Has anyone used CLF in a street fight.

[Arhat of Fury]

If so, what techniques did you use? How did you employ them(feints,misdirection)
Did the opponent even come close to standing a chance?

How long had you trained at that point?

I'd be interested in hearing you experiences.

Amitoufu,

AOF

[Arhat of Fury]

tttt

Am I seeing things clear, all this vast knowledge of CLF in this forum and no real life situations to supplement the training.:D

[Sow Choy]

Arhat,

I was jumpednot long ago, I am not very proud to have been in a street fight, a smart man avoids those. Anyway, I used gwa-jik choy and gwa-sow choy mostly. There were 5-6 people, 1st one hit me from behind, the rest just started kickin and punchin me, I used the above technique and was able to get them off me. One of them fell, and I busted one's nose.

I am lucky to be alive

[Arhat of Fury]

Sow Choy,
Didnt mean to glorify fighting, in fact I am the same- If its avoidable- I avoid it. I am just curious to see where the bar is and here is why;

When we train we spar and do 2 man drills and we get better. Likewise the people we are training with are getting better, so in light of this we/I have this persona in my head that one day when I do have to protect myself, these people will be as skilled as my brothers. I know never to underestimate and overestimate your opponent for that matter but I am curious to see what some of our experiences have been like for the practitioners on this board. It makes the day go by faster:rolleyes:

Glad to hear you made it out on top.....by on top I mean alive!.

Amitoufu,

AOF

[extrajoseph]

Arhat,

When we talk about our experience, it sounds we are boasting sometimes and naturally we don't want to tell people the bad ones, so we are reluctant to come forward. But since you asked. I had 3 successful street fights.

The first time was with a security guard. I used Chiu Sou Dan Lan and threw the guy yards away before I took off. I had about 6 years of training then.

The second time was in a crowded railway station against a gang of about 5 or 6 people. My back was against the wall at one stage, I fought my way through with Gaw, Pun, Sow, Dang Toi and Chair Son Dat Choy. I just keep rolling them out and I remembered taking a full flying kick on the chest and the guy fell backward while I kept running. I had about 8 years training then.

The last time was with a taxi driver, he threatened me with a spanner, I looked and talked him out of it after he took a swing at me. I used Dil Ma to step back and Bon Sou to step in to control his arm holding the spanner. It was pure control, no running and no damage. He knew that I was in command and I know what I was doing. I had more than 15 years of CLF then. After that I try not to get into any sticky situations if I can help it.

But as a young person, it is good to have some street fights and I remebered I did actively looked for them at one stage. Fortunately I was never hurted too badly. I think it was because I trained hard and did a lot of repetitions.

You will be surprised how the CLF techniques you learned and repeated in training do actually come back to you and become handy when you needed them. I was quite surprised the first time when it worked for me. The experience is very different to tournament fighting.

JosephX

[Arhat of Fury]

Thanks extraj,
Its always a pleasure hearing the insights of a seasond veteran of CLF!

Amitoufu,

AOF

[alecM]

Out of the few street encounters I've had this one always haunts me mainly because it was a totally unprovoked and the attack came totally out of the blue. I twenty years old at the time and had been training in CLF for only eight months and was on a night out with my four of mates when for some reason we were jumped a group of nine blokes. To this day I don't know why we were singled out, but to cut a long story short I was set upon by three of then for the love of me I found I couldn't hit any of then but when they tried to hit me my foot work immediately kicked in cross step, back step and side stepping to avoid getting hit. Three people tying to beat the crap out of me and I only got hit once. This incident actually encouraged me to stick with CLF.

[Eddie]

Arhat,
As the others said, its not nice to talk about street fights, especially not the one we could not use our kung fu to well.

I was in one situation little over a year ago, where I used Gwa Cum. It worked well. Also Charng Fu sweep always work. I must say, the threat level was'n't that high, so it might have been little different if the oponent was more aggresive and more serious.
Untill December, I did allot of ring fighting (thaiboxing and san shou), and I must say, that the technique that never fails, is the charng fu (sow Gerk). You have to line the guy up of course, but it is still such a great take down technique. It always work. After you do the charngfu, you have enough time to run :)

The ones we dont talk about, well....
I was held up 3 times (about 7 years or so back).
I worked at a local all night Video Shop while at varsity, and the place got held up a few times).
Twice I was held up with an AK47, and Once with a Home made pipe gun (a very dangerous weapon for both parties). These were all from a slight distance, so there was nothing I could have done, not that I really intended to do so. When an AK (or any other gun for that matter) is involved, I become like a slave to his master. I was also stabbed, but that wasn't to serious (thought the scar makes for good amusement at parties :) ). I wish I could tell you that my kung fu helped in these cases, but I cannot lie. When you are being held up with a gun, you just pray that the Bu%%ers dont kill you.

We have allot of crime here (I Suppose like most developing countries). There is Allot of car highjackings. A friend of mine at the police told me that lately, the car jackers dont just kill the drivers, they first RAPE them. MEN and WOMAN. This is no **** sexual act, it is a complete act of violence and also to humiliate the men. The problem is (accoring to the police man), that only about 15% of the MEN who get raped and then survive, report it to the police.

It is a strange world we live in
Eddie

[Arhat of Fury]

Thanks for your reply everyone. I know talking about these events is not the easiest thing but sometimes its good to share to learn from eperiences people have. I plants a seed anyway.

Well, heres mine- I was at a local nightclub in the San Fran area(visiting for a bachelor party and wedding) We were all having a good time some of us drinking and some of us not. There was some tension in the air when we arrived(group of 10) While Im out on the dance floor apparently my bros were threatened by another group and began to squab, the fight continued outside, when I got there it was pretty efven matched up and some of my friends had the upper hand and some didnt. I began to assist the ones that had the lower hand and I pretty much continued through the crowd with a thrust kick, back kick, gwa sau, stepping forward backwards bien to roundhouse. All in all we were lucky, the help that I gave my bros was enough for them to control their opponents until they left. Some say that those were cheap shots and I agree, but when it comes to the ones I follow the couplets which one of them teach us if you have to fight, fight with no mercy.

Any way, with that I have also received my share of beat downs alothough I wasnt training at that time.

Amitoufu,

AOF

[Fu-Pow]

The story of the "real" drunken style CLF......

Well a few years back, must be 3 or 4 now I had a New Year's eve party at my parents house. I must of been 21-22 years old. (Let me state right now that it was a horrible idea to begin with, I can't believe my parents every let me do it.) It was a joint party with my brother and his friends who are a few years younger.

Anyways, the party started out great. But in this day and age of cell phones things can quickly get out of hand. Next thing I know there are like 200 people there. In the mean time I had been drinking anything that anyone put in my keg cup. (That was the second bad idea.)

So the parties raging and I'm in the basement. Next thing I know my younger brother is coming up to me (he's drunker than me by this point) and says something about somebody trying to kick in my parents front door. I could hardly believe my ears.

I ran upstairs and sure enough someone was kicking hard on my parents very expensive hard wood doors. Hard enough that it started splitting the wood. ( It turned out later that some uninvited guests had shown up and someone had locked the door and not let them in. They decided kicking in the door was a way to show there appreciation.) So I flung open the door to see 3 or 4 youths standing outside yelling insults at me. At this point a crowd had gathered behind me.

At this point do to all the booze I had drunk, and the adrenaline and the my intense anger I literally blacked out. (Later I heard that I'd attacked these guys with some sort of Tiger claw techniques.) Next thing I remember I'm getting pushed to the ground by one of these guys, but I fall back into a kneeling horse stance and put my hands up around my head.

I can feel body blows from these 3 guys but I they aren't really landing anything damaging. All of sudden I stand up and the arms just start flying. I instantly clear a space around my self. The guy in front of me gets the brunt of the attack I just keep doing gwa-kup, gwa-kup on his back and back of his head.

At this point my buddies had caught wind of what was going on jumped in. The perpetrators ran off at this point.

All though I wasn't very proud of the fact that I was doing "drunken" kung fu, my CLF skills really came through. It easily could have turned into something much worse if I'd been pushed to the ground and was kicked and punched.

[alecM]

Eddie
In my computer class at college, I sit next to, a South African guy. He told me he had to move from South Africa to the UK because he was sick of being shot at. Most of his other reasons for leaving were mentioned in were it your post.

[JAZA]

I haven't been in a real big fight, my ugly face:mad: keep the bad guys apart.
But I agree that it's very dangerous to go looking for fight in this days of high armed gangs, no kung fu technique against bullets.

[premier]

Didn't you see Matrix?? hehe. ok ok. I'll shut up.

Still waiting to get in action with my CLF. Hopefully it won't happen any time soon.


premier

PS. There's a bullet dodging technique in 18 lohan hands form or at least it looks like it ;)

[Eddie]

Alec,
we are in the transitional period of our history, so one could imagine that there will be allot of problems like xenephobia (hope the spelling is ok) and racism, not so much black vs white, but rather between different ethnic groups (remember we have 11 official languages). There seems to be allot of underlying anger in everyone. I think this will phase out within the next few generations. I also think my son will eventually live in a violent free South Africa. Violence is just to be expected in our society, concidering our history, but I doubt that it will continue like this into the future.

Despite of the very bad economy and the terrible crime rate , we still live in one of the most beautiful places on earth :). I can tell you, that living in Africa, is certainly an interesting experience.

Alec, You must come visit us sometime. It will only cost you your air ticket. The Accomodation and food will be on me.

Sorry, my spelling sux.

[mysteri]

though my style is jow ga, to the untrained eye the movements and strategy may seem similar. my biggest problem w/ WC is trying to stay on the chase! whenever i've sparred WC, it's been hard for me to get in b/c of their kicks to the legs. u really gotta move around on ur feet and no attack straight on for too long. had we been goin NHB, i doubt a fight w/ WC would go more than a few seconds. someone will screw up and the other would be right there to capitalize. what other problems does WC have w/ CLF cuz i can't seem to get any answers? not to insult anyone, but i like to know for when i spar these guys, or god forbid worse. jus my 2 cents.

[mysteri]

yes, there's dim mak in the jow ga cirriculum. i was under the impression that all kung fu had some sort of dim mak and chin na in the cirriculum. but @ a novice level, the focus of jow ga looks similar to CLF. we use the footwork and mainly long range techniques to enter and devastate, continually taking the opponents center if its not taken already. we also make use of the strong stances and hung ga like bride arms when we're attacked close range, breaking the opponents bridge. btw- have u ever sparred muay thai? what kind of experiences do you guys encounter against them? what weaknesses have you uncovered? i jus laugh @ most of the obvious high kicks. i like to take their center while they're attempting to kick. anyone else? jus my 2 cents.

[NorthernMantis]

5 to 6 people!?!? Hey sowchoy I thought it was 3.Man yoou should have taken me along we could have gone Rush Hour on the lot.;)

Just kidding.Hey check your e-mail later on.I need to talk to you about the St. Pete tournament pretty soon.

[mysteri]

empty cup:
i think i might have come off wrong. i meant no disrespect to muay thai fighters. i jus think that as a whole, they're over-rated. i've come across some good ones and not so good ones, but then of course that also almost every style i've come into contact w/. of course, professional muay thai are second to none. i myself wouldnt even taunt one of those guys! but as ameture and individual ones, why not? then again, i'm sure if there were a professional kung fu curcuit, u might see some of our greatest guys exposed, too! i've heard about that kick you're talkin about before, those kicks are wicked! but that doesnt make the fighters invincible. they, IMHO, are true examples of one of my favorite quotes:"fear not the man who's learned one thousand techniques; but fear the man who's practiced one technique a thousand times!" jus my 2 cents.

[mysteri]

to be honest, i researched muay thai terminology before, but i can't remember the reference nor did i take much care to learn the names of the techniques. if that kick is the one i think it is, one variation i saw went up to the head like a round kick then came crashing down on the collar bone/neck of the opponent, which usually knocks them right out! personally, i wouldnt even try to defend against it, but i'd jus rush anything that isnt round! but then again, maybe there's somethin i don't know and i'll get knocked out! :-D regardless, i try not to play patti-cake on the defense w/ them because i've competed vs them (luckily in mild freestyle kickboxing rules) and if they connect its brutal! had i been able to take out the legs, i would've used the thrust kicks to the legs and see how much of that they endure. then again, if THEY were allowed to kick to the legs, too..... i hate rules and i lose tryin to stick to them in the ring, i've learned my lesson! jus my 2 cents.

[Eddie]

Empty cup is right,
I think it doesn't really matter what style you do, the person who trains the hardest with the most focus will win any day. Most pro fighters spend about 4- 6 hours training, of which a good 2 hours or so would be on cardio, and stregnth training. If this guy had a background in karate, and does PRO thai or sanshou part time, there is no doubt he will be a better fighter (based on experience of course). In my experience, I would say that ring fighting also have more emphasis on fitness than on technique. I mean, it is more important to be very fit to last the rounds, than to know millions of set combinations.

The most important aspect of Martial Arts is that we are constantly learning. Not just about fighting (which in my opinion is the least of my interest) but about many other aspects of our physical being.

WC vs CLF. Both styles have pretty good techniques, but although I dont know much about WC (and I am still in a learning phase of CLF), I would say that CLF is more suited for me and my body type. I obviously prefer it over wc, and therefor I am inclined to think it is more superior (but as I said, in my expereience so far). My friend is a WC guy, and he is a pretty amazing fighter. We try to spar regularly, and I must say that by doing so, I get to learn so much without even realising.