Reconciling more than1 style

[DeusTrismegistus]

So far I have never had a problem "switching" between styles. When I spar I may use a shaolin strike to set up a slanting fly, and follow that up with a shuai chiao throw. I have been mixing in xingyi strikes in my sparring now too.

IMO taiji teaches you a method of using the body that can be applied to almost any technique. So far what xingyi I have learned I haven't seen anything that is contradictory to anything I have learned in taiji. Taiji stays more open and extended, while xingyi is more contracting and opening IMO so far. However I don't see anything conflicting between the taiji movements and the xingyi movements.

[middleway]

a teacher said to me that basically you have to have a root .. train that untill its yours .. then you can go off and do lots of other things .. play with other ideas teachers etc but you will always be grounded in that root system and everything you do will essentially be that.

Personally i think that if you do too many things ... ALOT ... then you will have problems ... your body will always be confused.

Plus who the hell has time to do Xing yi properly, Ba gua properly and Taiji properly on a part time basis ... unless we are talking about 12 hour days training here .....

[Harvey]

As I have been training TJ and XY for the same amount of time it has only been recently with the addition of some BG has the major differences (standing, power generation, dantien use) have started to become more evident, I can't practice any two in the same session unless I am doin weapons training and even than I'd have to do Dao or Jien work across style and use the weapon itself as a focus point.

[Aged Tiger]

Ok but how then can you go on a teach either if yours is a bastard mix of both?

Well, after 25 years of training 3, (although not all at the same time), my personal opinion is you can't...... Too many things become ingrained into the body and the subconscious.

You can keep them separate in your mind for teaching purposes, but it always come out in your technique if you are not 100% focused on 1 or the other. i.e. teaching at a quick pace and demonstrating, then a student raises a hand to ask, "why is your foot turned that way?" or "I thought that weight shift went this way", etc.

We are only human, and the conscious mind can only do 1 thing at a time....

I will add that I have seen maybe 2-5 % (a very small percentage, and I have met a lot) of the other teachers I've met that can keep them separate, but I think you are born with that special mental capacity, I don't think it is something trainable.

IMHO,

C

[Harvey]

Well, after 25 years of training 3, (although not all at the same time), my personal opinion is you can't......

Thank god somebody said that

[Ron Panunto]

Look for the similarities in styles rather than the differences.

[shawnsegler]

Look for the similarities in styles rather than the differences.

qft...much better way to learn things.

S

[strawdog]

Mixing stuff without understanding how the different flavors effect each other is simply going to turn something that could be special into slop.

[Interloper]

I am observing more and more that training in the internal body skills -first- and making them second nature, makes a person more adaptible and able to flow between external expressions (styles). Then it becomes a matter of picking and choosing what one would ilke to do with one's body: kick, strike and punch? Lock, throw and choke-out? Grappling on the ground? Take the MMA approach and select the combinations of combat one deems most useful, and infuse them with internal power. Then you can play with any style if you want; more likely, though, that you will find your body taking on a style of its own, according to its physical abilities, size and shape coupled with internal skills.

QFT

Along the same lines, IMHO and in my limited experience, one should pick one style and stick with it until the stage described above has been reached. Only THEN one can do other styles.

QFT

Since it is difficult to find a teacher or school who teaches only internal skills -- unhindered by being part of any particular style's curriculum "package" -- I agree that it's best to find an art and school that has those skills and teaches them, and stick to that style as the vehicle through which the internal skills are learned, trained and inculcated. Master the basics. Then you are free to go your own way.

Otherwise, it's too confusing. For beginners and even the intermediate levels, there are too many variations for teaching the same stuff, and too many variations in external expression and even ways to execute the internal actions, that can be misconstrued by people who are not yet experienced enough to see through to the core and see past the differing processes.

[Harvey]

Mixing stuff without understanding how the different flavors effect each other is simply going to turn something that could be special into slop.

I've found observing the differences reinforces the similarities, it's like adding spices to meat only when you can tell what spices create the added flavour can you truly appreciate how they add to the dish, you still enjoy the steak but it's the nuances that make it special

[bruce]

I always have real problems switching between the different styles I train, switching between shen fa, bow use, strategy, the whole caboodle. I see some of you guys who train different stuff in the same session, HOW? really if you start with one why doesn't your body start conforming to that particular styles set of rules then suddenle switch to something else. Ok I can deal with one thing in the morning and something different in the afternoon but straight afterwards, that's just too hard.
So for you guys who do it, what are your tricks or is it you just don't bother?

hi ya'all,

in my opinion your different shen fa should all blur together in the end anyway unless you are trying to copy exactly what another person did. does it matter if the elbow that broke my nose was a tai chi shen fa or bagua shen fa?

having said that i do see the value in 1-3 years of training and a good understanding in a specific art before expanding your practice. i think you can and should practice different things back to back. not all of the time but ... ...

[middleway]

i guess on of the real questions is ... is Shenfa a conscious choice?

people talk about using this shenfa or that like it is somehow under their control.

Personally i think it is in fact the embodyment of the arts essence, The body just is naturally expressing force as it has been trained.... now if you train 4 or 5 shenfa equally the body will be confused and you will have a little of everything but ultimately nothing .... People that are very good generally train in one thing ... this is what makes them able to understand everything else and train that ... their body will still have that original root training.

The really really good guys out there have one way that their body moves ... one root, everything else is the branches, leaves and fruit of the tree.... now the tree may look different to their teachers but it has the same root structure.

throughout history the good guys have had one thing which has allowed them to do many .... Zhang zao dong, Sun Lu tang etc.

I am as guilty as anyone of training too many different things but recently i have realized life is actually short and you have to decide ... do i want to play alot of fun things or live the practice every day and make it part of your life .... If you do you only have time to really train one thing ...

cheers
Chris

[Darth Rock&Roll]

For me, it has nothing to do with styles so much as it has to do with ranges.

For this reason, there are certain things drawn from everything to deal with those ranges.

IE: am i close enough to strike, am I close enough to strike and clinch, are we on teh ground, are we standiong up, are we looking for entry? and so on. whichever training method addresses each are the ones to drill the shit out of in various environments (solo/ resisting partner/ free fight) in order to address each scenario in as broad a swath as you can cut.

[C.J.Wang]

For me, it has nothing to do with styles so much as it has to do with ranges.

For this reason, there are certain things drawn from everything to deal with those ranges.

IE: am i close enough to strike, am I close enough to strike and clinch, are we on teh ground, are we standiong up, are we looking for entry? and so on. whichever training method addresses each are the ones to drill the shit out of in various environments (solo/ resisting partner/ free fight) in order to address each scenario in as broad a swath as you can cut.

You are probably borrowing from JKD/ Bruce Lee philosophy.

I'd like to point out that the general concept of ranges doesn't apply to all martial arts systems. At what is commonly accepted as "grappling range" for grapplers, it is still "striking range" for CMA experts because they have the ability to issue shocking power with zero distance using body parts such as hip, shoulder, elbow, and even head. I have also met practitioners of "long arm" fighting styles such as Pigua and Tongbei whose reach is so incredible that they can whip their arms out and hit you at what is commonly thought of as "kicking range."

[XiaoXiong]

Hi I just wanted to chime in and say this is a very interestiong thread for me at this point in my training. I had a different account before, so some of you may know me as Baguabyrd. I'm Jesse, a student of George Wood, studying Luo Dexiu's Bagua, Xingyi, and Taiji. I've been at the IMA stuff pretty seriously in this school for over 4 years now, and have a pretty fair grasp on the Bagua and Xingyi stuff. I'm pretty raw at taiji though I've dabbled in it here and there, I really just started training it like a couple weeks ago.

I think it's kind of a conventional wisdom that if you disperse your energy in your training over too broad and disperate of a selection of material, than you may not be developing the attributes you are really looking for. That said, I think that it can be easy to fall into a rut by sticking too closely to an orthodoxy, and therefore limiting your potential by limiting the range of your mind and body's adaptability. I am a very lucky student in terms of martial arts because I have 2 very smart guys who know a ton of stuff, teaching me extremely comprehensively, and handing down top quality material to work with.

That said, I havce found a lot of success in my personal martial developement, through hard work and persistent study. I have a base in our Gao Bagua, which is the core of Luo's system as many here know. I also have a strong set of xingyi skills, which I really consider just like a sister art. They have a different approach to training and some goals are different, but the 2 don't give me any kind of difficulty in reconciling really. Mostly it is just a change of attitude from what I can tell. It also seems very much the same for me getting into Taiji. It's pretty much similar in most ways to the first 2, but has it's own approach to training and what the mind and body are doing. A brief summary I discussed with my teacher would be that in xingyi the attitude is my will be done, in taiji it's give him more of what he wants, and in bagua it's more flexible, being either or both of the first two attitudes at different times. So for me I like this kind of multi-faceted approach to training. It may not be something that many people can easily manage in different situations, and certainly I think it would be a lot more confusing if things weren't made very clear for me by my teachers.

I guess it might be that many people trying to do multiple arts are trying to fit 20 # of shit into a five # bag. But that doesn't have to be the case. I have greatly improved my bagua through the study of Xingyi and now Taiji is helping as well with some things I hadn't seen yet. Luo Laoshi likes to say certain things a lot about how to look at the martial arts and different styles and ways of training. Here are some that stuck to the wall; In internal martial arts you must understand the essence and the thinking behind the training. Look for the common point in all the training you do. 99% of martial arts is being pointed in the right direction. Bagua, Xingyi, and Taiji is mostly the same. Fighting is fighting.
J