Do you spar with your internal art?

[gazza99]

Schools who "spar" in the Niejia arts are in the great minority, I am in this minority, who else ?

1.If you "spar" with Niejia then how?

2.Do you freespar?,or do one or two step reaction drills? , or both progressively?

3.Do you put any real "jin" into the movements?

4.How often?

5.At what level do you spar

6.To what degree of force?

My answers later.....

Gary

[Crimson Phoenix]

I still have troubles merely moving internally...so I'd better forget about fighting with it yet...
I can still use my long fist/white crane though :-)
But one day, when I get that "haha!" experience in internal arts, I'll definitely try to rub it a little against a resisting opponent :-)

[wiz cool c]

I just started Chen Tai Chi and they spar it looks like an upper body wrestling match. They lock up and try to toss the guy push him or trip him. They do it at the end of every class or every other class. I am not sure how long it takes before one can do this type of sparring.

[taijiquan_student]

Yes.

1. See next answers

2.Both. After having done tui shou for a little while, we learn some basic san shou drills for striking, kicking, and stepping, and then some misc. stuff like one person stands still with their arms at their sides while the other person step all around them hitting various striking points (the striker hits "through" them, but with almost no power cause the points all really hurt [throat for example is done VERy carefully] amongst other drills too. This gets the person used to being hit, and gets the striking points ingrained into the other persons memory. Then after basic san shou training we move to one-step san shou. We start out slow and with not much power and then gradually get faster and with more intent. Then we work up to free san shou. (edit: the basic san shou drill we seem to do the most is half-stepping forward in a line while coordinating the steps with strikes against a phone book your partner holds.)

3. It depends on what we're doing--sometimes yes, sometimes no. It also depends on who you're going with. I have no problem with putting more jin into it if I'm with a senior student (they can destroy me no matter what I do anyway), but if someone is new I wouldn't (unless you feel like giving them a baptism of fire ).

4. San Shou class is once a week, though we often do it before and after form and tui shou classes as well (actually I haven't done that in a while, and I don't know why, but I digress).

5. I spar at whatever level I'm at, which isn't very advanced at all(I've been practicing for 2 1/2 yrs, now it's pretty close to three). My teacher spars at the level he's at (well actually he tone's it down even in full-contact for pretty much all of us), which can be scary as hell. Same thing with the more senior students.

6. It depends what we're doing. As I said earlier in the beginning stages it's gradual, and even when you've been doing it a while you still do it slower and with less power every once in a while. November is what we call "Hell Month" which is when we put on head-gear and open hand gloves (normally we don't use protective gear) and do free san shou, full-contact for an hour and a half, with 5 min. rounds with each partner evry sat. morning in November. Sometimes we take a five-minute break in the middle cause it's so **** tiring. During Hell Month my teacher always says use half-power, but everyone uses 3/4 to full it seems (or rather feels like ). We do full-contact san shou outside of Hell month too (I mean, that's just one month out of 12), but, and it's hard to explain in words, but there's a difference in intent when we really go at it full contact.

Well there it is in all its long-winded glory. Hope I've answered well enough. I'm really interested to hear how other taiji people (and other neijia people) train.

[HuangKaiVun]

I don't buy this "majority" stuff that most "Neijia" schools don't spar.

Maybe in Oklahoma that's the case, but not so in New York and DEFINITELY not in China.

Even my sifu Jiang Jianye, who's a known modern wushu exponent, had me sparring using internal methods.

[gazza99]

Thats good to hear Huang!, but id like to take official stats on how many Tai Chi classes do nothing martial, let alone spar!

Gary

[count]

I gotta go along Huang on this. How many internal martial arts schools have you looked at to call yourself in the minority? Even schools that don't care to spar probably consider martial arts, self defense and train it. At least the majority of the schools here in California. And you know were all granola here in California.

[gazza99]

Ive looked at everyone I could find in this state for starters! Im glad in granola/ CMC land this is not the case!! I just wonder what proportion of Tai chi people can fight with it in CA? Could you name some schools that do full up sparring?

"Even schools that don't care to spar probably consider martial arts, self defense and train it"

Ummm, I dont care what they consider it, the question posed in this thread is about sparring!!!

You cannot deny that Tai Chi is known as a health dance by the layman and even many people who practice it. (just had this conversation with my college class today telling them that tai chi was a MARTIAL art). (also had the same conversation with a 10 year Tai chi practitioner)

How about getting back to the main topic here besides our own perspective on the stats. If you do spar with your Neijia art then answer the questions!

For the record Ill be now writing down each Niejia place I go to and seeing if they spar and use it for combat, I travel often so hopefully Ill end up with a broad scope of the USA at least. That way ill at least have some hard numbers to back my current/recent perceptions!

Gary

[count]

You will be welcome at our school when you visit. True, we might not fit the description of an internal school, or a tai chi school, since some of the styles there are not what you would call internal martial arts in a traditional sense. We do have The main three there and some others you might be surprised about. But I'm sure you would have a good time. Gary, before I started with my teacher I went to as many places that said they taught Chinese martial arts as I could find. Some famous masters, some street thugs, some mackwoons, some parks and beach clubs. Names I'm sure you would recognize. Places I would be glad to show you. I would say over 100 to be exact. I have never seen any of these so called "hippie tai chi places". Truth is, I would love to have found some hippy women doing tai chi back than. I have seen schools where fighting is not always the focus. You might have to hang around a while before actually seeing any. Training could be dull. But eventually, martial arts is about fighting. The majority of schools know this. For some training methods and stuff maybe check out the other thread about BGZ fighting class. As far as frequency in our school, Maybe every class, maybe not. Depends on what we got going. As far as degree of force, let's just say I've seen guys knocked out or hurt pretty bad. Part of training is learning to heal those things too. Yes, even bone setting or restarting a heart. If it is not a part of your training, I recommend finding another teacher. I don't see much point if you don't go all out. Maybe some controlled applications training, but even than, the hits are real jin, not fake jin. I don't totally disagree with you about the number of bad teachers, but it's my understanding that you can learn from any teacher. The important thing is to train yourself.

Now would you like to elaborate with your answers?

[gazza99]

I may be visiting CA shortly as I have a close relative very very sick in the Oakland hospital. Please email me with the address and name of the school, at least Ill know someone there!

My answers in short-

Sparring shouldnt be done until the very basics of structure and posture are learnt. This may take a year or more, if sparring is done to soon it just turns into sloppy kickboxing with no method behind the madness.

At first we do the normal choreographed san-sau two man forms. This teaches the students to get used to contact at full force while learning proper structure, movement, and not having to react yet so they can concentrate on the above.

Then simple movments are taken into sparring/reaction drills. It will build progresivley in both speed and know/unknown variables. For example in the beggining I may teach a student to do X technique against a punch. At first they will be thrown a right straight punch at almost full speed to practice X technique. Later in the session they will be thrown any punch at full speed/power and intent, and be expected to do the same technique on reaction with proper mechanics.

This will then move into range drills in which they will have an attacker or multiple attackers circling testing their ability to determine proper range of attack and the correct timing to correlate.

Eventually they will have a multitude of principles and techniques that can be used fairly well on a reactionary level with resisting opponent, and not compromise their structure, or movment in any way. This is the time when freesparring (pads of course) should be implimented, and at this point already has been to an extent.

I find it hard to put any "jin" into my sparring without completley overwhelming my students or training parteners (other non-neijia instructors). This is my trump card if I feel like ending things quickly, but that hardly helps the students.

I asked the question about jin becuase frankly Im afraid to put any jin into it after I hurt a black belt friend (make that two Friends) of mine using it. Fortunatly I was able to pull it in time, but I scratched his eye, hit his throat, and almost broke his nose in an instant. Perhaps when I have more skill I will be able to use the whole range of jins without such fear of injuring my partener, but for now im not their yet.

What degree of force depends on the equipment available, but generally its only moderate force, we slap each other around, but dont go full on.

I spar at the level of my students since I am currently teaching, if I am up against another teacher, or I am a student I simply do my best without the jin. If i am able to beat the person, or use little effort to keep them at bay, I step it down so they get good training.

regards,
Gary

[brassmonkey]

someone learn a new word today?

[Lincoln]

Come on guys! Everybody knows that the REAL Hippie Tai-Chi is all going on North of the Golden Gate Bridge. Anyone else not in the above mentioned area is just a tree huggin', granola eatin', hippie wanna' be.


Gary,

I live in the Bay Area if you are coming to Oakland you should contact me and I could possibly meet with you or give you advice as to what may be of interest to you while you are visiting.

Lincoln

[count]

Gary,

I hope your relative is not too seriously ill. If you make it down south to the LA area, just e-mail me first. I'll be glad to show you around some of the schools. I know several good ones. We don't have a formal school so we train in a park. I'll have to show you where we are.

I don't know much about Oakland, but when we go to San Francisco, (across the bay) we train with friends in "Panhandle park", I think it's called Golden Gate State park, and there is usually no fewer than 5 other schools practicing out there. I have met teachers like YC Wong, George Xu, Brenden Lai, Adam Hsu and others out there on any given weekend. I would suggest that none of these guys are anything but the real deal for martial arts training. Good luck and let me know if your in our area.

[Lincoln]

The Panhandle is the strip of park that leads into Golden Gate Park. I live two blocks from there. As for who practices there now. There is a small group that does Brendan Lai's Praying Mantis. There is a small group that practices Lao Bun's Choy Lay Fut. There is another small group that practices Xie Pei Qi's Bagua. The other people that you mentioned practiced their occasionally but I have not seen any of them for years. There are several areas in Golden Gate Park where there are many groups of people practicing various Kung Fu styles. For the most part they are elderly Chinese practicing Tai Chi for health.

Lincoln

[count]

That's the place. I think it has been a while since I have been up there. The last time I remember was in the late 1980's for me. What is the group from Xie Pei Qi's Yin style like? I might go up there just to meet up with them. And you, since you live so close to the park. Yes it's been quite a while, I might have to plan a road trip.