No Fighting?

[7starmantis]

An interesting idea that has been thrown around quite a bit (at least in my circles) is whether students of kung fu should be required to participate in fighting of some sort. I know many school dont do alot of fighting to begin with, but should a student (say an older female for instance) be allowed to start and train in kung fu, progress through to the level or ability of a teacher (sifu) without participating or training in fighting? Should a student be allowed to train and progress through your curriculum to black sash or the equivilent without doing fighting?

7sm

 

[Walter Wong]

If don't fight or spar with your style, you just can't fight or spar with your style period.

No amount of forms or collecting techniques can compensate for the lack of experience of engaging someone who is not gonna let you do your techniques on them while they're trying to knock you down.

It will take a teacher than knows how to fight with your style to teach you how to fight with your style.

In the end, you can only fight with what stresses real fighting or combat plus whatever actual real life fighting experience you have aquired from the street or elsewhere.

You can like what you like, but in the end you better be able to fight effectively with what you have. Especially when it comes to edged weapons. There is no 2nd place when combatting with edged weapons or firearms. 2nd place is a big black plastic bag with a zipper.

 

[7starmantis]

I actually asking whether you think a student should be allowed to continue and progress through your curriculum and become a teacher without participating in fighting. I understand the importance of fighting, but now days, so many people are in martial arts for hobby reasons and dont want to participate in fighting at all.

7sm

 

[UNYMA]

I think that's a very interesting question but ultimately unanswerable. It goes towards the "are forms worth learning" arguement. There is no absolute right or wrong answer. Let me throw in this though, as I was trying to answer your question I came up with this analogy: If you train to be an astronaut, go through all the levels and courses and whatnot, but you never make it into space are you still an astronaut? Can you teach other astronauts? I know it sounds a but silly but I think the analogy holds. It would be easy for me to answer this with a yes so why should I hesitate to say yes when it comes to fighting and martial arts?

Mitch

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is a very good question.

And I can say that allowing students to go through Tai Chi without applications, push hands and free style push hands has killed it as a martial art. But yet there are tons of Tai Chi schools out there teaching Tai Chi for health and only health.

But I also feel that if a student just wants form they should be allowed to study just form, but not at the expense of those that want more.

As for teaching, I do not see how they can teach what they never learned.

 

[MartialIntent]

An interesting idea that has been thrown around quite a bit (at least in my circles) is whether students of kung fu should be required to participate in fighting of some sort. I know many school dont do alot of fighting to begin with, but should a student (say an older female for instance) be allowed to start and train in kung fu, progress through to the level or ability of a teacher (sifu) without participating or training in fighting? Should a student be allowed to train and progress through your curriculum to black sash or the equivilent without doing fighting?

7sm

Yeah, I've seen this also - I believe it's part of the "distance learning" mentality where folk are unfortunately beginning to actually believe that doing the online course or practising along with the DVD is equivalent to years of dedicated training. These folk can then set up as teachers with little actual experience of their own [or at least little of value or relevance]...

If fighting / sparring is an inherent part of the art then in order to instruct students in fighting technique, it seems only natural that the sifu has experience in fighting.

I practised KF for around 10 years and it was a given that our sifu was a seasoned fighter himself. Absolutely no substitute for experience I say. I mean we wouldn't go skydiving under the tutilage of someone who had zero skydiving experience themselves, right?

Respects!

 

[Flying Crane]

This is an interesting question, but I think maybe a couple points could be clarified.

First, it is entirely possible nowadays to go thru your entire life without ever having a single real fight. Our regulated and law-enforced society makes this possible. Not guaranteed, but for many people, entirely possible. This makes the liklihood of real fighting experience much less of a possibility. I think it is no longer possible to expect that a martial arts instructor is going to have real, street-fighting experience, at least not for those younger than about 50 or so.

Sparring in the school is good experience, but is conducted in a safe environment and is not the same as street fighting.

Drilling technique applications in as realistic a manner as possible is also good experience, but again is not the same as street fighting.

I think the best one could expect nowadays is that the instructor has good application ability developed thru application drills, and sparring.

But is sparring actually necessary, or would application development be enough? that is a good question, and I am not sure what the answer is. Just thought I'd add a bit to chew on.

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is an interesting question, but I think maybe a couple points could be clarified.

First, it is entirely possible nowadays to go thru your entire life without ever having a single real fight. Our regulated and law-enforced society makes this possible. Not guaranteed, but for many people, entirely possible. This makes the liklihood of real fighting experience much less of a possibility. I think it is no longer possible to expect that a martial arts instructor is going to have real, street-fighting experience, at least not for those younger than about 50 or so.

Sparring in the school is good experience, but is conducted in a safe environment and is not the same as street fighting.

Drilling technique applications in as realistic a manner as possible is also good experience, but again is not the same as street fighting.

I think the best one could expect nowadays is that the instructor has good application ability developed thru application drills, and sparring.

But is sparring actually necessary, or would application development be enough? that is a good question, and I am not sure what the answer is. Just thought I'd add a bit to chew on.

Very good point.

Is application development as good a tool as sparing?

I do not think I could answer that question either. Sparing is a good tool and so is knowing the application of your forms and I have always found application drills to be a good thing. I believe something I once read in college stated that if you do something about 2000 times it becomes habit. But there is also a lot to be said for knowing how you will react when hit, even in controlled environment such as a martial arts school.

This would also, in my opinion, lead to a need for a definition as to what is sparing. I referred to free style push hands, but would 7starmantis consider that sparing?

Also in preparation for reality is sparing strictly within your chosen form enough? (But I think that question is outside of the scope of this post)

 

[dmax999]

Here are where I have some strong opinions...

In order to be able to fight with Kung-Fu you have to practice it in a way similar to a fight. Full contact being best, sparring being next, and applications or other stuff lest effective. There is no way around it. Kung-Fu is designed to teach fighting, no question about that either.

However, people learn Kung-Fu for different reasons. If fighting isn't one of them that is fine, but you will never truly understand kung-fu or be competent to teach it (** Answer to your question **). If you only practice "applications" you end up with a bunch of BS that involves catching a fist, stepping behind opponent, tieing their arms together then (and so on).... In other words, stuff that looks great in application practice is worthless and will get you hurt in a real fight, but without realistic fight training you will never realize this.

Push hands of any type is a step on the way to real fighting with Tai Chi. It is in my opinion a required step and should not be ignored. However, it should not be your end point in Tai Chi, you need to contine on still.

You should suspect anyone who tells you differently, they are probably trying to pull something over on you.

There are exceptions of course. Many Tai Chi schools teach only for "health" reasons for example. If they make it clear that fighting is no aspect then I don't really have that much of a problem with a non-fighting teacher teaching, but they will probably not be as good as a teacher that does fight. An hour with a great fighting teacher is worth about a year under one who does not fight (At least in my experience)

 

[Xue Sheng]

Here are where I have some strong opinions...

In order to be able to fight with Kung-Fu you have to practice it in a way similar to a fight. Full contact being best, sparring being next, and applications or other stuff lest effective. There is no way around it. Kung-Fu is designed to teach fighting, no question about that either.

However, people learn Kung-Fu for different reasons. If fighting isn't one of them that is fine, but you will never truly understand kung-fu or be competent to teach it (** Answer to your question **). If you only practice "applications" you end up with a bunch of BS that involves catching a fist, stepping behind opponent, tieing their arms together then (and so on).... In other words, stuff that looks great in application practice is worthless and will get you hurt in a real fight, but without realistic fight training you will never realize this.

Push hands of any type is a step on the way to real fighting with Tai Chi. It is in my opinion a required step and should not be ignored. However, it should not be your end point in Tai Chi, you need to contine on still.

You should suspect anyone who tells you differently, they are probably trying to pull something over on you.

There are exceptions of course. Many Tai Chi schools teach only for "health" reasons for example. If they make it clear that fighting is no aspect then I don't really have that much of a problem with a non-fighting teacher teaching, but they will probably not be as good as a teacher that does fight. An hour with a great fighting teacher is worth about a year under one who does not fight (At least in my experience)

As far as Tai Chi goes, you’re preaching to the choir brother. Look at any of my Tai Chi rants and you will see I agree whole-heartedly. I am a long time Tai Chi guy that has done a lot towards real application with it, and used it in real life situations. I am extremely saddened at the state of Tai Chi today.

But I am off post.

And I also agree with you on the sparing situation. I do not completely agree with your view on application, but I do see where you’re coming from.

But I still will say in reference to the original question, how can you teach something you have not learned.

And I agree that Kung Fu is a fighting art. I have done Xingyi and I am starting again and I train San Da, and I have absolutely no idea how you could really get a handle on the fighting of it without things similar to push hands and sparing.

I left my first Xingyi teacher because he was only form, no substance, I also did Bagua with him, and I can see at least with Bagua that if you understand the physics behind it you could probably become good at fighting with it without the substance, but then again without the sparing you miss a lot and you have absolutely no idea how you will respond when hit.

 

[7starmantis]

As far as the being able to teach what you dont know, I wouldn't think the "non-fighting" teacher would be claiming to teach fighting, just forms and drills and such. There is a seperation. I'm of the opinion that they shouldn't, but should we really refuse a student based on their lack of desire for fighting or contact?

7sm

 

[Xue Sheng]

but should we really refuse a student based on their lack of desire for fighting or contact?

7sm

No, as I said previously

I also feel that if a student just wants form they should be allowed to study just form, but not at the expense of those that want more.

 

[lonecoyote]

Sparring hard is an opportunity for a student to break through their own mental barriers, overcome fears, and gain confidence, all of which is applicable to any number of real life situations, including real fights. It is very useful. There is nothing wrong with forms, but they are teaching lessons, like focus, stance, flow, as well as of course striking. These are lessons about fighting. They are not lessons about dancing, which is lots of fun (you need focus and flow too), but about combat. I don't want to argue about forms usefulness, but forms and fighting, or sparring are two sides of the same coin and both are means to the end of a more confident, tougher and better able to take care of one's self person. It's all one thing. Every body starts and ends at different places, just fighting hard and pushing herself would be good for a fifty year old gal, she doesn't have to fight like Mike Tyson. I don't think a lot of sparring is necessary for experienced martial artists who have put it on the line on the mat a thousand times already. Those folks can do just fine practicing forms and picking them apart.

 

[dmax999]

A very specific example of why non-fighters should not teach people who want to be fighters:

Brush knee in Yang Tai Chi. A simple move where the forward hand ends near the center of the chest, not out to the side in front of the shoulder. A VERY common mistake, but a "non-fighter" would never know this and probably would argue that it is up for interpertation even though they are flat wrong. There are countless other examples, but this one irks me for some reason.

I don't have the time to waste learning techniques wrong because the teacher doesn't understand how a technique is really applied. Tai Chi takes long enough to get good at without going down countless dead ends because doing the moves that way is prettier. Find yourself a teacher that can truly apply their techniques against a fully resisting opponent and you will progress many times faster no matter what style you learn, even if you don't participate in sparring.