the shapes teach very specific concepts. you don't pull techniques out ur ass.
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LO Han Fuk Fu "Arhat Subdues a Tiger" in Lama Pai can be BOTH a strike and a throw
Baahk HOk Tam Soi "white crane splashes water" can be sweep (striking) or set up for throw
LO Han Pak Deih "Arhat Strikes the earth" can be takedown, can also be way to stop a takedown
Pau Wai Sau "destroying hands" can be block or set up for throw
real system is not so black and white
and there you have it.
"Some" Forms can be a textbook. Many systems don't have forms and simply have a long list of techniques, but if that list is lost or forgotten, so is the system. With a form, you can always extract and extrapolate your techniques.
(mind you, not all forms are textbooks (kuen-faht) some are developmental (gung-faht), but in this specific case, we are talking about textbook.
If you fight all your life, one day you are too old to fight. You don't want to quit training. You collect all your favor fighting combos, link it into a form. Before you die, you teach that sequence to your students. Your students then pass it down to the next generation. That's a form.
I went to a Karate black belt testing one day. The students had to remember the order of 65 different techniques. When the instructor said, "technique 37", his students had to perform it right way. A 65 moves form will be helpful in this case.
SC has about 400 throws. If someone can link all 400 throw into a long form, not only that form will be able to help people to achieve "health", it can also be an excellent "throwing skill text book".
Again, forms are for teaching and learning only. It's not designed for training. After you have learned a form, you record it on DVD, you no longer have to "train" it any more.
And that's exactly why teachers who developed systems that rely on forms being passed down had systems that became mostly useless and obsolete.
The teachers who, instead of categorizing their favorite fighting combos into forms, taught the application of the techniques to their students are the ones who developed the systems that have remained practical and useful.
yeah all the tools are back in the "ignore" box for me.