Hey guys, this is my 'return' to the forum from a while back. I gained tons of knowledge from you guys before and really enjoy hearing all of your viewpoints on various issues, and appretiate your contributions.

Here's my situation...I've been taking these classes of this 8step prayingmantis class (and 8step seems awesome to me by the way) and the instructor (well actually he's just the senior student of 10years, the sifu hasn't been there) said something that shocked me. We train in the stances, you know, typical of kung fu (horse, bow, 1legged, ect.) and he said something like "Now of course, you wouldn't actually use these stances/blocks, it'd look something more like this" and did something like a quick muay'thai block (hand to the ear to block a hook)

Now am i missing something? I always thought you train in kung fu to fight like kung fu, is it just to strengthen your body to be able to use a different style to fight better, or is this a mc dojo. I didn't wanna put him on the spot, so after class i asked him "So you wouldn't use these stances that we practice at all?"

His response was "The stances are more transitions, for like our throws and jointlocking techniques" and demonstrated a few times you would go into bow to do a throw, or a 1legged stance to stick out your leg and trip them.

He also went on to say "doing our typical high block," (which is typical amongst alot of systems i've seen) "wouldn't be practical because it leaves you exposed, so it would be more like this" and did a similar block to before.

Another thing we were doing was thing called a "watchout" drill which is actually a really good drill...we're punching 1 focus mitt, and the person with the mitt swings a nunchuck at you and you either duck under it or jump over it (mostly for cardio/awareness) but we do it from a boxing stance with boxer-style punches.

Is this really how kung fu guys fight and i was unaware of this all this time? Or is he misinformed and not using what he COULD be really good at by now (after 10years experience)???

PS: Im definantly not a troll, i love all martial arts. From what i've seen people have been pretty sensetive these days, so im just being careful to let you guys know that lol