Why I Don't Teach Solo Forms

Solo forms seem to be ever-present in martial arts. When I did Shotokan Karate as a kid, every belt had a corresponding kata. If you couldn’t do the kata well enough, you didn’t pass the test. If you did pass the test, what was your reward? A new belt with a new kata for you to learn and be tested on the next year. Later on, as and adult, I spent years studying Wing Chun. What did every class start with? Going through the first form. What did the advanced classes start off with? Going through the first AND second forms. Even with my treasured Bolognese how do they structure much of the literature? Pre choreographed “assalti” for you to do on your own.

Martial arts forms can be beautiful. At the top levels they are breathtaking exhibitions of skill. Many a martial art has competitions not just for sparring, but for who can execute their solo forms the best, according to predefined metrics.

So, why then do I not teach solo forms to my students? The answer is simple.

They don’t teach you how to fight.

If your goal is to engage in a deep meditative practice, then solo forms might be precisely what you’re looking for. Maybe you’re looking for a more meaningful way to engage with your heritage. In that case, solo forms created in an age where books were hard to come by and online video didn’t yet exist might be exactly what fits your need.

Solo forms, like rote memorization more broadly, can be a great way of grouping different moves. Maybe you’re trying to look for a way to remember all of the various guards.[1] In that case, a simple solo form can be a helpful mnemonic. Perhaps you’re looking for a way to neatly divide your curriculum into beginner, intermediate, and advanced moves. In that case, something like the three primary forms of Wing Chun can be a helpful way for you to structure your syllabus. However, if your goal is to train someone to be able to hit without being hit, then solo forms are just not what you’re looking for.

The way we learn how to fight is not by practicing a bunch of moves on their own in the air without an opponent. People move around, they’re all different sizes, and they’re just not going to give you the exact same angle of attack open to you time and time again. Our job as coaches isn’t to give people answers and have our students repeat them ad nauseam. It’s to try, “to get them to repeat the process of finding a solution!”[2] The scientific literature out there teaches us that we shouldn’t be trying to train our fighters to fire off “ideal” movement solutions. Instead, people learn faster and perform better when their training is instead focused on appropriately adapting to the situation at hand.[3]

I had the opportunity this past week to participate in a Q&A with Dr. Rob Gray, a leader researcher in the fields of sport science and talent acquisition. His dream is for a day when training montages in movies switch from Rocky punching a cow carcass on his own to something where we spend as much training time as possible working with a partner who can throw a wide variety of problems right at us. This is something the masters of old, those who studied these arts because their lives depended on it, knew well. For they tell us, “In order to become a perfect fencer, it is not enough to take lessons from a master. You must also try to measure yourself every day with a variety of fencers”.[4] They were acutely aware that you could not achieve greatness training by yourself on top of a mountain. No, instead they tell us clear as day that the way to improve is to learn to solve a wide variety of problems in order to prepare you for whatever may come your way.

These masters also did not purely train against other people practicing the same exact style, something far too common in martial arts schools today. No, instead they went out of their way to brag about traveling far and wide, learning from a variety of teachers.[5] We have numerous records of Italian fencing masters teaching in England, Denmark, and the Holy Roman Empire. There’s also plenty of accounts of Spanish diestros sailing over to London and getting themselves into duels. In more modern times, we have plenty of examples of kung fu practitioners on Hong Kong getting into “beimo” fights with different schools bringing out their best to see how their system compared to what anyone else might have been teaching.

Does all of this mean that I tell students to refrain from solo training? Of course not. I do most of my ideation at home, working alone, trying out all sorts of different combos. I just then bring those to practice the next day and see how many of my hypotheses hold up under scrutiny. Solo practice is also the best way to build up the exact muscle groups you need when you end up facing an opponent. Doing any sort of general fitness routine will of course help, but there’s not a lot of holding a three pound weight out in front of you while you keep your knees bent in most workout programs. It’s just important to remember that training on your own isn’t what teaches you how to respond to someone trying to hit you square in the face.

As a result, I never have people practicing moves off on their own whenever we’re in the same space. There are only so many hours each week we all get to work with people face to face. Why waste that doing the kinds of work you could be doing on your own?

If you want to learn from me in person, I will be leading a workshop on January 10th from starting at 10AM at 6900 Market Ave N Canton OH 44721.

You can also pick up a copy of my debut fencing treatise at FoolOfSwords.com.

Photo credit: Jana Howson

[1] Giovanni dall’Agoccie, “The Art of Defense”, page 12, translated by Jherek Swanger

[2] Rob Gray, “The Advanced Ecological Approach to Skill Development & Maintenance”, page 135.

[3] Rob Gray, “Learning to Be An ‘Ecological’ Coach”, page 4.

[4] Ridolfo Capoferro, “The Art and Practice of Fencing”, page 21, translated by Tom Leoni.

[5] Fiore dei Liberi, “The Flower of Battle”, Getty copy, translated by Colin Hatcher.