly suggest to me that Crane and Tiger are used the same way, that means they require differing techniques to accommodate these tactics. Sparring is important, but it's only half of the equation to understanding practical martial arts.
David Rogers Sifu, I myself practice Hung Kuen under Jeroen Kloppenburg Sifu. I started doing this after having trained with a fake cultlike "kungfu" teacher type wich cost me 13 years of training after wich I got destoyed in the first sparring session in Hung Kuen. I sometimes wonder what the forms are really for, we practise lots of drills and conditioning wich I agree, would benefit more in a fight then just forms. What is your reason for still practising them if you don't think they're useful for fighting if I may ask?
Hi ezra- that's a really good question. I don't want to hijack Stephan's page (I think his stuff is excellent) I may do a video myself on why I practice sets, and I do think they they have benefits- depending on your reasons for training. It's just the idea that someone who can't fight learns some sets and turns into someone who can fight is a myth from the movies that has unfortunately been sold to a lot of students.
I think you and Iain Abernathy would get along well. His video on the training matrix and the 4 stages of kata are mirroring exactly what you are talking about. The best part is how much he quotes past pioneers of the art of karate to support the fact that kata was never intended to be what it has become. Might be a good resource to point to for people who wish to stay connected to Karate for their martial arts training but have a more functional training methodology. Thanks for the video!
Combat is learning to fight someone else. Kata is learning to fight yourself. In practicing Kata, you learn stamina, balance, speed, body control, precision, always be in a rooted stance, agility, focus, how to control your strength, memory, reflexes (etc.). I agree, that it is only the first step, but it is an important step. If you skip it, and start to fight other people as a beginner, your body will not be ready. Regarding your Bruce Lee quote: ever tried to throw a kid in the pool so it will learn to swim by itself?
I do Wing Chun and at training it's pretty obvious which students do forms regularly and who don't. The ones who do forms regularly need less time to adapt to new drills, or even old drills from some time ago. Those who don't do forms at all, have difficulty even punching properly.
Forms are a form of cataloguing all techniques in a system. It hones muscle memory and structure, but it's not a fighting application. If we divide training into yin and yang, then forms are the yin, while combative training is the yang. In some schools forms aren't taught at all, yet they still produce good students. However I know from experience that forms can help you SO MUCH, that if I ever become a teacher, I'll always be teaching forms.
Forms are good as a form of meditation, not for a real fight witch is unpredictable .
Styles don't say anything in a fight, people do.
Thanks for uploading the video.
Ya
For me, the forms are a fun part of the tradition. Like, to do the same movements as historical figures within the tradition. I've never thought of them as very applicable. They're just a catalogue of techniques, though there are some good combinations. Look at Kyokushin. We would learn forms, but the sparring had almost nothing to do with it.
I took several years off from my training. I trained in traditional karate back in the day and was up to 3rd Dan at a time when there were no kids in the martial arts. My training was at a very high level and tough. When I got back into it, I decided to make my training realistic fighting centered. Honestly, I only had vague memories of the 30 odd forms I had learned. I decided to relearn just two forms, one because I just liked it (Tekki 1), and the other because I wanted to (Bassai Sho). Okay, I still do my original first H pattern form, because that one is so basic that even after not training how could you forget that :-) and I think it's good for balance and hip movement. So anyway, of course I agree with you about forms being unnecessary, especially if you only have so much time to train. I concentrate on conditioning, technique, and application. Just promoted to 4th Dan :-) Thank you!
Docinaplane Say, do you feel betrayed for getting up to 3rd Dan, essentially wasting countless hours - self-defense wise? I'm asking, because I think it's a huge responsibility to teach someone to fight and if done wrong, they're doing way more harm than good.
That's a good question, John! Of course, I didn't know any better at the time, and I had a lot of time. I trained 6 days a week. I didn't stress this, but my original teacher was a Korean man who had also trained as a boxer in Japan, so he knew what real fighting was. When I think back, I didn't appreciate him as much as I should have :-) My next teacher was out of San Jose, Ca and his school was known for producing the best fighters. We trained with no equipment except a cup and groin was a legal target, and in those old "point fighting" tournaments we threw hard! I can't speak for others, but what I learned worked in the street the few times I needed to defend myself.
John Doe I feel somewhat betrayed. I trained shotokan for 7 years reaching 1st Dan. Bunkai was a rare occurrence, although we practiced a lot on reactionary drills and sparred a lot. My teacher came from kyokushin and goju ryu so I believe he knew what he was doing and any practitioners we met outside of the club who were also black belts were in a sorry state fighting wise as they just couldn't fight so it definitely counted for something. However I always felt if I had to fight any trained fighter outside of karate I.e. Boxing and mma, that id get my arse handed to me. There is a serious need for traditional martial arts to start incorporating real fighting for it to be of use. We sparred but because of lack of headgear you get afraid to commit to attacks for fear of injury to both parties. There's a new form of karate called kudo daido juku. They seem to have the right idea but need more drilling in reactionary movements as their fights can get sloppy.
Kata and forms are very helpful for the development of.....BODY..MIND..SPIRIT ...being fluid with movement creates energy. Energy/ Chi is real!!...During these forms, we practice fighting and self defense technics.Over years of training, these technics become second nature to us. Its not all about kickin ass......Remember who gave us Martial Arts........Spiritual Buddist Masters/Monks.....Forms and Katas are very relevant in the development of BODY..MIND and SPIRIT..and the more we throw and practice kicks, punches etc......The better we become at it!!.....Please keep sparring in your training.......This is also crucial in a good Martial Arts School.....Peace & Love First Always Brothers n Sisters....
@Dee Bee Mornin Bro....Dude....thats totally kewl with me Man....I like to investigate the origins of my interests. Through my discovery I found Very Spiritual Masters teaching US their methods of Self Defense throughout History. Not only are original Martial Arts used for Self Defense and many other reasons, they were and are used for Spiritual development and Virtue.....I ve hated, kicked ass and had my ass kicked enough........to now have a desire to delve more into the deeper more meaningful things in this life....Theres alot to be said about and for...........Peace and Love Brother......Of coarse you dont need to believe in anything Spiritual to be a Good Human.....I myself find much strength in Spirit......and this Universal Presence shows Itself to me Daily!....lol.....its ALL Good Bro!.....Keep training and dont hurt anybody unless you have to.....Body.....Mind......Spirit.......Health and Peace on 🌎......
Lol.....
So do you think that samurai spent so much time rolling like in so called bjj?
Definitely not because in that type of combat too much rolling training was mostly useless.
Don't get me wrong newaza has its place but when you throw weapons into the equation as well as multiple warriors on the battlefield, rolling is mostly useless. I agree though on the importance of resistance training.
FYI Judo has many Kata.
All martial arts are useless when you throw weapons into the equation...infact bjj is probably much safer because you won't be deluded enough to think you can take on multiple attackers with weapons.
totally aggree with all you have said here
There's a reason Hideyuki Ashihara (Founder of Ashihara Kaikan, a full-contact Karate) changed the forms, Takashi Azuma (Founder of Daido Juku Kudo, a full-contact that resembles MMA with space helmets and headbutts thrown in) abandoned them for the same reason.
Dipayan Degtyarev that's true but have you seen the techniques of the kudo karate guys in competition? They are not as sharp as kyokushin who train kata, and not near as sharp as shotokan or Conor mcgregor/Lyoto machida who come from traditional karate. Kata has its purpose in refining technique but the cake has to be about real fighting at the end of the day.
It has less to do with kata and more to do with the techniques you have to be proficient in.
@@LutherTaylor As someone who trained MMA and Enshin Karate (Ashihara Karate Offshoot) I can tell you it's not from not training Kata. It's because they are strikers and grapplers. Grapplers tend to go all out, which could make striking look less clean.
I mean, you make an argument about how NOT to do forms, and then seem to go onto make points about 'maybe' they can be useful - if you visualize the opponent and know the application. If boxing were outlawed tomorrow, and boxing schools were dispersed, it is hard to find people to practise boxing with, people would start to codify hook punches, jabs, etc into a...FORM so that it could not be forgotten. Shadow boxing would become elaborate or even disguised. This happened to kung fu, karate, and filipino martial arts, among others. Then... if and when boxing is allowed again, we get back together and practice the application to re-tune the techniques (drift occurs sure). Right so hung gar, a sao choi (you know that one) is a pretty effective strike yes? Most people think so. I've not been to kung fu in about 10 years because there arent any schools near where I live, but I still know how to do a sau choi, and that's because of a FORM, that I still do about once a week. AND yes, when i learned kung fu we sparred at least once a month, and Sifu would come and knock us over when we did bad techniques in the form. It was 75% application 25% form.
Let the triggering begin.
I'M OFFENDED
I'M OFFENDED TOO
WE'RE COLLECTIVELY OFFENDED
Who is offended again?
(Breaking character) Those who hold that forms on their own are effective for training for street fights.
This guy simply watches UFC and knows little about martial arts.
I saw many martial artists kicking asses
You realise that the ufc is a martial arts competition right?....and je is right, king fu is pointless.
Martial art forms are a waste of time and serve no purpose dude
I've been learning and teaching American Kenpo for fifity years (but only adults, kids can't appreciate martial arts or do what I like to teach). The first thing I did when I hadd my own school was eliminate all the forms and it hasn't hurt me a bit. I'm 5'2", slim and I've had physical attacks many times of the years and with one move or strike, the fight was over. Anther time, a guy grabbed my shoulder and tried to punch me. I did a quick Kenpo move and broke his elbow.
Although no forms, I always teach a form of shadow boxing as if actual fighting and using your knowledge. Do you have to spar?
Well I did sparing ther first five years and then I decided no more, I hated getting hurt and hurting others. But I use the heavy bag for all kinds off punches, strikes elbwos, kicking, even low small bag for Kung Fu strike to ankle. When I teach a technique, we do it on each other, but with control. We get more eye to eye coordination by using rubber sticks for sparing . But katas are not necessary if you want to learn to fight and protect yourself. Sparring should be done lightly so no one gets hurt. But as long as the art works on the street, and mine does then great. I've added many joint locks and ground techs and other weapons so I call my art AKJ-American Kenpo.. I still teach privately in Puyallup. I love practicing all the self-defense techniques. Take care.
Sifu
I totally agree with you brother i studied karate for 3 years it was USELESS !
To be quite honest I agree 100%. I wont pretend that I am a martial arts expert or that I know everything. I have very little experience in Karate (about 4 years) and I just began Judo. But one of the things I lobe about my classmates its that they like to spar alot and pressure test things to make a plan A, B, C to even Z to know what to do when a move fails. I never agreed in forms again and again, because you become more of a prop rather than a fighter or even a better person. I do respect Katas or forms in martial arts such as Karate, kung fu, taekwondo, muay thai, etc. But Katas should be work outs, not fighting moves.
Your 100 percent wrong.
Care to explain why? I mean I explained my own reeasons and I also never said I know everything. If you think im wrong atleast explain why. Martial arts isnt a simple as saying "your right" or "your wrong" If you like katas and forms and think the benefit in a fight then by all means continue. I like forms and like how they benefit one own being. But unless you spar against your classmates and other martials arts, your fancy poses aint worth squat unless you prove they work. Again im not am expert and I never being in a karate tournament but in my very brief time, No one did katas in a fight, we just did what a fight is supposed to be like.
Still by all means, explain why im wrong and at the same time give a link or something to watch a kung fu guy using a working pose in a guy or atleast trying to do some bad boxing.
kung fu is useless, i'm a 120kg guy (in good shape) would love to see a kung fu master block only 1 punch or 1 side kick without getting hurt
Agree 100%. Same as 1 2 3, self defense moves...
Again, figthing is chaotic. You won't learn to fight just following set patterns...
I've been around Taekwondo schools my whole life, and none of them advertise forms as a method of self defence. They teach it as part of the curriculum as a method of demonstrating technique.
Yes, but they forget to spar for real. Against an unwilling opponent. Not coreograph figthing...
You're missing the point. I'm saying that forms are not a method of self defence. It's a demonstration.
Sorry. You can know all the forms or katas, in the world. but if you don't train against an opponent that doesn't follow your same patterns, you will achieve close to nothing...
You have a reading comprehension problem. I'M SAYING FORMS ARE NOT FOR COMBAT PURPOSES! IN OTHER WORDS I'M AGREEING WITH YOUR COMMENT. What I'm saying is that they are for DEMO purposes.
Kata's and forms are great for developing balance and technique. When you do a kata or a form you put all of your energy into it. They are also like the art, of martial arts. Almost disgusting how people just throw away the usefulness of kata's and forms.
I've been doing M/A for about the same time as Stephan and how I HATED forms ! Just spend the time you would have wasted on kata, drilling , sparring and hitting the heavy bag and you'll get ten times the benefit.
If you view forms as a catalog of techniques, that's a bit better, because you can extract those techniques and practice them with a partner. It's a shame that most TMAs don't do this because having studied quite a bit of form applications myself, some forms contain interesting ideas that could be adapted for modern fighting.
All that said, I've never trained in a system where we didn't spar. I trained in traditional taekwondo and we sparred (both hands and feet) on a regular basis. I was never led to believe that just doing forms would make you a better fighter; forms were more for personal training outside of practice. I was told that before modern protective equipment, forms were a way to practice striking at full force without hurting your partner.
All forms are useless, they are dance, not martial art. Real fighting is all about lightning reaction, is about adapt, is about knowning what to do what you apponent do this or do that. Training froms are not helping at all. Kung Fu is definitlly not useless, but people are ruining them with unscientific training. Some forms are used to create muscle memory, but these kinds of training is not adaptive at all. That's why some unexperienced Kung Fu guy losts their form and forgets what they have been taught at once when they are facing real fight and make Kung Fu seems useless.
I know a friend who receives pirvate lessons of wing chun. Apart from the forms, the sifu spar and drill with him. Serval months the main three forms were taught. And my friend developed reflexes to defend and press forward...thr vital part of fighting.
You're wrong about the origins and meaning of kata.
But you're right on everything else.
The thing is, when even 9th dan karate-masters don't know what they're doing and just collect loads of (empty) kata to proove their expertise and to keep the students busy, it's nothing a beginner could ever know or even imagine.
To question them was equal to blasphemy and still is to this day.
I'm not ashamed for believing a Sensei would know what he's teaching.
I think, they should be ashamed to call their dance-lessons 'martial art'.
Aaand... I subscribed! Keep up the good work, man!
John Doe eh. Some senseis really aren't fighters. A 6th dan if i am not wrong started getting into mma and sparred with us for the first time and you would see him struggling with average amateurs that did a year or two of thai boxing
They are useless. So glad my academy doesn’t waste time with that crap.
Nomad Patriot
Because dummies like you can’t remember anything
did you get your GED yet? Adding and subtracting is hard stuff right?
the problem is that they teach them the wrong way
and you can't just do forms
as someone once said (i don't remember who) "Martial arts are about controlling yourself and controlling your opponent"
forms are only the first part about that
and also you can't just try to do one move. Let's say for example you want to use a push kick and you are trying to do that all the time. It doesn't work like that you can do that when you have an opening for the kick
the same thing with forms people teach their students that they should use kata in self defense. if you have a chance then do the move but don't try to do it all the time
sorry for bad English
finaly we find someone that anderstand exsplaned martial art bullshido...good my friend spread the word
I’m a lifelong martial artist I’m 62 years old started when I was 11 years old and studied Goju, tai chi, jkd concepts, Filipino martial arts and street boxing also known as the 52
My karate teacher emphasized kata and kumite equally. He taught us that anyone can fight forms enable you to pass on the art and to demonstrated to others. Forms become especially useful when you are older and have health issues like I do now. Because of forms inTai chi practice I went from barely able to walk to being able to walk the length of two football fields in a very short period of time when I reintroduced myself to thwart
Any martial arts form can be extrapolated to single techniques that you can use get a combat drill much in the same way like a boxers jab cross jab cross hook jab cross hook upper cut all single movements but using sequence makes up a usable method of shadowboxing that translate easily into combat.
I like your mentions of Bruce Lee and Wing Chun! I would like to hear your comments on Jeet Kune Do. I've been practicing JKD for almost two years now. I like its directness, fluidity, and Wing Chun hands in combination with boxing footwork. Our classes include frequent partner drills.
good points
Here's an explanation of shadowboxing. Maybe Karate and Kung fu people could practice in a similar way instead of traditional katas?
Shadowboxing explained:
ua-cam.com/video/17s54i5lDto/v-deo.html
110% agree..Wing Chun guy here
I think a lot of people have a misconception and misleading understanding about forms and what Bruce Lee says about forms. Believe it or not, Bruce Lee practiced his kung fu forms, but never publicized it. I've trained in Shaolin Kung Fu, Wing Chun, Filipino Martial Arts, JKD, and currently I practice Shotokan Karate...traditional authentic Japanese shotokan. I used to have the same mentality about forms and kata before I trained with my sensei and from what I've learned is there is a huge difference in what the actual interpretation of the (bunkai) application of each movement in a kata is that it does not necessarily apply in the same fashion and movement as you would do in the form or the kata. It is pretty much a metaphoric and not entirely literal interpretation of what you would actually do in the street so that it becomes functional. A lot of westernized instructors and even some japanese sensei's teach poorly when it comes to form and kata application and it gives a bad impression of how people perceive karate or kung fu. PLUS kata and doing forms is to teach and train you to do combinations. The only thing I 100% do agree with you in this video is the fact of training with resistance, because how else would you train your techniques to be effective....plus weight training and conditioning too, is important.
The best exercise for fighting is fighting. But in order to fight effectively you must have great technique in order to maximize your strikes and minimize you getting hit. Forms teach you how to maneuver how do use proper body mechanics how to align yourself so that you can use it in combat that you can’t tell me that these forms which are hundreds of years old and used by actual warriors as a training method for warfare is useless. If it’s useless I see there must be something wrong with our application of them warriors don’t waste time practicing something that doesn’t benefit them on the battlefield and these forms have stood the test of time it’s up to us to extrapolate them and to use them
First, who says kata is solely for the purpose of combat, 25 years in Karate I have never heard of that before. If it is not, how is it completely useless? From another perspective, Why does leg works, weight training and yoga good for your martial art / combat and self. People who says kata is unless unfortunately have not done a kata property to truly appreciate it's benefits but only think how it can look good to others or how do I apply this and that in combat. Balance, breathing, posture (a big one), flexibility, transit from one movement to another efficiently etc. Too many to list. Just like when I hit the gym or do yoga, I don't think about how my biceps can kill someone or how my flexible muscle can hurt someone, I just enjoy the workout and guess what, the result is those workout can totally transform your performance in combat.
Right with everything! .... I fully agree! Most people don´t understand that kung fu forms NEVER were made for training purposes!!!!!!! It was made for keeping ideas in mind! Not more and not less. Maybe to teach and explain the movements! But if one really use a kung fu form as a training method it is really a big waste of time!!! As a teacher one should first teach applications and how to fight and then teach the forms the best students or your son that they can keep all these techniques in mind and that they are able to teach others.
On the East Coast it was different, most Kung Fu schools I trained or visited did sparring one to three times a week, did full contact to light contact continuous tournaments one to three times every six months. In NYC the Kung Fu competitions of the sixties and seventies were gloving up and fighting to the knockout or knockdown long before the advent of full Contact Karate. So yes if you only train forms your Kung Fu sucks, and the forms will be useless. But the Kung Fu people were sparring in the orient since the thirties if not before.
Forms should be preserved and practiced but they should only be one component of training. You have to be sparring and practicing against non-compliant opponents, absolutely agree. The Chinese martial arts need to be reformed and fast.
This view is all over martial art video posts and I attribute it to the rise of mma. The gist is a pragmatic argument against the utility of traditional styles. The problem is in modern times the only real way to win a fight is with a conceal carry. Assume you will be shot. How well does mma work against that? So I think the pragmatic argument fails. Forms and beauty are the reason for martial arts to bring fitness and peace to the practitioner. Not to make a fight winner.
Forms are an artistic exercise. It’s not for combat. If you have a esthetic sense for them practice by all means. They work on muscles and coordination as well and are good for children and elderly especially.
I know you're right. Much respect for making this video.
You definitely got the 'hate train' rolling on this one, sir. You may need an Iron-Man rashguard now. Keep up the fight! :-D
Feel as though the benefits of proper form practice are vast and far outweigh any reasons one may have to not practice them. Creation of neural synapses, increased learning curve, improved memory, focus, speed, accuracy, timing, muscle memory, pattern recognition, cardio, explosivity, overall agility and athleticism,stress relief, mental health, self expression, storytelling, life skills, relaxation, coordination, breath control, respect, discipline. It's not just about fighting, however, good teachers can break down every application many different ways, bring them full circle and convey the essence of it through drilling, sparring and pressure testing to find what's useful to them at the time. Kata becomes more sophisticated the more you're exposed to other arts and bridges the gap between them. My understanding of kata 10x's almost every 3 years as ive continued to keep my practice after nearly 30 years. I used to hate it in the beginning but now im very grateful for everything kata has given me. Kata is an encyclopedic reference for teaching and offers philosophies for approaching life. Respectfully 🙏
This "expert" leaves much to be desired when it comes to knowledge of kata.
Kata is the PERFECT EXECUTION OF A GIVEN TECHNIQUE FOR SELF-DEFENSE. I emphasize SELF-DEFENSE.
Many of the people teaching forms today don't know the true techniques involved. It makes me glad this knowledge is restricted. Why? Because I saw the real applications from OKINAWAN masters like Shinpo Matayoshi.
Example: My hi-school friend used to train under Ben Otake of the Shotokan school, here in PR (1969). They used to spar every day. Well, one of my other friends learned the kick-to-the-knee-strike from the Goju Ryu Seisan kata. During sparring he kicked the first guy on the knee and crippled him so badly he has to use a cane and can never practice karate again. How about that biz on the uselessness of kata?
Of course he was thrown out of the school. I kept hearing, " if you don't spar how do you know it's effective?" Well, it was effective enough because our school was forcefully closed by the Police's Riot Squad under armed guard because the Socialists took a few months of training and were fighting them during local civil unrest.
Sincerely
I think the most reasonable argument frames forms as a sort of "physical dictionary" rather than a sort of imitation of real-life fighting. If I remember correctly, they say that in olden times printing manuals was expensive, the padded training aids we have today didn't exist, and along with another set of pedigogical reasons I can't recall right now. Obviously this doesn't excuse the modern hyper-focus of them in TMAs.
However, even then I think there are flaws in this argument. Teaching a form as a "dictionary" is still less useful than teaching techniques as they are (e.g. X, Y, & Z punches, and these blocks are for defence against certain strikes, and this submission can make a man pass out, etc.). I'm sure the concept of "shadow boxing/fighting" existed ever since the first humans were smart enough to teach themselves and each other skills; and that is probably far more effective as a "physical dictionary" than a form could ever hope to be. I just don't see any pedigogical advantage to it.
I agree 100% . I feel happy that a person with such amount of experience like you raise this issue. Talking about karate, how many age uke, soto uke or uchi uke have we seen lately on a WKF tournament? - the techniques that traditional school teaches us are useless in a real confrontation (kumite or street fight) I compare that kind of practice with the one used in judo. From the very begining you are supposed to fall, throw or be thrown, practice randori and learning by doing the techniques that later on you would apply in a tournament or (for God´s sake, no!) in a street fight.
What do you think of a Karate Dojo(with Karate based on Shotokan, boxing, jiu jitsu, and judo) that is 1/4 kata, 1/4 sparring, 1/4 technique, 1/4 self defence applications(although from what I remember the self defence was bullcrap) do you think that is a reasonable ratio of practical-theoretical
It sounds like you had some terrible teachers in martial arts.
Here is what I learned from practicing the very first kata of Shotokan karate: (I am currently at step 1 of the second kata. after several years of practicing the first kata.)
1) Each form represents principles of a combat system.
- Jumping from kata to kata, learning the forms makes you miss the point completely. Stay with a kata/form until you completely master the techniques and principles from that kata.
- If you just try to learn as many kata's as possible, or don't have the patience or stomach to really learn a kata you are like the guy who practices boxing one week, muay thai the next, tai chi the week after, BJJ the next week etc. getting some experience but completely missing the point in any and all of the forms he practices.
2) Training a form consists of 4 steps.
- 1: Learning the moves (Sadly this is where most dojo's stop.)
- 2: Learning the Bunkai (and practice using Kihon.)
- 3: Think of other ways to use the moves in the kata/other ways to use the principles taught in the kata. (Practice it as well in Kihon)
- 4: Apply them in full contact kumite.
Example:
Heian Shodan (First kata of Shotokan Karate)
- Attacking enemies at different angles. (45 degree angle especially)
- Attacking the center line
- How to keep control of the fight
- Proper distancing
- How to keep balance
- Making it hard to detect your moves
- Joint manipulation by overextending the joints. (Arm bars)
- Throws by Manipulating the joints and rotational force over your hip or back leg.
- Block and counter attacks
- Breaking Rhythm in fighting to confuse your opponent and land more hits.
- Proper hip rotations and power generation for martial arts.
- Different vital points/nerve points to strike.
- Putting pressure on opponents by always moving forward.
- Breaking the guard and structure of the opponent to create openings.
Now let me ask you: If you master that one kata (the beginners kata that most people skip.) and master the principles taught by this kata.
What kind of fighter do you think you are?
I would say you're probably a better fighter than the ones in your local cage fighting and mma competitions, and you would be sufficient prepared for most self-defense scenario's that do not include weapons.
Did I say this is just the very beginners kata?
Today, just like Apple has numerous fakes as it is the most trusted, popular and quality-oriented brand, similarly, Karate has been one of the most popular martial art forms since a very long time. Because of so many versions and revisions in Karate, the original (deadly) Karate form has almost gone extinct.
I would love to see someone bring back Karate to life, like it was in the past. Yes, Karate had it's enormous glory for a reason! The original art form was both lethal and very apt for dirty street fights. Apart from punches and kicks, the art form also included wrestling and grappling movements. It was meant to be a complete way of fighting. But, coming back to today's day, even Karate practioners don't trust the art form. Sad!
Final words: Karate's present will be Muay Thai's / Jui Jitsu's tomorrow, unless the practioners carefully preserve the authenticity of these art forms for the future generations to explore, wonder and learn.
I praticed some traditional kung fu forms for a couple of years and then I abbandoned all that stuff and practiced more real fight stuff. And then I was pretty convinced, for most of my life, in what you're saying in this video. BUT, after not being practicing any kinf of martial arts for a time I started to LEARN JAPANESE. And then I realize that you are RIGHT, but just to a certainextentl. Maybe that's something that you're missing that I mayself was as well.
If anyone here are not familiar with Japanese look up in the FSI ranking of the most difficult languages for a English native speaker (wich I'm not, but it's quite similar anyway) and see how much more time you'll spend in laguages ike Japanese an Chinese than other languages. Just to start you have 3 alphabets. Two of then are phonetic. And one is KANJI. You have lieterally, in Japanese, around 3 THOUSAND kanjis to learn, each very complicated to write and various pronunciations, just to be able to READ. Each kanji is very complicate to learn and each has even a proper order to write every single stroke. At he beggining seems that doesn't matter this fucking order. But aftersometime you'll realiza that you commited a GREAT error if you didn't pay attention to the proper storke order! For us in the Ocident that's sounds just crazy and you're gonna think that's is simply IMPOSSIBLE to learn it, that this kind of language, as you said about traditional martial arts, is "impractible". But, guess what, they really learn and comunicate and make poems and all the shit with that complicate system that seems impossible to even learn.
So maybe you're gonna beggin to think it's only possible for native learners, that learn it from childhood. But, guess what again, a lot fo foreigners REALLY become able to learn and use that complicate language in a usefull time.
You have to spend months, or, with you have no time enough to spend (and a it demand A LOT of dailly time, HOURS per day) even YEARS just to dominate even the APHABETS (that you could call "the forms" fo this asina languages). And then even have spent so much time and struggled SO MUCH to know all this symbols, the right way to write then and the various different readings for each symbol used ALEATORILLY in ech randon word (each kanji has at least 2 readings, and it can get easy to 8 to 12 readings, EACH!) you can't understand, read or hear even a BASIC SENTENCE! And so you discover that after all that time and effort the grammar andd the vocabulary necessary just to comunicate in the same level AS A CHILD will take much more time and effort yeat!
As I said, I don't practice martial arts anymore. However, after learning Japanese these recent years I realize that I (and maybe you) could be worng.
I sincerelly think that what you describe is like try to learn Japanese JUST learning the 3 thousand kanjis, how to recognize each, with luck remember how to write (becasue you'll forget, even natives forget!) and how to pornounce each pronunciation of the amazing amount tha each one can have and then realize that it's not enough and now you have to learn how to acttually USE them all inside te language. You don't know yeat a shit of grammar and let alone vocabullary, even the most common words.
Now that I know some Japanse, all that forms seemns very LITTLE to me, and I think they are just like I have described: like the kanjis in the Japansese language. You HAVE to learn, And it will cost an incredible and painfull amount of time, constancy and effort to learn. But that it's just only PART of EVERYTHING that you have yeat to elarnto be able to communicate in Jappanese even at the level of a silly dumb foreigner.
And just to add, maybe that's the reason they have those kinds of martial arts. Leraning languages LIKE THOSE all that stuff in katas looks pretty easy. Maybe here in the other part of the world we just have the advantage to be very practcal and the disadvantage to be TOO LAZY.
Here are good styles. Western Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Jiu jitsu, Wrestling, Hapkido, Krav Maga, and maybe Kyokushin Karate and ITF Taekwondo. ATA Taekwondo is bull shit.
Well, yeah. Choreographed forms in a freestyle fight are gonna be useless.😃😅😅😅 But forms were never MEANT for fighting, that would be absurd. You're literally " debunking" something that isn't a fighting method and never was.
Any art can be good or can be bad. It all depends on how it is trained. Most people know multiple arts these days. I started in wrestling, then Karate, then Hung style, then Tai Chi, then wing Chun, then Escrima, then Silat, then knife combat then played with martial artists with boxing and Judo backgrounds. In my opinion, all of the arts were good. The forms are just a way they handed down the arts. They didn't use to have videos or even good books on many arts so forms were a way to pass down someone's theory about fighting and that's all. Just a reference book. But to learn to fight, in every art you have to learn the use by fighting. Not many arts can prepare you for real combat which could involve multiple opponents, weapon attacks, gun and knife violence, acid attacks, getting run over by a car, a girl getting abducted by 3 people. Even MMA does not prepare you for all the things that real-life survival entails. Tai Chi is considered one of the most useless arts on the planet however my teacher taught many competitive JUdo players and they thought it helped their Judo. Most of the time was not spent training forms but were spent in two people practice. But let's not discount all those people doing these things for the beauty of form or health, which of course you are not doing. Wing Chun basics can be taught in a month and after that, you just fight people from different arts. THat's how you learn to fight. It's not by doing Wing Chun forms all your life. If you do the forms all your life and nothing else, that is fine but as you said, that does not lead to fighting proficiency. For real fighting, you have to go out of the box eventually. Many people just don't have the mentality that it takes to survive a life-threatening situation. That is more important than some movements from some art. Just yesterday in New York some random guy ran up to a young Indian lady and throw a cup of acid in her face. What could have prepared her for that? How do you train for that? If you want reality, then Gladiatorial combat or modern army combat in war is really fighting. But do we want to go back to those days?
I agree in100%.Man belowe me has a spirit.Probably in a bottle.So he likes it.Kata or forms will not teach you how to fight.Fighting, sparing will teach you how to fight.Guess how many forms we have in boxing?Zero.How many sparings?Fucking all the time.This is training not a bullshit.How many forms in Ju Jitsu or Judo or Wrestling?People, start thinking or you will finish in pieces.
I have a request. I am so sick and tired of people saying Jiu Jitsu isn't real fighting, and that Martial arts like Krav Maga, Kung Fu San Soo, all these martial arts that play dirty to a point where they look good on paper, but from my experience I was able to tap a practitioner in less than 30 seconds, and he bit me. Personally I would consider them useful and realistic, IF THEY ACTUALLY SPARRED, most dojos claiming the moves are too dangerous to spar with n' well that's just where the problem lies. As a Jiu Jitsu purple belt I could definitely make a video myself taking out one of these practitioners, but ur video would be more viewed and it would probably educate people more than I actually could.