Internal Fighting Arts Podcast #58 - Byron Jacobs

[wushutiger]

I was a guest on Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts podcast. The episode has just been released. This one is quite focused on Xingyi Quan and practice.

https://internalfightingarts.libsyn.com/website/internal-fighting-arts-58-byron-jacobs

[GrahamB]

That's a good one - echoes a lot of what I was taught in Xing Yi - especially the idea that forms are not sacred things to be worshiped as pure examples of holy perfection and should be broken down, messed around with and put back together.

[Doc Stier]

That's a good one - echoes a lot of what I was taught in Xing Yi - especially the idea that forms are not sacred things to be worshiped as pure examples of holy perfection and should be broken down, messed around with and put back together.

Agreed. If forms were sacred examples of holy perfection, there would be no variation of movement sequence or performance expression in any style. Everyone who practiced the same style would be training the exact same material in exactly the same manner. Clearly, that is not the case, even within styles like Chen TCC or the various SPM styles, which generally produce a more homogeneous similarity among most practitioners. The major IMA styles display even more variation in their forms and stylistic expressions, despite using the same general names, i.e. taiji, bagua, or xingyi.

Additionally, most martial arts which focus on combat applications, rather than primarily on movement performance, incorporate 'break downs', in which the individual postures and movement patterns are dissected in order to examine how they can best develop the physical conditioning and athletic attributes needed for actual fighting, as well as the most efficient ways of applying the various postures, footwork, etc, in realtime combat scenarios.

Thus, personal preferences regarding what to train and how to train will always be as varied as the individuals making these choices. Personal demonstration of the skills and benefits derived from any training regimen, or the lack of same, will eventually be validated over time, since visible results either way are difficult to conceal.