I have often made the statement that a style is
distinguished by its appearance and a system is distinguished by its results.
What I’d like to do is explain what I mean by this statement. For the most part there are two different methodologies
when it comes to martial arts training. The stylistic approach is more specific
looking at specific responses to specific combat scenarios. The systemic
approach is more general, building general skills and or attributes that can
be useful for combat. With that being said there are few if any martial arts that
are 100% stylistic or 100% systemic in their approach. Some fall somewhere in
between, some lean more in one direction than the other.
Often you will find curriculums that start with one way of
training and then change to the other as you get further along in the
curriculum. In some martial arts curriculums you can spend 5 to 10 years
learning nothing but technique, again by that I mean specific responses to
specific attacks. Later, at the more advanced stages of training you will learn
the underlying principles that explain why those specific techniques work. Also
you will learn how to generalize on that principle and create techniques on the
fly as the situation dictates.
The systemic approach can be more difficult especially if
the student has no previous martial arts experience that allows him or her to put
what they are learning in context. There are many martial arts system that teach
you the skill of taking balance, or the skill of using sensitivity to maintain
a mechanical advantage, positional advantage, or both. The exercises and drills
used to develop these types of skills are often somewhat abstract and may not
even have a direct correlation to some type of combat scenario. This can cause
even more difficulty for the student who will often lose interest, being unable
to make the connection.
This I think is the reason why many teachers in the old days
would change how they taught based on the inherent mental and physical attributes
of the student. Say for example your curriculum contained forty empty hand
forms, each one emphasizing a different area of martial application and
physical expression. Some might emphasize power, others speed, and others
agility. Often the teacher would prescribe which forms the student would learn based
on what they brought to the table. The big strong guy would learn the power
forms. The small quick guy would learn the speed and agility forms. Only the
student who was being trained to be a teacher would learn all the forms. For
anyone else it was really unnecessary. In addition to that, not only would
teacher customize the material, he would also customize the teaching method. Let’s
be honest, everyone has a different style of learning, and some of the knives
in the drawer are a little bit sharper than some of the others. A good teacher
can take these things into account and teach the student in a way that produces
results. Some people may not have a grasp or appreciation of scientific thinking
or philosophical abstraction, so a more technique oriented pragmatic approach
is better. Others may be able to appreciate a broader more abstract approach,
for those people a more systemic approach is appropriate.
As I have said in previous post, it is important to
understand who you are and what you want as far as your martial arts training.
Having a good deal of self awareness will help you to determine what is best
for you in both what you want to learn and how you want to learn it.
