Self-created Solo Training

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Self-created Solo Training

Postby johnwang on Tue May 05, 2015 2:48 pm

If you have "partner drills", you will have "solo drills" when partner is not available. If you link your "solo drills" together, you will have "solo training" and it will look just like you are fighting. If you can create your own "solo training" and get better result out of your training time investment, why do you even want to train the traditional forms for? If you create it well, it can look as "pretty" as any TCMA form.

You may want to "copy" when you were young. But are you going to "copy" for the rest of your life? When will you start to "create"? Your thought?

Last edited by johnwang on Tue May 05, 2015 3:05 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby I-mon on Tue May 05, 2015 4:22 pm

Beautiful stuff John! I've been learning Eskrima/Kali for nearly a year now, and what forms do exist tend to be very simple and very practical, much like what you're showing here.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby willywrong on Tue May 05, 2015 6:41 pm

johnwang wrote:If you have "partner drills", you will have "solo drills" when partner is not available. If you link your "solo drills" together, you will have "solo training" and it will look just like you are fighting. If you can create your own "solo training" and get better result out of your training time investment, why do you even want to train the traditional forms for? If you create it well, it can look as "pretty" as any TCMA form.

You may want to "copy" when you were young. But are you going to "copy" for the rest of your life? When will you start to "create"? Your thought?



That's really nice John but do you link a few of these and then very the way they linked. Which is what the old Masters would have done to create the so-called traditional forms. Your advantage is with today's media you put in the application which I think is a great way of showing things. A lot of people that only partner train really don't realise the potential for what you've just shown. Well done. :)
Last edited by willywrong on Tue May 05, 2015 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby chud on Tue May 05, 2015 6:55 pm

johnwang wrote:If you have "partner drills", you will have "solo drills" when partner is not available. If you link your "solo drills" together, you will have "solo training" and it will look just like you are fighting. If you can create your own "solo training" and get better result out of your training time investment, why do you even want to train the traditional forms for? If you create it well, it can look as "pretty" as any TCMA form.

You may want to "copy" when you were young. But are you going to "copy" for the rest of your life? When will you start to "create"? Your thought?



I like the clip John, thanks for posting it.
Last edited by chud on Tue May 05, 2015 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby dspyrido on Tue May 05, 2015 11:26 pm

johnwang wrote:Your thought?


You're right. People learn forms as they are the handbook to a martial system and a cultural heritage. After the moves are ingrained and if you have enough self awareness and understanding you make your own moves up. Then it becomes your flavour of the style (or a new style if you like marketing).

As for creating a form of your own - I like to link 2-3 combos only and drill it. I find if I need to apply 108 moves on my opponent then I am not thinking in the right way for a realistic form/drill.

If on the other hand you want to feel spiritual then go ahead and do a long form for the 20 minute single cycle view. But this is a different goal.

As for the western equivalent - shadow boxing/solo drills. It's equivalent non-equipment based solo training.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby Iskendar on Wed May 06, 2015 1:56 am

I've always trained individual taiji moves as line drills, sometimes chaining a few together as a combo.

Also, I've always liked silat triangle footwork drills, even though I only know it from video (Steve Gartin's HMK), given the similarity to hakka footwork.
So lately I've been playing with taking 3 moves from hakka kuen or taiji and chaining them together as triangle drills. Great fun to not be stuck in the traditional ways.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby daoboxer on Tue May 19, 2015 2:21 pm

Isn't it the ultimate aim for any martial artist to become formless? The way I understand it, forms are to ingrain the movements of a particular art into mind and muscle in order that the art can be practiced for self defence and personal cultivation. After all, from a martial point of view, you would be extremely lucky if someone attacked you in such a way that you could use a segment of a form for effective self defence. It is the principle of always maintaining sound body mechanics in motion that is the most important thing, regardless of style, no? Thus, form is pretty much disposable, once a certain level is reached.
This isn't fresh thinking, Yiquan is essentially formless, for example.
In my experience, people who want feel like they are absorbing a cultural experience place great importance on formwork...whereas those of us interested in attaining martial skill, train basics (zhan zhuan, silk reeling, circle walking) relentlessly. Like you say, it is all about where you feel your time is best invested.

Edited for spellings. D'oh!
Last edited by daoboxer on Wed May 20, 2015 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby johnwang on Tue May 19, 2015 10:09 pm

daoboxer wrote:Isn't it the ultimate aim for any marshal artist to become formless?

When your fist meets your opponent's face, it won't make much difference whether your leading foot is on the

- outside of his right foot,
- inside of his right foot,
- outside of his left foot,
- inside of his left foot,

When you push your opponent's neck and you use your leading leg to hook on the

- outside of his right foot (cut),
- inside of his right foot (knife hook),
- outside of his left foot (outer hook),
- inside of his left foot (inner hook),

you are using a complete different throwing technique with different body method. From a striking art point of view, the term "formless" may make sense. But from the throwing art point of view, it doesn't make any sense because your

- rooting leg,
- attacking leg,
- major hand,
- minor hand,

are restricted by what throwing technique that you are going to execute.
Last edited by johnwang on Tue May 19, 2015 10:16 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby klonk on Wed May 20, 2015 10:25 am

I think it makes a great deal of sense to base your solo training on two man training. Why? If what you are doing in solo training is not directly applicable to fighting an opponent, you are wasting your time. At the least, you are not making the most efficient use of the time and work you are investing.

Whatever the lessons learned, when you do solo training that is not directly applicable to fighting, you will need to change and adapt the lessons to use them to fight. They may be terrific lessons but you need to unpack and interpret them and go through a lot of trial and error.

This problem is very evident in karate, which emphasizes solo forms and is rife with confusion about the "bunkai" (use, application) of various moves in forms handed down rote fashion.

Likewise you get a remarkable range of opinions on how this or that taiji movement sequence would or should or could be used in a fight. Some of it is pretty fanciful, suggesting that the application that is proposed has not been tried out against strenuous resistance.
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby willywrong on Wed May 20, 2015 7:22 pm

johnwang wrote:
daoboxer wrote:Isn't it the ultimate aim for any marshal artist to become formless?

When your fist meets your opponent's face, it won't make much difference whether your leading foot is on the

- outside of his right foot,
- inside of his right foot,
- outside of his left foot,
- inside of his left foot,

When you push your opponent's neck and you use your leading leg to hook on the

- outside of his right foot (cut),
- inside of his right foot (knife hook),
- outside of his left foot (outer hook),
- inside of his left foot (inner hook),

you are using a complete different throwing technique with different body method. From a striking art point of view, the term "formless" may make sense. But from the throwing art point of view, it doesn't make any sense because your

- rooting leg,
- attacking leg,
- major hand,
- minor hand,

are restricted by what throwing technique that you are going to execute.


Really good point from a pragmatic viewpoint of usage. :)
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby klonk on Sat Jun 13, 2015 7:50 am

The hope (or maybe it is just an empty dream) is that your spontaneous formless response will be correct for the situation, without conscious analysis. That does not mean there is no analysis. If there were none, your response would be random not responsive.

That line of thinking leads me to believe that formlessness is really just well ingrained form. What to do becomes second nature. When you allow your subconscious to call the shots it may do surprising things. Today I knocked a pot off the stove, or nearly. Without any thinking on my part I slapped the handle of the pot in just such a way that the pot spun back up onto its burner. After the fact I thought "what did I just do?" But what I did was correct though there was no time to think. It would be cool if correctness without cogitation governed our fighting skills. In one way or another I think a lot of martial arts aim for that.

In another event (a more dramatic one) years ago, some very fast unconscious decisions when driving kept me out of a bad (likely fatal) accident. Again, the question after the fact was "what did I just do?" The situation was over before I had time to think about it, and it must have been that I missed that truck by the thickness of a cigarette paper. Thanks be to God.

I have no doubt that the decision tree in the striking art is smaller than that of the throwing art. It stands to reason that it would be more easily ingrained to the point of functioning without plan but with good results.
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby johnwang on Sat Jun 13, 2015 5:29 pm

klonk wrote:The hope (or maybe it is just an empty dream) is that your spontaneous formless response will be correct for the situation, without conscious analysis.

The "formless" may apply well when your opponent runs toward you (he does the close distance for you) and throws a punch at your head (he makes commitment so you can take advantage on it). You can then:

- kick at his belly,
- block/deflect his punch and punch him back,
- swing a haymaker at his head,
- sweep his leg to take him down,
- ...

The concern is what if the distance is far and you have to move in and attack? Whn you do that, you have to be sure that your opponent won't kick, knee, punch, elbow you when you enter, you then need a "plan - enter strategy".

Of course if you say that you will never attack your opponent when the distance is apart, just like to stay home and wait for some girl to call you and ask you out, the "formless" approach may be good enough for you. If you try to date a girl, you will need to have a "plan" which is the opposite of the "formless".
Last edited by johnwang on Sat Jun 13, 2015 5:37 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby Avenger on Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:28 pm

Sounds like you are just masturbating , if you think it is helping you by reacting to what is not happening can't be any good, unless you imagine attack then move, then might as well just simulate it in your mind like most other sports do.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby johnwang on Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:10 pm

Borrow from someone's post:

"I will use driving a car as the metaphor. The plan is your destination. Then you make other plans like navigating traffic. The formlessness is the gear changes, clutch, breaks and so on. You need both at once."
Last edited by johnwang on Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Self-created Solo Training

Postby daoboxer on Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:26 am

Hi John,
I suppose, using the car metaphor, my "destination" would be to end the confrontation with me vertical, my assailant horizontal. The formlessness would arise from the fact that I used the appropriate techniques as a reaction to my opponent's movement/intention....in an ideal world, of course.
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