Forms Class

If you check the schedule, you’ll see that on Thursdays at 8PM there’s a Kung Fu class labeled “Forms”.  What’s that?

The best way to answer the question is to come watch or take the class, but I’ll do my best to summarize it here on the blog.  Forms are a tradition in many of the martial arts.  To make a musical comparison, they are the sheet music of the martial world as opposed to sparring which is the improv music of the martial world.

In more concrete terms, forms are a choreographed fight.  Usually, they are solo performances, so the practitioner must visualize their attackers but there are also some forms that are specifically designed to be done with a partner.

There are many purposes to forms and each form can be attempting to communicate a different purpose than every other form – just as one song can have a different meaning than another.  One common theme amongst martial forms is a communication of curriculum: a form coming from a particular style should instruct the student (and viewer) on some of the basic ideas and moves of the style.  It would be odd to learn a jazz standard in a beginning classical music class, just as it would be odd to learn a Tai Chi form in a beginning Karate class.

So what do we do in forms class?  We learn the forms unique to our style of Martial arts.  We look at pieces of those forms (as in the picture, a ball of the foot roundhouse kick from one of our forms) and see how they apply to fighting.  We look at fighting and see how practicing forms can help us be better fighters.  We study forms in our regular classes as well but it can be nice to get a full hour of it, to really look into the details of things and make the forms worthy of demonstration and application.