Mantis forms

[Oso]

easy fellas.

Mark, in Pong Lai, Ling is just one step along the way. We break the form down into shorter two person drills both before and after the student learns the ling side. If you read my long ass post up thread then you also see how I personally break a form down into application. The problem is getting a student who is willing to spend enough time every month to get through it all to a point where they could actually utilize it.

In Pong Lai, our most basic hand drills impart the basic fighting skills. The most basic of these aren't derived from any particular set (so far as I've seen anyway) but the individual movements are in almost every set.

*****

conditioning is as tough a topic as any other.

The arms and hands in particular are going to be the first thing in contact with an opponent in a fight.

conditioning is hard. it hurts. very few people want to hurt, much less actually 'like' hurting. and, be honest, it's a sick little disease most of us here have

but, w/o the proper conditioning you won't survive the first block you make on someone who is bigger and tougher than you!

-N-, I agree totally that blending, etc. is the way to go but is a much harder skill to aquire and requires fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the first thing to go in a real fight so it's important to have the conditioning as back up. One of the things I like best about Pong Lai is that the basic arm drills are built around gross motor skills vs. fine motor skills and therefore will be there in that real fight when the more recent stuff that hasn't been trained as long disappears.

When I started learning Pong Lai a bit over a year and a half ago me and my students spent over a year in steady condtioning via our arm drills. Then, at the first of this year I planned an Open House and demo and we spent almost no time on arm drills as we concentrated on more showy stuff. In just two months I feel we all took at least a 6 month backward step. So, I feel that conditioning must always be a part of the training program for anyone that is training with martial intent.

*****

But, that brings up the point of how many people are really training with "real'' martial intent?

I'm not counting the people who think that doing some forms and kickign a bag everyonce in a while counts as martial training.

BTL, while I agree that any training is better than no training I have a hard time watching students give themselves the illusion of martial prowess when they aren't really training for martial ability.

I just wonder a lot whether we who are running commercial schools for money are perpetuating both the illusion of martial prowess in students who won't really train and thereby sealing the fate of TCMA as useless crap.

Yet, how many students would some of us have if we walked into class and told them they were wasting their time because they don't train hard enough to really build the fighting skills to a point where they would survive a real encounter?

sorry for the rambling....

[18elders]

my thoughts on the forms.

If you do not pay attention to your forms, you will be missing out. There is more to the form than just the applications. YOu first need to learn how to move, and i mean move PROPERLY. If you ingnore your form and just do applications, you will not have the proper body movement and flavor. You have to drill the hell out of our forms, get your fa jing, waist movement, timing etc., down and implement it into your applications or you will not apply it CORRECTLY.

If you execute your form, you should be tired when your done even if you did it once. You have to put 100% energy into it, jing , speed etc. Your students should get a work out from doing their form if they put it all into it. Not just go through the movements with no energy or feeling.

Ling side-
another important part of your training. This also teaches you timing, movement: IF YOU DO IT CORRECTLY LIKE YOUR TRYING TO HIT EACH OTHER, NO PATTY CAKE BS.

You can't properly understand how your block will be unless someone is throwing a full blown punch, kick etc. you will learn quickly that you cannot execute your technique if you didn't stop that block, this also teaches timing, but like i said, no patty cake stuff. you will see a big difference if u execute it correctly.

As for being "stuck" in a pattern, that is not true, people really don't understand ling forms. It is to train you to react without thinking, YOU ARE NOT STUCK TO A ROUTINE, at anytime you can finish your opponent off, go into a take down etc.

If you understand the form and the ling form, you will know how to apply every single move in your forms.

[mantid1]

oso

The commercial school thing is very much about what this thread is dealing with.

Why take the time to teach the long sequences if you can teach smaller drills and apps. It saves time and if you can get the core of "mantis" with the drills why spend time teaching a long sequence people will not practice?

I feel the commercial school will do as much if not more to spread mantis styles than the small clubs.

I think the percentage of people who take thier training seriously will be the same in a small club as in a bigger commercial school.

If I come into contact with 500 students over a 5 year period and another person comes into contact with 50 over the five years, I think I will be able to produce many more serious students than the guy with the small club.

My goal is to develop as many serious students as I can. That is the reason I started the thread.

The arm banging is an importnat part of training. I think some may put to much emphasis on it only because most students do not want to do it. If you break it down less than 5% of the people will get into a fight in the course of thier lives. Most people do not want to spend so much time conditioing thier arms.

If you do hard arm pounding in the beginning you may drive off many students who would have become dedicated. They may not have been ready for that type of training.

I personally would prefer doing yin jin jing or some other type of "iron body" training which conditions the whole body not jjust the arms. It would be more beneficial. Pracitcing break falls would probably be the most effective. I conditions the body somewhat and everyone will fall down in the course of thier lives.

I want to produce quality Mantis students in the most effecient way, with a maximum profit.

Maximum effect, minimum effort. Just like a fight.

Can that be done by teaching drills to the masses and forms to the dedicated without losing the essence?

[shirkers1]

Oso: I honestly don't know where the hostility is coming from, if anything I was just re stating what was already said... I AGREE with what you guys are saying about two man drills and conditioning. I'm the last person who will ever say conditioning is bad. Go back and do a search and you'll see that iron arm and conditioning drills is a must and it's something I love to do. Unfortunately I had to back off when I got the tattoos on my arm for a little bit. But any way,

18 elders, I see your point and I agree with most of what was said. The only thing I would slightly vary is that you are better off sparring then doing ling forms when training yourself for actual combat. I've seen videos of mantis practitioners trying to use a "line" out of a form in a fight... That is obserd to think that someone is going to react the same way 6 moves in a row down the line. Now this person didn't understand what he was doing. You shouldn't even anticipate a single move your opponent is going to do much less 2 or 3 moves down the line. Hell take something as simple as a cross hook cross combo. Easy right? Well what happens when someone slips and sticks a jab in your face mid combo.. Everything changes. So to think that complex tactics done in a row for a long sequence being a way to train for combat isn't right. BUT I do know that you are saying it's a part of the puzzle for you guys and you do both. I'm defending why I didn't pick up a ling side yet. To me it's just another form and I'd rather train my two man individually. Make sense?

If that's the way you've trained yourself, to be able to stop and finish your opponent off in the middle of your sequence without thinking about not going on to the next move then great.... That is what's working for you. All I am saying is that it's not right for me and my way of training. I would rather spar or do some sort of un thought out sticky hands type of touching hands to gain that sensitivity. How many times are you going to actually fight a mantis guy that is giong to react like the ling side of the forms? Everyone will react differently when a tactic is coming at them etc. Just playing your guys drills in ohio I know I would react completely different then how you guys were playing the drills. Even the way you guys played your ling bung bo, we do differently. Is any one right? No just different.

As for patty cake patty cake, I think there is a healthy medium. Not to soft as to be all slappy, fast and not doing any damage. Or not too hard and clubby, because the hard clubby guy if he makes the right contact will hurt the patty cake guy. But the patty cake guy will play off of the hard stuff through sensitivity, get inside and put you on your ass in a way that the clubby guy isn't used to playing. So I think there should be a healthy medium. Hard so that when you do make contact the opponent feels it, but soft enough to be sensitive to flow onto the next tactic.

In ending in no way am I trying to offend any one. I like you guys, and I'm just putting out another view. Just like you guys are. No one person is wrong here, there are just different ways of doing things and each person has to do what fits them best.

[Oso]

good posts, everyone....I'm running hard today at work so I probably won't be able to respond at length till maybe late tonight or tomorrow morn.

good topic, I definitely want to explore the commercial school side of teaching traditional mantis and the type of training needed to actaully use mantis in self defense or in competition...IMO, there should be no difference between the two.


I would refer to the article Kevin Brazier did in MQ regarding the use of Ling side in a complete training program. I can't remember which issue it was and I don't have them at work.

[Frogman]

Definitely a good topic. I think someone was talking about the lack of good topics lately.
I know many here are familiar with the WL method forms, forms, forms… but that’s not all we do. I have had the privilege of teaching class for the last six months. Now I’m just an intermediate student but I enjoy leading class. Admittedly I am just figuring out the basic so when I do class that’s what we work on. Personally I love doing forms. I go to the school and work on my forms on my own for hours. In class I prefer to do line drills solo and two person. It is amazing how you can show someone a solo technique and it goes right over their head then have them do the same thing but throw a punch at them and it like oh, that’s what I’m doing. Better understanding sometime comes from doing something you don’t understand and then have it hit you, now I get it. One of my favorite drills is cum na sow. Very simple but versatile, I tell the other students particularly the newer ones, that even this simple move can get you out of a lot of trouble. We have a basic exercise for this technique and it can be found in many of our forms. When doing drills I emphases that this one simple technique can work inside or outside, as block strike or grab arm bar. Most important thing is to not get punched. This is where two person drills come in handy. No doubt you can do forms all day long but if you don’t know what a punch coming at you looks like well your gonna eat one.
As far as commercialization of your school I can not really comment from an owners stand point but as a student… Seems if all you want is kick and punch there’s plenty of that out there. I think any half way serious KF student is looking for more then that. So staying with tradition is important. You will also have those that just happen across your school and don’t know what they want. You should not try to cram TCKF down their throat as they most likely won’t last. The first years or the tender years will give you as the teacher time to see who is on the next level and who is just looking to workout. Nothing wrong with either, just the serious student will require more of a challenge. Like anything in MA it takes balance.

Just my two pennies and that leaves me about broke.

fm

[Oso]

Oso- The article on the two person set is in MQ volume one issue one. Good info!

ok, then everyone has access to that online at the MQ site.

[Judo_iaidoka]

Nah arm conditioning should be done as soon as possible, who cares if students dont like it? I guess mantis or any other Ma is not for them, thats like me going to judo and saying i dont like takeing falls or doing muay thai and not wanting to get hit its apart of the training who cares if people dont get into fights its irrelevant because your thier to teach a martial art. Ive been going to wah lum for only a month and I have done forearm conditioning as well as application drills ive only learnt half the basics and half a form exercise though but at least I feel when I get to do the form I know why im doing the movements.

[Paul T England]

I would ask why you do forms?

Here are my reasons.

1) They are required by my teacher to progress in grading. As a student this may be the least important reason but for a teacher I want the whole system so I can one day pass it on.
2) They teach body unity and linkage (Hands and legs, hips and waist etc. jumping and kicking etc.)
3) They help with coordination, mantis forms are very complex compared to many other styles
4) Even after doing bung bo for many years I still learn from it. If you give someone an application it can be only that. If you give them a form you can pull out many applications. If you combin the form and theory you should be able to work many things out for yourself.
5) I also enjoy the fitness side and think it helps with relaxation.

I also think that if you are training people the forms need to be rounded out with basics, paired techniques, sparring drills and free sparring.

I normally cover basics, paired work, applications and forms as a minimum but if students are up to a level they will do pad work, sparring drills, weapons and free sparring.