What good are forms?

girlinkarate:

ima-imho:

This is a pretty touchy and divisive subject in the martial arts world at large. Some people hold exemplary execution of a form or routine as indication of reaching a certain level in a style. Some people think of them as an important traditional artifact, important to preserve to maintain the style’s cultural roots.

And some people think they’re fucking useless. Not just people outside of Traditional martial arts, either; there are well-respected martial artists who feel that forms training is inefficient and mostly serves to hold these arts back, as opposed to drills and more intense conditioning.

The way I learned it, forms are well understood if you look at learning a martial art much like learning a language. As I heard it said once,

Forms are poetry; fighting is conversation.

Poems arrange words into highly intentional fixed sets, for the purpose of using their meanings and context to express a larger idea; in the same way, forms chain individual techniques together to show the larger strategy and spirit of an art.

Few would find it reasonable to ask someone learning poetry if they’d be able to use the verses in conversation; in any given situation only a small section at a time might be applicable. At the same time, few would advocate learning a language solely by looking at poetry; other practice, learning individual words, sentence structure, and conversation exercises are needed.

But those poems can give you a better understanding of the language and its nuances, and expand your view of the ways it can be used.

That may be my new favorite quote: “Forms are poetry; fighting is conversation” ♥♥♥♥