Goals, methods, end results

cam : "Ballet teaches the same attrubutable traits that forms do and if there were any applicable martial skills there then ballet dancers would be great fighters."

think

http://www.islandvideo.net/martial_arts/VanDamme.html

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"...any theory that satisfies the facts demands assumptions which are completely absurd."

Aleister Crowley

And we all know how well he did when he went up against Chuck Zito......

Peace-
Cam

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

Being able to do a fight movie, and being able to fight are different.

Don't know about Van Damme's actual martial ability, but nothing will get one's butt kicked faster than being a complete belligerent idiot. Rumor has it that Jean-Claude excels at doing such.

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"Pain can be a great teacher of compassion and humility."~ Unkotare-san

"Whatever the case, it proves that countless disasters can be prevented by simply assuming everyone you're working with is a moron." ~ Adam Brown, 5 Tiny Mistakes...

inf : "Being able to do a fight movie, and being able to fight are different."

no really ?

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"...any theory that satisfies the facts demands assumptions which are completely absurd."

Aleister Crowley

“	Originally Posted By: Wingnut inf : "Being able to do a fight movie, and being able to fight are different." no really ?	”

Yep, Jet Li said so....and he doesn't want to fight either

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“	nothing is more powerful than choice	”

Trouble is choice involves a price. You can't have your cake and eat it.

“	still find it wierd that people compete in forms competitions tho'	”

What's wierd? People want independant assessment of one aspect of their training. They want some one to measure, and comment on their/their teachers interpretation of a string of techniques and a chance to practice those techniques under the pressure of an audience. They enjoy getting together with other people to practice one aspect of their art and having the incentive of a possible trophy.

I trained with a teacher for years who never took the trouble to identify the root cause of my poor tai chi. If he'd wanted me in a forms tournament he would have had to think it through from day one. I could spar fine without dealing with it - just not get any real benefit from my tai chi.

“	if there were any applicable martial skills there then ballet dancers would be great fighters	”

Not quite. Ballet does not quite teach the same attributes form does. No martial art I know uses enpoint as a technique. Plenty use punches and kicks. Forms don't contain enpoint but do contain punches and kicks. Also, ballet dancers (good ones) not only learn MA quicker than the average punter some can review a form, or a drill, or two people sparring, and teach them how to improve from only a knowlege of movement, balance, and force transferrence. Some of their training is very like push hands. If you can balance another body in some of the positions they can you can certainly drop one to the floor when it is pressing your arm.

“	Jet Li said so....and he doesn't want to fight either	”

I've always liked his comments on "fighting", especially given his training obviously goes way beyond moving like a fighter in a vaccuum. Check out http://www.jetli.com/jet/index.php?l...=x&date=001020 Some relevant stuff for this thread. I particularly like
"You can win today, but tomorrow, your choice to use violence will return to you, perhaps in a form ten times stronger. "

Fundementally, though, with these examples we're back to intent.

The swimming analogy sort of works. The goal is to keep fit, relax and deal with stress, get some exercise, socialise a bit, and, if ever necessary, swim to safety. Thing is, I've spent a lot of time in swimming pools, more in rivers, and more than was sensible swimming for my life in grade 6 rapids/ horrible dumping surf. You can drown in two inches of water no matter how good a swimmer you are or how much time you waste making your swimming "realistic". A famous French kayaker who had run grade 5 and 6 for years drowned in a grade 4 river. Unfit people who have never swum out of their depth fall in deep water and swim to safety all the time. In practical purposes the swimming analogies all point to forms being complete martial practice... which may be where they break down. Though, as TCM has pointed out, plenty of people have demonstrated enough martial ability to do the necessary as a result of forms training; IMO a lot depends on the form and the person.

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Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you
High mountains are a feeling
I don't need to sell my soul, he's already in me

“	What's wierd (with people competing in forms competitions)?	”

It's wierd because martial arts is the only endeavor where the means has been turned into the end by making a competition out of it.
Baseball players don't have base stealing contests or bat swinging contests... Tennis players do not have racquet swinging contests... golfers do not have cart driving races... Lumberjacks do not have axe swinging contests... boxers do not have rope jumping or shadowboxing competitions... Football teams do not get together and have passing contests or foot races... Swimmers don't have breath holding competitions...

Every competitive arena of any sports endeavor involves the end, not the means.... except for martial arts. Tennis players play tennis, swimmers swim, football players play football, golfers play golf, lumberjacks chop down trees, baseball players play baseball....

They all understand each little individual aspect of the game and how it plays a part and how they are used for attributable development. But they all understand the fact that to get better at X one must do X. You don't get better at X by doing Y and then have a Y competition and think that automatically translates into the fact that you will be good at X. That's simply foolish and for the life of me I can't understand why it's prevalent within martial arts..... Well, I take that back... yes I can understand it.

“	Not quite. Ballet does not quite teach the same attributes form does.	”

You are correct. I would say that a larger percentage of ballet dancers have better attributes than their forms practitioners/competitor counterparts.
Tool development is a different story... but for attributes, I would go with ballet.

It's just so crazy to me... all these people saying how doing this or that will give one applicable skill when they have absolutely NO IDEA and have never even attempted to litmus test their own applicability with what they think they know. It's ludicrous and only in the world of martial arts will you encounter this phenomenon.

Anybody got a guess as to why that is?

Peace-
Cam

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

“	You can't have your cake and eat it.	”

Then what are you meant to do with your cake... thats an odd thing to say

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Up and down, forward and backward, left and right, its all the same. All of this is done with the mind, not externaly.
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I view forms as practicing to swim by lying on your bed and swinging your arms and legs around. Unless you are actually in water, you aren't really learning anything.

I think most people do their forms, because they don't want to get hit, but they think they are actually learning to fight by doing them, maybe not to the same degree as someone who is fighting, but to some degree. I personally think it depends on the form that is being practiced. Pre-arranged fighting, which is realistic, can be helpful. Not for fighting ability but for training abilities.

Bas Rutten has an example of this for getting people to keep their eyes open when being hit. Two straights, two hooks and then two body shots, whilst you have your back to a wall to practice covering up and keeping your eyes open.

Doesn't teach you how to fight though.

“	I view forms as practicing to swim by lying on your bed and swinging your arms and legs around. Unless you are actually in water, you aren't really learning anything	”

I disagree. TCM has given two examples of this being false. I can supply a third - there is a technique in the second standard wing chun form that I have transferred very successfully straight from form to sparring without any drilling, partner work, or instruction in that tehcnique as anything other than part of a form.

I also disagree about swimming. I learned the crawl exactly this way, though it was standing on the side of a river not lying on my bed. Does my crawl suck technically? Oh yes. Have I swum for my life successfully with it under extreme conditions? Oh yes.

“	It's wierd because martial arts is the only endeavor where the means has been turned into the end by making a competition out of it.	”

Here we are back to intent/goals. What exactly is the end? Lots of people will say "to fight well" but that is obviously not the goal for many who say that because they have no intention of ever fighting.

What, exactly, is the goal of a forms competition? To win? Well, maybe, but only one or two people are going to do that and the rest still train and compete. What is their goal? What about the audience? They don't compete, what do they get out of it? Maybe for many the goal is not the competition itself but the incentive to practice and get measured.

What about forms practice? To win competitions? Not always, I dedicate around 30 min a day to forms practice. I have a very busy life, I could do a lot of other things with that 30 min and I have no illusions about my ability to compete in forms competition. I might compete if I thought I was good enough but my intent would be to refine my movement and technique and enjoy 30 min in the fresh air every day - competing would just be added incentive and fun.

As for "no other sport" come on, are you pretending you don't know boxers who get down to the track and bet on who can sprint fastest, (and train seriously for it), swimmers who see who can hold their breath longest, divers who see who can swim furthest down a rope, paddlers who see who can do the most back loops on a given wave? Have you looked at the origins of olympic sports like discuss, shot put, javelin, or long distance running?

Several years ago now a lot of young kayakers stopped running rivers and started practicing "rodeo" tricks and competing in "rodeo" competition. The purists were horrified. What did doing six flat spins in a row at Hurley have to do with travelling to Nepal and surviving the first descent of some snow fed torrent? It was "watering down" the sport, reducing a life or death experience to a kids competition with points for "style".

After a while it turned out that if you can do six flat spins at Hurley you have some skills that transfer straight across to running rivers. It also turned out that both groups had the same goals - to enjoy themselves with their mates doing something fun in their spare time and to set themselves challenges and achieve them.

Kayakers being a generally friendly and less ego driven bunch than martial artists the split never amounted to much more than a few muttered comments over a pint before lots of the old timers (like me) were buying rodeo boats and getting minced up at Hurley... how many Sunday mornings can you fit in a life or death expedition to Nepal before taking your wife out for lunch?

__________________
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you
High mountains are a feeling
I don't need to sell my soul, he's already in me

“	TCM has given two examples of this being false.	”

So you are saying that TCM has trained in 2 forms exclusively and then "fought" and won using her from training only?

I didn't think so. If that hasn't happened, there have been no examples "given".

Over the past 20 years I have come across more forms competitors than I can remember. 99.9% of them all drop into some awkward stance and then proceed to get the $#!+ kicked out of them while looking like a deer caught in headlights.

If you want to offer an example then produce someone that has trained forms exclusively and then stepped into a cage.
If you want examples of that I have maybe 60-100 of them on tape. It always turns out badly for the forms guys. And the bad part is that the majority of these guys also said they did application training and reality style sparring in addition to their forms. And no, the people they were fighting weren't world class MMA fighters... they were traditional, one dimensional BJJ guys, wrestlers or Muay Thai guys over 10 years ago... before there was any such thing as a "world class MMA fighter".

Personal anecdotes are not an example of anything other than a personal anecdote.

“	I learned the crawl exactly this way, though it was standing on the side of a river not lying on my bed.	”

Let me guess... At the point in time you had never set foot in the water before and you had no idea of how to swim... you simply watched someone do "the crawl", practiced it on the river bank and then jumped in the water and amazingly kept yourself afloat and at the same time were able to propel yourself through the water using your newfound skills....?

I didn't think so.

You are comparing apples to Volkswagens. I'm sure you already had a good grasp on the concept of swimming and keeping yourself afloat and a lot of real time experience of doing so in the water. Learning a new swimming stroke is not "learning to swim". If we stick with your analogy then we should compare someone who has already logged in numerous hours of actual fighting simply learning a new punch or kick. They aren't learning to fight... they are simply learning another tool.

“	What, exactly, is the goal of a forms competition? To win?	”

No. The goal is to perform the form perfectly acording to someone else's predetermined definition of what "perfect" is... with the hopes of winning the competition.

“	They don't compete, what do they get out of it? Maybe for many the goal is not the competition itself but the incentive to practice and get measured.	”

Maybe you are onto something here and I hope this idea spurs you to think a little more about why people compete in MMA.
You keep throwing out quotes concerning fighting and violence

“	"You can win today, but tomorrow, your choice to use violence will return to you, perhaps in a form ten times stronger. "	”

but you seem to be totally clueless. For martial artists that want skill it's not about street thuggery and looking for trouble (fights)... it's about testing one's self in the most realistic arena possible and then re-evaluating one's skill (or lack thereof). It's the best way to test what you know, or don't know and it's always better to learn that you have a false sense of security and that you have been delusional about your goals and training in a controlled environment than in the mean streets.

“	my intent would be to refine my movement and technique	”

And that is your end goal? Or do you have a reason for wanting to "refine your movement and technique"...?

“	As for "no other sport" come on, are you pretending you don't know boxers who get down to the track and bet on who can sprint fastest, (and train seriously for it), swimmers who see who can hold their breath longest, divers who see who can swim furthest down a rope, paddlers who see who can do the most back loops on a given wave? Have you looked at the origins of olympic sports like discuss, shot put, javelin, or long distance running?	”

Oh, sure I know it happens.... but I also know there aren't organized events for it put on by qualified sanctioning organizations with thousands of competitors in an event with 5 and 6 year old "masters" going home with 6 foot trophies because they could hold their breath longer than another swimmer. Let's try to keep things in perspective so this doesn't get ludicrous.

“	both groups had the same goals - to enjoy themselves with their mates doing something fun in their spare time and to set themselves challenges and achieve them.	”

Again, you still don't get the point. If your goal is not learning applicable self defense (fighting) skills then forms and forms competitions are fine.
You always seem to be the first one to run into these threads and champion the argument against anything I have to say all the while admitting that you are on the outside of that argument and removed from the point of interest entirely. We had a discussion not long ago where you admitted to being a hobbyist with no other goals at all and I informed you then that the point of the thread was not intended for people like you. Same thing applies here. You are arguing a point that doesn't exist simply for the sake of arguing with me.
The point...
Goals. If your goal is to do forms and compete in forms competitions, then great.
If your goal is to develop applicable fighting skills then forms (exclusively) are not enough and forms competitions can be detrimental to your goal.

That's the bottom line.

Peace-
Cam

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

“	Originally Posted By: john100 I disagree. TCM has given two examples of this being false. I can supply a third - there is a technique in the second standard wing chun form that I have transferred very successfully straight from form to sparring without any drilling, partner work, or instruction in that tehcnique as anything other than part of a form.	”

So in a form with 10+ techniques (This is being kind), there is one that works? So only 10% of what a form teaches is actually usable? If there is more techniques in the form, the percentage becomes lower (20 techniques, 5%, 30 techniques, 3%). Is this what you really want? 10% effectiveness (or less) from what you are taught? Why not 100% effectiveness which is what MMA hopes to achieve. Sometimes moves will fail, but that is because the other guy has also trained to defend himself from these techniques.

“	Originally Posted By: john100 I also disagree about swimming. I learned the crawl exactly this way, though it was standing on the side of a river not lying on my bed. Does my crawl suck technically? Oh yes. Have I swum for my life successfully with it under extreme conditions? Oh yes.	”

Cam explained this in his post. It's like me as a Judo player (which contains groundfighting) going to BJJ and learning that too. The two are the same bar a few rule differences and strategic differences. The difference in the two strokes was not that different, they contained the same principles. Move the arms, move the legs and control your breathing/boyancy.

“	Originally Posted By: john100 Here we are back to intent/goals. What exactly is the end? Lots of people will say "to fight well" but that is obviously not the goal for many who say that because they have no intention of ever fighting.	”

What on earth are they doing in MA then?!?

“	Originally Posted By: john100 Kayakers being a generally friendly and less ego driven bunch than martial artists the split never amounted to much more than a few muttered comments over a pint before lots of the old timers (like me) were buying rodeo boats and getting minced up at Hurley... how many Sunday mornings can you fit in a life or death expedition to Nepal before taking your wife out for lunch?	”

I have found that martial artists who fight are more humble than those people in this world who do not. You have people with misconceived perceptions that they are some awesome fighter or that they are a better person than someone else. In work people laugh at me because I say I enjoy Judo... They think it's some pansy thing and that throwing each other is in some way a wimpy thing to do. They don't understand that me, a 70kg guy, could easily throw a 100kg+ person with very little effort.

I can't ever imagine these same people doing what I did on friday, spend about 10 minutes letting a 9 year old child do shoulder throws on me.. although he wasn't strong enough to throw me using them, so I had to do sumersaults over him in order to prevent him getting hurt.

Martial arts fighting is not just for applicable skill, it develops the humble, friendly attitude that people have as a preconceived idea that a martial artist should have.

By the way girls, try and keep it civil.

J100 : " What's wierd?"

its a bit like pigeon fancying

look a pretty bird

oh how nice

what does it do again ?

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"...any theory that satisfies the facts demands assumptions which are completely absurd."

Aleister Crowley

“	You are arguing a point that doesn't exist simply for the sake of arguing with me.	”

Really, I am not. I just don't understand what I see as oposition to forms training. Maybe I am missunderstanding your posts. You don't opose forms training. Great, but you do see forms competition as detrimental. I don't get that. It seems a contradictory position to me. Entering a forms competition does not mean a person thinks they have become a great fighter. Nor does it mean they have neglected all other aspects of their training.

We are agreed forms training is not bad but you seem to feel a need to keep "picking" at it. What would make you happy? Does every forms competitor have to give a speech about how he is only training as a hobby and forms alone are not the only way to train martial skill?

“	What on earth are they doing in MA then?!?	”

The same thing you are when you spend ten minutes letting a little girl throw you? The same thing as Cam who assures us he has no intention of getting into street fights?

“	Why not 100% effectiveness	”

Because that isn't my goal. If I can get effectiveness at the same time as achieving what I'm looking for that's great but I'm prepared to mix body training, principles training, and technique training in one package - a form. Besides, in this particular example, it was the only technique I hadn't also rehearsed in drills which is why I say some of the stuff I do further down... but still, pretty handy - learn a form for ten minutes and find one move works. Great way to pass on techniques. If you want your art to continue as itself shouldn't you check you are passing on the techniques right by getting your peers to review them?

“	For martial artists that want skill it's not about street thuggery and looking for trouble (fights)... it's about testing one's self in the most realistic arena possible and then re-evaluating one's skill (or lack thereof).	”

I think you are missing the point of the quote. I am not trying to criticise or attack sport fighters. I am questioning why people who practice one skill they have no intention of applying should criticise or question others who do the same. You want to be the most skillful ring competitor you can, others want to be the most skillful forms competitors. Neither of you plans to beat the crap out of people in the street so how is one or the other wierder or better? You are both, for whatever personal reasons, setting yourself arbitary challenges and goals. How are we different? I am a hobbyist. So are you - in fighting terms - but your hobby is also your job.