FMA footwork?

[wayne hansen]

I was taught a lot of parks stuff by my mate bob Caputo who had trained with him in Korea
However it wasn't until I got his book and video did I realise how good his stuff was

[everything]

Park - the baguazhang guy? I think I have his book somewhere. Footwork is kind of always on my mind (for sport rather than MA).

I once learned a little of the art of the "ninjas" with a 5 elements Japanese philosophy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_elem ... philosophy)).

Movement wise:

• Forward diagonal movement is part of "fire" (anger, warmth, forcefulness, etc.).
• The backward diagonal then coming back like a wave (fluid, following, adaptable, supple) is "water".
• Wheeling and circular movements is "wind" (elusive, evasive, free, expansive).
• Up and down power and stability, gravity, grounded confidence is part of "earth".
• "Void"/"Heaven" is any/all, and more.

Stereotypically, from a basic footwork and movement view, if we compare our Big 3 IMA to this pov,

• Xingyi would be more like fire.
• Taiji more like water.
• Bagua more like wind.
• Any would have the "earth"/"root".
• "Void" is mastery of all and more.

I like this point of view a lot. This more day-to-day type philosophy is down to earth and practically accessible. Maps so easily to common movement patterns. Not high falutin, weird ideas of 8 trigrams or taiji diagrams, lol. Combining the big 3 makes so much sense, with or without the taiji/bagua philosophical understanding.

[johnwang]

This is one of my favor footwork training. I call it "running punch".

[origami_itto]

This is one of my favor footwork training. I call it "running punch".

[johnwang]

Should you treat this kind of footwork training as your highest priority of your MA training? If you can always run your opponent down, what else do you need?

[origami_itto]

Should you treat this kind of footwork training as your highest priority of your MA training? If you can always run your opponent down, what else do you need?

That's Master Choi's Xingyi 5 Element Change Form, the foundation practice of his Xingyi system, so I'd say within the system this footwork is a pretty high priority. There's different stepping patterns with each of the elements. Expanded in the 12 animals, cover form, etc

I don't train it anymore, personally, but it reminded me of your running punch. With this, however, you've got five different expressions of footwork and fist you can run in a line as long as you like. We'd do them back and forth across the studio.

As far as running my opponent down, meh. If he's running away, not my problem to deal with any more.

[everything]

not to get too carried away with silly what ifs, but an example explanation of "fire" I got was suppose the "bad guys" are threatening your kid/mom/friend whomever in the corner. so you go ahead and run this person down even if "if he doesn't move, I don't move" is your preferred philosophy.