A clip of some chi-sao work CLIP
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A clip of some chi-sao work CLIP
As much as I appreciate good PBWSL stuff, which this is, I can not openly lie here and say that's good chisau because from what I am looking at there was little chisau in the drill as it appears to be (what I call) looksau / rotating arm.
Rotating your kiusau on the forearms as you are doing, with the sunken chest and forward intent, is all looksau basics. Being within the contact range all the time has specific purposes too which you are demonstrating skillfully. It's just our language is offkey. The advancing sets you are teaching are specifically PBs /WSLs I would imagine as this is where we have more physical differences.
FWIW This specific drill was a sepciality my Sigung too. There is even footage of him practising like this, and taking it further, step by step into a full fluid interactive drill. We also demonstrated this specific idea at the weekend and the last time we did that (1997) a very well known Master asked my Sifu "what is that?!!" After a small conversation in cantonese the penny dropped ;)
Like I said, it's great to see but I ask 'where does this go next?'
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Far different from the chi sao that I do.
That vid appears to show a considerable lack of structure
and balance. BTW good structure does NOT imply stiffness.
The two guys don't appear to be too stiff but there is hardly any structure or balance.
Before any one gets there dander up, I respect WSL.
I will leave it at that.
joy chaudhuri
Interesting comments Joy, seeing as the methods shown are very very common within the WSL lineage. I think the structure/balance inconsistency may be due to the 'rushed nature' of some of the advances, as the stepping seems a little basic too.
Basic drills tend to create these bad habits if they are trained for too long without progression. Hence, why I ask where they go from here?
Mind you, I still appreciate anyone sharing what they do like this... it's what we should all be doing to be honest.
More of a 'visual forum' would be much cooler :)
Another ..... CLIP
Ah! A little more fluid and advanced which is good :)
Gworsau exchanges like shown are filled with individual personality, but these still look very like PB and WSL to me. Still good though as this is what I tend to see everywhere, in every lineage, when it gets down to more free sparring.
It's like the methods of Wing Chun are being used, but with the personality of an ancestor! ;) Still better than chatting all day though...
Exchanging using the skills, no kicks CLIP
One BIG criticism with this particular clip (sorry dude!) but even my own kids would deck this guy with their shadowless kick to the nuts lol! So good job there are no kicks allowed here.
Again remember what I said... some of these drills can create bad habits ;)
I'm gonna state something that will probably come out the wrong way, LOL!
I have a "friend" that does WC, he is a teacher.
He has trained guys that have fought and been sucessful in boxing, MT and MMA.
He is kind of a "rebel" and is on the "outs" with the WC "community" here because of his "fight first" mentality.
He believes that if you can't fight with your WC VS any and all other systems, then take up taiji (:D).
I have personally seen a couple of his guys going against MMA guys in training and they do very well.
Why do I mention this?
Here comes the controversy:
One of the first things he did when he started training guys to deal with other systems and such was to STOP CHI SAO, at least how it is typically done.
He said all it did was create some pretty bad habits that get you "killed in a real fight vs a non-wc fighter".
When I asked about those that DO chi sao and were know to be good fighters he said that was a case of "in-spite of" not "because of".
After seeing most chi sao videos and most chi sao, I think he is probably right.
The one dude is a poster child for WCK chi sau.
Lack of shirt says "look at my muscles".
Glasses on says "but I understand theory too". Obviously he is not too concerned with getting punched in the face.
;)
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Sanjuro- I don't know your friend... but it does not matter. All kinds of folks have all kinds of opinions. Once again- wing chun is NOT the only way to fight. Fighting is fighting -but it's nota single concept- so there are different approaches to something called fighting which has various outcomes.. But if you are going to do wing chun- good chi sao is an important component of good wing chun. The recent chi sao vids on this forum are not imo good examples of wing chun. I respect WSL. Gary Lam, David P and WSL's ex brother in law...WSL was a good fighter... but the spreading of WSL wing chun is quite uneven.
Lot of it is bad imitation- xerox of xerox of a xerox- with unbalanced pushing and shoving replacing the insufficiency of understanding principles and concepts. Again- wing chun has spread too fast and has spread unevenly.But- Without chi sao just fighting does not result in understanding wing chun.
Speaking only for myself.
joy chaudhuri
Just clips of drills....they contain errors, we drill to fix them. When you are perfect you are dead and buried, until then :D TRAIN HARD ~ !
Whatever k. The point was he looks like an idiot training like that, not personal grooming preferences.
To me it illustrates the whole poser frame of chi sau. Look like a stud with your shirt off, but don't need to take off your glasses or make any modifications for training fighting where normally you attempt to punch each other in the face.
LOL at that training mentality. BTW I know plenty of tough people with thick horn-rim glasses that take them off to spar. The only reason not to is that you're reasonably certain you're not going to get punched in the eye.
Poser. And who cares about his haircut.
For some more perspective on stuff like this, I have started to introduce a chi sau drill type of thing just playing around with some of the MMA fighters - pros and amateurs. Their first reaction is "what the f is this for?" as intuitively not one single one of them could pick up that it has a lot to do with fighting.
After some explanation they start to get the picture of controlling the opponent and seeing some value in close range striking and clinch work. Still it's not something one single fighter would choose to replace full live mma type sparring rounds with.
I more agree with your friend's mentality.
Now let's all strike a chi sau pose. :D:D:D
I'm kind of trying to point out some of the errors in approach. I mean take off the d@mn glasses, put in a mouthpiece, and stop pausing the strikes to the chest and head for photo ops.
TRAIN SMART and TRAIN HARD. Don't catch a TRAIN traveling in the wrong direction.
The point IMO not addressed in WCK is the translation of skills learned in chi sau to a realistic fighting environment. There are way too many "slick chi sau" WCK teachers that would get destroyed in realistic fighting as they never practice it. Their students never practice it.
"But if you are going to do wing chun- good chi sao is an important component of good wing chun."
In geometry there are 3 absolutes - point, line and plane. The rest of it is derived.
Here it sounds like the absolutes of WCK have nothing to do with fighting. Chi sau is an absolute. Why? It was originally intended as a training wheel on a bike by fighting WCK masters. It has been watered down and accepted as the be all end all of WCK. That can only happen when people don't fight.
Agree with wayfaring here, chi-sao is NOT a war zone, sparring is not done in a drill to develop skills to fight with...we spar to test the skills, then go back to chi-sao modules to work them out. Then back to sparring randomly....
Chi-sao, to the vast majority, is now a place to spar. :o
I'm picking on the video guys a bit. For all I know those guys spar full out and don't wear glasses and are just playing around drilling in front of a camera.
Please may they soon learn to stand up straight.
WC doesn't need a back curl, it's counter to good centerline. Naturally happens as you get older, but doesn't have to if you keep after it.
Who's students are these?
Hi Spencer, I disagree with you regarding the practice of basic drills (someone else posted something similar a while ago about wall bag practice). Without any reference to the clip, any basic drill that develops bad habits is a poor drill and should be discarded full stop. If a drill teaches or develops an attribute then that attribute should be valid and prolonged practice should simply make it sharper and better. I frequently enjoy going back over the most basic of drills. In Wing Chun as with most martial arts training IMHO is cyclic, folks strive to learn the hidden secrets and the advanced techniques and drills, always wanting more, moving on, leaving the basics behind. Normally in Japanese and Korean styles the enlightenment comes a few years after the first black belt and folks either leave dishillousioned or else realise that the true keys to any art are the very basics that they had been in such a rush to leave behind and go back and train them again but from an elightened position. IME this is a never ending circle in that the longer you train the more enlightened you become and the more the basic drills and techniques grow in importance.
Totally agree, as someone who is taller than most of the folks I trained with coming through SNT etc I developed a tendancy to hunch and stoop the shoulders. First time in HK the first thing they all picked up on was my posture and I was quickly corrected. Standing straight without rounding the back helped my shoulders to relax immensely and freed up my posture, not to mention from an application angle it pulled my head further out of range and suddenly my reach was actually an advantage again.
You make a very good point Ian, but I was strictly talking about the later clip creating bad habits in their mobility which wouldn't really be an issue if there had been some further development of the drill and possibly more attention to their stepping and placement.
I still drill Tanda to this day and I know it has big benefits :) So I agree totally that we carry our basics with us forever. Wouldn't be Wing Chun otherwise IMHO ;)
It amazes me that Kevin posts all these clips (not one of which includes sparring or hard contact) but then says its just a drilling stage where we perfect what we get wrong in sparring…if this is the case surely there should be just as many clips of full on sparring as there are of the drilling stage…..
Oh and LMAO at Wayfaring I was going to comment on the whole glasses and shirt thing thing but didn’t want Kev to delete the thread like he normally does when people don’t go wow and start PB nutriding
I have to admit, ive always wondered why the video camera doesnt seem to be available when the sparring happens...... maybe it has a chi-sao only mode set to on ;)Quote:
It amazes me that Kevin posts all these clips (not one of which includes sparring or hard contact) but then says its just a drilling stage where we perfect what we get wrong in sparring…if this is the case surely there should be just as many clips of full on sparring as there are of the drilling stage…..
Yeh, the whole shirt thing of is a bit oddQuote:
Oh and LMAO at Wayfaring I was going to comment on the whole glasses and shirt thing thing but didn’t want Kev to delete the thread like he normally does when people don’t go wow and start PB nutriding
Ill be honest here, I don’t care if people don’t want to post clips of themselves sparring or training, but if you interested enough to post clip after clip after clip of chi-sao drilling and say its only part of your training and hit at heavy sparring being done …they why can’t you show that?
The shirt was funny, the glasses funnier lol as someone with really bad eyesight I know first hand if any type of head contact is going to be made you put your contacts in, take them off (it’s a sensitivity drill so you don’t really need them right?) or you put the basketball style special shock glasses on , you only wear your normal glasses if you know no contact is going to be made, and what drill worth its salt doesn’t have some form of contact threatened?