Why do we have to do forms? Everybody likes to spar, most people like to break boards, and many of us love the practical self-defense aspect of martial arts. Parents like to see their kids doing forms, as it is helpful for their focus, concentration, and coordination, but they aren’t as much fun as the other stuff, so why?

As usual, I didn’t actually question why we did something, it was more “just the way it is.” I’m ok with that, I respect the instructors who have come before me and we have some of the finest here at Mr. Strickland’s school. But I am working on another project (which you can help me with) that actually brought this in to focus. Most martial arts teenagers end up going off to college. I have taught many high school girls self-defense seminars, and those are great mentally. Physically, though, we recognize that practicing a skill for a couple of hours isn’t the same as practicing it for weeks, months, or even years. So, as some of these parents prepare their kids for college, they’ve asked if perhaps they should sign up for martial arts for the summer before they go (the answer is always yes, it is fun and fitness, but that’s not today’s story).

I wanted to put a specific curriculum together to add on to our martial arts classes for these students. They didn’t need to learn forms for self-defense, they just needed to learn how to strike, block, kick, and move. I wanted to put a curriculum together where we could structure how we teach people to do those things. I wanted to do something so that we could emphasize rotation and snap when blocking. The light went on about then. The reason we do forms is to give us a structured way to teach the moves of self-defense. Mr. Strickland has pointed out to his instructors that even jujitsu moves and those from kung fu are simulated in many of our forms. Forms are to martial arts as multiplication tables are to mathematics . Nobody may like doing them, but pretty much everything is built off of them.

I will still add some to our curriculum specific to a two –month student. In that light, I am requesting a couple things from all of my female students that have gone to college …

1. What situations “scared” you when you were there?

2. Looking back, what dumb things did you do regarding personal safety that you wouldn’t repeat?

3. Why did you do them then?

4. How did you “mitigate the risk” and still do those fun things that old 50 year old men like myself have told you not to do?

Thank you for helping me, help others. Stay safe.

Mr. Vickroy