The difference is the drills are always with a partner.Originally Posted by David Jamieson
The reason my Saturday class is longer is I add 30 minutes of kung fu forms training, but try to follow the rest of the guidelines I listed above.
Loud City
The difference is the drills are always with a partner.
The reason my Saturday class is longer is I add 30 minutes of kung fu forms training, but try to follow the rest of the guidelines I listed above.
For disbelievers here's the kind of **** I'm talking about:
Making a Form-Centric School Work
Part One
by Pablo Zamora
I have been running traditional Kung-Fu schools since 1984. I teach a very traditional Chinese Kung-Fu system known as Wah Lum Tam-Tui Northern Praying Mantis System. It has a rich history going back to Northern China. My Sifu is very well known and has created a name for the system all over the world. He is a 6th generation lineage of this system and that makes me 7th. I don't say this to impress you, but to impress upon you that traditional schools that teach in the traditional way can be successful.
I hear many Kung-Fu school owners complain that they can't become very successful because they teach a traditional style. That saddens me because I know it can work. The style that you teach has very little to do with your schools success, it's how you teach it and how you run your school that makes the difference.
My schools focus is on forms training. The curriculum, like many traditional Chinese styles, revolves around forms. Teaching forms is challenging and it is not the easiest way to run a martial arts school.
The way I see it is, If I am going to teach the art that I love, I will do it the way it was meant to be taught and I will make it work. There are some changes that you want to make. You might have to soften up the curriculum at the start. Forms can be broken down into smaller forms. We have five short forms that are called the Five Basic Exercises. These range from 15-25 moves. They are easy to learn and exciting to practice.
We have three different levels–Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Basic class is a class to teach structure. We teach a student how to be a Kung Fu student. We focus more on preparing them to become a good Kung-Fu student. It's more a probationary class and sometimes we will refer to it as that.
Once you are recommended to become part of the Black Sash or Masters Club program, then you are out of probation and into the inner core of the student body. No forms are taught in basic. We teach them the basic stances, blocks, punches and kicks. Focus is placed on the respect and discipline that we expect from a Kung-Fu student.
Our Intermediate and advanced classes are reserved to Black Sash Club and Master Club members. These classes do revolve around forms training. The Wah Lum forms are challenging and require a high level of flexibility, stamina, strength and overall fitness. This puts great importance into the warm up segment of the class. We do use many traditional ways of preparing the body. The exercises are the traditional exercises of our system. We do modify them for safety and the conditioning level of the student.
I have used the rotating curriculum in the past. However, it didn’t work well for our school. Why? If you rotate the forms, it's tough to drill all the forms of that level in every class.
Let me break it down; Lets talk about Intermediate class. There will be three sash levels in this class (blue, purple and green). They will all be training together. After a 20-minute warm up, we begin forms. There are three short sets that cover eight stances, eight punches and eight kicks. Then, five short sets of 15-20 moves. Then we have three longer forms. This pretty much covers the forms in that class.
As a student gets to a form or section of class that he has not been taught yet, he steps off the floor into a designated area and practices his last form until and an assistant instructor checks his last form and, if ok, will teach three-five more moves. The goal of the students is to complete the entire forms class without having to step off the main floor.
The same forms are covered every single class so it’s important to be able to keep the excitement level high. Once a student has reached the last form and has shown proficiency in it (usually six months). They are invited to the Advanced class.
The advanced class is run the same way as the Intermediate, but we add four more forms to the training and intensity goes up. Weapon forms are also introduced in this level. Weapons in Wah Lum are challenging and must be taught on a one on one. For this reason we have created 10-18 move weapons forms which are taught in seminars. If a student wants to learn the traditional weapon forms of our system, we do sell private lesson packages for each weapon. The same goes for the more advanced empty hand forms.
The focus of the class and the schools is not necessarily which color of sash one is wearing, but which form a student is in or working on. The goal of each student is to stay in the training floor for the entire segment. This shows great accomplishment.
We do have 10 minutes at the end of every class called the High Energy segment. Here we use kick shields, focus pads and other striking equipment to sharpen the picks and punches and to get the students lo leave the class on a high note.
We do not focus on self-defense on the regular class. We have a special class called FIST that teaches the students effective, easy to learn self-defense and street survival skills. We realize that traditional Kung-fu is not the best road to learning self-defense. It requires time and patience, along with hard training. But, we also realize that it is our duty to prepare students for violence if it ever occurs.
You could say our schools mix tradition and modern training, but in a separate class. Israeli Self-Defense worked well for us. They are easy to learn and to apply, and prepare the student for the fight and flight response that occurs in all violent situations. It's not the techniques that are taught in these programs, it's the kind of training to prepare the student for the real situation.
I hope this article has opened up your mind and has gotten you to have more faith in your traditional forms.
Hey! Traditional forms has survived the ravages of time in creating warriors and masters. Why shouldn't it work now? Faith and a bit of common sense, along with some fundamental business like MATA offers will make all the difference in the world.
Chop Choy
That saddens me more than you can know
"The man who stands for nothing is likely to fall for anything"
www.swindonkungfu.co.uk
Registered User
Training partners aren't always available so what do you do?
You build a dummy.
build a wooden dummy: http://www.mccarriedesign.com/wooden_dummy/
Build a grappling dummy: http://www.geocities.com/fightraining/grappled2
Practice your forms, take those techniques and drill them on the dummy, drill them with a heavy bag. Drill them with a live opponent.
Check out my wooden dummy website: http://www.woodendummyco.com/
Registered User
Until full-contact competition is brought into TMAs like Kung Fu, they're going to continue to decline. That's really all there is to it.
Registered User
There's all kinds of full-contact competition for TMA's like kung fu--San Shou, San Da, etc. It's just not emphasized in schools.
I think it's the training methods more than anything. I hate to sound like a cliche, but until 'aliveness' is restored to the TMA's like kung fu, then they will continue to decline. It's not like aliveness has been missing from most TMA's that long. I'm just speaking about America, but most people you run across that trained in the period from the 50s - 80s have all kinds of 'war stories' about how hellacious the training used to be. Lots of hard-contact free sparring, etc. In today's society most people aren't willing to put in the sacrifice required to learn all of the intricacies of many of the CMA's and take the banging required to become a proficient fighter.
Registered User
It's just the influence of the Communists. CMA used to have sparring in the U.S. until the Communists started coming over, and few of them did sparring because it was banned in China for many years. They're the ones that tell you sparring and applications don't matter.
What really gets my goat is how many people leave a tournament once the sparring starts. Wouldn't you think that would draw the biggest crowd?
Aliveness=training with a LIVE partner.
Registered User
So do it, Fu Pow, put the $$$ where your mouth is.
You have a school, allow people from other styles to come and work with your students.
Oh, I forgot, I'm on IGNORE even though I was the one who originally posted this topic.
Registered User
Depends.
You can have sparring, even full-contact, that is worthless and proves nothing re:application of skill. Way too much kickboxing-style performances, where the participants stay at long range as much as possible.
Bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz5O0wy8Lx8
Good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbiyE...elated&search=
Optimal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W32CbEU5NOk
Say what you like about us, Daido Juku and Kyokushin guys tend to meet in the center of the mat, go toe to toe, and stay there until someone goes down. Much like in a real encounter.
Note: Go with the open-fist gloves, like Daido Juku does. It helps. A lot.
SevenStar: It's hilarious seeing people's reactions when they see a big, black dude with a sword walking toward them.
Masterkiller: Especially when they're at the ATM.
WTF? How did we go from the White Haired Devil strangling and beating guys to death in a teahouse, to Mr Miyagi and Jhoon Rhee?
.
Registered User
San da and San Shou is like wushu kickboxing. I'm talking about full-contact stuff utilizing the unique styles of kung fu.
I think part of the problem here is that the only modernization that has taken place with TCMAs has been from the communist government and Bruce Lee, whereas TJMAs have been modernized throughout the last 100 years by a lot of different people.
Registered User
I wouldn't say that TCMA needs modernization. The old training methods worked. Forms were done (and forms aren't useless). However, forms were not what was exclusively done. They did lots of sparring, conditioning, and drilling. Many TCMA teachers don't do this as much, in order to appeal to a larger market. Some still do these things the old way though.
Registered User
San Da is progress.
They need to push the envelope more, but it's a lot better than the WTF and JKA rules.
They can throw on as much gear as they want (and head/face protection is a must, IMO), just not on the hands and feet. For hands, cloth protectors (fingerless) are all you need.
Like so:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...f/W2006_03.jpg
SevenStar: It's hilarious seeing people's reactions when they see a big, black dude with a sword walking toward them.
Masterkiller: Especially when they're at the ATM.
WTF? How did we go from the White Haired Devil strangling and beating guys to death in a teahouse, to Mr Miyagi and Jhoon Rhee?
.
Registered User
"Worked" is the key word. The traditional way isn't always the right way.
And last I checked, the harder forms of karate are pretty popular. No reason why TCMA schools can't be just as tough as Kyokushin and its derivatives.
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