"general" arts vs Animal based arts.

[AAAhmed46]

What do you think? do you think the crane and tiger and others are too outdated?

[ryanhall]

Do you have claws or wings? If not, fight like a human.

[DeSoLaToR]

Animal styles are in my opinion crap, who in the real world would act like an animal when fighting.. you would just look stupid..

point is where not animals, there for its not practical for us to try and act like them.. we should fight NoRmAlY!

[Scott Kano]

I just dont think it would work. You would be too busy trying to remeber what the next move in the form is, and it would look stupid and embarrassing I would say. Plus the form has actions to block then attack who says its goign to happen just quite like u have trained the form for.

Thats my opinion

[Awu]

Animal styles are(like most of you said) outdated. There is no way that humans can fight like animals. For one, we don't have their physical attributes. Therefore, we can't preform the actions that they do to fight effectively.They look good, but in my opinion totally ineffective.

[Kingston]

im going to jump on the animal style hating bandwagon!
acting like another animal is making an "un-natural" movement and anything that goes against your natural movements does more harm then good. At least animal styles look cool!

[aseepish]

Damn those animals!! I think it's our duty as animal-haters to now go out and eat as many animals as we can!

[AAAhmed46]

But....could any of us take on the monks in northern china?


And, WHY were they based on animals?

[Szczepankiewicz]

I betcha Superman could!!!!!

[aseepish]

Originally posted by AAAhmed46

And, WHY were they based on animals?

Because those were the days before cool robots like the Transformers!

[Rival]

Originally posted by Szczepankiewicz
I betcha Superman could!!!!!

i betcha Superman would bow down to the Care Bears. it kinda makes me think

[ryanhall]

But....could any of us take on the monks in northern china?

You produce the monk, and I'll fight him.

[Scott Kano]

That would be interesting to see One of those Shaolin monks take on someone in the UFC or soemthing

[akja]

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"I just dont think it would work. You would be too busy trying to remeber what the next move in the form is, and it would look stupid and embarrassing I would say. Plus the form has actions to block then attack who says its goign to happen just quite like u have trained the form for.
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Don't take this wrong, what you're really saying is you don't know how forms came to be. Nobody ever said that a fight will be just like the form goes. The forms are an ancient way of practicing and perfecting repititious movements of an art. So many instructors today promote every 2 months & so forth I think it would be pretty hard to find an insrtuctor that could teach well this way. Without the old ways there would be no legitimate new ways. The old ways may be out dated, but I've yet to see a BJJ guy in the UFC not try to kick or punch or a kickboxer in the UFC not try to wresltle. So if a "traditionalist" did enter that type of format, theres no way it would look traditional, the martial arts are about adapting to the environment and thats the the fight we would see. The winner would be who trains for that type of fight. But the UFC and Vale Tudo comes from the martial arts and the martial arts come from the ancient traditional martial artists, Without the old old arts there would be no new arts.
"Respect the old and accept the new"!!!
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"That would be interesting to see One of those Shaolin monks take on someone in the UFC or soemthing"
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"In their time" they fought real fights against murderous bandits, murderous conquering armies and any other threat that came their way. The UFC isn't the final word, but is is a very good way to judge what works. If you look at a UFC fight where the competitors are fairly equal and it goes on and they get tired, what do you see? I see that the key to take this type of fighter is to "neutralize" their technique. How do you do this? By practicing all ranges, coming to thorough understanding of all ranges and practicing in ways that others don't.
The UFC environment will bring these fighters up quick, but there is life after 35. My Jkd Sifu used to tell me that he would start the kids in a more boxing mode and the rest of us were going to fight smarter. How we train is up to the individual and if we can't compete in "grand fashion" it isn't a way to judge an art or artist!
Sorry if I've stepped on anybodys foot here.

[chalambok]

Even in muay Thai there are 'animal forms', so to speak. Just look at the name of some of the techniques, 'crocodile spinning his tail' is a wonderful spinning back kick, 'cracking the coconut' is a kill blow to the top of the head. And the wai kru have names such as 'The Four Faces of Brahma', or 'We-La-Ma-Hatape'. Just as nowadays we learn, say, a 42-count drill so we don't have to start at the beginning every time we break contact during a confrontation, so too did ancient practitioners study forms so they would have a number of combinations available to them. If you truly understand your form, you can jump in anywhere and move either direction. Irregardless, however you can learn is all that really matters. Some of us are visual, some tactile, some oral. If it works for you that is great. If you can transmit that knowledge to someone else, that is better. All of us who teach know that we have to teach to the student. This is how we keep learning, constantly reinventing the way we teach, thus relearning the way we do all that we learned from our teachers.