Creating our (individual) style is a natural process. Everyone makes their style automatically. The statement is general but can be applied to any specific field. Martial art, combat sport, and self-defence are not exceptions. People who are practising fights, creating fighting styles. They are unconsciously (or consciously) creators of their fighting styles.
Whatever one is learning, only a part of it will be absorbed. The other part is going to be rejected automatically by selfhood. Moreover, every absorbed aspect will be accompanied by the person's uniqueness. The evolving individual fighting style is separated from the favourably practised traditional style. In other words, practising a conventional technique entails improving the invisible individual fighting (InFi) style.
For example, if someone is studying Wing Chun kung fu or Kyokushinkai karate, teachers control improvement according to the tradition. At the same time, behind the scenes, the InFi style is evolving automatically, according to the nature of the person in question. Then there will be two styles for each practitioner. One is traditional (socially directed), and the other is the natural individual fighting style. The conventional style is visible during the learning process or demonstration, and the InFi style reveals in unexpected situations only. For example, while a traditional style teaches 108 techniques in a rigid choreography, the personal style contains only 23 flexible techniques with their unique and personal taste and twist. Consequently, the individual styles are created, not learned.
But what if someone is making a new style from two or more combative systems with the intent of sharing, spreading and teaching, for example, for business. (Many traditional styles were born in this way.) That created style is not going to be InFi anymore. InFi style (personal combat style) is not reproducible since it is individual. Teaching one's style will be a corporate style with rigid rules and forms but not InFi. InFi is a living, ever-changing, and evolving personal style. Hence, in theory, there cannot be two same InFi styles - similarly as two men cannot be the same. In theory, the Individual Fighting style is inseparable from the owner.
In summary, my friends, think it over and be aware that whatever you are practicing (karate, kung fu, boxing, aikido, jiu-jitsu, krav maga, or mixed martial arts), it is on the conscious surface. It is the visible part. And behind it, there is your authentic InFi style evolving or dormant. InFi is not a school; InFi is your secret style. Nobody knows your InFi style better than you!
