The first questions that might come into one's mind upon first starting to think about an analysis of Short Form Three might be, why and for what purpose? Isn't learning how to execute the form enough? And, is there really information in the form enough to warrant a need to analyze it?
First, if one has read this book up to this point or other books in this series, the answers to these and other similar questions would most likely be completely obvious. Regardless, it still does not negate the need to answer such questions directly. First, why and for what purpose? The short answer is to expose the information presented in Short Form Three. The longer and more general answer is to form a better understanding of the many concepts and defensive strategies that can be employed in self-defense via the demonstration of the maneuvers that comprise the forms in an organized and detailed manner. And in doing so, get a better understanding of American Kenpo, its composition and how it can be used in learning a diverse set of defensive (and offensive) strategies and tactics.
The above answer then leads directly into the next question about just learning the maneuvers. Isn't learning just the maneuvers enough? This can be answered using a couple of methods that SGM Parker used to employ. First, a saying: "he who knows what will always be the student - he who knows why will become the instructor." Second, SGM Parker used to demonstrate a slight hopping maneuver while high stepping slightly forward and ask, what is this? After students guessed a number of things or simply gave up, he would respond: "putting my pants on in the morning." What these two different illustrative approaches have in common is that they both expose the futility of learning motion without understanding its purpose. This statement is the same for the maneuvers of the forms. And to further drive this point home, one could answer the first two questions back with these questions: why learn the motions and for what purpose, if not to learn information about self-defense? And, once the first steps into learning the information is taken, why not take this road to it's logical end and continue to learn all the information presented, not just the superficial information? And further, use this information into additional exploration; which may then lead into more discoveries and broadened horizons.
Again, this answer leads directly into the final question: is there really enough information for analysis? The short answer is, yes. But, the longer answer should be a question about marital arts and what exactly it is. From the American Kenpo perspective, martial arts is the study of human motion as it relates to defensive and offensive maneuvering, with the goal of understanding, internalizing and perfecting of said motion and information. And, one of American Kenpo's major tenets is to provide a structured approach to understanding motion by breaking it down into teachable principles, rules, theories, concepts, definitions, methods, and maneuvers. One problem with this approach to marital arts is that there is a large volume of said information. And, understanding and internalizing this vast subject can take many years of practice and many iterations of informational review and discovery. Most practitioners anticipate and commit to the years it takes to perfect the motions and maneuvers. But, too many practitioners never fully internalize a large percentage of the information and usually stop exploring for new information at some point in their journey. The information presented in this chapter, this book, and the whole book series, is intended to be a large step into helping the practitioner in both these endeavors.
Where to start with analysis?
Being that Short Form Three is not the first American Kenpo form, one should first understand that Short Form Three is not the ideal place to start one's analysis into American Kenpo forms. One should at least be exposed to some of the important information presented in the previous forms, before taking on an in-depth analysis of Short Form Three. One thing to note, though, is that Short Form Three is the first advanced (i.e., Encyclopedic) form, and the information that is exposed in this form is not always directly analogous, but is always complimentary, to the information of the lower forms. In other words, Short Form Three starts down new paths of informational exploration that is not present in the lower forms, but does continue to advance and expand upon the previous information. With that being said, in order to start an analysis of Short Form Three, one must first answer two simple questions:
1)What exactly is it that is being analyzed?
2)What is the intended purpose of the analysis?
What is being analyzed?
The obvious answer is Short Form Three is being analyzed. But what exactly is Short Form Three? In the most fundamental terms, Short Form Three is a set of related self-defense techniques executed in a specific series and pattern to create a form. But, what is the purpose of creating a form? As mentioned earlier in this guide, American Kenpo forms are not to be thought of as simply a choreographed fight between the practitioner and (an) imaginary opponent(s) for demonstration purposes. American Kenpo forms are defined as:
A predefined series of maneuvers that:
1)show the rules and principles of motion,
2)that everything has a reverse and an opposite,
3)by giving examples of this tenant
Provided with the above information, one can move on to the second question posed.
What is the intended purpose of the analysis?
Again, the obvious answer is to expose the information presented in Short Form Three. But, what information is being exposed? From the definition of a form derived above, one can refine their analysis to concentrate on the three elements that compose the definition. But, one notable difference from the analysis of the previous forms is that, those forms mainly concentrated on number two (#2) and number three (#3) of the definition where Short Form Three shifts it's major focus more toward number one (#1) and number three (#3) of the definition. This does not mean the lower form analysis did not include number one (#1) in it's analysis, just that the preponderance of the information fell into number two (#2) and vice-versa.