Alan Orr Wing Chun Questions 8 - Basic Range and Distance

[Alan Orr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3V4P-5nN0&feature=plcp

Alan Orr Wing Chun Questions 8 - Basic Range and Distance

This weeks clip. More next week

best Alan

[GlennR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3V4P-5nN0&feature=plcp

Alan Orr Wing Chun Questions 8 - Basic Range and Distance

This weeks clip. More next week

best Alan

Excellent clip Alan

[Sean66]

Yes, nice clip. This is exactly how I think about distance. You either want to be all the way out, or all the way in to control the opponent's center and strike. Standing in between the two and "trading" punches is the worst thing in any scenario.

[Vajramusti]

Yes, nice clip. This is exactly how I think about distance. You either want to be all the way out, or all the way in to control the opponent's center and strike. Standing in between the two and "trading" punches is the worst thing in any scenario.
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Good point generally. You have to deal with what is there on the way in or out,

[wingchunIan]

thanks for continuing to post Alan. As always the video tag points out that this is what you do and not necessarily the same as other lineages.
It'll be really interesting to see what comments this clip gets from the broader audience. It would be good to see some dialogue around different approaches but I suspect its only a matter of time before the first "you're doing it wrong" post arrives.
To get the ball rolling, I prefer not to get as close as you do for most of the clip to avoid being clinched / grappled and to maintain the fixed elbow position (although sometimes it happens), but the distance at about 5.29 is exactly where I teach my guys to be both in drills and in chi sao (in fact that very response to a round punch is a staple with my guys).

[Sean66]

Ian,
Alan is in close, but he explains that he is doing it in a way that is destroying his opponent's balance. It's difficult to grapple somebody if your balance is gone and you're simultaneously being hit.

[Frost]

Ian,
Alan is in close, but he explains that he is doing it in a way that is destroying his opponent's balance. It's difficult to grapple somebody if your balance is gone and you're simultaneously being hit.

beg to differ, grappling is what happens when you are that close and getting hit, iff off balance the grappling will be reactionary until balance is regained, but it will happen unless you drop the guy with the first 2 or 3 hits

[wingchunIan]

Hi Sean, in my experience thats exactly when even a layman turns to grappling. When your balance goes most people's first instinct is to grab hold of anything they can. A friend of mine used to have a saying "if i'm going down, you're coming with me". I'm not the biggest guy in the world and my ground game is limited so I want to do everything I can to avoid falling into wrestling or grappling of any kind.
To be clear, I'm not critising Alan's approach as it clearly works well for him and his guys, I'm merely highlighting a difference / areas of common ground and explaining my rationale for the purposes of discussion

[Sean66]

I didn't say it's impossible, but you definitely have the disadvantage when you're off balance, no matter what your reactions are, striking or grappling.

Anyway, it's just good sense to disrupt your opponent's balance/gain positional advantage while counterattacking.

[Frost]

From a personal perspective alans distance is for me realistic, keeping unattached or out of clinch range at close distance is for me very hard, if you are looking to hit hard with power and are using straight shots you are going to hit clinch range quickly, you see it time and time again in boxing, thai MMA and any other venue even those where the clinch happens, unless you are at extended range using circular techniques and evasive footwork you are going to crash into the clinch, never met anyone who could keep said distance without this happening, not in 10 years of TCMA or 10 years of sports stuff

If I want to avoid the clinch at that range personally I don’t extend the hands or give them anything to bridge off, I use crazy monkey structure (hands on forehead elbows in and tucked) to stop them getting under hooks or upper body control I keep my shots short powerful and use a lot of upper cuts hooks and stiff straight shots but still clinching happens

If you really want to avoid it start doing clf and lama lol

[wingchunIan]

I didn't say it's impossible, but you definitely have the disadvantage when you're off balance, no matter what your reactions are, striking or grappling.

Anyway, it's just good sense to disrupt your opponent's balance/gain positional advantage while counterattacking.

100% agree about the desire to disrupt the opponents balance and gaining positional advantage as I'm sure most would on here. At the point I reffered to in the clip where what Alan does matches with my own approach that is achieved by abrubtly stopping the momentum of the incoming shot and simultaneously driving the head backwards and upwards

[wingchunIan]

From a personal perspective alans distance is for me realistic, keeping unattached or out of clinch range at close distance is for me very hard, if you are looking to hit hard with power and are using straight shots you are going to hit clinch range quickly, you see it time and time again in boxing, thai MMA and any other venue even those where the clinch happens, unless you are at extended range using circular techniques

I never said it was easy, its bloody difficult - that's why it needs training. Maintaining the fixed elbow helps and also all of the arts cited often throw rather than drive the body weight into the shot (hopefully that makes sense - I know what I mean anyway;)) making a clinch far more likely if the shot misses and the other guy doesn't step back. Obviously if the opponent is actively looking for a clinch it becomes even harder to avoid but my philosophy is don't give anything for free. If I end up in clinch range I'll work back out if I can but I don't want to go there through choice.

[nasmedicine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3V4P-5nN0&feature=plcp

Alan Orr Wing Chun Questions 8 - Basic Range and Distance

This weeks clip. More next week

best Alan

Very practical. I'm glad that you put it on video. I'm sure many will benefit from this. Now if I want to show someone how WC should deal with distance I can always refer them to this video with no further explanation needed.

[nasmedicine]

From a personal perspective alans distance is for me realistic, keeping unattached or out of clinch range at close distance is for me very hard, if you are looking to hit hard with power and are using straight shots you are going to hit clinch range quickly, you see it time and time again in boxing, thai MMA and any other venue even those where the clinch happens, unless you are at extended range using circular techniques and evasive footwork you are going to crash into the clinch, never met anyone who could keep said distance without this happening, not in 10 years of TCMA or 10 years of sports stuff

If I want to avoid the clinch at that range personally I don’t extend the hands or give them anything to bridge off, I use crazy monkey structure (hands on forehead elbows in and tucked) to stop them getting under hooks or upper body control I keep my shots short powerful and use a lot of upper cuts hooks and stiff straight shots but still clinching happens

If you really want to avoid it start doing clf and lama lol

Great post and I am in tune with your viewpoint here (especially the crazy monkey which IMO is very effective).

[Wayfaring]

From a personal perspective alans distance is for me realistic, keeping unattached or out of clinch range at close distance is for me very hard, if you are looking to hit hard with power and are using straight shots you are going to hit clinch range quickly, you see it time and time again in boxing, thai MMA and any other venue even those where the clinch happens, unless you are at extended range using circular techniques and evasive footwork you are going to crash into the clinch, never met anyone who could keep said distance without this happening, not in 10 years of TCMA or 10 years of sports stuff

If I want to avoid the clinch at that range personally I don’t extend the hands or give them anything to bridge off, I use crazy monkey structure (hands on forehead elbows in and tucked) to stop them getting under hooks or upper body control I keep my shots short powerful and use a lot of upper cuts hooks and stiff straight shots but still clinching happens


Good post from someone with obvious fight experience working out the bugs at range. IMO with looking at very minimal changes in distance, the closer you are to your opponent the more it leads to the clinch. For example, boxers who put their head on the opponent's chest and punch - real close range brawlers - it takes more body movement to land a punch at that range than lock someone up.

WCK range you have from your wrist to your elbow basically. As contact progresses towards your elbow, the clinch comes more into play. As it drifts out to the wrist, there is the most in mobility. Also, it takes two hands to clinch and takedown (mostly). If have one hand with a grip you can work to extend the range with the other hand to make space to get out - Alan shows this concept in the clip when you see the wrist on wrist control.

IMO Alan's range he calls "short bridge" is well within a clinch range. So that will be something to deal with there.

[YouKnowWho]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3V4P-5nN0&feature=plcp


We can see a lot of good principles from this clip: At

- 2.06, wrist control,
- 2.15, use opponent's leading arm to jam his back arm,
- 3.10, 5.00 comb hair (crazy monkey),
- 3.49 (hook model - pull opponent in),
- 4.39, tuck your opponent's left arm under his right arm, and press his right arm to disable his left arm,
- 5.30, arm wrap, side face push, take down (multiple contact points),
- ...

Did Alan stay within the WC boundary, I think he has gone beyond that.

It will be nice if Alan can also cover the kicking rang as well. The range that if your opponent doesn't skip in, he can reach you.

[Frost]

I never said it was easy, its bloody difficult - that's why it needs training. Maintaining the fixed elbow helps and also all of the arts cited often throw rather than drive the body weight into the shot (hopefully that makes sense - I know what I mean anyway;)) making a clinch far more likely if the shot misses and the other guy doesn't step back. Obviously if the opponent is actively looking for a clinch it becomes even harder to avoid but my philosophy is don't give anything for free. If I end up in clinch range I'll work back out if I can but I don't want to go there through choice.

Are you referring by driving body weight into the shots to mean that you fix the elbow position and using footwork and forward momentum rather than leg drive and body rotation to power our shots?

IF so for me this means you will hit clinch quicker since your body is moving towards the opponent…… if this is not what you mean could you explain how you drive bodyweight behind a shot if you are not rotating the body, and not fixing and stepping forward, or not using float sink swallow and spit?

Fixed elbows are great when close to the body, grapplers uses them all the time but when striking they extend even slightlyand an extended arm at close range is an invitation to level change and go under,, even a slightly extended arm is an invite to arm drag or create a lever, hence for me at that range I use the CM structure no arm to grab and no space for underhooks or control

[wingchunIan]

Hi Frost, the distinction I was trying to make is that rather than allowing the body weight to travel forward onto and in some cases beyond the lead leg, as is seen in "power" shots in other arts, keeping the weight back and balanced makes falling into the clinch less certain. The point about fixed elbow distance is relatively simple, at the moment of contact of the fist on target my elbow should be down and in / close to fixed elbow position. That places my arms between me and the opponent and allows me to use the fixed elbow position to defend the space should the opponent try to clinch. If I were to extend my arm and leave it out there then of course the opponent could slip under and clinch but leaving my arm out wouldn't be good Wing Chun in my book. Obviously a greater change in level is still possible and a threat (although more difficult whilst eating shots) but would normally lead to a takedown attempt rather than a clinch, and from there it becomes a battle of footwork. Not claiming to have all the answers btw just saying what works for me

[Frost]

Thanks for the reply and all we can ever do is talk from our respective viewpoints :)

Some Thai also uses the back weighted stance in power shots and bounces the power in (as I know you are aware) back weighted or even weighted high stances can open you up to a shot or low line body clinches, but you have already alluded to this in your posts as well so that’s covered to!

[GlennR]

Hi Frost, the distinction I was trying to make is that rather than allowing the body weight to travel forward onto and in some cases beyond the lead leg, as is seen in "power" shots in other arts, keeping the weight back and balanced makes falling into the clinch less certain. The point about fixed elbow distance is relatively simple, at the moment of contact of the fist on target my elbow should be down and in / close to fixed elbow position. That places my arms between me and the opponent and allows me to use the fixed elbow position to defend the space should the opponent try to clinch. If I were to extend my arm and leave it out there then of course the opponent could slip under and clinch but leaving my arm out wouldn't be good Wing Chun in my book. Obviously a greater change in level is still possible and a threat (although more difficult whilst eating shots) but would normally lead to a takedown attempt rather than a clinch, and from there it becomes a battle of footwork. Not claiming to have all the answers btw just saying what works for me

Nice post Ian.
In my mind the fixed elbow dictates the space to the other guy in that clinch range which is what a WC guy is all about but you have to be proactive there. Either hit him or control his balance (as Alan does very well).
Lurking in that area not dictating is asking for trouble

[Alan Orr]

Thank you all.

Very nice to see interesting points and exchange of ideas.

Yes, I will be adding a clips of distance and kicking next week.

The clips are short and just the basics, so much more can be said and many more areas can be covered. But my goal is each clip shows something interesting and shares experiences.

Best Alan

[anerlich]

Hi Frost, the distinction I was trying to make is that rather than allowing the body weight to travel forward onto and in some cases beyond the lead leg, as is seen in "power" shots in other arts, keeping the weight back and balanced makes falling into the clinch less certain.

That's true.

Having the body weight forward makes it easier to sprawl against shoot attempts. A very good MMA coach of my acquaintance advocates a boxing blast while slightly off balance forward to allow fast and effectivesprawling against a shooter. 100% not WC, but its an approach that has been proven to work.

Bottom line, you need to be prepared for both eventualities.