The Modern Kung Fu School?

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The Modern Kung Fu School?
Jow Gar Kung Fu
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Many changes have happened to Kung Fu schools
over the years. The one we will discuss today is
the proliferation of forms for demonstration
purposes and the loss of the true fighting
application and methodology behind using forms
for fighting. If you attend a kung fu school and
spend a lot of time practicing kung fu forms, but
when it comes time to spar you strap on some
boxing gloves and fight like kick boxers, then
something is seriously wrong. unless..your
reason for training kung fu is to engage in
performance style tournaments, and your forms are
practiced to be used in that setting. If you are
looking for traditional kung fu, and an
understanding of how and why forms are
constructed and used as they are, then you should
be engaging in sparring and drills using the
techniques from the form exactly as they are
performed in the form. Otherwise you are wasting
a massive proportion of your training time
learning choreographed dance moves.
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How do I know this? Because I spent many years
doing this myself. All the while wondering why I
was learning forms if we did not use them when it
came to fighting. Sure we may use the odd
technique as it was in a form, but the majority
of techniques were no different than the basics
of any kickboxing school. We even used a
roundhouse kick as the predominant kicking
technique, yet it did not feature once in any of
the traditional system. Now this is not a
comment on the effectiveness of a roundhouse
kick, we can argue about that one later. What I
am saying is evaluate the time you are putting
into your training against the goals of your
training. If you are at a kung fu school and
learning forms but fighting like a kick boxer.
Just practice the kickboxing! You will get better
at that much faster.
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Traditionally Kung Fu forms were used to teach a
student all of the techniques of a system. They
teach a martial artist foundation (strong
stances), fitness, strength, chi Kung,
discipline, concentration, power, speed, agility,
flexibility, mobility and above all they teach
the recipe of a system. By recipe I mean why and
how the ingredients (the techniques) are
sequenced or put together as they are.   The
recipe forms the blueprint that is practiced
repeatedly by the student. Kung Fu Forms present
all the possible combinations of the ingredients
into a cohesive system of knowledge and
understanding as viewed by the founder or creator
of that style.

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At Head Academy Kung Fu in Sydney we teach Jow
Gar (Jow Ga, Chow Ka) forms as they were intended
to be taught. Every move of every form has an
application or purpose. Furthermore, every forms
technique is practiced in sequence, as they are
executed in the forms. As a side note, all
techniques and sequences upon further training
and study have many more than one application. I
am talking about the base level execution of a
technique, as it is performed and trained in a
form. For it is a simple contradiction. If you
train a technique repetitively and then have to
output it in a different way for it to work, why
not train the effective technique from the
start? And this is where we run into the style
of Kung Fu school. The No Forms, Just the
effective techniques, Kung Fu school.
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Thank You
JOW GAR Head Academy Kung Fu