Traditional Forms

I have been blessed throughout my life to have had access to many mentors. I owe all my accomplishments to their experience and their willingness to share that experience with me. One can go so much further if they can benefit through the wisdom of those who have gone before.

This past week I was very disappointed to see one of my past mentors post a video about forms training in the martial arts. In his video he included an old video of himself grading for his black belt where he provided commentary as his old self performed a form and applications of his form against opponents. His running commentary was a cynical analysis of how useless his form and bunkai would be in a real self defence situation. Every aspect of his performance was put down and disregarded as useless. 

I am seeing more and more schools eliminate teaching forms as part of their curriculum. This approach has been trending ever since the martial arts were introduced into the west and it is threatening the very future of the martial arts.

First off, if forms training did not apply to real world self defence, traditional marital arts and forms training would not survived over two thousand years. There is a reason why arts like kung fu have been around for a couple of thousand years - it works. It has been my experience that those who do not value or teach forms training do not understand forms training.

Forms training has many benefits and applications in the modern world. The three main benefits are:

• Health. Forms training reinforces the body’s proper structure by reinforcing better posture and ideal alignment of the skeleton. This in turn supports proper organ location, spacing, and function. Overtly, forms training provides a good cardiovascular workout while building muscle mass and flexibility. Forms training is the also the best form of moving meditation I have experienced. There is a reason why martial arts training has proven beneficial to reducing stress.

• Skill. Everything physical that one learns in the martial arts is found in forms training. Every movement has a purpose. That purpose can be the expected self defence applications associated with the movement but the purpose can also be less obvious. Some of the techniques within a form are about flexibility and efficiency of motion. In hockey terms - the drills a team works on in practice have real world application in a game by helping the players develop speed and efficiency within their own skill sets.

• Fighting. Before the advent of protective pads, sparring in the martial arts was much more dangerous. It was impossible to practice your technique and applications at full speed because of the danger it presented to your training partners. Forms training was how a fighter trained and prepared safely. All the best forms practitioners I know are also the best fighters.

Forms training is the essence of traditional martial arts. You cannot eliminate forms training from your training regime and continue to call yourself a martial artist. While all martial artists are fighters, not all fighters are martial artists.

“The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.” - Wayne Dyer (1940 - 2015)