How easily can you separate the form and training of each style after learning multiple arts?

Excellent question!

Now you're getting it, I think.

MMA bastardizes this process when trained as MMA. The people who say, "I do MMA" have no concept of the MAs being Med. So, as usual, since I'm excited by this question, I'm going to answer it in stream of thought.

Form: Yes, posture, gesture, gait, but aren't these principles? We train for deep postures, but do we fight with them? Our adrenaline makes them responses, not postures! Everything transitional.

Multiple arts. But really only one: J-jutsu. Everything else is BS! Your method is derived from your experience. Call it what you want, it's nothing! Zero! Null! Void! Principle in raw aether.

Separate the forms to study. Shu: Learn the form. Ha: Make the form yours. Ri: Destroy the form. Everything is principle. Return and repeat with new understandings. The form, the technique, the principle, all are within you. They are lessons. You are the delivery mechanism. Mind as the warhead.

Fight with principles: Appear as nothing, there should be nothing to see because you're doing nothing. Move and wait for windows and gifts. Unwrap presents and discard! Each moment like 1000 christmases. Or 125 Chanukahs.

Taijutsu, Taijiquan, Systema, Karate, Taekwondo, judo, hwarangdo, kung fu. All nothing. Lessons. Only lessons. All teaching the same principles, deep down. Balance, angle, distance, timing... Some call it chi/qi/ki. All the same. Let go. Let go of everything. The way is found in death. Death of the way? Death of the ego? Death of understanding, of the mind?

Too many minds! Let go, let principle become reflex, let reflex become action, let action take the place of mind. It's not you that fights, but the beast within. Shin (kokoro) – the heart/mind. Mu-shin, Zan-shin... No! fudo-shin!

Methods don't exist. You lean only in your mind. There's only the way – principle above all things until Zero. It's the same. Don't be concerned where, just -that-.

All are just intersecting paths up the mountain. Forget the mountain. Zero is the cloud above the mountain. Zero is moving. Zero is nothing!

Judo is good for quick takedowns. But I would recommend Karate. This is because the fight last for about a minute or a bit longer. It has many takedowns some similar to judo and aikido, but it use punches and kicks as well. Unlike most other martial arts you need strength in each of your punches and kicks, this way its good for multiple opponent since you won't be wasting any moves. If your thinking martial arts can be learn't in a year or two, think again. By that time you will learning only the basics still. Yes, someone can teach you to fight in about a year or two, but a person how has the proper training of martial arts will be a lot better then a person who has only learn't to fight. Well I'm just talking form my experience its up to you to decide

"every style has their own unique way of fighting"

Not THAT unique. Most martial arts, at their core, are very similar. Every system incorporates the centerline in training, some just don't point it out like, say, Wing Chun does. Every grappling system has some form of hip throw, every striking system has some straight thrust, every system with submissions has an upward arm lock ("Americana" in BJJ parlance). The differences most of the time are subtle, and could be equated to the personal differences individual practitioners of the same style might have.

The key is understanding WHY a system does things a particular way. Then, as an individual, we can begin to use those separate pieces as we see fit.

If you're transmitting a system, stick to the "way" the system does things. For practical self defense, do what you're most comfortable with. Personal experience and comfort level trump trusting in something you're not comfortable with, or that hasn't been proven to you in practice.

It has been very difficult for to separate from old training and transition into my new (relatively) chosen style. I will find myself falling into Kali footwork when under pressure, which is no good for what I'm trying to do. There have been different aspects of other styles that have shown up during my training, my feet turned the wrong way and weight distribution wrong from TKD is one example.

I don't know if it's possible for me to maintain a catalogue of multiple styles. Right now I'm trying to lose all the old training and replace it with what I'm studying.

Well i say it depends on how long you've done one style and how different is the new one from the old one. For instance,a kick from a muay thai practitioner is vastly different from one by a taekwondo practitioner. If you were to try to learn taekwondo after muay thai, you may find it very hard to adapt into the taekwondo style of kicking and will end up probably kicking like you did in muay thai. Muscle memory is very hard to unlearn.

I never sreally studied anything but shotokan, but dabbled in several things. Kata, etc is no problem to seperate. But when it hits the fan, and it has done several times, I just do what I do, and there is no seperation, or need for it. We each use what works best for us, hence a guy 5'2" would look much different in action from a guy 6'2" after having the very same 50 years of training. What happens in dire circumstances is what you have trained into yourself to happen. I do not know what to call it when it happens, but to most it doesn't look like karate is "supposed" to look, but I know there are elements of several things, all mixed up...hey, I'm a mixed-up martial artist!

What OC Bujinkan said...

If you look at, for instance, high level aikido practitioners, they never really assume a formal stance (unless during formal training). Instead, they stand relaxed without any real form (shi-zentai, if I'm not mistaken). Also, one Yoshinkan shihan I met several times likes to emphasize how instead of doing "aikido", an aikidoka should strive to do what would to him or her be "my aikido"; this particular shihan's demonstration of "his aikido" that followed looked nothing like the formal aikido techniques he spent half a day teaching us, but the principles were there.

I guess this is why senior martial artists from classical schools tend to advise their students to put off cross training until much later. When you are still at "shu" in your first art and you're already trying to cram in something entirely different, it ends with a mixed bag of overlapping concepts. But if you're already at "ri", or at least "ha", you can more easily make all of the styles you learn your own. Also IMO, leaning towards one particular art when studying several is only natural.

I think the formal atmosphere of traditional dojos and the relatively strict rules concerning etiquette and tradition (mushin, anyone?) also help. When I started cross-training in judo, one thing that helped me "suppress" my aikido habits was a sense of respect for the art of judo and for my sensei, and my desire to actually learn judo instead of simply wanting to "complement" my aikido training.

I'm not familiar with how MMA practitioners train, but I remember reading some of judomofo's and Keyboard Warrior's explanations how in a good MMA training program, students would train in several distinct styles, and later on attend classes that focus on using skills from all of the individual styles in a more dynamic environment (the actual "MMA" class). Again, I have no experience with this, but IMHO this concept is not really THAT different from what appears in most traditional arts:

In judo, for instance, you'll learn throws, holds and chokes, counters (usually) separately. And then in randori/shiai sessions, you learn how to utilize all of these technique groups against an opponent. Or in aikido, you'll learn throws, joint-locks, ushiro-waza, combination attacks, etc., separately, then the sensei (after too many hours spent watching "The Path Beyond Thought", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283537/ ) calls for a Steven Seagal-style multiple uke randori where you will learn (the hard way, of course) how to utilize all of those individual skill-sets against three of your buddies who would like nothing better than to sit on you while you squirm uncomfortably while your sensei looks on.