Less is more...More is less...
Less tension more power...
More softness less resistance...

People thoughts on this principle?

Sounds very close to some of the principles of WingChun/WingTsun. Definitely a principle taken by the soft styles of MAs.

I've just read the section on Philosophy that influences WingTsun in the Book 'On Single Combat'. It appears to be a mixture of Buddism, Taoism and Confucianism.

But do you not need technique first?

This thought is pretty consistent with most Internal Martial arts, but as PeteMills pointed out you need proper technique first.

For example in Tai Chi Chuan we have a phrase: "It feels like steel wrapped in cotton." For our strikes or how our body should feel, soft on the outside (which increases sensitivity and reflexes) but hard on the inside for strikes.

You can never hope to achieve this state if you follow the "New age" hippy Tai chi where everything is too soft (yin) and you have improper technique, or body structure to sufficiently land a strike.

While less is more, in the theory of Yin/Yang you can move too much to less and be ineffective.

I would personally say: The less you have the more you refine. :)

OK good points, I would say you would need technique and also to begin with you would probably put too much force into it then cut it back and fine tune it to the less effort more power effect.

But what about this angle....

Learning more Kata = Less quality and understanding.

If a student is just shown routine after routine, the student becomes overloaded with meaningless movement and doesn't spend intimate time with the kata to really learn and know it.

More kata = less understanding. Of course this perspective is from a Karate example but I'm sure it could relate to other styles...

Thoughts???

I agree with what you are saying to an extent...without getting into a "Forms is good/bad" debate I will say this.

Forms are good, they allow you to memorize movements, applications and are fantastic for building muscle memory.

Many say on the downside forms cannot teach you about sparring/fighting etc.

However,
Where I have learned my Tai chi and Hsing I one of the goals in our forms is to visualize that you are fighting an opponent. I don't mean just "Visualize" I mean in your mind make him/her completely there, so much so you feel them breath, you see them, you smell them etc. This is how we make forms a type of meditation, you literally make your imaginary opponent as real as possible. So you are essentially fighting someone in your mind.

Thus, this imaginary opponent will respond to blocks and kicks etc. just as if it were a real fight. This takes forms and Katas to a whole 'nother level. You mentally put yourself in a fight and hold nothing back yourself. Rather than as you see sometimes people just "going through a routine" this is nothing more than aerobics.

In our art, you MUST have full intention of it being a fight for your life. The more you do this the realer it becomes in your mind, with the idea that the Mind controls the body, you begin to train your body to respond more than what a usual form would teach you to do.

With that said, you could spend a lot of time learning different Katas/forms and develop a deeper understanding of them. This would also include developing a finer technique. When applying the mind to MAs you develop an entirely new routine.

I don't mean just "Visualize" I mean in your mind make him/her completely there, so much so you feel them breath, you see them, you smell them etc.

I like this statement, you are right, this takes kata to a new level. But by concentrating more on less Kata this then allows you to analyse and visualise what you do, once you learn this skill you can apply it to other Kata you learn, but its better to learn less kata and analyse them until you perform them with this mind focus... kinda reverts back to the mind focus thread!

Again keeping with this less is more principle, how about less mind activity more focus?

keep em coming peeps!1

Forgive me, I have a woolly brain today - (whacked my head straight into a low wooden beam the other day - made such an impressive sound!)

Am sure I've heard that some fighters hone just a small range of techniques and favour them repeatedly???

Your right Wu Ming, but I believe that a wide range is still practised. For example 1 Kata can contain bout 15 different strikes, 5-6 different kicks and 5-6 different forms, plus blocks.

Out of those you would find the most effective and probably work on those knowing they are the most powerful and favour them for a real situation. Certain strikes etc have better practical application than others but all still must be practised. :)

Ryusui_Ryu wrote:
Again keeping with this less is more principle, how about less mind activity more focus?

keep em coming peeps!1[/quote]

First, depends on what you mean by "mind activity" are we talking:

*Throws a punch in Kata and thinks:* "Man I am hungry should I eat a burger after this?"

Or

*Throws a punch in a kata and thinks:* "Well that missed, what would my opponent do?"

For the first then yes absolutely less mind activity, where as the second one you are combining mind activity and focus. The first one you only have mind activity.

I personally think these two are inseparable if you really want to train well. You should have both.

As for Katas and length:
I'm not sure about karate Katas as the ones I have seen are short. However, Kung fu Katas and Tai Chi Forms (at least the ones I have studied) are -very- long. Some consisting of of more than 300 postures (300 in Tai chi and 100+ in Kung fu).

The problem with "modern" (for lack of a better term) Katas or forms is they are "watered down" to fit the modern lifestyle of less time being put into training. Traditionally most forms and Katas (how I was taught) were very long and included doing punches, turns, kicks etc. on both right and left sides. However, "modern" katas removed repetitive movements for the sake of time, thus lessening the effectiveness of training right/left sides.

If you have a Kata or Form like this, you don't really need to "break it down" as much for the sake of doing left/right side training. A good form/kata should have that built in, as well as they should be long enough and have enough variety to include the different situations. There is a good reason most Katas and forms are termed "Shadow Boxing" b/c you are literally boxing/fighting a true opponent, and as we discussed above, if you visualize enough they should NOT be susceptible to the same punch (or nearly the same punch) in "Shadow boxing".

Good input taoquan,

With mind activity I mean, not thinking about what you will do, just doing... Not panicking and losing the plot totally.

With regards to the kata, if you manage to learn and time 1 move, then that will set your marker for how all other moves must work. By learning 100's of moves all you learn is moves and not the timing and form that goes into them. As you become more experianced the lessons learned with previous kata can be applied to more detailed and complicated sequences.

What about less talking more practising?? LOL:)

Ryusui_Ryu wrote:

What about less talking more practising?? LOL:)
LMAO! Good point!