Fighting Theorie and Practice

[German Bai Lung]

Here goes this theme once again! :D But first: I will try to share some thoughts first and later make some personal notes. Not because i want to proclaim how good I am ( in fact I know there are a lot of people here who are better in skill and knowledge) but just to show that there is some kind of experience!

Thoughts first:

Fighting with traditional chinese martial arts especially Mantis Styles are always very dangerous! ALWAYS! In the latest MQ there is a good example from WHF to this case.
So, most of your training ( and I bet just every teacher here will do this!) is drills, forms and their applications and once more drills. So you gain skills with the techniques of Mantis. So far so good.

But there are more skills to gain: I call them basic fighting skills. BASIC!
I mean with this term: reaction, timing, eye for the distances, overview, be in control of basic defense and offense techniques and of course to control your body and mind (for example: not being afraid to hit + to get hit, control emotions, control your moves etc)!

To gain fighting skills there must be more than drilling techniques! You must fight! Okay. Now you can go out and fight on the streets... you don´t want to? Okay, I neither.

So you can fight with your Students or with your Kung Fu Brothers. In the best case you kick some a$$ and show whats mantis about. But in the worst case (and remember murphy! its everytime time for the worst case!) you lose some students, you hurt seriously your kung fu brother or go to hospital for some weeks and not be able to teach anymore ...
Don´t tell me that this could not happen! As you all know Mantis is about kicking in the groin, locking arms and legs, throwing, throat graps, eye piercing etc ...

I myself come to the following schedule:
To gain basic fighting skills the beginner trains with safeties lightcontact sparring. If he gets better the fighting goes to semicontact ( I understand semi as more contact than light!). Next there is the advanced and he MUST train fighting with no gloves for controlling his actions. In this fight I don´t want to see some applications done with no or less contact. It´s a freefight situation with emphasis on technical and controlled behaviour!
Also a advanced student could train fullcontact with big gloves and full safeties! Thats very important to gain the skill of performing hits and kicks with full power and not to lose control of ones actions! Or being afraid of hiting the oponent!

Personal Notes (now here they come!):
I don´t care at all when some of the fighting done by me or my students looks (for the untrained eye) like kickboxing!
Kickboxing is of course a good fighting art and got a lot of things cammon with chinese Martial arts! It´s kicking and boxing! Yeah, for the beginning it´s okay. Later there will be more and more Mantis ...

From the first days of my teachingtime I fight with my students. I learned and they learned. I went through all kind of fighting: Light, Full Contact, with and without safeties. Technical and without any techniques ... ( ;) )
In my first days of teaching a very experienced Kickboxer joined and stayed untill today. We fought often and he was better than me not only because he was taller and more experienced in fighting. He also addopted the good mantis stuff very quick and was able to choose from his very fast and good kicks for longer range and could uses also Mantis in the infight. It was a hard time for me! But I survived ;) Now he is one of my best friends ... and still my student.

My school was visited by all kind of trained fighters: boxers, Karatekas, Kickboxers, Taekwondokas ... some came in to see what we did and to fight. Some to train. Some went away - some stayed.
Since now noone appeared and leaved not being impressed. Noone has beaten me or my top student Paul. That could be changed at any time - I know that, but it shows to me that my fighting abilities are not that bad and I know what I am speaking of. I still fight with my students, new ones and older ones and sometimes I get hurt.
I make that notes just to show: I know what I´m talking about.
But I am very open to everyone who maybe knows someting more or better!

I hope everyone could follow this text allthough it´s written in very poor english! Looking forward to good responses!

[Tieh]

Good to know that you emphasise fighting a lot!:)

And I didn't know about any specific leg locking techniques in 7*yet.
???

Best regards

[Oso]

Good post and, imo, not a grandstand.


A good methodology for learning to fight.

I would only add that at some point competition is necessary. While you can certianly get a case of nerves going up against your teacher or an older brother/sister, you need to get the experience against someone who really does have the intent to beat you within the context of the rules.

A mantis fighter should be able to enter any sparring contest and have as good a chance as anyone else...they just have to learn the ruleset. Due to proximity, or lack there of, of good kung fu venues, I'm going to be encouraging my students who want to fight to enter some of the karate meets that happen within an hour or two of here.

[mantis108]

Hi Tieh,

First a short note on Chin Na, grappling, or specifically in this thread leg locks. As fas as I am aware, there are such things in 2 men form such as Tau Jie (steal & intercept) in 7 stars. In CCK TCPM we don't have that particular form but we do those in our Sau Fa. In the context of form, those Chin Na techniques presentation are unique; but in the context of technique attribute, they aren't exclusive to 7 Stars PM or any MA style for that matter.

Back to GBL's post:

I must say that I am pretty much on the same path and for the most part on same both boat with GBL right down to the student coming and going. So I can easily relate to his thoughts.

Some people think that only "masters" have the "RIGHT" to teach and masters have no business in fighting because they are well honed killing machine. BTW, that also mean that they are already the total package that need not to learn anymore. That is secrat to point that is like devine law to great number of "believers". In real life, great masters are great learners. They might not learn from another person (although that happens all the time) but they learn from nature. Not only that they share their ideas and would test the ideas not always in hostile situations. Anyway, enough of the rant.

I have trained and met different great teachers. My first teacher and couple other "mentors" all believed in hit fast and hit hard. They have always maintained that I am being a small physique person isn't going to be "effective" at least in the style(s) that they are doing. Then I met Galen and in turn met GM Chiu. They showed me otherwise. I saw in Mantis a methodical and systematic approach for even a small physique person can do. This doesn't take away from my first teachers but in fact boardening my own horrizon. I have always maintained that I am not a master but I teach because I wanted to improve my skills.

Lastly, I think it is a brave thing to admit defeats especially in public. Thank you for inspiring courage and sharing your thoughts.

Mantis108

[piotrj]

yes it is serius problem about injuries during free fighting. but if you want to get fighiting skills - you need to fight, no other way. of course people can practise only forms, basic training - for health, for fun etc. and that is ok. gong fu gives this because of forms for example. but now in many schools free fighting skills died, even in china. that is one of reason why old gong fu passing away.
but from the other hand if you decide to learn fight - you take risk. and because very important is to have good teacher, who knows how to learn with maximum safe and with good methods.

[German Bai Lung]

Thanks all for the responces!

Oso: you are right about competitions! There is more beneficial than bad about joining competitions!

Piotrj: yupp, I agree. And I want to note, that the methods can differ! There is not only one way to Beijing ehh Rome ...

Tieh: not only in Partnersets like Chyun Ji Doi Da there are leglocks. Go through each Handform and you can find some of them! E.G.: Stances can used to this sometimes pretty well!

[piotrj]

Originally posted by German Bai Lung
Thanks all for the responces!

Piotrj: yupp, I agree. And I want to note, that the methods can differ! There is not only one way to Beijing ehh Rome ...



yes of course, many ways but same direction is ok. for me.
i found my in Yantai actually :) , not Beijing.