Absorb What is Useful

[Xue Sheng]

I did:

All current forms have been modified, but they have been changed by masters who knew the previous form intimately and based the changes on their extensive overall TMA knowledge and experience. You don't bring your Ferrari to be tuned up by the neighborhood mechanic.

I would never call myself master, in my opinion, as soon as you call yourself and master, and believe it, all learning stops.
I do bring 30 years of Taijiquan, 20 years Xingyiquan and 52 years in martial arts.....and I was an auto-mechanic many years ago too

And even Ferraris change from model year to model year.....

 

[isshinryuronin]

One disadvantage of only training in a single style is you are likely be caught in an echo chamber - in many ways it is similar to attending church or following a specific religion.

Same as restricting yourself to any single belief segment such as politics; you are stuck in a bubble receiving only filtered information. You may have spent your life thinking cherry pie is the best, but if you give yourself a chance and taste peach pie (with or without ice cream) you may have a new favorite. Varied exposure and experience make you a fuller human being.

Aside from isshinryu, I've practiced Parker's kenpo and found it to be an excellent art. It has flavored my main style as I found it very compatible. Initially, I thought it to be quite different from my TMA style, but actually, the more advanced I got in isshinryu, the more I found it to be similar and the more I appreciated the richness of my main art. This is not true in all cases, but you never know till you try it.

The last two of my style's Codes are: "The eye must see all sides. The ear must listen in all directions." Some of the best advice for life I've ever heard.

 

[Taiji Rebel]

Branching out and studying other styles is one thing. Changing the style that you were taught is another.

Yes, I agree 100%. However, the founder of any style will have taken what they were taught and changed it. By doing so they created their own style. Then we have people who follow this system without considering it may have been a work in progress right up until the founder's death. Morihei Ueshiba was continually evolving as he progressed in his martial studies. The pre-war approach was much harder than his post-war stylings. Again, I am not suggesting anyone alter the style they have been taught, just highlighting the founder's and their students were often altering and modifying the system until death stopped them from doing so.

 

[drop bear]

This is fine for that individual. In actual application form moves are expected to be slightly modified to fit the situation, the individual's body and ability and even preference. But when taught to others it should be passed on in its original form as taught by that style's current master. If you pass on your personal changes and your student does the same, and then his student, the integrity, meaning and effectiveness of the form will soon be broken.

This change is what makes a martial art better.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

This change is what makes a martial art better.

Not too sure about that. You don't see this strategy used in TMA.

 

[isshinryuronin]

And even Ferraris change from model year to model year.....

I'm sure these changes were made by master automotive engineers.

This change is what makes a martial art better.

Depends. If we're talking about a single practitioner making personal changes that conform to his individuality, it may help him, and I have no problem with that as I said.

If we're talking about making changes in the system that will be passed on to others, this is best left to the master of the system or his senior student for the reasons I've earlier detailed, especially post #98. I'm talking about TMA here so for sports such as MMA these things may not apply.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

This change is what makes a martial art better.

I don't understand why the following strategy has not been popularly used in MMA yet.

- You punch.
- your opponent blocks.
- You change you punch into a grab/pull, and ...

IMO, there are some valuable principles/strategies used in TMA that are still missing in MMA.

 

[drop bear]

I'm sure these changes were made by master automotive engineers.

Depends. If we're talking about a single practitioner making personal changes that conform to his individuality, it may help him, and I have no problem with that as I said.

If we're talking about making changes in the system that will be passed on to others, this is best left to the master of the system or his senior student for the reasons I've earlier detailed, especially post #98. I'm talking about TMA here so for sports such as MMA these things may not apply.

If you want to stifle innovation. Then don't innovate.

MMA and sports do tend to innovate. Which is why they are considerably better than they were ten years ago.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That would be me. I do not feel I am authorized to change anything about the art I study, nor do I think I have any special insights or wisdom that would urge me to do so. We fortunately still have some living first-generation students of the founder who can tell us quite precisely what was taught to them, and we have video of the founder for some things. It's fairly easy to refer to the based documents, first-gen students, and videos of the founder when in doubt. "I think the founder did this wrong" is not something that would ever enter my head.

I respect this, though my personal view is quite different. I doubt any founder was ever done refining. My approach is to keep refining as they likely would if they were still around, using what I learn (including what I learn elsewhere), which is what they were doing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Not sure what you mean here. Are you saying thst they aren't traditional changes? Or that you didn't make changes to traditions?

Maybe both. I deliberately tried to keep much of the tradition of my art, but what I taught certainly included things not part of the tradition.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Not too sure about that. You don't see this strategy used in TMA.

That’s a result of what I consider a flaw in the rules, not really a thing about the art, itself.

 

[Steve]

I respect this, though my personal view is quite different. I doubt any founder was ever done refining. My approach is to keep refining as they likely would if they were still around, using what I learn (including what I learn elsewhere), which is what they were doing.

You know. A founder of anything is, by definition, innovative.

I’ve outlined this in the past, but it’s not the founder of anything that stifles creation. And it may not even be intentional for any students to do so. It’s a lack of application. Without applying what you’ve learned, you will never get the kind of feedback that leads to innovation.

You get one of two things: imperfect attempts to faithfully recreate the original, in which there is a gradual loss of function. Case in point, Bill’s post about loss of bunkai.

Or you get misguided attempts to innovate, which can sometimes lead to dramatic loss of function. For example, wing-chin anti grappling.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take very long to right the ship. You just need application.

Nothing is perfect. however, students who do what they learn get better, and they will eventually progress to a point where they will naturally innovate.

Bloom’s taxonomy. You have to apply skills before you know enough to evaluate, analyze, or innovate. This is true for anything we learn or do.

 

[isshinryuronin]

MMA and sports do tend to innovate. Which is why they are considerably better than they were ten years ago.

What innovations has MMA made in the last 10 or 20 years?

 

[drop bear]

What innovations has MMA made in the last 10 or 20 years?

A lot of the wall stuff is now very technical.

A lot of the wrestling meta over BJJ meta.

Use of rides. The dagastani hand cuff being the more famous one.

The use of fancy kicking, not just the question mark or the oblique kicks. But just a step up in kicking intelligence.

Calf kicking.

The striking with little gloves. And therefore the covering head movement angles and distances.

This is a good video to showcase the methods being attempted during a sparring match.

 

[HighKick]

I have no problem with that, but call it something different. It's not the art it was anymore. Anyone who joins thinking that's what they are getting is being cheated.

I struggle with this at times, and my GM does a good job of working through the issue(s). For example, the Taeguek form set in TKD is fraught with illogical techniques in sequence. We always teach the poomsae per KKW standards for the sake of competition, but our GM is very good at explaining what does not work and why. Usually, he only does this with red and black belts.

I regularly run into this in WT sparring where the sparring environment is always changing. People often change kicks (the cut kick for example) to fit the environment & ruleset. To stay competitive, we do the same, but we Always teach/learn the traditional techniques first, making sure our fighters understand the differences when they are in a rule's bound environment.

Our GM has made minor changes to some of the Yudanja poomsae where they make no sense.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

You know. A founder of anything is, by definition, innovative.

I’ve outlined this in the past, but it’s not the founder of anything that stifles creation. And it may not even be intentional for any students to do so. It’s a lack of application. Without applying what you’ve learned, you will never get the kind of feedback that leads to innovation.

You get one of two things: imperfect attempts to faithfully recreate the original, in which there is a gradual loss of function. Case in point, Bill’s post about loss of bunkai.

Or you get misguided attempts to innovate, which can sometimes lead to dramatic loss of function. For example, wing-chin anti grappling.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take very long to right the ship. You just need application.

Nothing is perfect. however, students who do what they learn get better, and they will eventually progress to a point where they will naturally innovate.

Bloom’s taxonomy. You have to apply skills before you know enough to evaluate, analyze, or innovate. This is true for anything we learn or do.

Good point.

Working with live resistance will expose much - including when you don't fully understand how or when to apply something. It will also teach much that I have not seen practitioners learn from non-live drills, except where there was an exceptional instructor who understood those lessons well, and was able to incorporate them into drills. I've not seen that survive past a generation, before live resistance was needed to reintroduce the lessons properly.

It's my strong belief that we cannot avoid loss of information between generations. No matter how well anyone tries to faithfully pass along what was taught to them, they cannot hope to have learned accurately everything that was taught to them, nor even to retain all they learned. This "loss of signal" is inevitable. The only way to prevent this turning into a long-term degradation of the system being passed along, is for each generation to do their best to "add" their own clarity and development to the system. Some of these additions will actually be rediscoveries of lost signal. Some of them will be natural evolution of the system, as people learn.

No founder (or master of a system) has ever had all the answers. None can possibly have known all that a current senior practitioner of that system knows, though they likely knew much that current practitioner does not.

This was what led me to explore some specific other arts (where I sought specific knowledge to improve what I taught), look into related and origin arts (to find clearer explanations and applications of principles), and put more emphasis on live resistance (both in my interactions with folks outside the art, and in the classes I ran).

 

[Steve]

Good point.

Working with live resistance will expose much - including when you don't fully understand how or when to apply something. It will also teach much that I have not seen practitioners learn from non-live drills, except where there was an exceptional instructor who understood those lessons well, and was able to incorporate them into drills. I've not seen that survive past a generation, before live resistance was needed to reintroduce the lessons properly.

It's my strong belief that we cannot avoid loss of information between generations. No matter how well anyone tries to faithfully pass along what was taught to them, they cannot hope to have learned accurately everything that was taught to them, nor even to retain all they learned. This "loss of signal" is inevitable. The only way to prevent this turning into a long-term degradation of the system being passed along, is for each generation to do their best to "add" their own clarity and development to the system. Some of these additions will actually be rediscoveries of lost signal. Some of them will be natural evolution of the system, as people learn.

No founder (or master of a system) has ever had all the answers. None can possibly have known all that a current senior practitioner of that system knows, though they likely knew much that current practitioner does not.

This was what led me to explore some specific other arts (where I sought specific knowledge to improve what I taught), look into related and origin arts (to find clearer explanations and applications of principles), and put more emphasis on live resistance (both in my interactions with folks outside the art, and in the classes I ran).

There are some things you just have to learn the hard way. that’s why application is important, and also why innovation is an inevitable byproduct of application.

If we agree that you can’t learn it all from your instructor, then we would also agree that there are some things you’re going to have to figure out yourself.

So, the question then is how reliable is your own judgment? Do you have enough practical experience to fill in the gaps?

And this isn’t my opinion. This is observable fact. It’s the way we learn to do anything. There are good and bad ways to train people, and everything in between. Some are more efficient than others. But even if the training is top notch, you will never progress to a point where objective evaluation and innovation occur if you don’t apply the skills.

Or said in a positive way, you become an expert in the things you do. If you do kata, for example, you get better at the various elements of kata. If you fight in MMA, you develop all of the skills that contribute to that. If you do both, you may find synergies between the two.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

You should be using your martial arts enough to know if you need to change it or not

Traditionally, this has been my personal approach to improving my own ability.

 

[isshinryuronin]

A lot of the wall stuff is now very technical.

A lot of the wrestling meta over BJJ meta.

Use of rides. The dagastani hand cuff being the more famous one.

The use of fancy kicking, not just the question mark or the oblique kicks. But just a step up in kicking intelligence.

Calf kicking.

The striking with little gloves. And therefore the covering head movement angles and distances.

This is a good video to showcase the methods being attempted during a sparring match.

Thanks for the response. What I'm exploring is, "is there a difference in the 'innovations' like you mentioned compared to the kind that come to mind in TMA?"

One thing I noticed is the MMA ones you mentioned seem to be of several types: First, adjustments to deal with equipment such as the walls (I'm assuming you're referring to the cage?) and gloves. Second, inserting existing techniques borrowed from different arts such as wrestling or kicking arts. Third, adapting these existing moves to be better used within MMA rules, such as the dagastani hand cuff allowing a wrestling move to be used in conjunction with ground and pound. No doubt there are other examples.

In TMA (I'll use my style as examples) the innovations seem to be more intrinsic concepts of execution: Using the fist vs open hand, vertical punch vs twist, snapping strikes and kicks vs extended thrusting, modifying the fist to stabilze the wrist. Then, there is the whole subject of kata wherein many applications and concepts were built in by the masters but lost due to uniformed changes by others or thru changing the kata for sport.

Sport karate now uses gloves and pads (which had their own evolution in size) that caused adjustments as well, and rules have changed types of techniques used and not used. This has even found its way into non-sport karate over the past 90 years in some styles. Is this innovated evolution, or just a new specialized form of karate with its own set of goals?

Karate was created as MMA, fusing various Chinese styles with Okinawan fighting styles. Its main purpose was close-in self-defense against common physical attacks and incorporated locks, grabbing and twisting, takedowns, kicks and strikes to all targets. Mass teaching and sport have often changed this basic premise of TMA, creating a parallel art of competitive karate.

I think TMA (non-sport) and MMA are two different things with different purposes and so different in selection of techniques and tactics, despite some commonalities. They are thus hard to compare and correlate. Attempts to do so will always be biased at worst, unsatisfactory at best. Best to view them as two distinct activities, each worthwhile in their own way.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Define original.

My Yang style lineage comes from Tung Ying Chieh. My Shifu was his student, also my shifu was good friends with and taught with Tung Ying Chieh's oldest son Tung Hu Ling, in Thailand, Tung Ying Chieh was a student of Yang Chengfu. Tung Ying Chieh's long form was not exactly like Yang Chengfu's long form, and Tung Ying Cheih developed a couple forms of his own. Tung Hu Ling's long form did not look like his fathers, but Tung Hu Ling did tell my Shifu that his form looked more like Tung Ying Chieh's

Even Yang Chengfu changed what his family did to a different form and go back further, Yang Luchan changed Chen style to get Yang style. And don't get me started on what Sun Lutang took, put together and changed.

Tung Hu Ling designed his own forms, some on the fly to make people go away and leave him alone. Talking with my Shifu (now in his 90s) about the differences in the forms, he said no two people are alike and no two people have the same bodies, therefore there will be differences.

Add to this that not all changes will be necessarily be seen as positive. My Sigung met and trained with Yang Chengfu and disliked what Yang Chengfu had changed in the form. Sifu Woo himself changed some aspects of the Yang form that he learned from his uncles and father. Sifu Woo was also a proficient boxer and added what he learned in boxing to Wing Woo Gar which is really just a conglomeration of what he learned in the multiple MA and CMA that he learned over the decades. Over time, he changed, added, and removed parts of the system that he had created from various sources. The teaching method, is what is totally original to him and he continuously improved on this throughout his life. “Always remain a student“ was something he said frequently. He encouraged his students to be curious and go try other gyms and see what they were doing as well.