How much strength is needed in the lower body to fight low to the ground? (long)

[fa_jing]

In many athletic endeavours, strength tests of varying sorts are commonly given to determine an athlete's readiness for the task at hand. For instance, the maximum rep bench press test with the 225 lb. barbell for 1st year college football players. It's the same with any other sport that relies on strength as one of its key components, as many Chinese martial arts styles do. Such are the less common styles that fight low to the ground. Please describe a test or milestone that you feel a competent fighter from the low position should be able to perform, in order to actually contend as effectively from a lower-stanced position as from a more raised position. Examples of the answers I am looking for would be:

"preform x situps"
sit in a horse stance for 1 hour
squat x pounds
etc etc etc! "hold 30 gallon clay jar overhead for 45 minutes"
:eek:

I am looking for answers from those forum members who are either more experienced with these kinds of styles, or know people who are and happen to know some kind of strength test that this fighter was able to perform.

I know that there are tons of you out there with stories of people that you knew were highly competent fighters from a fairly low stanced position or *transitional movement* ;). Some northern CMA styles as well as southern CMA styles rely very much on this plane of motion. As such a strength-intensive activity, there must be many milestones that a student is expected to acheive.
I can think of a sub-set of CMA and other martial arts that share this particular quality, even if nothing else. But to explore the subject further, I'd like to know if any of you would describe uniting factors or ties between different martial arts, rather that transcend the differences between martial arts,classified based on the use of low stances and transitional movements in a low plane? The first uniting factor is that they pretty much all require great lower body strength. Can anybody think of something else? It seems like it would be a good idea for a discussion.
Cheers

[Volcano Admim]

over-thinking
over-analysing

separates the body from the mind

[Laughing Cow]

Many CMA will judge you according to the quality of your horsestance, this is not just length of holding it.

Just going low and staying is not enough, you still need to be mobile and agile in your footwork.

Also when moving in low stance there should not be any lifting/lowering of the hips during stepping/weight shifting.

Atleast this is what we check for.

[fa_jing]

why, does that dissipate your force? It seems like a very stringent requirement, actually. I'd love to hear more about the principle of keeping your hips travelling in a level plane to the ground. Not all styles share this approach, although it seems to be mentioned frequently. I imagine it might change after contact?

Also, good points!

[Laughing Cow]

fa_jing.

I will ask my sifu for the exact reason next lesson and let you know.

Might have something to do with breaking the Qi flow or similar.

Maybe some of the Chen guys here know exactly why.

Funnily enough my Wife sez the same requirement applies during her aerobic lessons.

:D

[Cheese Dog]

When your hips raise as you throw a punch or kick it does 2 things--

1. It telegraphs your technique.
2. Some of your power is being used to raise your body rather than striking through your opponent.

[Oso]

we have a monkey form that has 3 specific levels of stances to it.
learn it in the highest posture, which is a good low 45 stance.
then as you get stronger, by doing the form again and again, you change the stance to a lower 60/40 type but more like 80/20 or 90/10.
The last level (one I'm not good at) has your butt almost touching the ground. very spidery in that your knees are so high.

in this form the stances are very transitory and occur very briefly between rolls.


but, you must do the roll and finish in the low stance. so the cadence is kinda like : low stance, a step or two in the low posture, roll, low stance, a step or two in the low posture (repeat)


this mid level form has always been our training tool and test for mobility in lower stances.

[Black Jack]

Silat Harimau systems use a lot of low to the ground fighting postures, footwork patterns, low line kicks, takedowns and groundfighting.

I don't know much about it yet but from what I have seen is that these gents have savage leg strength and endurance with a focusing on not just static strength but flowing into the attacker on a low line level, taking the attacker down, and keeping him there.

My Malay teacher who is in his mid 40's can do pistols like there is no freakin tommorow.

[fa_jing]

Cheese Dog - what about sinking, that doesn't use up your force. Also I am wondering if the same rule applies to defensive movements - where you may indeed want to dissipate a force.

Oso - would you say that if you can preform the monkey roll form with good posture and fluidly, that you would be able to use movements from the form? Approximately how long would it take to become proficient in this form? (it seems that it would take longer than many other forms, to learn, because of the uniqueness of this type of movement.)

Also, is this form more of a test of these abilities or more of a way to train them?


Black Jack - sounds interesting. Pistols are awesome. What are the leg positions like in the footwork? For instance are the heels flat, are the feet splayed out, etc. I imagine that this style has its own unique shape.

[Cheese Dog]

Fa-jing--sinking would add power, though I guess if your opponent KNOWS you use alot of sinking power during your strikes it could still be somewhat telegraphic.
During a defensive movement I think you would generally not want to raise your center of gravity but rather lower it instead. By sinking into your stance, even if it's only an inch or so, you could unbalance your attacker while being more rooted.
Of course, you can also use rising power to uproot/strike/throw your opponent, but you usually do that AFTER movement and footwork (with sinking) to unbalance him.

[Oso]

Oso - would you say that if you can preform the monkey roll form with good posture and fluidly, that you would be able to use movements from the form? Approximately how long would it take to become proficient in this form? (it seems that it would take longer than many other forms, to learn, because of the uniqueness of this type of movement.)

Yes, I would say they could be used. What I didn't talk about was the arm movements/applications combined with the footwork.
This is a takedown/throw form. The rolls can be the motive force behind the takedown combined with arm, leg and body(spine) locks. We also utilize the movements simple for evasion or escape. Referring back to the cadence I gave (which was not verbatim, btw) we generally look at each new technique starting from the recovered posture after the last roll. ''a step or two in the low posture'' would be used to close distance and the arms would be engaging the opponent and then the roll.

I learned the basics of this form in about 2 months, it's actually pretty short, only about 16 sets of movements. It probably took me 2 years to get to where I felt like it was mine. If you push yourself to the lowest possible stances it is very taxing.

[Christopher M]

Having your hips "bob" while moving also keeps your COG unstale, both telegraphing and opening you up to being caught off-guard (eg. swept). Also, not bobbing your hips means you're forced to gain more motility of the lower back and hip creases, which is extraordinarily important all around. Also, not bobbing your hips contributes to connection; what would be a movement of the hip is instead conducted down to the feet or out to the hands.

But this is true for high stances too, which are better all around. :p

But, Volcano Admin is right... we're withering our intuition, missing opportunities.

[Black Jack]

My silats way of teaching Harimau is a bit different than other "styles" methods of teaching harimau which instead of a broken down seperate system of harimau tactics ours is laced throughout the structure of the whole.

Our style used to be called silat seni harimau gayong in the old days but the harimau part of the name was removed. I believe because a stylist took the harimau tactics out of our system and put together a set silat harimau style which he claimed as his own and my silat system elders wanted to distance themselves from the new harimau group.

Harimau means tiger in Indonesian and it tends to use ground hugging, squating, and crouching positions such as the tiger sitting position which has one knee on the ground. Movement is similar to how a tiger moves with a foundation of two feet and two hands.

Since you mentioned leg strength this style of fighting would very much apply. I can not wait to get more info on it in the future.

[Raatra]

Volcano Admin:
.........Tool.

[Christopher M]

There's a bit of harimau from mande muda silat shown in the mpeg here (http://www.pecahan.com/movies.html). Haven't seen anything else online about it.

[Black Jack]

Here is a pic of my teacher doing a bit of harimau. He does not have the mustache now.

http://www.ict-silat.com/harimau1.jpg

I don't know who is the next group but it looks like it is in Malaysia.

http://www.ict-silat.com/harimau5.jpg

Cheers

[Oso]

nice clip and pics.

done a smidge of silat from the WW line but not really that mutch at all.

the rolling kicks, sweeps and foot vs. leg knee bar shown in the vid clip are all in the monkey form I have been describing.

[Oso]

Also, is this form more of a test of these abilities or more of a way to train them?

missed this earlier

the form is meant to teach the ground movements and certain takedowns and throws. At least in our school, it became the form that, once you got it right, was the indicator for achieving a good level of leg strength.

[Christopher M]

Found a few more pics of some harimau here (http://www.silat-uk.org/id20.htm). It's an interesting idea... wish there was more info on it.

[yenhoi]

Black Jack:

What do you guys do for leg strength?

We have forms (juju or something?) and lots and lots of free play.

As in the Silat training.



:eek:

[Stranger]

jurus, not juju

[chen zhen]

reminds me of that movie, with "scorpion kung fu"..
harimau seems to be weird but cool.

cool (http://www.baringinsakti-silat.com/image2GK.JPG)

[Black Jack]

Yenhoi,

The conditioning for legs is really in the general training itself.

But to me specific, you get it in the Buah Tapak (grappling) aspect of the system, you get a bunch of it in the Tenggiling (basic evasion skills-monkey rolls) and the Harimau workings, the Bunga and Golongan form movements and of course the warm-up and end of class conditioning.

Examples would be things like kicking squats, pistols, stretching, jumping exercises like Lompatan Harimau (tiger rolling over the fence), plus we also do a lot of ab work and things like hindu pushups. A straight out Harimau style would be more intense with specific leg stuff. Our Harimau is spread over the course of the system and is within its entire framework. Kinda like if you sprinkled salt over a dish of food.

Now that I think about it the pic of my teacher above may be of him doing Harimau or a Buah Tapak body lock.

With us it is more about the spirit of the tiger than specific movements. By spirit I don't mean any animistic dogma but more about aggressive attacking and forward movement.

Cheers,