I understand that people need a good foundation of understanding before they can begin to expand on it, but then how does one know if they are ready If they do not try? Would it not be useful to use creativity to explore what you have learned to have a better understanding?
This is a semantics issue, but creativity is the wrong word. Extemporaneousness, is the word. It means you know something so well, you can think on your feet, with the material you have.
So I cannot speak for anyone else or any other school, but my teacher holds back on creativity until a student has learned a great deal then he begins to let out the rope on creativity piece by piece. The funny thing however I find not that I have been granted permission for a couple of years, I find I always gravitate back to the simplest of movements, kind of least common denominator theory. This is not to say I don't do a few things different because I do as my body size, shape and performance are different from that of my teacher. I also have found ways to practice drills being creative, but I do not vary too far away from the foundations of my art. Why should I as my art, Wing Chun, has been around at least for some 100+ years in it's current state and likely closer to 300+ is some form or another as well as practiced throughout the world. So if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
I honestly don't believe this to be a semantics issue, but I do see the point that you are trying to make. It might have been clearer by questioning thoughts on creativity for execution of a martial art. Even in this, creativity might be better as a compass that a shovel.
I challenge my students' creativity early. They get a few techniques, then are given exercises and drills to work with them. When they hit a failure, I make them sort it out. They are literally not allowed to abandon a technique during full flow ("Wait, that't not right. Stop, let's start again."), nor to fix it. They have to recover, and that means finding another technique that works at that point, or using strikes to recover.
Creativity isn't about fixing anything broken. In my experience, it's more about learning to recognize the advantages and opportunities inherent in different approaches (techniques) within a given art.
I see those as two different things. Extemporaneous use is not the same as exploring creatively. The former is letting what happens "naturally" (your programmed responses) flow. The latter is digging deeper to find different ways to execute the techniques and principles, to better understand the art.
Application can be as creative as one wants, and experimentation with that could start relatively early.
Tinkering can be more than changing. Say for example if you are taught a set of moves for a series attack type. One could tinker with the combination of the set without changing the fundamentals of it. It would also allow people to realize the options they have from just one move. It is not stating the system is flawed, it is simply asking what can I add/prepare for to if move A misses/fails/countered etc.
Not even...
How very extemporaneous, of you.
Not even...what?Not even...
Yup, that is what I am talking about. That is application, and is in the realm of experimentation, once some baseline of understanding has been developed.
I get that gpseymour, but the original post was about Bruce Lee saying to be shapeless and formless and how creativity fits in. Bruce Lee was not able to be creative with Ip Man when first learning MA, as nobody new can be very creative or at least I don't look at things that way. I first must learn the system and then can be creative.
I think the normal, formal WC training method simply wasn't a good fit for Lee. It shows in his approach in JKD, and in that quote. Some people have conceptual brains, and work better through experimentation than by learning exactitudes (like forms). What he viewed as "shapeless and formless" is probably something that doesn't occur early enough (for him) in typical WC. There's no reason it can't exist at some point in every art, and I've never found his descriptions of the concepts to be drastically different from what I consider "good martial arts" in general.
I can agree with that but I would further say that since Bruce Lee never completed the complete Wing Chun curriculum he had to find other means to an end. I am not saying he would not have done so even if he had learned the balance of WC because he likely would have adopted other arts into his own practices. He had one thing many of us just do not have and that is the time to focus on such things because his entire life was about MA, not just 5-10 hrs per week like us mere mortals. LOL
Actually, for a time h was a dance instructor. I believe he was a salsa champion.
