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Sorry if I didn't split the thread very well. It wasn't easy since things started veering off topic a while back. I did my best. If anyone has any suggestions about a post that is in the wrong place, please send me a PM and I"ll try to fix it.
The following is an interview with Fut Gar Master, Barry Richardson.
(Q) A lot of 'kung fu' stylists fight like kickboxers, why do you think that is? You especially see this at tournaments.
(A) I am saddened when I see this type of fighting. Why do so many people learn a style of martial arts only to abandon it when they fight. This makes no sense. If I cannot see the person's style in their fighting, then they are doing dishonour to their style and their Master. Any Master that teaches the student to ignore form in fighting is not worthy.
I believe that the sparring does build toughness and a real world attitude. The negative side of free sparring is lack of style. When a student has nothing to bring to the fight, then he or she cannot be expected to have any style, and will develop their own style in order to keep from being hit. We need both. Without real free sparring, we are only doing dance. Without technique and style, we are only brawling. You need to balance this. Ideally, your students will practice their patterns hard, will explore and learn the meaning of the moves, will work this knowledge into their practice sparring exercises, and ultimately apply it to free sparring. Practically, you have to lead them through each stage. They want so badly to be good that they ignore or omit the very practice that will make them good.
I thought this should be posted since we spoke of how the video clip looked more like kickboxing.This is an exact statement taking from sifu Barry Richardson.
ok i have seen enough. even the fact, that i am a beginner, i can tell, that this is not kung fu, neither good kick boxing. i´ve seen one good takedown in that entire video. none of the could even compete in a regular kick boxing event. that´s a fact. sorry to say that. i´ve seen my older brothers doing sparring and that kind of sparring looked totaly different. the really used kung fu stances and moves and they realy hit each other, well not really hard, but the recognized if their block was bad.
Wer dich einen Tag unterrichtete, ist das ganze Leben lang dein Vater.
Das Böse lernt sich leicht, das Gute schwer.
Und wenn du auch die Kraft hast, einen Berg zu versetzen, so brauchst du noch einen Verstand, der so groß und so ruhig ist wie ein Ozean.
First of all i think that when looking at sparring/fighting videos one should consider the level of the practicioners, why does everything have to be great because it's on youtube? These people are beginners, we all can see that, but some of them can grow to be some good fighters, especially when they go out and develop their skills with full contact sparring like this.
I don't understand the 'kickboxing' comments, because they don't fight like in shaw brothers movies it's kickboxing?? Kickboxing is a totally different art and kung fu does't become kickboxing if you are a beginner, not even bad kickboxing. They fight using their training at the level they are, simple as that (kung fu schools where the forms training has nothing to do with their fighting is another topic). When people start fighting for the first time and get punched for real it's not going to be pretty, it will look bad, it doesn't matter how much form or pair drills training one has had before that. Only when you get used to that situtation you can start thinking abut applying stuff in a more efficient way. In the white crane video we can see people who are not used to getting punched and not really comfortable in that situation, you can't expect to see much more skill or techniques before they fix that. And the most effiecient way of fixing that is to get punched like they are doing in that video, must kung fu people won't do this kind of training. I give them nothing but props
for my opinion. i am a beginner with kung fu. i can fight like that no problem. the challenge is to fight like you have been trained and practise your forms. if i want to do kick boxing then it is fine. but if i want to fight classic shaolin kung fu, then i must try to stay in my stances and all the other things. so since i am a beginner i will not spar, because the time is not ready. and if i start to fight like this i will prpably never learn it....
Wer dich einen Tag unterrichtete, ist das ganze Leben lang dein Vater.
Das Böse lernt sich leicht, das Gute schwer.
Und wenn du auch die Kraft hast, einen Berg zu versetzen, so brauchst du noch einen Verstand, der so groß und so ruhig ist wie ein Ozean.
Have you tried fighting someone, outside of your school, who comes at you with full force, throwing punches, kicks and trying to take you down with aggression?
i can fight like that no problem.
so since i am a beginner i will not spar, because the time is not ready.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here?? How can you know that you can fight like that?
then i must try to stay in my stances and all the other things.
Why? What if the other person "can" move freely, doesn't he have the upper hand then? In fighting there are enough things to worry about than start to think about how you stand . Stances are for training, you get skills from them and when you fight you use those skills.
and if i start to fight like this i will prpably never learn it....
Trust me, you have to go through that stage also. It's sad to see kung fu people who trained for 10 years, but never did this kind of hard contact training, everything they trained will go down the drain .
No problem if you don´t use stances, but in real kungfu we do use stances, even children understand that if you practise kungfu you must be able to use decently kungfu patterns in a real fight, if you cannot then it´s a matter of you being incompetent in kungfu.
On the other hand if you are a kickboxer or a free style fighter and jump about and strike and kick like a kickboxer there´s nothing to argue.
The point here is that if you play piano you must be able to play a piano but if you say you play piano and then go onstage and hit madly a pot, then it does not matter what excuses and intellectual reasoning you may use, you are not a piano player.
but in real kungfu we do use stances, even children understand that if you practise kungfu you must be able to use decently kungfu patterns in a real fight, if you cannot then it´s a matter of you being incompetent in kungfu.
Hmm sorry to say but this sounds a little disrespectful . I can accept that different systems use different ideas, but saying that i don't practice REAL kung fu if i don't fight in fixed stances or patterns is a pretty harsh thing to say. You are pretty much dissimissing countless lines of traditional kung fu systems that have a long line of fighters by saying things like that.
In systems that i practice (Baji and Xingyi) fixed stances and forms/patterns are for training different skills. When we fight we have to constantly change and keep moving, because that is what our opponent is doing, here is where we learn to apply these skills in non-fixed situations. Of course one can say that you have to stay in your stance, keeping all the internal cordinates, but that doesn't mean that the outter form has to be fixed, it has to be freely moving. This is how we train in my traditional system. I'm not saying that other ways are wrong and not traditional kung fu, but isn't the most important thing to learn how to kick ass effectively .
for my opinion. i am a beginner with kung fu. i can fight like that no problem. the challenge is to fight like you have been trained and practise your forms. if i want to do kick boxing then it is fine. but if i want to fight classic shaolin kung fu, then i must try to stay in my stances and all the other things. so since i am a beginner i will not spar, because the time is not ready. and if i start to fight like this i will prpably never learn it....
Dear Affliction,
There is a great deal of wisdom in this post. My compliments to you and your Sifu
If you are practicing how you have been taught by your Sifu, then you are being a good student. While it is not my intention to disrespect your Sifu, I disagree with the implication that Correct Form is unnecessary or even a hindrance.
There are other threads discussing these topics in more depth. If you make a quick search of the Forum, you should find them without any difficulty.
I´m sorry if you found my post disrespectful as it wasn´t meant to be.
Maybe is just a matter of words, we don´t remain fixed in our stances, we are changing all the time in sparring but using the kungfu stances and movements, if a person says that he/she practices Xing Yi, for example, and you look at him/her sparring and you cannot recognise any stance or Xing Yi movement is clear for me that it´s not Xing Yi Kungfu. And it does not matter if he/she wins the fight it still does not probe a thing. There are a lot of peope using their own self-defence styles or freefighting that can fight and win but they don´t claim to practice kungfu!
In other words, everyone can fight but not everyone can fight using kungfu.
We are not claiming to be better than others and we respect all opinions but if someone says that kungfu patterns cannot be used in sparring then whats the difference between kungfu, kickboxing, taekwondo and aikido to name a few?
Training kungfu forms in solo and using kickboxing in sparring is like having a car and using a bycicle to travel because you don´t know how to drive.
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. I can accept that different systems use different ideas, but saying that i don't practice REAL kung fu if i don't fight in fixed stances or patterns is a pretty harsh thing to say. You are pretty much dissimissing countless lines of traditional kung fu systems that have a long line of fighters by saying things like that. 
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