Been away and busy, sorry for the neglect.
Just a thought - I like to think of Kuen practice (or kata, form, etc) as 'ritualized combat' - sort of an 'in the perfect world' situation.
Then there are drills, exercises to bring the Kuen to life - add some resistance, timing, etc. to the practices.
TFT style practicing also brings this 'flow', this 'life', to the Kuen.
Together with bag work, conditioning, and even, yes, sparring, it starts to develop the martial artist to handle real world situations. I don't feel you can do any of these practices in isolation. There is a time and place for partner work, and a time and place for solo work.
Any comments?
1 comment:
No argument there, Don.
We're both in our 40's and we've both had some injuries in addition to the usual wear and tear on our bodies.
I know I won't climb into the ring to do full contact again. But I can still maintain my skills through kuen, through solo conditioning and through partner work, like chi sao, chi kirk, tui shou and tui kirk. There's also a lot of two-man sets and even point sparring to maintain our skills and conditioning.
And I swear by bag work and (especially) the wooden dummy. Because of those two components in my training, I have little doubt that I could beat the overwhelming majority of strip-mall karateka in a street fight.
At my age, I know I'd get killed if I tried to face a competitive boxer, san shou, muay Thai, MMA or old fashioned PKA fighter in the ring.
But on the street, where we're not bound by any rules, I know things would be a lot more even.
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