Live Hands

[Siem]

Live Hands
In my experience I've found that technique and forms are not enough. Physical development and internal training are essential. Once those are attained then sensitivity and a live hand must be mastered against a resistant, fighting opponent. Two man sets and Chi Sao are great tools to sharpen your technique but live fighting with control is essential.
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[beknar]

Ah yes, the old kinesthetic/touch paradigm. I think a difference has to be made between San Sau/2 man drills and formal 2 man sets, because for even 2 man sets, you STILL need to break it down into drills.

You also need to do bag work, focus mitt work, footwork drills .. etc. But everyone already knows this, so I'm not sure why I'm going on about it. Wait, I do know why.

The reason why one fights the way one does is because of context. Vision context, hearing context and most of all, touch/kinesthetic context. The mind remembers in what context something is done. There used to be experiments in college where they would have someone study a subject under certain conditions, then have them take a test under the same and different conditions .. and of course they would perform slightly better under the same conditions.

The same principle applies in our arts. Consider boxing for instance. Those movements are practiced in context of another moving object, thus engaging the visual and kinesthetic senses. Consider grappling, which is an even more effective use of training time, which engages visual, kinesthetic and touch senses nearly every second that the two fighters fight. This is the reason why grappling's easier than striking.

I'm not saying that you should abandon forms. Forms are useful in that they contain the techniques, strategies and conditioning that one requires to fight. But these other things are necessary too.