Sanda in southern california?

[Yougottawanna]

Hi, I just started an account here. I've been looking for places to train in Sanda in the southern california area. I'm having trouble searching on the web, since the only places I can find on the web are in other areas of the country.

If not Sanda, then I'd also be interested in something with similar rules (ie, both striking and takedowns are allowed). I've been told that there's a similar format called "shootboxing," but that seems to only exist in Japan.

I also am not really sure what the difference is between "sanda" and "sanshou," so if there's a sanshou gym somewhere in Southern California I'd be interested in that too. Basically, I'm looking for anyplace that trains striking and takedowns together.

[bigdoing]

What part of southern california are you in?
LA or Orange County

[DragonzRage]

If you're looking in the LA area, you might be SOL. I looked around pretty diligently awhile back and didn't find a single gym that seriously trains fighters for Sanda in this area. I talked to a few kung fu teachers who claimed to have had students enter some Sanda tourneys, but none of these schools had anything resembling serious Sanda training. You gotta remember that just because a teacher occasionally throws his kung fu students into the ring (or lei tai) so that they can, in all likelihood, get abused by trained fighters doesn't make him a Sanda trainer. I think there may have been one school on the westside that offered kung fu, san shou, and muay thai lessons but they didn't seem to have any fighters over there. Still if you're really looking for Sanda technique, I suppose they'd be better than nothing. Too bad I don't remember the school name or exact location (sorry :( ).

Bottomline is that LA isn't really a hotbed of Sanda gyms. But before you get too discouraged keep in mind that there's plenty of MMA here :D

[Yougottawanna]

I live in San Diego actually. Right now I train at City Boxing, which is a gym here. Sanda just caught my eye, mostly because I saw some Cung Le clips. It seems to make a lot of sense to me to train striking and takedowns together.

Unfortunately, I got the same impression from looking on the web, it seems that there's sanda in Boston and in the bay area, and not much else. Strangely enough, searching on the web I found a lot of info about sanda instructors in India and Pakistan of all places. Is there a big Sanda circuit over there or something?

[Mutant]

Unfortunately, I got the same impression from looking on the web, it seems that there's sanda in Boston and in the bay area, and not much else. Strangely enough, searching on the web I found a lot of info about sanda instructors in India and Pakistan of all places. Is there a big Sanda circuit over there or something?

For years sanshou/sanda was known here as 'Eastern Block Kickboxing' and was closed off from the western world for many decades until the late 80s-early 90s. It evolved as a form of modern kungfu training in China and was developed in competition with the Soviets and mostly communist countries and their allies, such as Iran and Egypt (who have good teams), but not much was known about it in the west. For this reason, these countries have well established and talented national sanshou/sanda teams. Not sure about it being well established in India (if i heard their sanshou team sux), but this is why you find it to be generally more popular in that part of the world. To generalize, China and Russia have excellent teams. The U.S. has some great fighters, there are some good teams in Europe. Brazil has a good team. Ex-Soviet republics (you know, all the 'stans', Azurbijan, etc) have some nasty sanshou teams, too. Someone like lkfmdc (New York school) could could better explain details about history and such.

[SanShou Guru]

Dragonzrage there is one teacher in LA that is training a few people. His name is Jason Yee and he is about as good a Sanda Teacher as you could possibly find in the US. PM me if you want more info.

[ewallace]

<ThreadHijack>
For all of you who have more than two choices of good places to train, you all suck!
</ThreadHijack>

[FngSaiYuk]

<ThreadHijack>
For all of you who have more than two choices of good places to train, you all suck!
</ThreadHijack>
AND can't figure out which one(s) to train at... *******s...

[HanRen]

is it safe and too late for a person over 30 years old to learn SanDa? :)

[FngSaiYuk]

is it safe and too late for a person over 30 years old to learn SanDa? :)
I would think so... I'm 32 and I JUST got started into Muai Thai. I also help my nephews w/their highschool wrestling (throws and what not). It's less about your age and more about your physical condition, drive and amount of time you're willing to put into it.

[lkfmdc]

Jason Yee? You act like he won a medal in a world championship, established the first San Da training program in the country and trained a pile of champions! Who'd want to study with that guy! :D :D :D :D

Duh, forgot Jay is in LA now.... dude, go there, NOW, run, don't walk.....

[Yougottawanna]

Thanks for the responses. I didn't know Sanda was that widespread in Russia and former soviet countries.

I googled Jason Yee's name and couldn't find any current information about where he is or where you can train with him....does anyone know?

[norther practitioner]

a start (http://www.jasonyeekungfu.com/)


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[SanShou Guru]

Jason is in Caan right now marketing his movie. I will get more info about where he is teaching when he gets back.

[SifuAbel]

Did jason yee get plastic surgery to look more "bruce like" . His chin is different. I remember him looking way different back in '96 when he demoed at the lee koon hung against Cung le.

[Mutant]

Did jason yee get plastic surgery to look more "bruce like" . His chin is different. I remember him looking way different back in '96 when he demoed at the lee koon hung against Cung le.

Ummm, no. He's cosmetically altered plenty of other peoples faces, but not his own. My nose is a bit different now...

[SifuAbel]

He looks like he got a chin implant. It could just be luck and age. His face may have widened since then. I dunno, he just doesn't look like as I remember him when he got schooled by Cung le. :p

[Mutant]

when he got schooled by Cung le. :p

Now I don't think thats very accurate, although i do appreciate some good ball-busting.
Jay might have won that points-wise if he hadnt gotten pushed off the platform too many times and lost big points for that. Cung used hair spray on his feet at the last minute (a great idea really) to stick to what was found to be an unusually slick lei tei surface, and Jason was having a hard time with sliding and kicking. Not to make excuses for him, Cung won fair and square, but it was otherwise a close fight with Jay landing a lot of hard punches.

What many of would love to see, but never will, is Cung agree to fight Marvin. Now that would be ugly. :eek:

[Mutant]

He looks like he got a chin implant.
:confused:
The last thing a pro fighter would want is a some delicate plastic surgery on his face, a piece of plastic under his skin on his chin bone. You know even good fighters are going to get hit a lot training or in the ring, sometimes on the chin and they wouldnt want to make it more suseptable to damage or irritation.

[SifuAbel]

Maybe it just got flattened and widened by pure punishment.

[Yougottawanna]

I just don't want this to drop to the bottom yet....

I wasn't able to find any contact info off of that site. That movie might be good, though.

[Jamesbond_007]

YouGottaWanna:
Which City Boxing do you train at? Is it the one in Downtown SD? Do you train Muay Thai there? Is so, how is it? I here they have pretty good Muay Thai, but I have heard bad things about their boxing.

Let me know if you find any info about San Da in the area. I live in north county and would be interested also.

[DragonzRage]

SS Guru,

Jason Yee's in LA now? Cool, I didn't know that. He must've come here fairly recently then. Did he open a gym here? Thanks for that info.

[SanShou Guru]

He is doing some privates but I think he said he may do something more regular. I will ask him when I talk to him i the next few days.

[Yougottawanna]

Hey, Jamesbond, I hadn't been on in a while so I didn't see your post sorry. I train at both the downtown one and the one in Pacific beach, I may start training in PB more because it's closer to where I live.

I take muay thai at the downtown one, and it's good as far as I know. I've never taken muay thai anywhere else so I couldn't really give a comparison. I haven't taken boxing there, but I know people who do and they seem to like the boxing classes. The guy that teaches downtown is Roberto Garcia, and he was a champion at one point (IBF I think? I don't remember which).

Thanks for that address, youknowwho, I'll give that guy a try.

[MeatTosser]

By the way, if you wanna diversify a bit as well, I've heard nothing but good things from the ShenWu Academy (Tim Cartmell's Training Center); he teaches Xingyi, Bagua, Taichi, and Brazilian Jiujitsu. Very practical teacher, has open mat sparring Sessions every Saturday. It's over at Garden Grove, California. Check it out at www.shenwu.com :cool: