https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnehZy1sJSc
Printable View
It's easy to armchair, and I give them credit for putting it out there.
BBBUUUTTTTT
A Positive: To be fair, Kev does a good job of maintaining his composure, self centerline and not over extending in response to whatever it is Obasi thinks is wing chun.
A Negative: WTF is Obasi even doing? Leaning WAY fwd and just pushing - to the point both his feet come off the ground several times. :eek: No self centerline, no control & no wing chun IMO.
Kevin seems to be in the mind frame of doing the chi sao drill, where as Shawn seems to in the mode of a fight. Not a good comparison of chi sao skills, it's comparing apples to oranges. To get a fair comparison Kevin should either fight or shawn should stay within the context of chi sao
I agree completely. At least Kevin is doing WC and maintaining his structure. I'm not sure what Obasi was doing. Did you notice what Keven said as they broke apart at the end ...around 0:33? I couldn't hear very well, but it sounds like he said "This isn't our Chi Sau." Obasi responds "But what is it?". Yeah Shaun, what the heck were you doing? Anyway, it's good to see people posting clips. Props for that.
thing is, if youre doing chi sao and someone starts breaking out of the boundaries of the drill and sparring or fighting you should be able to sense that just like you're supposed to sense everything going on in chi sao, (that's what its for after all) and just adapt with them and if they want to bang you have to match their violence and intent and may have to put them down hard. or they'll smash you. i think chi sao is a great drill in its context but you can see how hard it is to get people on the same page of "what it is", so should account for someone "not doing chi sao" by your own systems drills or definition and be able to adapt in real time and turn the volume up or down depending on the flow. if you insist on a drill when someone's punching you in the mouth then you need to step it up or step back and reassess what youre doing.
My take....
Chi-Sao is used as a hand-coordination drill meant to reinforce habits that benefit your behavior and body mechanics when sparring. Forward pressure is maintained without compromising balance and mobility. Arms are put in contact to work on punching power in each roll through the Luk-Sao platform, but not for contact's sake. Hand actions' primary focus is to strike when the way is open, without being conditional to first grabbing/controlling the opponent's arms, thus increasing striking readiness. Elbow-hip connection and resulting power generation are by-products of the Chi-Sao platform. Facing (Chiu-Yin) is worked on through hip and foot position. Recognizing the artificial situation created by the Luk-Sao platform and the resulting pitfalls and limitations, care is taken to avoid actions that only exist in Chi-Sao ("Chi-Sao tricks") and do not transfer to a non-contact situation. Along this thinking, there are no "Chi-Sao Challenge Matches", it's just a drill performed in a certain way to attain specific skills. Productive Chi-Sao where you are still reaping the benefits of the drill is not fighting as it lacks other skills necessary when fighting. Finally, if you want to confirm whether Chi-Sao training is transferring into actual fighting skill, just spar!
I think that Kevin is on the same page with the above, this being the reason why he paused the work-out with Shawn. It was just a short clip, so who knows what else they trained on and talked about when they met.
As noted, it's like apples and oranges as they both seem to be wanting to get something different from the meeting.
Yes, Kevin looks more Wing Chun, I guess, and Obassi seems all over the place... but as also noted, Obassi gets through (despite being all over the place in terms of over extension and lost balance), and Kevin doesn't seem to shut it down.
I know he's gonna hate me saying this, but Kevin looks like pretty much any other Wing Chunner in the clip, nothing that makes me think of the PB clips that are posted - if I watched this clip not knowing who Kevin learns from, I don't think I'd know this is PBVT.
What happened to everything being a punch? :D Why no striking from Kevin? Especially as Obassi was often just doing whatever he wanted and not himself keeping centerline :)
Someone could also argue that Kevin was chasing hands in the clip... and I didn't see the footwork and angles that the PB guys train very heavily in their other clips.
However, they met and were recored and they put it up online. So thumbs up for being open.
The oxymoronic title alone tells you where Obasi's mind was. What a joke. I can bet he didn't ask Kevin to do a "Chi Sao Challenge Match" with him.
And I love Izzo's comment below the video, that Kevin saying "this isn't chi-sau" is an excuse by someone who can't handle real pressure, and says "great job Shawn". LMAO! :D
Another fool says "he's just not used to the pressure and chaos". Well, of course. He was trying to do a developmental drill with a spazkid who was trying to fight in chi-sau. Kevin could have just starting punching and kicking, but no doubt everyone would then turnaround and tell him "this isn't chi-sau" because he wasn't trying to make arm contact.
At any rate, that's why I always refuse to do chi-sau with people of different lineages who have a completely different mindset and purpose of the drill, unless they are asking for instruction on our method. A "challenge match" shouldn't be done with a developmental drill, especially between people with completely different understandings of the drill. That's reduces it to a game or completely unrealistic struggle, which totally destroys all point in doing it at all, as we see in the video.
I always say no, let's spar. That's the only place where we can each do our own thing and compare them evenly.
What I don't understand is Obasi didn't try very hard to disconnect the bridge either. What was Obasi's intention?
To spar in
- full sticky hands format,
- 1/2 sticky hands format, or
- no sticky hand format?
A wide hook punch (or haymaker) can be used to disconnect the bridge. But Obasi didn't try it. This clip just remind me those clips that started with Taiji push hands and end with wrestling. It makes you wonder, if you try to
- wrestle then why do you have to start with push hands format?
- kickbox (there are knee striking involved) then why do you have to start with sticky hands format?
@ LFJ
I agree that it's hard sometimes for two lineages to be on the exact same page when they might have a different interpretation, goals, etc, within an exercise/partner work.
However, rolling in Poon Sau and then testing, freely, with strikes/attacks is Gor Sau and an environment that shouldn't be impossible to work in. Here's a clip of two PB students doing what they term Gor Sau, and while they are of course from the same group (PBVT) their training involves free flowing attacks that come as the opportunity presents itself. Both being from PB, their method works and looks like the PB method. Take away the title and you can clearly see they are PB students, basically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO-nKJ-wToY
But I am surprised by the clip with Kevin as while you can clearly see that Obassi is not from PB, Kevin doesn't look like he's from PB either. If I didn't recognize Kevin and someone said he was from, say, Ip Ching Wing Chun, I wouldn't automatically think they were wrong.
Kevin, when he's in a good mood :), posts some interesting stuff on the PBVT method. He often talks about "striking recycling", "adopting lines that naturally intercept", "not chasing hands", "hitting open gaps", etc. I get that it is easy (easyish) to do this when training with a partner from the same PBVT method, but obviously it is trained to work against people who are not a fellow VT training partner.
Obassi is not, and in this Gor Sau exchange, once the attacks come from Obassi (as strange as some of them might be), I don't see Kevin doing the things he usually talks about. :(
Which is why they should have just agreed to do free sparring. It looked as if Kevin was trying to comply and get into some sort of rolling platform with Obassi, but Obassi wasn't really making that happen. That's why Kevin stopped and said it's not our chi-sau. Two completely different ideas can't combine in chi-sau. It just results in a confusing mess like this. That's why chi-sau should be trained with individuals from the same lineage, because it's only a developmental drill used to develop the skills specific to your method. If you want to pit the skills of two different lineages against each other, do it in free sparring!
Well i think you lot read too much into two guys shooting the ****. Its just fun and games. I like both guys. Kevin good tight structutre and obasse using some nice "sink + spit". Would love to have a friendly exchange with them.
Well apparently neither did Kevin think there was chi sau there. At the end he says "This, er, isn't chi sau" to which Shawn replied, "well what is it?". As Kevin begins to explain "well it's er...", Shawn interrupts and looks to the camera, with a slightly disappointed look, and waves his hand commanding the camera man to "stop". I assume that because Shawn just wants to try to embarrass people and make a name for himself, a little bit of information was superfluous to his video recording purposes. Is it me or are we seeing an agenda here between Izzo, Shawn, the 52blocks guys and a few others?
The agenda is always the same - people promoting themselves/their method. To be fair, I think Kevin said: "This isn't our Chi Sau."
Maybe Obassi is doing the Wing Chun that Kevin used to do and so Obassi is thinking using the conceptual framework that Kevin tells us he's moved on from now that he has a real understanding of what VT is. :D :D :p
But seriously, the problem for me is not Obassi's agenda or that the Gor Sau was recorded, but what we see in it. I didn't expect to see any quality from Obassi, but I was a bit shocked to see this from Kevin. Obassi's attacks might have been all over the place, but he's a big guy and he put the pressure on... and Kevin was defending rather than... well, the things he talks about when describing PBVT on this forum.
I'm a little shocked as Kevin has spent many, many posts telling people here that their Wing Chun is based on misconceptions and faulty logic, and yet when a big chap in Gor Sau applies some pressure, I don't see from Kevin the superior method he's been pitching.
I think to be fair to Kevin he held his own against a stronger guy. I could clearly see PBVT and you can tell he has a sound understanding of his boxing forms and how they use shapes and strucrure.
Obasi is just freeing it up and not so regermented. Both guys are good my my humble opion.
On Obassi's Facebook page he was at first promoting a "challenge fight", but later came back and said he changed his mind about fighting but still went to meet him.
What it looks like is Obassi asked him to chi-sau, which Kevin looked like he was trying to do (it's a cooperative drill), but Obassi's motive was to spazz out trying to fight him... or something, whatever he was doing.
A cheap tactic to make Kevin look bad and himself good?
Epic fail on both ends.
we finally get to see a video of Kevin in action...after all this time waiting....my god!!
and to top it all off its a thread he cant delete ;):D:):eek::cool:
Where do you see that he got "lit up"? Obassi was just doing a whole bunch of nothing. If I were in the same situation, I too would have paused and asked Obassi quizzically if he actually wanted to do chi-sau or just fight- because he was doing neither. Kevin just looked confused as to what they were actually supposed to be doing.
Its just a mess about on both sides. Its so obvious to see. Kevin was holding off and shawn was doing stuff like jumping knees which all looked tip tap! Anyone who jusges this as a real contest needs a reality check. Hats off to Kevin for having shawn down to play and hats off to shawn for going out there and playing.
What were they supposed to do? Do you think this was a fight?
That's the problem with two people with vastly different ideas about what chi-sau is doing it together. When one guy tries to fight from it, it results in both looking rather silly. Then critics who don't understand it want to evaluate it as if it were a fight.
It's clear to anyone who knows anything that Kevin was obviously not trying to fight while Obassi was, although not very well. If Kevin stopped trying to get into chi-sau format with him and just starting free striking, I think it would have looked much different.
Of course, Obassi's quick to cut the camera when Kevin begins to give his critique and explain what his chi-sau is. That's something that should have been on video as well. But Obassi got the footage he wanted, apparently. It's embarrassing if he's proud of himself.
The oxymoronic title "Chi Sao Challenge Match" shows how retarded he is and I doubt Kevin was under the same impression that that was what they were doing.
I thought the same thing. It LOOKS like Kev was asked 'to chi sau', and then Shawn spazzed out and kev was just baffled. Could Kev have stepped it up too? Most likely. But if you're asked to 'chi sau', maybe Kev was trying to do just that and didn't want to escalate into a fight (which is exactly what it would have turned into). Then after the fact, Shawn labels it as a 'chi sau challenge match' which is the most stupid thing I've ever hear in my life.
Curious if Kev knew this was some 'challenge match' from the beginning. Hopefully Kevin comes in here to clear it up.
On another point, I'm not a big fan of 'chi sauing' with other people specifically for this reason - too many people view differently. Some, it's as just a drill and others chi sau skills are for fighting. Too much misinterpretation and different understandings.
It’s hard for me to offset someone’s clip, because they’re trying their best to top each other. Really it’s not their fought; the blame would lay on the ‘upbringing or Sifu’ of each practitioner.
Which in whom themselves would be considered “Dangerous but Inept”, creating a cultural sense of superiority among their seminar babies. Meaning; not keeping them humble or true to their abilities (the quick fix). And or speaking on how great they are, even above the level of their own teacher.
By trying to fill the room for each seminar event and while mostly speaking on “what’s wrong with other systems”, stuff like this begins to happen. And it creates a tempestuousness attitude abroad.
Take care,
Regarding what is happening and what is not: Two guys with different concepts about what they are about to do decide to work out. Shawn had some sort of "challenge" in mind, while Kevin complies with his request for Chi-Sao. There is an obvious weight difference between the two, so Shawn has this in his favor. Shawn does his best to throw Kevin out of balance while losing balance himself. Kevin manages to retain his balance throughout most of Shawn's attempts. Shawn clings to/grabs Kevin's arms through a good part of the work-out, thus not allowing Kevin to do much; Shawn's strength helps in that regard. However, given Shawn makes his striking conditional to grabbing/clinging and is quite out of balance, most of his shots end up being slaps with no ground support and with less power than Shawn could have generated with it. So balanced stance, punching power, avoiding to chase hands, and punching readiness (all of which are skills that you work on when doing the Chi-Sao drill) are all gone. What's the point then? If you want to grab and wrestle, go and train good BJJ. If you want to test your skills in Wing Chun (at the end of the day a striking art) spar. Everything else, including thinking that the video is worth posting, is a waste of time.
I think there are a lot of people, myself included, that could learn a lot from what you have just said. It would be useful to hear Kevin's POV but I am not sure it is going to be forthcoming. Looking at Obasi's other clips I still feel there is an agenda there and that this meeting with Kevin was a little bit of a set up, particularly given how it is being presented by Obasi on his youtube page. It fits with with what I have seen Obasi do elsewhere.
Agenda? What about the PBWT agenda of shooting down everything on this forum, then only postings clips where they chi-sau in an environment suitable to them. Or coming up with there classic street fight comments. Bottom line is Obasse got through consistently and Kev could not land one strike.
It is one thing to wax lyrical on the Interwebs and another to post videos titled 'chi sao challenge match' when it looks like the other person, kevin, was not aware it was a challenge match. I am making a guess here and only kevin and shawn can really answer. Either way, it seems that if Obasi went from the outset and stated to kevin it was to be a challenge match, then we would have seen more aggression from kevin and perhaps more of a fight rather than the purported training exercise that is chi sau.
The reason why I say agenda is becasue if you follow Obasi, Izzo, the guys from 52blocks online, you will see that they are in communication with one another and teaming up in comments sections and videos to insult other sifus and stir things up. I have no problem with people testing themselves and doing challenge matches just I think it should be done overtly and not via what seems like a set up. I am very much reminded of the recent Randy Williams affair of which Obasi was involved.