Attn: Kai Uwe Pel and students. Training methods and sparring question

[Brad]

Just figured I'd start my own thread for this, since the other one appears on the outs.

Do you guys do any hard sparring with people from other schools(or amongst yourselves)? For example, if someone from another system were visiting Shanghai and wanted to feel what your mantis was like, would you(or any of your students) spar against them?

[Brad]

Anyone else, feel free to write about how you train application too(two man drills? light sparring? hard sparring? etc.)

[Crushing Step]

When I had my initial taste of mantis, it was in a very public setting. We kept a lot of stuff set aside for later closed door sessions, but we sparred publicly. I've been able to test my skill with boxers, wrestlers karate guys, and other styles of kung fu.

One thing you need to be wary of is the rules you are using to touch hands with. If someone were to be forced into a strict set of rules they are not used to (boxing, point karate, olympic tkd, mixed martial arts, wrestling, puch hands, sticky hands) they won't fare as well as someone in that system.

For example, I've out grappled high school wrestlers plenty of times. They are great at takedowns, but that is where my fight is just getting interesting.

Another example is a mantis guy I knew had a tae kwon do guy touch hands with him in a modified sticky hands format. The tkd guy was lost, and because of it, looked the fool. The mantis guy then was able to brag about how good his system was.

I might sound like I am making a case for mma as the supreme test. Well yes and no. I disagree with much of the current mma community as it stands right now, and I hope to not get too off topic and start a fight there. On the other hand, I have been saying for some time now that mantis was mma before it was cool. Wang Lang's thought process was probably much like Bruce Lee, in taking all these systems and making a practical fighting system out of it.

That's all I got...

_J

[SevenStar]

technically, that's not what mma is - I see what you're saying though.

[yu shan]

Guess there not going to bite... bow wow wow

[Brad]

Thanks, I found one of the threads: Sparring (http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30532&perpage=15&highlight=sparring%20cant%20see%20the%20wood%20for %20the%20trees&pagenumber=1)

It was interesting read on the purpose and goals of martial arts(specficially mantis, but relevent for other trad. styles too, I think), but there really wasn't much hard info there about training though. Thanks anyway :)

[mantis7]

Brad I dont see Pel answering any of these post. he will post what he needs to post and ignore the ones that actually try to lure him out of his cave. He seems to be well adept at the political game and knows where to answer and where to not answer. Just like a good fighter he will smile at you while dilevering the killing blow.

Cheers
Victor