Are forms necessary for TKD?

[skribs136 156]

Teaching the move is not the purpose of the traditional form - it is the teacher's job to teach this to his student. The form was just a reminder and reference.

My point is that by learning forms, you're not learning the moves. Not as you would use them on another person. Not with any timing or strategy or cadence that makes sense for a real fight.

 

[isshinryuronin26 26]

Not as you would use them on another person. Not with any timing or strategy or cadence that makes sense for a real fight.

True. There is no substitute for partner training. Forms are limited in what they can accomplish even under the best of circumstances. Like drilling, heavy bag work, sparring and partner work, it is just one piece of the training pie.

 

[Kung Fu Wang137 167]

Teaching a form to a beginner who has no combat experience may cause some issue.

- MA A teaches to "freeze the body and only move the arm".
- MA B teaches to "freeze the arm and only move the body".

- MA A teaches to pull the grabbing hand back to the waist.
- MA B teaches to pull the grabbing hand next to the head.

- MA A teaches to throw a punch with arm and chest form a 90 degree angle.
- MA B teaches to throw a punch with punching fist, punching shoulder, and back shoulder to form a perfect straight line.

- MA A teaches to punch so slow that 1 punch equal to inhale, exhale, inhale, and another exhale.
- MA B teaches to coordinate 1 punch with 1 exhale only.

If A is right than B is wrong. But if B is right than A is wrong. Both A and B just cannot be right at the same time. The moment that a beginner has learned principle from his form, the moment that he believes he is right and others are wrong.

But if a teacher teaches application first and form later, this kind of right/wrong argument may never happen. Beginner student will know exactly why he trains his form in a certain way without any doubt.

 

[skribs136 156]

True. There is no substitute for partner training. Forms are limited in what they can accomplish even under the best of circumstances. Like drilling, heavy bag work, sparring and partner work, it is just one piece of the training pie.

The difference is that heavy bag work, partner work, and sparring often use the same techniques. The only difference is you pull your punches when doing partner drills and sparring. The form of the technique doesn't change.

 

[isshinryuronin26 26]

heavy bag work, partner work, and sparring often use the same techniques.

True for both our styles.

Your forms and mine are different in nature. We have to respectfully acknowledge this fact.

Some of my form's techniques can be applied to the bag, some not as they involve grappling and takedowns. All can be used in partner work as that's how they were developed in the first place. Many of my forms' techniques cannot be used in sparring as they are illegal being aimed at joints or vital points and predate sport sparring. Still, a few of them can be applied to sparring but most practitioners have not much explored this possibility.

When my forms' techniques can be used in these various activities, I see no reason to change them. I do them just as they're done in the form.

 

[skribs136 156]

Your forms and mine are different in nature. We have to respectfully acknowledge this fact.

While likely true, I can only base my findings off of my experience, and what I see of other arts is colored by that experience. Maybe one day I'll train Karate and see if they are better applied, or if it's just the same.

 

[Earl Weiss133 33]

This is the best explanation I've seen for the big disconnect between forms and sparring.

That's why you don't limit your sparring to 1-on-1.

---

We do multiple opponent sparring - But we also do some multiple Attacker drills which are not sparring since sparring rules don't apply. Various exercises have different parameters and gear for safety reasons.

 

[Earl Weiss133 33]

Billy is a 7th under Pak Jon-Soo. (Pardon the likely mis- spelling.)

Interesting. Never heard that - do you have a link. I was acquainted with Park Jog Soo if that is whom you reference . He was an ITF OG in Canada for many years.

 

[Earl Weiss133 33]

But if a teacher teaches application first and form later, this kind of right/wrong argument may never happen. Beginner student will know exactly why he trains his form in a certain way without any doubt.

FWIW General Choi would often state the #1 training secret of Tk-D was to know the purpose / application of the move. (For those who diligetly study his system i Know he does not list it at #1 o the training secrets)
He also stipulates that before a new form is taught the student must first be taught any new move and that is how the text is structured. Before each form are the new moves for the form.
Also, a considerable portion of the 8 Volumes of his 15 Volume text shows applications of the moves. (Which does not mean anyone / everyone agrees with those suggested applications - They are meant to be tools to help understand how to move - Not exhaustive or exclusive examples)

So, it seems you are of a similar mindset

 

[Kung Fu Wang137 167]

We do multiple opponent sparring -

In my student's school, they did 3 persons sparring. A and B spar in the ring. C stay outside of the ring. During A and B are sparring, C can attack either A or B.

 

[skribs136 156]

FWIW General Choi would often state the #1 training secret of Tk-D was to know the purpose / application of the move. (For those who diligetly study his system i Know he does not list it at #1 o the training secrets)
He also stipulates that before a new form is taught the student must first be taught any new move and that is how the text is structured. Before each form are the new moves for the form.
Also, a considerable portion of the 8 Volumes of his 15 Volume text shows applications of the moves. (Which does not mean anyone / everyone agrees with those suggested applications - They are meant to be tools to help understand how to move - Not exhaustive or exclusive examples)

So, it seems you are of a similar mindset

In my TKD experience, this is true of the basic forms, but not for the advanced forms.

The first basic form in every school I've been to has been a series of down blocks and middle punches, all in front stance. There's no high punch, no other strike, no kick, no other block, no other stance. They typically learn down block and punch in the technique portion of class, which comes before the forms. More blocks, punches, and kicks come in the technique portion of that class, but aren't introduced until later in the forms.

However, basically any technique that uses 2 hands (except the low X block and high X block) doesn't come up at all in the rest of the curriculum in my experience. Techniques such as:

• Double knife-hand block
• Double outside block
• Scissor block
• C-block or C-punch

None of these exist outside of the forms in my experience. There's a few other techniques that do seem to exist outside the forms (such as the swallow-form block + chop), but that seems more coincidental than by design, based on the rest of the curriculum.

 

[skribs136 156]

In my TKD experience, this is true of the basic forms, but not for the advanced forms.

I will say I've also been in discussions regarding the efficacy of forms where someone will say the techniques of the forms were useful, because in sparring they did a down block and punch combination.

Which also holds true that I feel this connects well from technique to form to sparring when you are looking at the basics, but as you get more advanced the art tends to diverge.

 

[Kung Fu Wang137 167]

The first basic form in every school I've been to has been a series of down blocks and middle punches, all in front stance.

When you teach your students

- "downward block", will they ask you, "Are there other blocks besides downward block?"
- "middle punch", will they ask you, "Are there other punches besides middle punch?"
- "front stance", will they ask you, "Are there other stances besides front stance?"

When you teach your students, "I love you", do you also teach them

- He loves you,
- I hate you,
- I love her? or

do you expect your students to figure out all the rest by themselves?

Will it be better to tech students all the blocks, punches, and stances before you even start teaching them the form (toolbox approach)? After a student has completed his toolbox building, he will have easy time to learn any form.

 

[skribs136 156]

- "downward block", will they ask you, "Are there other blocks besides downward block?"

No

- "middle punch", will they ask you, "Are there other punches besides middle punch?"

No

- "front stance", will they ask you, "Are there other stances besides front stance?"

No

This is silly

When you teach your students, "I love you", do you also teach them

- He loves you,
- I hate you,
- I love her? or

This is even sillier, I don't know what's going on here anymore.

 

[Kung Fu Wang137 167]

This is even sillier, I don't know what's going on here anymore.

Your post state, "The first basic form in every school I've been to has been a series of down blocks and middle punches, all in front stance." This approach require student to learn forms because tools only exist in forms.

Some MA systems teach all 8 basic stances before teaching form. Students in these systems won't ask, "Are there other stances besides front stance?" when they learn form. This approach doesn't require student to learn form because tools exist outside of forms.

Your post ask, "Are forms necessary for TKD?" If student can learn tools:

- only from form than form is necessary.
- outside of form than form is not necessary.

The 8 basic stances can be used for "static posture training" which has nothing to do with form training.

 

[Buka45 2]

Interesting. Never heard that - do you have a link. I was acquainted with Park Jog Soo if that is whom you reference . He was an ITF OG in Canada for many years.

If I remember correctly, Billy trained with him in Toronto.

 

[MadMartigan127 43]

I will say I've also been in discussions regarding the efficacy of forms where someone will say the techniques of the forms were useful, because in sparring they did a down block and punch combination.

Which also holds true that I feel this connects well from technique to form to sparring when you are looking at the basics, but as you get more advanced the art tends to diverge.

So my thoughts on what patterns are actually for (from a TKD perspective) I think diverges from the mainstream. I look at them (in some ways) as a dictionary. You could read a dictionary cover to cover, and learn very little about how to apply each word in correct context or conversation... but that doesn't make a dictionary worthless.

I have never subscribed to the idea that patterns are a pretend fight. On their own, patterns do not help you learn to fight... they help you fine tune specific skills that can be applied to a fight.

A stance is a freeze frame of a moment in time. In application, you would never lock into a position, holding an arm out, then transition to another static pose. We do this, to hardwire specific movement pathways and ranges of motion into the subconscious. Are there other ways to accomplish this? Of course... but this is one way.

Anyone who says that a horse stance would never happen in a fight is just wrong, or has never taken a single BJJ class.

Every BJJ student learns to 'Stand Up In Base'. Now freeze for a moment at the point when you just finished taking your rear hand off the ground. Where are you? You are standing in a horse stance, bladed to your opponent, with your lead arm outstretched toward them. Of course, you don't just freeze there, but for a moment, that is your position.

So why stand there longer than 1/4 of a second? Maybe just to develop your quad muscles... and there are other potential benefits I could get into.

The largest benefits of patterns is in building muscle control, balance, and power generation through the movements between the poses.
The individual end poses could be set up 1 by 1 and a picture taken, and it could look perfect. It is how the body moves from 1 to the next that holds the actual lessons. In my style of TKD (like most Karate styles from what I understand) power is meant to be generated through waist/hip rotation horizontally. Maintaining balance while stepping to an exact position, while generating maximum power without sacrificing control, is the lesson of our forms.

The benefits do not show up like 'I learned how to jump to a Left X-Stance while striking with a downward backfist, so now I do that in sparring'. It's, 'I learned how to generate power in a strike while mid air, maintaining my balance and posture so that I could transition to a more stable position to continue fighting.

I could go on and on about this, but I hope that at least made some sense in short

 

[Earl Weiss133 33]

So my thoughts on what patterns are actually for (from a TKD perspective) I think diverges from the mainstream. I look at them (in some ways) as a dictionary. You could read a dictionary cover to cover, and learn very little about how to apply each word in correct context or conversation... but that doesn't make a dictionary worthless.

If I recall correctly General Choi says something similar in his texts comparing fundamental movements to a letter or word. How you string them together lets you come up with whatever. How they are arranged in a pattern is but one example.

 

[Earl Weiss133 33]

If I remember correctly, Billy trained with him in Toronto.

Found info - that is correct. Back in the 1970's before WT was a thing if you went to seek out ITF in Canada you were directed to Park Jong Soo's gym (As was my instructor at the time. He was 6 foot plus and an amazing athlete. so he could impress most anyone who happened to be some hot shot who came by.