In my humble opinion, the forms themselves are not ment to be muscle memory or anything.
The forms themselves can have various functions:
-Pure exercise to stenghten and strech.
-Somwhat 'hidden' formulas for the system
-Mixed in 'philosphy' for the spesific art
-General movement of the style (using whole body)
The actual techniques often looks nothing like how they are played in a form. What you must do is understand what the movements are, and train, train,train how to execute a few of the chosen techniques.
Ie, what might look like a bogus long arm movement might in reality be a short block and jab, resembling a western boxers style.
So why not just train the applications modarn way, and skip the entire form ? Beats me. Each and everyones taste. I am a 'kung fu' dude myself, but I have no problems seing that someone just spending all training sessions doing a few selected applications and conditioning would be a better fighter than me. I want my selected applications to work, but I have no need or deisre to be a killing machine.
When I learn a new form I 'refuse' to go ahead before I understand the application usage and mechanics behind the move. If it fits me, I train that usage, if it doesnt, I just accept it as a useless (for me) move in a form I learn.
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