Wide stances and ending your forms on the same spot

Earl Weiss

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Not necessarily. Most people change and adapt through the color belts. Many beyond that.
Even if a student changes over time , they should not be changing during a single performance of the form. There are other exercises for adaptation.
 

jobo

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I think thee are a couple of factors here. 1. Soccer is purely a sport. There is no art or aesthetic component. 2. For soccer the terrain and surroundings is uniform so there is little need for variations due to those factors. 3. I differentiate "Combat" from sparring. Sparring often requires a more mobile stance. Combat my require a more stable stance. 4. The lack of variables in soccer makes a limited tool set more applicable. Combat tool set is sort of like a mechanic or tradesman;s tools set. The job is a lot easier if you have the best tool for the job even if you my only need it in 1% of the job.
that's just wrong soccer is or at least can be if your watching top players an aesthetic " art" much more so it seems than kata as much more people watch and pay a great deal of money to do so.

it extremely variable, you need to move your self through time and space to get to a predetermined and completly variable target . the ball and avoid people trying to kick you, whilst others are moving them selves to intercept you. . if you just have a constant movement pattern you wont do either.

it also has the addition component of having to coordinate with the movement if others team members

there are certainly as many varriables in soccer as in ma, quite possible more and hence as many variations on technique.

if your seperating combat and sparring m ,which is reasonable. then the vast % of ma never engage in combat or at best a few times in a life time.

that then t is ,like trying to be good at soccer, with out ever playing a competitive game, so it's impossible to know if it works. if your only going to have five fights in a life time, it's highly unlikely , your technique that is only useful 1% of the time will ever be useful, as clearly you would need a 100 fights to guarantee is use, pragmatically , then it's a poor use of time to spend many hours perfecting it
 
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Dirty Dog

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I also think that it's fairly big headed that I should assume I could do the form better than a group of founders who created the forms (unless I get to the amount of experience that they had).

Realistically, you may very well have more experience than the founders did.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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Realistically, you may very well have more experience than the founders did.
If Karate is your primary art, but you also cross trained boxing, MT, wrestling, Judo, BJJ, ..., you may have much wider view point that the style founder had. You can look at a technique from many different angles instead of just from one angle.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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I also think that it's fairly big headed that I should assume I could do the form better than a group of founders who created the forms (unless I get to the amount of experience that they had).
Bruce Lee died at age 32. If he started to train at age of 10, he would have 22 years of training. If you start to train at age of 10, when you are 70, you have trained for 60 years. Do you think that you will be able to do form better than Bruce could when you are 70?

It's not "big headed". It's to have faith in yourself.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Realistically, you may very well have more experience than the founders did.
Especially if you look at the point in their lives when they created a given part of the curriculum. Many bits (certainly not all) were created when the founders were in their 20's to 40's. Add to that all of the information we - as a civilization - possess now that they didn't have access to, and there's good reason to think there's room for improvement in some areas.
 

Dirty Dog

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If Karate is your primary art, but you also cross trained boxing, MT, wrestling, Judo, BJJ, ..., you may have much wider view point that the style founder had. You can look at a technique from many different angles instead of just from one angle.

Most of the TKD founders had a decade or two of experience when they founded their Kwan. Maybe 30 years when the taegeuk forms were designed. I've got about 50 years of experience, and I know there are plenty of others with as much or more.
The point being that the founders were far from perfect.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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Most of the TKD founders had a decade or two of experience when they founded their Kwan. Maybe 30 years when the taegeuk forms were designed. I've got about 50 years of experience, and I know there are plenty of others with as much or more.
The point being that the founders were far from perfect.
Agree with you 100% there.

If you look at the following form, between 0.02 and 0.03 there should be a right punch there. It's missing in that form. When you palm strike on your opponent's waist, 99% of the time that your opponent will drop his leading arm to block it. This will let his face open. There should be a right punch to the face at that moment.

Sometime I think I can design the form better than the form creator did. The form creator may had 30 years training when he designed this form. But I have more than 60 years training. If I can't design better form than this form creator, I should get a rope, find a quite place, and hang myself. :D


 

Flying Crane

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Most of the TKD founders had a decade or two of experience when they founded their Kwan. Maybe 30 years when the taegeuk forms were designed. I've got about 50 years of experience, and I know there are plenty of others with as much or more.
The point being that the founders were far from perfect.
Bingo. All of this was created by people, all of whom had shortcomings.

None of this was handed down by the gods, as a perfect thing.
 
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skribs

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The point being that the founders were far from perfect.

No founder of any art will be perfect.
Until Skribs-Jutsu or Skribs-Kido is founded. (I'm still iffy on the name).
 

Earl Weiss

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t........................... your technique that is only useful 1% of the time will ever be useful, as clearly you would need a 100 fights to guarantee is use, pragmatically , then it's a poor use of time to spend many hours perfecting it
If you are only training for combat then most anytime spent in a martial art is a poor use of your time.
 

Earl Weiss

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that's just wrong soccer is or at least can be if your watching top players an aesthetic " art" much more so it seems than kata as much more people watch and pay a great deal of money to do so.
You have chosen to consider an athletic sport performance an "Art" which of course is your right and highlights the issue since there is no agreement as to how the term is defined . "Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed[5][6][7] and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency[8] and creation.[9] The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics" From Wikepedia. (Emphasis supplied)
It is impossible to have an effective discussion if people do not agree how terms are defined. I understand but reject your contention that a good athletic performance is although a thing of beauty is considered "Art" for purposes of these discussions. Within the sport there is no winning advantage to considering how aesthetically pleasing someone considers your performance. Within a martial art there are parameters where the aesthetics are judge. Again, therein lies the crux of the issue. Is everyone who is kicking and punching or grappling involved in a "Martial Art" ? Tae Bo? Cardio Kickboxing? Perhaps the terminology needs refinement although I have no hope this will happen or there will be universal acceptance of narrower terms like. "Martial Sport" Martial Exercise" etc.
 

dvcochran

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Even if a student changes over time , they should not be changing during a single performance of the form. There are other exercises for adaptation.
Yes, of course. I do not consider a single performance of a form "over time". I agree with the other drills you mention and, to my point, they would be incorporated into the single performance, over time, as the person perfects their technique. That is of course assuming the other drills are taught correctly.
 

dvcochran

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This is what I was getting at earlier. If people have to sometimes adjust to an arbitrary step size (because of the group), they should be learning to produce their techniques with various step sizes. That should help with that adjustment on the fly.

(On a side note, you make a great point about something that happens a lot at the heavy bag. IMO, it's okay for a beginner to change their distance to match the technique. After a point, though, if you line up too close or too far away, you should adjust the technique to make that distance work, and work on finding the right distance when you reset.)
We practice this especially for kicking. Most of the kicks are practiced from different stances and for different ranges (target distance).
 

jobo

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You have chosen to consider an athletic sport performance an "Art" which of course is your right and highlights the issue since there is no agreement as to how the term is defined . "Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed[5][6][7] and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency[8] and creation.[9] The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics" From Wikepedia. (Emphasis supplied)
It is impossible to have an effective discussion if people do not agree how terms are defined. I understand but reject your contention that a good athletic performance is although a thing of beauty is considered "Art" for purposes of these discussions. Within the sport there is no winning advantage to considering how aesthetically pleasing someone considers your performance. Within a martial art there are parameters where the aesthetics are judge. Again, therein lies the crux of the issue. Is everyone who is kicking and punching or grappling involved in a "Martial Art" ? Tae Bo? Cardio Kickboxing? Perhaps the terminology needs refinement although I have no hope this will happen or there will be universal acceptance of narrower terms like. "Martial Sport" Martial Exercise" etc.
I didn't say athletic performance was art , I said soccer was was, pure athletic performance like say sprinting or weight lifting isn't art, but team games that in evolved tactics are not out and out measures of athletic performance and can also have a high aesthetic appeal.

somebody being highbrow , would restrict the term art to things like Ballet or sculpture and certainly wouldn't include ma in that classification.

if your extending that definition to include kata,then theres no element of the definition that doesn't equally apply to soccer. both have an element of athletic performance in them m both can be aesthetically pleasing. both have interpretation and creativity.
both are judged, in the case of soccer , by 50,000 people and millions at home, who vote with their wallet
perhaps you could identify the precise qualities that you feel make kata an art but not soccer ?
 
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Gerry Seymour

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if your extending that definition to include kata,then theres no element of the definition that doesn't equally apply to soccer.
The only thing I can think of that's specifically different is that I know of no situation where soccer is formally judged on aesthetics - no place where people are judging soccer drills and saying, "That's a good drill - I like the flash and snap of it, so here's a medal." That does happen with kata competition.
 

jobo

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The only thing I can think of that's specifically different is that I know of no situation where soccer is formally judged on aesthetics - no place where people are judging soccer drills and saying, "That's a good drill - I like the flash and snap of it, so here's a medal." That does happen with kata competition.
arts like ballet isn't formally judged either, its judge d by " professional critics" who write reviews , as is soccer and its judged by the crowd who are prepared to part with a significant amount of money to watch as is soccer.

I've seen many a poor, but winning soccer performance booed , you can't get much more of a firmal feed back than that
 

Gerry Seymour

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arts like ballet isn't formally judged either, its judge d by " professional critics" who write reviews , as is soccer and its judged by the crowd who are prepared to part with a significant amount of money to watch as is soccer
I don't think the term "art" is the same for fine arts, performing arts, and martial arts. I was looking at one factor folks have used to point out what they see as the "art" in MA.

I don't personally see that as the usage of "art" that MA is meant to have.
 

jobo

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I don't think the term "art" is the same for fine arts, performing arts, and martial arts. I was looking at one factor folks have used to point out what they see as the "art" in MA.

I don't personally see that as the usage of "art" that MA is meant to have.
well it certainly is, fine art is just the term refined and only applied to thing they consider art, whilst excluding things THEY dont approve of.

which is exactly the same process as he is doing, if ballet doesn't work for you, let's take a musical performance show on Broadway, the high brow wont consider that fine art. but its certainly art, which is judged in the same way as soccer
 

Flying Crane

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I don't think the term "art" is the same for fine arts, performing arts, and martial arts. I was looking at one factor folks have used to point out what they see as the "art" in MA.

I don't personally see that as the usage of "art" that MA is meant to have.
You are correct. The term “art” in martial arts means skill and method. It is not meant as aesthetically pleasing artistic endeavor.
 

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