Forms. Kata. Poomse. Tul. Pattern. It goes by many names. And for many, they add words like, “stupid” or “pointless” to the word to describe their distain for them. Yet, it’s a staple element of training in many traditional martial arts systems. What is it? Does it have a purpose? Is it just busy work for students of lazy instructors? Is there any point in forcing students to continue to train with them?

For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a form is, here is a quick breakdown. A form is a sequence of martial arts movements performed by a single martial artist as if fighting a group of invisible attackers. In most martial arts styles that make use of forms have at least one form per rank. Many times, the forms are named based on the styles culture. Such as names of important figures, ideas, or locations in their culture’s history.

For instance, most Taekwondo schools teach Chun-Ji as the students first form. Chun-Ji meaning, “Heaven and Earth”. The first half of the form represents Heaven, and the second half represents Earth. Essentially the start of everything is the point. Some forms represent mindsets a student should have when performing the form. One form I recall learning years ago in a different system was representing a well-known mountain range. Therefore, the focus of the form was to be very routed in the ground with strong stances and immense power.

For most practitioners, most of what I’ve explained so far isn’t overly important to learning self-defense. These elements are more important to those that love the traditional martial arts on a deep level. Learning about the culture, learning the “why’s” behind the arts development. To myself, it’s extremely interesting! I enjoy the history and culture of it. To the new student beginning their martial arts training in an effort to learn self-defense, however, it seems quite pointless. Yet, some of the most important elements of forms training is a bit hidden and absolutely crucial in my opinion.

Understand that the most important aspect of a form is the repetitive nature of self-defense techniques and combinations. All physical self-defense training is based on this concept. You learn how to throw a punch, then you repeat that punch thousands of times over and over. This is done with your instructors onlooking critical eye and advice. This is what the form is designed for. To get you to practice your techniques over and over.

In the martial arts system I use, all of a student’s material they need to learn for their rank is in their ranks form that they practice. I could ask a student to perform their front kick. Then their punch. Then their front stance. Then their low block. So on and so forth until I’ve seen all of their material in order to decide if they’ve learned everything they need for their rank. Or I can just ask them to perform their ranks form and I can see it all, and see it done in a fluid combination of moves. As an instructor, this is much more efficient.

The are only two things I don’t know from their form alone. One is how well they can use the techniques in an impromptu way. Two is how well they react to impact, both impact from striking a target and impact from being struck by an attacker. Hence why we spar. I can look over a students form and then watch them spar. Two things that I can do in about 5 minutes. From those two things, I can gauge where a student is with their material.

One may ask, “why not just look at sparring to determine the student’s fluency and knowledge of their material?” While I do see a lot from sparring, their form allows me to spot the fine details that may get overlooked in the fast-paced sparring. I can ask a student to pause or slow down in their form if needed. In sparring, however, that just doesn’t work the same way.

Another great benefit of forms training is that you don’t need a partner nor any equipment to train. All you need is a small patch of earth to move around on to train your material. This is true even beyond punching and kicking. Many grappling techniques are somewhat hidden within these forms. As I’ve mentioned to students, forms are made up of a series of self-defense movements. Not just striking.

Watch a form and some of the unique movements that are within them, and you’ll see strange looking punches, blocks, and footwork that may seem odd. However, implement a training partner in front of that technique and the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor explaining the motion, and you’ll see these strange movements are usually grappling or trapping techniques. There is much more complexity in these traditional forms than most realize.

If one believes forms are pointless, do they believe shadow boxing is pointless? How about agility ladder drills? Or weight training in the gym? These all could be considered forms as they are performed for the same reason and have the same repetitive nature to “drill” a technique in you to develop your skill and body to perform the way you want it to. Most don’t correlate these drills with forms, but the reasoning and end results are the same. Yet shadow boxing, agility ladders, and weight training doesn’t get called out as “pointless”. How come?

I believe there are couple reasons for this. The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that most consider it the most boring part of martial arts training. There’s no one to hit or throw. There’s nothing to break or knock over. It’s just you and the air you’re punching and kicking. Even I fell to this boredom when I first started training in Taekwondo. I learned my forms to go up in rank. That was about it. I placed no additional effort into them beyond that. My focus was sparring and board breaking. It wasn’t until I was about a third-degree black belt that I began to look deeper into the forms I was training. The deeper I looked, the more fascinated and excited I was in learning and training them.

Another reason I believe that people may dislike forms or feel they are unimportant is a general dislike of traditional arts in recent years. I don’t recall any distain for forms when I was younger. But then again, I didn’t read comments on YouTube or Facebook back then! I believe the sudden popularity of MMA has led some people to look down on traditional arts to an extent. Rightfully so in some regard. There has always been so much B.S. in the arts. Stories such as knocking people out by making a gesture and not even touching them have run rampant until MMA provided a bit of a proving ground. A proving ground that these instructors either haven’t stepped foot in or have been beaten badly in if they did.

As usual, a few bad apples ruin the whole bunch. These shysters have led many to look down upon all traditional martial arts. And since forms training are a staple of many of these arts, they too get lumped into the distain. Lastly, I find those who train in arts that don’t make use of forms are usually much more vocal about not finding use in forms than those in arts that do. It’s understandable. If you are training and doing well without them, then they must be pointless.

However, that isn’t necessarily true. Usually, the arts that don’t make use of them are grappling arts. My Hapkido program doesn’t make use of forms and I really have no interest in implementing them to that art. While it might be useful, forms training is more useful for those that focus on the striking elements than grappling. It would definitely help the footwork though! I see this with my Hapkido students that begin training in Taekwondo. Their footwork and balance noticeably increase due to the forms they practice. That’s a lot of training though. Most just don’t have time for all of that. Efficiency is important. The benefits of adding forms training in, while very beneficial, doesn’t equal out for most students due to the amount of time required to implement this aspect.

In this same vein, that which you do not do must not be useful. The “my group is better than your group” mindset. If you only train with a sword, you don’t find much use in using nunchuks. If you are a grappler, you don’t see the need for striking. If you are a striker, you don’t find much use for grappling. It’s all ignorant, most of us know it, but we still feel that way. It’s an unfortunate mindset, but it’s engrained in us through evolution. Our clan is great, that other clan is the enemy. It is what it is.

Note that not all forms are from ancient development. Many are fairly recent. I know many instructors that have developed their own forms. I’ve developed one myself for my association. While most forms have some set guidelines, such as starting and stopping in the same spot or making sure you perform the technique on your left and right, they don’t have to. There doesn’t need to be any rules at all. A set of self-defense techniques strung together is all a form is.

Understand that the main purpose of forms training is to develop your skills and condition your body for self-defense movements. You can turn the forms into a meditative practice for your mind. You can use it to burn calories in more enjoyable way. You can use them to help you understand and recall the history and culture of the art you are training. You can use them for competitions to win trophies. All of these things and more are perfectly fine. Just don’t forget their main purpose. To condition you for self- defense movements. Forms training is far from pointless.