Love the click bait title? Good, because I actually kind of mean it.
So this blog post is about martial arts, but it started from a political discussion regarding the current conflict with Israel and Palestine. A kung fu teacher I follow said something slightly offensive after October 7th toward Palestinians, and I ended up having a friendly discussion with an Israeli Praying Mantis/Shiao jiao guy about Netanyahu’s bragging about funding Hamas.
We ended up chatting about both politics, and most especially martial arts. And after many discussions about traditional martial arts, western martial arts and kung-fu, we ended up having a talk about forms due to a quote I posted about how many kata are really just one or two forms done in different ways.
My Israeli friend mentioned that in learning Praying Mantis, he researched the history of many praying mantis styles, and he pointed out that the oldest and most respected form of praying Mantis had no forms or kata, just some parter drills and some solo drills, and at that time it was considered one of the best systems around. Then the style developed one form, which was really just some solo exercises stringed together to teach movement. Then the style ended up creating forms to document techniques, and it had more and more forms. Then from there other mantis styles branched off and collected more forms. And it was noted that the more forms these mantis styles had, the less steller the reputation of the schools and styles were, compared to the schools with less forms and more partner training.
The discussion then went toward the purpose of forms. And once again my Israeli friend pointed out that before he did kung-fu, he was a boxer, and he beat up a bunch of kung-fu guys across Israel,the ones that didn’t lose fought in a way that looked nothing like the syles they taught. Until he found his kung-fu teacher (his mantis teacher) that beat him up in a method that was clearly kung-fu. He surmised that forms often were useful if they taught a concept or a way of moving more than techniques. In the karate world, we know there is Bunkai, applications of the forms. But these applications end up turning into a collection of techniques, your collecting tricks, but in fighitng, it’s a gross motor concept and strategy that saves you, and techniques are incidental. If you have many forms and you spend time looking at 30 forms and collecting technique out of them, your not spending time drilling those techniques in an alive manner or in a context that is ecological to fighting. Your just collecting moves.
I don’t know kung-fu history as well as Karate, so I will talk about Karate.
Motobe was considered the greatest Okinawan karate fighter, most famous for beating up some boxers and wrestlers from the west that were performing for a carnival in japan, and embarassing the founder of Shotokan, Gichin Funokoshi.
His style of Karate is from the same region as Shotokan, and has the same base, Naihanchi.
Thing is, Motobe only practiced Naihanchi, that’s it. The rest were fighting techniques, some drills and lots of Kakie and fighting.
Funakoshi’s shotokan on the other hand, had a huge emphasis on memorizing forms and bunkai, the kumite was incidental, and it was point sparring, not close quarters combat like Motobe.
Well Motobe was the guy that won fights, and Funakoshi was the guy impressing Japanese royalty and making karate look pretty and professional.
Sounds a little familiar with the Mantis story right?
Today Uechi-ryu has a good reputation in Okinawa, but outside of it’s not well respected like alot of Okinawan karate.
But once upon a time, Uechi-ryu had a reputation of being very street oriented, very brutal, very simple and direct. I heard stories from my teachers how they used to deal with TKD kicking in tournaments due to how they block, and the saying went ‘glare in the eyes, fast hands’ for Uechi-ryu practitioners.
Thing is, Uechi-ryu has only three kata, and they’re all really short.
Sanchin, Siesan, and Sanseiryu.
Most uechi-ryu practioners would admit Sanchin is more a base than a form that teaches techniques, it teaches structure and the general over arching principle of uechi-ryu. THe other kata they try to find techniques in, but I personally see the movements less as techniques and more as common frames and general concepts than specific techniques, like in seisan the Siesan elbow now only is an elbow to delever, but a cover and guarding method as well. The Wauke in Siesan and Sanseiryu are ways to clear guards and ‘hand fight’ more than specific moves, general movement that shows up or is useful in fighting. That may not be how it’s seen by Uechi-ryu practioners, but it’s how I see it, and that’s generally how alot of Southern Chinese styles have seen their forms, particularly those based in Sanchin/SanZan or Zhanchin or whatever they call it.
Now today Uechi-ryu has many more kata, and on top of kata, pre-arranged kumites that are completely choreographed. And lo and behold, Uechi-ryu’s reputation went in the shitter as well, and it became far less well known for fighitng.
There is an MMA fighter in the UFC I chatted with online said to me “Uechi-ryu used to be a hard contact, bare bones hard fighting style. But look at it today, today it sucks.”
Okay so maybe I’ll talk about kung-fu.
Baji Quan to this day is one of the most well respected kung-fu styles. Along with Choi li fut, it’s one of those kung-fu systems that Thai boxers and combat sports people that talk shit about kung-fu will respect (if they did research)
Thing is, while modern day Baji has alot of forms, people really practice and focus on two:
Big Baji
Small Baji.
(Love the names)
They are pretty straight forward, you can get techniques from the forms, but really it teaches the concept of exploding with power when folding and unfolding, sinking, shifting and general explosive power. If you watch Baji guys applying their forms, they hit alot of pads, do alot of partner work, and the form interpretations basically are funky looking pad work.
Is it any wonder these guys are known to be good fighters?
This is why you should practice forms. Don’t do too many, learn forms that will teach you mechanics, ways of moving and principles. Don’t think forms will give you techniques, don’t collect forms, don’t try to focus on and endless line of applications in forms, unless your making dynamic ecological/alive drills that simulate fighitng from the forms, and learn the techniques like that.
Forms are useless to learn techniques, but absolutely useful to learn movement and concepts.
And the thing is, forms are only good if they directly translate to some form of constraint sparring/drilling.
What's the deal with Adeel? 