Question about internal blocking

[Scott R. Brown]

You talk as if getting hit is a bad thing, I can't tell you how many peoples fists I have smashed with my face and how many kicks I have crushed with my groin !

Actually that is what I teach my boys. If you cannot avoid, block, or parry ,move into the punch. So, if you are unprepared and someone is throwing a punch to your head, just before impact, sharply dip your head into the punch. It throws the timing off and if you are lucky you will break his hand. Since the timing is off it will also reduce the force of a strike that will hit you anyway!

[Scott R. Brown]

That's one of my quotes..."if you haven't been hit in the head yet -- you haven't started training"

One time I got kicked in the eye so hard I thought I lost it. It was from a beginner too, LOL!! Gotta watch out for the newbies!

[SAAMAG]

One time I got kicked in the eye so hard I thought I lost it. It was from a beginner too, LOL!! Gotta watch out for the newbies!

Yep...their unorthodox style has tagged my "boys" many a times.

As Bas Rutten says "Never underestimate the kick to the groin! BAM!"

[sanjuro_ronin]

Actually that is what I teach my boys. If you cannot avoid, block, or parry ,move into the punch. So, if you are unprepared and someone is throwing a punch to your head, just before impact, sharping dip your head into the punch. It throws the timing off and if you are lucky you will break his hand. Since the timing is off it will also reduce the force of a strike that will hit you anyway!

My post was in jest, of course, but you make a valid point that is taught in almost all forms of H2H.

[Scott R. Brown]

My post was in jest, of course, but you make a valid point that is taught in almost all forms of H2H.

Are you telling me you can't shatter a foot with your testicles yet? That was one of the first things I learned!

Man, what a newbie you are!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Are you telling me you can't shatter a foot with your testicles yet? That was one of the first things I learned!

Man, what a newbie you are!

LMAO
And newbie I shall remain !!

[Scott R. Brown]

LMAO
And newbie I shall remain !!

Well, I am willing to teach you for a simple initiation fee of $1,000 and $150/mo. with a 2 contract! This is a one time internet offer. You must respond within the next 5 min. or will miss this valuable offer. And as a bonus prize for signing up now I will throw in a nice 8 pack of ShamWOW!!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Well, I am willing to teach you for simple initiation fee of $1,000 and $150/mo. with a 2 contract! This is a one time internet offer. You must respond within the next 5 min. or will miss this valuable offer. And as a bonus prize for signing up now I will throw in a nice 8 pack of ShamWOW!!

Wow, an offer like that deserves:

[Scott R. Brown]

Throw the girl in and I'll knock off $50 month and waive the initiation fee!

[HardWork8]

your writings certainly would be a decided causal factor for hysterical blindness...

Yes, blame me.

I have it on excellent authority that Scott now sleeps much better at night having been made aware of this ;

You should really check out out your sources (authorities) of information. It seems that Scott does not agree with your "excellent" authority.

I of course (and TC Bob by extension), have been engaged in much wringing hands while furiously trying to figure out where the path was lost...

And you probably will for a long time......

I'm guessing that you believe he has a personal issue with you as opposed to with the subject matter...

He accused me of selling my "magical chi" powers. When the concept was explained to him to the point that even a thick head would have understood that it has nothing to do with "magic", Vankuen did not acknowledge that his accusation aimed at me was wrong and defamatory.

that is an extremely biased opinion that you cannot verify in the least

It is a FACT! you are biased for not seeing it!

so I am very skeptical of the perceived obvious causal relationships as regards certain types of input (e.g. - manipulation), and as I see a great deal of similarities between this and internal training, I can only comment with relative certainty about my own direct context-specific experiences; so it's not about total lack of exposure, but rather about conservation of drawing untoward conclusions

Lets just save you a lot of pain and say that I personally know people who have used internal concepts in REAL combat and base their teachings on their experience. There, end of story.

that has nothing to do with carrying around old baggage - that was a very "in the moment" expression of hostility (hmm, I'm starting to feel another mome...no, it's passed. See?)

Yes, I see and it is still old baggage. However, you should still control your "in the moment" expressions of hostility. Try the "magical chi" art of meditation to banish negative thoughts from your mind.

I am not protecting anyone - you want to try to rip him a new aszhole, go right ahead,

LOL! If I rip him one more aszhole then he will qualify for the invisible man contest....

he's a big boy -

That I wouldn't know as obviously I don't know him as well as you do!

just don't reuse stuff which was written from a neutral standpoint to him in order to do so

Why not? Your neutral stuff proved him wrong! and Vankuen, instead of acknowledging the concept, went on to pretend that he knew all about it all along and did not take back his accusation of me selling "magical chi".

really? it can be a very offensive move; what I would rather say though is that it is a responsive move since the opponent has to give you something to "redirect" initially; so you are responding to that force rather than initiating one on your own (although the opponent could have given you that force as a result of his response to your initial attack)

You are still responding to an attack, whatever the source! MY POINT! christ, is this so difficult to understand?

I see no reason to waste it on spendthrifts like yourself

That is what all LIARS say, when caught telling untruths.

that's us, a couple of deceitful idiots...

Unfortunately, there are more than a couple of you deceitful idiots in these forums.

BS - Scott could simply be a silver-tongued devil who uses his capacity for being erudite to fool us all into complacency...hey, wait a minute...
joking aside, this perspective is necessary in order for you to be taken at your word about what you claim; too bad it's not the way things really work

I very much doubt that as he seemed to have a very solid explanation of the subject matter, unlike you and of course Mr sensitivity himself, VanKuen.

I know at least one Shotokan guy who would take exception to that statement and be happy to demonstrate just how lacking in aliveness his "blocking" is...

Say what you will. The art of shotokan does not fine tune its sensitivity to the same extent as internal kung fu styles.

well, sorry to hear it; offer still stands though (as it does for anyone) - and just to clarify, it's not some sort of veiled threat / challenge: in the unlikely event that someone from far afield on the forum was visiting locally, it would simply be an opportunity to calibrate perspectives, nothing more;

I did not see your offer of touching hands as a challenge. I just saw it as pointless, but I am still willing to hold your hand.

... it's this "what I know is the real deal, anyone who doesn't know it isn't" elitism that I find distressing; like there is some set of distinct hierarchy that everyone has to travel up through to get to the same "truth"; sorry, just doesn't sit well with me, and doesn't stand up to the test of reality; to wit, I can tell you that GM Chan Tai Shan never talked about, taught or demonstrated anything as concerned usage of his gung fu in fighting that resembled the sort of "internal skills" that you seem to be talking about ("live / dead", "sticking", etc.) and that I have since been exposed to in my experiences with bagua, taiji and other so-called "internal" styles..

I really don't understand the kind of "internals" that you have practiced. Admittedly it covers a large area of knowledge/concepts/principles, but as far as the combat perspective is concerned, "sensitivity"/"feeling" and their contribution to "sticking" come into their own as regards to fighting. I am beginning to doubt your scope of the internals. Whoops! I feel a d1ck waving moment of here are my "qualifications" on its way.

(in fact, he was of the opinion that that entire approach was of no use at all);

Well that shows how much he knows about kung fu and doesn't suprise me at all given his (over)holistic MA background.

and I am pretty confident that he had more "real" gung fu in his "byu ji" than you have in your entire body;

I doubt that eventhough I am sure that Vankuen is an awesome kickboxer, I mean 22 years is a long time.

of course, you can say that CTS had no idea of what real gung fu was if you like...

Well, the fact that he does not emphasis Liveness, Sensitivity, Sticking and their relation to combat, does raise my eyebrows a little.

Maybe he is teaching you "gringos" on a need to know basis, just like many other chinese masters are doing as we speak and have done for decades.

my point is that you have this set of criteria for what constitutes "real" gung fu skill / knowledge and you apply it to others as if it were some sort of fundamental law of the universe;

You miss the point. It is not my criteria it is kung fu criteria. Kung Fu criteria that I was taught by 3 different sifus from 3 different styles including my main style that is Wing Chun. Some coincidence,huh?

I take issue with this based on a) direct experience with what I would consider "real" gung fu

Well I am sure Vankuen and a few of his fellow kickboxers would not hesitate to make that same statement.

that does not fall into the particular skill sets you appear to value so highly; b) I generally distrust the opinions of people who fervently support a given perspective when perpetuation of their own self-identity / interest and / or livelihood are dependent thereupon; see, I used to think this way - I was convinced that there was a better way to which everyone ought to subscribe; now i realize that there is a better way - for me, not necessarily the next guy; meaning that, in fact, i have no particular issue with the way you or anyone else wants to pursue their own particular path; but what I do take issue with is when someone tries to universally extrapolate their approach via a perspective of exclusivity stating that anyone who does not "get" your perspective doesn't have / know "real" kung fu;

To cut a long story short. Through my kung fu training with different sifus all of whom,luckily for me, have been fighters (sorry,no videos,medals,trophies,etc), I have seen similarities in concepts and ideas. Things that many "kung fu experts" in this forum find "magical". One of us is wrong here and maybe these discussions will eventually point to the truth.

if nothing else, you would certainly come across as less pedantic and TCMA-zombie-like

As opposed to MMA/crosstraining/"modern is best"-zombie-like, I suppose?

this you have made abundantly clear from the outset

Well at least there are no misunderstandings there.

he goes to great pains to admonish me for my boorish behavior (sound familiar?)

Not really familiar. I am not trying to admonish you. All I am doing is trying to teach you about REAL kung fu. You know, the stuff your grand master wont teach you, because you are not perhaps trustworthy or keep harboring negative feelings towards people who know more than you and so on. Hey, if you play your cards right I may even adopt you as a disciple

so sodomizing small woodland creatures apparently has ceased to provide you with sufficient amusement then...

Well it did provide me amusement until I met you and Vankuen and a few other Forum "kung fu" experts. So far, "sodomizing" you guys for preaching false kung fu knowledge has been much more fun.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Throw the girl in and I'll knock off $50 month and waive the initiation fee!

A gentleman and a scholar I see.

[TenTigers]

in spm, we have the same concepts of the live and dead hands. The biggest problem I am facing with this is maintaining aliveness in both hands at the same time. Usually, when one encounters the opponent's attack and is alive, the other loses its aliveness. Any suggestions for overcoming this plateau?
My teacher's hands seem to literally be alive-as if they had minds of their own. Picture some weird sword and sorcery movie where the guys arms turn into two serpents,writhing,coiling,and striking-that's pretty much how his hands are.
some scary sheet right there.

[Scott R. Brown]

I have it on excellent authority that Scott now sleeps much better at night having been made aware of this

You should really check out out your sources (authorities) of information. It seems that Scott does not agree with your "excellent" authority.

Gee! I've never been used as a weapon before. The problem is, if you both use me against each other...WAIT, maybe that will work! How can it be any different than two guys fighting with staffs or swords.

On the other hand, when two guys fight with weapons, it is the weapon that gets the most abuse.

I have gone to great lengths here to stay out of the fray and pretend I'm a nice guy. Please help me out and let me stay on the side lines enjoying the food fight without actually getting any food on myself.

If you continue to use my name at least do it with ice cream, I like ice cream and it licks off easily.

[Scott R. Brown]

in spm, we have the same concepts of the live and dead hands. The biggest problem I am facing with this is maintaining aliveness in both hands at the same time. Usually, when one encounters the opponent's attack and is alive, the other loses its aliveness. Any suggestions for overcoming this plateau?
My teacher's hands seem to literally be alive-as if they had minds of their own. Picture some weird sword and sorcery movie where the guys arms turn into two serpents,writhing,coiling,and striking-that's pretty much how his hands are.
some scary sheet right there.

It just takes practice. practice and a little more practice! Some day you will get it, and you won't even remember when it actually happened. It is a matter of developing your proprioceptive sense.

Think about eating with a fork. You can eat and watch TV and hold a conversation all at the same time and never hit your teeth or spear you tongue. This is because of your proprioceptive sense.

The proprioceptive sense is basically, you are able to sense where your body and its parts are in space, so within the context of keeping your hands or limbs alive, it just takes practice doing two things at once. It is easier to learn if you don't try too hard.

[sanjuro_ronin]

IMPE, if one functions out of a relatively fixed reference point, such as the biomechanical COG, then the periphery will have to balance asymmetrically in order to maintain that point (meaning if one hand is "alive", the other will have to be "dead" so as not to tip the overall balance); if, on the other hand, the entire body is the center, or to put it another way if every point in the body is an instantaneous center, then there will never be any center to loose, and both hands function as you describe (ref: I seem to recall some Taoist passage about "having no fixed abode" - this is one way of application); this is what my teacher is a living example of; I myself have experienced this for a few years now only

This is what the Taiji sifu I spoke of meant.