Is It Too Late?

[Infrazael]

Pretty much SevenStar. . . . . . . I use CLF for striking, submissions for ground. In between I learn some muay thai kicks and expand my punching capabilities by practicing western boxing.

I wouldn't call myself a Thai boxer though, or a Western boxer. Those are mere projections of my CLF training that have increased my knowledge and overall abilities.

[hskwarrior]

hey whats up folks.

its good to see that the thread i hijacked and brought here is still going strong.

What i was doing was picking your brains to see where most of the choy lee fut people minds states were on today's choy lee fut training. Now (for training purpuses only) i consider other styles to be enemies-somewhat. The reason for that is it keeps my mind sharp at the further development of the gung fu our clf ancestors laid down for us.

As a street fighter I know that elbows and knees are important tools to have, and to be honest I've never seen an old style gung fu school focus on those aspects. its only been mainly the hands. I mean they also did sweeps and such, and another thing i've neve seen people train to use the knees and elbows until know.

In my personal training i would use the same methods of training used by other styles. in the type of school i come some of our training methods were kind of out dated-still effective-just old. as i said in my personal training i like to use thai pads to train with-especially the short but bulky ones used for round house kicks and such, but i would use them to biu jong, elbow, even sow choys and things like that. but as i said that was how "I" liked to train.

but i love to teach. and i want my students to say we train how our sifu would train. At first i was just worried that if i strongly emphasized the use of elbow strikes and even knees, i was at first-worried that we could look a little bit more trendy, and not old school as i like it. I trained the old chinatown way, now training is a little more modern.

The Lau Bun branch has stayed "old school" for decades. I think it was my sifu who was amongst the first if not the first to have some influence over the further development of Lau Bun Hung Sing CLF via his own flavor. And to keep our ancestors proud i think its good to bring choy lee fut into todays world.

What i mean by "todays world" is we face different challenges since the times are completely changed from whence they (the ancestors) called themselves choy lee fut fighters. Today we as amercians have to face a multitude of styles from all over the world. Today we have to deal with grapplers, shootfighters, street brawlers, then we have to focus on how to deal with Thai style boxers, MMA, as well as all those other styles.

I hope that our CLF ancestors are proud that there are people out there taking what they started and bringing it to the next level.

I know that some of you will respond from the "general" martial arts point of view, but i am being very exclusive to just they choy lee fut people here on this one. Im sure you all will have some very valid points, but i hope you can see where im coming from.

Thanks, this was really inspirational.

peace

[Infrazael]

Frank, and all the other CLF guys.

What "IS" CLF???

A mixed-style molded into a near-perfect, ass-kicking, ****ed-off, pugilistic experiment gone horribly wrong enough to make Hung Gar, Muay Thai and Western Boxing look like a potential victim for that Sau Choy or Chop Choy to the throat.

What did Chan Hueng do? He mixed, and he refined, and he created. And On the Seventh Day did Chan Hueng say "I have created my Choy Lay Fut style of kung fu" and Chan Hueng was pleased.

Now, what can we keep on doing to honor his Legacy? Keep refining. Never stop refining. If we see something WRONG, correct it. . . . don't let diseases rot away simply because of "tradition for tradition's sake." If we see an advantage. . . . press it, just like the way we fight.

My 2 cents.

[Eddie]

No, I dont agree. Knees and elbows have always been part of traditional kung fu. Few styles comes to mind immidiately, Baji, Mantis, Xiaobei, wing chun, hung ga, taiji, shaolin, CLF, etc etc etc. nothing modern about it.

I do get what you mean tho, and I agree on some points too

[SevenStar]

Frank, and all the other CLF guys.

What "IS" CLF???

A mixed-style molded into a near-perfect, ass-kicking, ****ed-off, pugilistic experiment gone horribly wrong enough to make Hung Gar, Muay Thai and Western Boxing look like a potential victim for that Sau Choy or Chop Choy to the throat.

Where are these guys at that can do this to other fighters? You would think that they would at least pop up on the san da scene, right?

[Ou Ji]

Not really. Their mom's won't let them stay out that late and besides, they had a fight in the 3rd grade so they have no need to prove themselves to anybody.




Dang I'm such a troublemaker these days.

[Fu-Pow]

san da scene

Define "sanda scene."

[Shaolindynasty]

They do pop up in sanda and have been for decades. There is allot of info on CLF full contact fighters out there.

BTW, there is no "pure" clf. It was created as a mma and following generations of clf pratitioners have influenced their branches with technique from different styles. Buk Sing is influenced by northern shaolin, my branch is influenced by lama, LKH branch has Shek kin's northern style influence.

It's not really a big deal.

[Eddie]

hey sevenstar,

i have also looked around the web, and noticed that it seems to me that not many schools in the States are very big into san shou. The schools that seem to be big, are the ones who only does san shou, but I am probably wrong.

I still see very little difference to CLF training and san shou training (appart from wearing the gloves), and it can be pretty effective in the ring. OBVIOUSLY, it all depeneds on the fighter in the end, but its silly to ' blame' the style.

Last night I downloaded some video clips of the site from a CLF school in mexico. It had some clips of Chan Yong Fa doing various things. Saw some really nice san da training on there. They are a traditional school, but they seem to even make use of modern tools.
anyways, heres the link. http://usuarios.lycos.es/choyleefutmx

[hskwarrior]

I agree that CLF was initially created from systems taught by li yau san, choy fook and ching cho, but i've been doing choy lee fut for about 25 years (24 really) and in our school we never really focused on elbows and knee strikes. it was always about the one hitter quitters of CLF that we focused on. And most of the time a street fight is too unpredictable to try to launch them as part of your arsenal.

In San Francisco, the street fights are always just around the corner, and since the area i grew up in is now the latin version of bloods and crips its pretty dangerous. one day out if front of the late brendan lai's martial art supply store these 4 guys thought they recognized this rival gang member and instantly started pounding him. The best the guy could do was throw a couple of punches then run a little and do it all over again. I always watch the way other street fighters fight pick apart their mistakes, i use them as a visual training method.

anyhow, I don't see a dilemma about people using their elbows and knees, i was just worried that we were too late and other thai-like styles would think we were jumping on the band wagon because when i think about it in my school we have a lot of elbows, devastating ones too, but it was never our focus.


Now, the Buk Sing Branch is directly related to the Fut San Hung Sing Kwoon.
Tam Sam himself called himself a "Hung Sing man. It was only about 5 students who went to learn the northern stuff. The students prior to those five for the student exchange between Ku Yu Jeong was all hung sing choy lee fut. But tam sam had the right idea, check out other styles and intergrate what he thinks would benefit his system, but choy lee fut-tize them first.

peace

[Infrazael]

Kinda like how I'm learning Muay Thai to CLF-tize it into what "I" need. Western Boxing is nice too, teaches you some new ways to throw a punch that I find really helpful.

SevenStar. . . San Da Scene's in China. I'm sure you saw the fights between the top San Da players vs. the Muay Thai players in Thailand, etc?

[Eddie]

hskwarrior, I agree with your post.
infrazael,
the san da wong series you speak of is not the ultimate san da " scene" as seven meant. But, as you mentioned this, if you watch those videos you can see how corrupt china judges are. Those videos are good reference material and nice to watch, but in my opinion, they server more as government propaganda than anything else. Dont get me wrong, I love san da more than MT, but let the better fighter win, regardless of the stlye, race, or nationality

[Infrazael]

I agree mostly with you, but you have to agree it was pretty sweet when one of our San Da fighters KOed the Muay Thai guy IN Thailand with a round kick.

[SevenStar]

They do pop up in sanda and have been for decades. There is allot of info on CLF full contact fighters out there.

BTW, there is no "pure" clf. It was created as a mma and following generations of clf pratitioners have influenced their branches with technique from different styles. Buk Sing is influenced by northern shaolin, my branch is influenced by lama, LKH branch has Shek kin's northern style influence.

It's not really a big deal.

that's interesting... What denotes it as clf then? Do all of the various styles have the same fore set of techniques?

[SevenStar]

And most of the time a street fight is too unpredictable to try to launch them as part of your arsenal.

Maybe I misunderstand you here - are you saying that a fight is too unpredictable to use knees and elbows?

In San Francisco, the street fights are always just around the corner, and since the area i grew up in is now the latin version of bloods and crips its pretty dangerous.

Sounds like my town. We have surrenos 13, ALKN, La Raza and others, in addition the the norm - bloods, crips, GDs and vicelords.

anyhow, I don't see a dilemma about people using their elbows and knees, i was just worried that we were too late and other thai-like styles would think we were jumping on the band wagon because when i think about it in my school we have a lot of elbows, devastating ones too, but it was never our focus.

Back to my original point then, why would you care What they think? MT has takedowns, and we teach them. We don't care if someone thought we were jumping on a san shou bandwagon. Becoming a better fighter is more important than that.