At the very heart of Gung Fu are the forms, the intricate movements and postures and patterns and shapes which make Gung Fu such a character within the classification of fighting arts. Though most of the classical arts have forms or patterns or katas (the terminology shifts with the system but they point to a general notion), the reasoning behind the actual practicing of forms takes on different meanings for different people. A study of the Gung Fu form might seem a bit redundant to the ardent practitioner. But to NOT at least briefly analyze this integral part of the system would do the art form as a whole an extreme injustice. Many of the criticisms leveled at TCMA (substitute any classical art for TCMA) seems to revolve around the extreme focus on learning forms. They even have a derogatory label for individuals who seem primarily keen on learning forms:Forms Collector. It sounds exactly like what it denotes; an individual who never actually studies the forms, but simply learns enough to copy the general shape, leaving at that, then quickly moving onto the next one to copy. There is no rhyme or reason to this want, save a pathological need to know as many as possible and perhaps inflate their self-worth with shallow demonstrations. But more on that later. Now allow me to progress into the analysis of the Gung Fu forms.
(There are many ways which I can approach this. The way I will choose to analyze the Gung Fu form is by no means a codified and exact approach. It is purely an independent preference and exercise)
There are many reasons and purposes for the Gung Fu Form:
FIRST AND FOREMOST is the functional purpose it played in its historical settings. Despite the romanticized stories and the novels and the movies and the television shows, Gung Fu was a thing of the masses… and the masses were illiterate. Even though there were manuals with hand drawn diagrams and descriptions of certain motions, these things would be next to useless for the average hooligan, farmer, coolie, butcher etc that decided to learn Gung Fu simply because they lacked the ability to read. Thus the Gung Fu Form was developed in such a way as to have postures flow beautifully from one motion to the next, in a methodical manner, while punctuating these motions with poetic names; names like “Mai Yun Jiu Geng” (Beauty Reflects Upon the Mirror) and “Ngo Fu Kam Yeung” (Hungry Tiger Catches the Goat). The names themselves obviously could mean many things. But if one learned the names and saw the motion associated, a mental connection would be established and even the most illiterate individual would have an intimate grasp of the ordering of shapes, the basic applications, and a rudimentary methodology for dissemination.
THE SECOND PURPOSE of the Gung Fu Form is to establish a baseline of purpose and intent regarding the system being practiced. Anyone who has even limited observational skills will realize that, barring some grotesque deviance or some anatomical evolutionary pioneering, people have a set number of arms, legs, fingers, extremities etc. You can only punch in so many ways, block in so many ways, step in so many ways and angle in so many ways before you simply RUN OUT OF WAYS due to physiological barriers. Thus movements found in one style can very likely be found either exactly, OR SIMILARLY, in a completely different system. The reason is simple: Human physiology provides a closed set of possibilities.
A particular Gung Fu Form is, therefore, a re-sequencing and a re-emphasizing of particular elements that a particular school wishes to devote attention.
This is done to better express unique fight philosophies pioneered by the masters of distinct schools and systems. Every system has threading techniques and simultaneous strikes and simultaneous block strikes etc. But the frequency of occurrences, and the variety of certain strikes compared to others, is meant to emphasize particular skill-sets that the system wishes to specialize. For example, and forgive the shallowness of the examples, Tai Chi emphasizes a lot of threading techniques because it is a “soft” and “internal” style, whereas Hung Gar has a lot of direct “hard” techniques because there is a stronger focus on power, while Wing Chun has “hard” techniques, but also many angle/ structure manipulation techniques because it is meant for the small to sort out the large in a scrap. But within Tai Chi there are also explosive punches, within Hung Gar there are threading techniques, and within Wing Chun you have direct contact blocks. Each art is known for something because each progenitor of the style thought a particular approach to fighting was superior for a situation/individual. It is therefore understandable and expected that each art has more types of a particular technique to emphasize that ideology.
THE THIRD PURPOSE of a Gung Fu Form is to train bothbody and mind. The body training is self explanatory, but will be addressed tangentially in a different paragraph. Right now, however, I wish to focus on the mind. When people say martial arts teaches discipline, respect, loyalty, patience etc… that might be construed as a training of the mind. I’m not going to poo-poo on this notion entirely, but I’m going to say that I disagree with those things as being the mental training that TCMA wishes to provide. They are by-products of culture and personality, BUT THIS WILL BE A SEPARATE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION ON A LATER DATE. The mental training I believe TCMA to possess is one of personal discovery.
Sounds very deep, but really it is quite simple.
The mystique of TCMA was generated not only by secrecy to outsiders, but also secrecy within the school itself. People could be training side by side, almost at the very same time, for the same amount of time, but somehow come out with minor or drastic interpretation differences. Why is that? There are many reasons as to the WHY… but I will only focus on ONE PARTICULAR REASON for the purpose of this piece. The Master, back in the day, was supposed to be a second father figure to the student. Advice and commands dispensed would be acknowledged and acted out unquestioningly… unless it violated some deep seated moral code. But for all things legal and reasonable, the student obeyed the Master, and in exchange the Master became a source of INSIGHT. Note that I say INSIGHT rather thanINSTRUCTION. INSTRUCTION would be the very basic level of commitment, where a student came in knowing nothing and, therefore, the Master would have to provide instructional foundation for progress to even begin (how to throw a punch, how to stand, where to move, how to breathe etc). AFTER INITIAL INSTRUCTION, the Master would simply be an observer. The student would then come in to practice, practice, practice, and practice some more the same movements, forms, and fundamental exercises until they felt too fatigued to go on. The education would then end there unless the student began to exercise their mental faculties. It was up to the student to ask questions of the Master. Questions were either Good or Bad. Bad questions were simply answered with no revelations while Good questions were rewarded with an answer, and a little extra something else. Allow me to provide a very rough example.
Bad Question: You throw a punch and ask “where am I aiming for?” The Master comes over and shows you the punch is leveled at the face, but can also be aimed at the stomach. You nod, leaving it at that, and continue punching, varying between face level and stomach level.
Good Question: You throw a punch and say “when I throw this punch, the power comes from X, and I feel off balanced/exposed at Y and Z. Won’t it be better to do [insert technique] instead?” This question shows contemplation and active listening to your body. The Master would then come over and proceed to explain, through movement and demonstration, why the opening might be necessary, how the opening might be a false opening, or why the sacrifice is small in comparison to the advantage gained in certain situations etc.
The Good Question allows for growth in understanding the art and the unveiling of movement and technique potential. It provides fertile soil for growth of the art passed the Master’s generation, into the student’s generation.
The Bad Question simply explains a dead movement, and leaves the movement dead.
You might ask why the Master simply does not explain everything. There are two reasons. THE FIRST is the whole “give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime” adage. Simply giving away secrets and know-how will do more bad than good. The small good would obviously be that the student gains brief understanding at a quicker pace. The Bad, however, is two-fold. The first would be that telling him the answer solves THAT initial problem, but it does not train him to confront the many different problems that will arise during training. Thus he will only ‘eat for a day’ rather than a lifetime. The second would be that the act of telling the student resulted in very little effort on the student’s part. Things gained through effort are more readily retained. Thus if there was little work involved in acquiring, then there is little value in the thing attained. Making the student ask the right questions over a period of time to learn the answer is a feat of accomplishment that they will remember for a longer period of time; the answers received by that process will be harder to forget. THE SECOND BAD REASON regarding simply telling a student how to do something is that the teacher TELLING the student what to think about a situation makes the student NO BETTERthan the teacher. In rare circumstances, a student surpasses the teacher. But if the student only listens to teacher and does not learn to exercise his mental faculties to discover potential on his own, then the student will NEVER become better than teacher. The best that will happen is Teacher-Light. The art will become stagnant. Each successive generation of teachers and pupils will only become worse than the previous, barring some lucky strike… but lucky strikes happen too rarely to preserve and advance the integrity of the art form. The absolute best case scenario would be that the lucky strike will branch off and become a separate family of the same style. The worst case, and most likely scenario, is that the large amount of sub-par teachers become the orthodox way of doing things, since they are the majority within that school, and the singular good teacher gets drowned out by the sheer volume of the majority.
The Final purpose of the Gung Fu Form which I will be mentioning is the fact that it provides a skeleton of a training schedule. Forms are set up such that each one attempts to develop a particular skill set. People use words like “beginner” and “intermediate” and “advance” to describe the forms they learn. I call thatNONSENSE. Certain forms focus on certain things, and each theme is as important to the whole of the art as any other associated theme. Let me give you a rough example of my point by using the Wing Chun system as my illustrative tool.
(Note that I am primarily a Hung Gar practitioner and have been for nearly 14 years. However I use Wing Chun because it seems to be the most clear cut regarding the point I wish to make… Hung Gar is a close second, but due to controversy surrounding the actual number of forms that constitute Hung Gar, I choose Wing Chun which has a rather solid agreed upon number).<<<<< I will not entertain the small controversy revolving around the number of forms which constitute true Hung Gar. This has been addressed unsuccessfully before by many individuals of both high and low skill and, though a general consensus has been reached by many, there is still much room for contention.
Wing Chun has three empty hand forms. They are the “Siu Lum Tao”, “Chum Kiu” and “Biu Ji”
(forgive the Romanization… I work instinctively rather than based on whatever rules Yale or Jyutping etc may have attempted to establish as orthodox)
The Siu Lum Tao is always taught first. It is translated as the “Little Idea”. The primary purpose of training this form is to establish the ideal posture and positioning of limbs and joints during the fundamental motions at the heart of Wing Chun. That means Siu Lum Tao teaches you the correct way to stand and direct linear force in the most ideal way, even if you are moving. It stresses that even if you side step, back pedal, move forward etc… the structure taught in Siu Lum Tao is the most ideal and should be compromised as little as possible. The next form taught is Chum Kiu, translated as “Seeking Bridge”. This form adds a few additional hand motions, as well as slightly more mobile footwork, to teach the individual basic skills on how to close a gap and create a connection with opponents. It also trains pliability of the waist for pivots and incorporates the basic kicks. This may sound more advanced, but bear in mind that the Chum Kiu form is practically meaningless without first learning the proper structure present in the Siu Lum Tao. Without the structure of Siu Lum Tao, Chum Kiu becomes a mess of disordered, improperly focused limbs, sloppy footing, and even sloppier rooting. The final form is Biu Ji, translated as “Thrusting Fingers” or “Dart Fingers”. This is the last empty hand form taught in Wing Chun, and it emphasizes the use of finger jabs and violent thrusts, along with more rapid pivots and foot work to generate the power necessary for the speed and power of finger strikes. But… and here’s the kicker… Biu Ji may be the last form, but it is not the most advanced. The next point I am about to makeMIGHT BE CONTROVERSIAL as I have only heard it expressed by the Wong Shun Leung branch of Yip Man Wing Chun and never any other lineage. I have, however, heard many individual practitioners say things to the contrary of what I am about to say… hence my disclaimer at controversy.
::AHEM:: It is commonly believed that Biu Ji form trains deadly secret finger strikes that are the most powerful tools within the Wing Chun system. So advanced and powerful are these techniques that the Wing Chun clan kept it closed to all but the most inner disciples, and even they could only learn after many years of sequestered training of the Siu Lum Tao and the Chum Kiu. However, and here comes the claim…
the Biu Ji form, by itself, is more useless than the Chum Kiu or the Siu Lum Tao form.
The late Master Wong Shun Leung stated that the Siu Lum Tao and the Chum Kiu formed the very essence of Wing Chun. If you walked away with just those two forms THOROUGHLY under your belt, you could properly represent Wing Chun in most situations. However, sometimes the odds are turned against you, either by sheer numbers, the size of your opponent, or the fact that you miscalculated during a fight, and placed yourself in a threatening dilemma. That is where Biu Ji comes in. The Biu Ji form is sometimes referred to as an Emergency Form, because it embodies a collection of techniques which should be used when the application of Siu Lum Tao/Chum Kiu principles fail to beat the odds. By itself it is an average set with none-too-spectacular movements. However, the point is that Biu ji was to be applied in very specific, unfavourable situations; times where one lost the centerline, if the opponent is too overbearing, if you slipped up on a technique and lost your advantage etc. In the following way, perhaps, Biu Ji could be said to be an advanced form: Biu Ji shows the potential weaknesses within the core of Wing Chun and, therefore, is a contingency plan created to dam up the cracks and holes that might be exploited. [END OF CONTROVERSIAL DIALOGUE]
Minus the controversy though, one can plainly see how the Gung Fu Form serves as a very organized system of training very specific elements within a style. No one form is better than the other. Each form is simply focused on a particular skill set. In this way the body is slowly built up, from the foundation up, to be fully engaged within a particular art form.
I will end with this summary. The take home message of this piece regarding the Gung Fu Form is simply this: It is an archaic practice which has more purpose than what the modern times gives credit. Whether or not it is essential is another story. However, it cannot be denied that forms are a unique experience within the Fighting Arts and, though it runs the risk of creating form-factories for those that simply do not wish to put in the hard work to delve deeply and learn, let me tell you a rough translation of a saying from the Mainland (that being China).
“Anyone can learn to punch and kick. However, if you put in the time to learn something more advanced, then the opponents you meet will have to put in just as much time in order to figure out and defeat your efforts. 1 year of training to beat 1 year of skill. 10 years of training to beat 10 years of skill.”
Train Hard. Talk Less.
~Thunder Palms
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