Can you call it CMA?

[MightyB]

Can you really call it CMA without forms?

[KFNOOB]

Do you mean TCMA? Why would forms/no forms remove the Chinese part? Forms only started about 100 years ago according to experts here?

Havent we concluded yet that forms are not necessary? The people here with decades of experience have given their opinion. Even the "pro-form" camp cant say they are "necessary" onlt that they serve a function...which I thnk no one argues.

To me, forms have been proven here to be unecessary and, therefore, TCMA is not a productive way to train unless it is adapting modern training methods like the guys here have explained.

This saved me some $ and a long time training in these forms by someone still teaching in the dark ages without credentials necessary to teach in the first place.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Can you really call it CMA without forms?

Forms? what kind of forms?
and in what format? PDF's? Word documents?
Bah !!
Can't stand paperwork !!

[MightyB]

I don't see how you can call it CMA without forms. Seriously- CLF, Mantis, Tai Chi-- what are they without the forms? Yeah- you could say Shuai Chou, BUT it was made better with the addition of Tai Chi by the Iron Butterfly- heck- SC has it's own special Tai Chi.

Bruce Lee said "blah blah blah"--- well, he also said that you use the canoe to cross the lake, but not to carry the canoe when you get to the other side. Guess what? All TCMA expresses this ideal. You need the frame work to learn, but only after you learn a style are you free to improvise.

You can't improvise Jazz without first learning how to play the instrument. MA is the same way... otherwise why train?

Without forms- you're not doing CMA- you're punching kicking locking-- whatever, but you won't use the trapping, movement, philosophies, etc of a style without the original training. You won't have the flavor, the schutzpa of the style, I mean it's impossible to do it. Think of the arc swinging of CLF, the bridging of WC, the trapping of Mantis-- why would you attempt or even move in those flavors without the forms training. Couldn't it be argued that it's quicker just to jab or whatever, so why arc your swings, why use gou lou tsai... then you're not doing CMA-- MMA is just a phase friends- one that's being adapted to. It was a good shake up, but it doesn't have the staying power of TCMA.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Every MA has forms, in some "form" or another.
That is NOT what makes them unique.

Would WC be any less WC if you still had ALL the principles and drills but had no forms?
Yes, how could it not be?

Certainly certain systems like Taiji center themselves on the actual form and as such, they can't be with out it, can someone do taiji without doing the taiji form?
No, they can express the principles and even the techniques, but to do taiji one must do taiji ie: do one of the forms.

Its a system specific question and not a fair one at that.

[MightyB]

Do you mean TCMA? Why would forms/no forms remove the Chinese part? Forms only started about 100 years ago according to experts here?

Havent we concluded yet that forms are not necessary? The people here with decades of experience have given their opinion. Even the "pro-form" camp cant say they are "necessary" onlt that they serve a function...which I thnk no one argues.

To me, forms have been proven here to be unecessary and, therefore, TCMA is not a productive way to train unless it is adapting modern training methods like the guys here have explained.

This saved me some $ and a long time training in these forms by someone still teaching in the dark ages without credentials necessary to teach in the first place.

Decades my Arse...

I was there. I even went through the reality MMA phase myself - but guess what I found out- it's a circle. You do the reality thing- then you go back to TCMA. You modify your thinking, but you find that it's worthwhile to go back. You have to have an open mind, and yes you need to spar and roll- BJJ is a great additional style- but there's a lot of merit to old school TCMA with good instructors. Maybe I'm biased because I had a great instructor- could be- but TCMA has forms and they are worthwhile.

[David Jamieson]

a lot of people say lots of things. IE: "forms are only 100 years old".

this is wrong and has been shown to be so. There were manuals on miltary techniques and fighting arts in china in the 1600's. It is likely there was more before that. the shaolin staff method for ionstance as revelaed in the recent publication was a manual that showed a sequence of uses for the staff as practice in the shaolin monastery in 1621. This automatically repudiates any claim by anyone here that forms are merely a hundred or so years or a recent development only for the generation of income. Now, there has been corruption. How can there not be corruption? We're talking humans here, not demiurges, but a bunch of ultimately self interested humans. Ergo, you cannot discount the corruption that has come about in the sales and transmissions of martial arts. Heck, we have schools in neighborhoods close to us that used to be a dojo or a dojang or a gwoon and now it's an mma club! despite the fact that its the same guy teaching in there? how is he also a sudden expert in bjj and mma if all he did was forms?

In my view, be it one move or twenty or whatever, you cannot have a martial art without practicing the shape of it's content.


p.s sanjuro, I like your taiji/bjj story. This is close to my experience as well. I think it is only recently that people have actually adopted the whole "well, why aren't we actually trying to use this for real" situation.

on this board, there will be more and more mma guys as time goes, because that is the martial art of choice more often than not and it appeals to the minds of people in this society because it's not all mysterious and secretive like many formal martial arts are and instead it's like mahayana buddhism inasmuch as anyone with the time to commit and desire to succeed will have a chance at getting good with it! as opposed to it only being for those initiates who have bent their knee.

This appeals to the common man a lot.

[golden arhat]

if your fighting with cma then its cma

forms or not


if you dont do heavy bag work but do the rest of the standard boxing curriculum and get up and box your still boxing

since when did a training method define if something was a martial art or not

there are thousands of ways of training

[MightyB]

if your fighting with cma then its cma

forms or not

How??? Without learning the forms How are you still doing CMA?

[MasterKiller]

How??? Without learning the forms How are you still doing CMA?

Are you serious? You have a very shallow understanding of your kung fu if you can't get past the notion that pre-arranged sets define your style.

The philosophy and strategy incorporated INTO those sets define your style, and that's what you use in a fight.

[David Jamieson]

How??? Without learning the forms How are you still doing CMA?

well, some people extrapolate all the techniques, or as many as they can and teach only those in a venue of sportive combative training or amateur fighting.

they don't teach the forms because the people who signed on want to bang with each other and don't want to spend their time with the forms that the techniques were extrapolated from.

so, yes, you can practice cma in a place that doesn't make with he forms.
many san shou clubs are like this. they just go for the kickboxing, throws and locks where available and leave the forms out. It's still cma.

[MightyB]

I'll go back to my earlier argument-

Let's say you're practicing "Mantis" but you don't do any forms. You learned only gou lou tsai (du sau, foom sau, da)-- that's the basis for Mantis. Yes there's theories up the wazoo, there's monkey footwork, swallow body movement-- but you wouldn't do that. Why would you?- you could just jab and cross-

it's too hard to use the other stuff- you'd have to practice to do it- so you drop all that other stuff. Jab and cross.

It's not CMA.

[MasterKiller]

I'll go back to my earlier argument-

Let's say you're practicing "Mantis" but you don't do any forms. You learned only gou lou tsai (du sau, foom sau, da)-- that's the basis for Mantis. Yes there's theories up the wazoo, there's monkey footwork, swallow body movement-- but you wouldn't do that. Why would you?- you could just jab and cross-

it's too hard to use the other stuff- you'd have to practice to do it- so you drop all that other stuff. Jab and cross.

It's not CMA.

You can drill striking, blocking, trapping, and throwing techniques against a partner and on Thai pads/focus mitts. You can do isolated footwork drills that more closely resemble the actual application.

You can learn TO FIGHT with CMA without ever learning a form in your whole life.

[MightyB]

You can drill striking, blocking, trapping, and throwing techniques against a partner and on Thai pads/focus mitts. You can do isolated footwork drills that more closely resemble the actual application.

You can learn TO FIGHT with CMA without ever learning a form in your whole life.

What then makes that CMA and not Hungarian, or Pankration, or Thai? What defines that as CMA? It could be American Indian or Greek.

[MasterKiller]

What then makes that CMA and not Hungarian, or Pankration, or Thai? What defines that as CMA? It could be American Indian or Greek.

What the f@ck? If you drill CMA techniques and strategy, and use them in a fight, you are figthing with CMA.