Tim,
I hope you dont mind- I have a few questions about your classes:
Do you have any kind of ranking system in your school? I noticed that you do not have separate classes for beginner and advanced students. Do you have a fixed curriculum or is the training more indivdual?
Also I noticed that your classes are only one hour, can you fit technique conditioning and sparring into every class?
Do you find that not teaching lots of forms leads to a higher drop out rate of students?- it seems to me that students nowdays get bored very quickly if they are not constantly learning new things!

Hi David,

The only ranking system in my academy is the standard BJJ system. There is a fixed curriculum in the sense students start with basics and work their way up to more advanced techniques, but individuals will progress at different speeds.

Group classes are all two hours long. There is about 20 minutes to a half hour of conditioning, about 45 minutes to an hour of stand up training (striking and takedowns) and 45 minutes to an hour of ground fighting (including sparring). We spar about 20 minutes to a half hour each class.

There are literally hundreds of techniques to learn. I think my students would get bored quickly if they were forced to spend their class time learning forms instead of practical fighting skills and sparring.

Yes, I see. Thank you for the information.

Tim,

How do you include ba gua, tai ji, and hsing i in the above description of shen wu classes? Do students circle walk and do other types of classical training?

No. There is no forms practice. We do conditioning exercises relevant to the kickboxing, wrestling and grappling I teach.

The stand up portion of class does include a few techniques from the internal styles.

Interesting. So does this basically mean that you are running a mixed martial art school with underlying "internal" principles such as whole body power and not using force against force?

Is your take on the martial arts that any given style can look like anything or doesn't necessarily have to look like a particular something in order to be the principles of that style?

Timber,
Have you read Tim's website? A lot of your questions would be answered if so, perhaps, I think.
Cheers
Jake

oh good. If you've read the website you must know the answers. You might still have time to modify your origional post. Hurry!

I know the answers as they have been taught to me, by my teacher....Tim Cartmell.

"So does this basically mean that you are running a mixed martial art school with underlying "internal" principles such as whole body power and not using force against force?"

Basically this is correct.

My belief is there are, in actuality, no "styles" at all, just various methods and strategies of generating and applying force. The artifice of creating labels is for convenience (or marketing).

Well put. Tim.

I agree.

Two arms, two legs, and the laws of physics.

...but if someone wants to learn the classical forms, applications and training methods, Tim delivers. These days he's only teaching the 'internal styles' in private classes because it was difficult to keep group classes going.

Unfortunately, the majority of folks who seek classes in Tai Ji Chuan, Xing Yi Chuan and Bagua Zhuang, become disallusioned when they realize the traditional excersises are hard and they'll need participate in non-cooperative sparring periodically to internalize their training.

Interestingly, folks who want to learn to fight well (the art of martial combat) have little intrest in spending training time learning forms and meditation.

Tim teaches people to fight well.
(several of Tim's MMA students also study IMA with him- they are usually the ones who can hit the hardest and last the longest.)

Shane

Any elementary teaching jobs in orange county?

is that a crack at my spelling and grammar?

No, Shane!

I want to move close Tim...and be one of his "disiples".

Seriously, you hear of any Jobs that an elementary school teacher can do with a M.A. let me know.

That, I don't know. But you may find a lucrative 'tutoring' opportunity in Orange county. There are tons of affluent families who,if nothing else, will pay someone to occupy their kids for a few hours a day.

Throw an add up on Craigslist and see if you get any replies.

Good luck.

Shane