Of relevance to Wing Chun

[HardWork8]

I just found the following short clip from a DVD made by sifu Douglas Wong, where he demonstrates some Snake techniques that should be of interest to Wing Chun practicioners.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lKR48H30UG4

Sorry, if it has been posted before.

[Sihing73]

TTT

Just making sure you know its back

Please keep on topic and refrain from insults, personal attacks, etc.

[sanjuro_ronin]

TTT

Just making sure you know its back

Please keep on topic and refrain from insults, personal attacks, etc.

Where's the fun in that ??

[Liddel]

What i want to know form you guys is how 'In your opinion' does practice of the internals maifest itself in your application of Wing Chun....

What does it add to the use.... So we can actually get some valid info rather than the "i cant mention the methods cause its secret" BS.

I find that the VT im taught has the idea of being firm but relaxed...but in application its when and where possible.

IMO Chun by its very nature is internal because regardless of Lineage not using force against force has major cross over between lines, more so than other maxums

IMO though, all MA's have this in some part.

For me the idea of being firm but springy (someone used this term earlier) is about holding your ground in an area of fighting but knowing when to change and adapt depending on whats going on.

For example my Tan is firm in dispersing an attack, forces pressing on it are met with resistance...but to a certain point, at which time i let it go and change to Bong for instance to let forces go and attack open space with my free weapon, kick or punch.

The threshold obviously differs for each individual.

If im cliched up and pushed back im may try to stop being pushed but if the force becomes to much i may turn and try a throw or at least gain space ad timing to land an uppercut from CK or an elbow etc...

This is one aspect IMO and its just scratching the surface..... i would like to hear more from others...but

I find the idea of the 'internals' from my own POV to be entwined in the VT i do, its not here's VT now well do some internal training, its inherent in my actual style if you will. We train our bodies to behave and have the physical atributes to assist the body mechanics for the techs we're using as were doing learning them...

So this is why from my own POV i find it interesting when people talk about the internals as being a kinda seperate entity etc...

Thoughts ?

DREW

[anerlich]

Some other thoughts:

IMO this discussion won't reach any resolution or consensus (not that it has to!) without some sort of common understanding of what "internal" means.

My Xingyi/BaGua teacher held that internal does not necessarily imply softness.

According to him, Xingyi techniques can be HARD. "Hard as a fist of diamond," to paraphrase Henry Rollins. Far from flowing like water, they're like a titanium battering ram going straight up the middle. But, once again in his opinion, Xingyi is the most internal of the three neijia arts because it most precisely uses the principles of TCM , five elements, in its fundamental techniques and even basic defensive strategy. It's internal because of its base in TCM principles, not because it is "soft".

Is "internal":

* a system built on a conceptual framework of TCM

* built on yi (mind force) and qi (you know what that is, don't you?) rather than li (muscular strength)

* a set of training methods whose movements with respect to their purported goals are unusual, counterintuitive, esoteric, or even weird, goofy and run counter to modern science and even common sense

or something else?

[Toby]

"Hard as a fist of diamond," to paraphrase Henry Rollins.

I prefer "as hard as a diamond in an ice storm", to paraphrase Ricky Bobby.

Otherwise agree with this:

I find the idea of the 'internals' from my own POV to be entwined in the VT i do, its not here's VT now well do some internal training, its inherent in my actual style if you will. We train our bodies to behave and have the physical atributes to assist the body mechanics for the techs we're using as were doing learning them...

So this is why from my own POV i find it interesting when people talk about the internals as being a kinda seperate entity etc...

and this:

a set of training methods whose movements with respect to their purported goals are unusual, counterintuitive, esoteric, or even weird, goofy and run counter to modern science and even common sense

and this:

Briefly put, to me internals are training parts of your body you can't see. It manifests itself in structure: an awareness and connectedness to kinetic chains in the body and how they effect your opponent through principle and technical application.

But that's all bull. There's no need for the distinction.

For me, I find anerlich's quote resonates particularly well. Stuff I learn often seems counterintuitive (or at least not something you'd think of yourself) yet it feels right and works well. A simple, harmless example - spread your fingers as wide as you can, keep your thumb straight. Now keep everything the same but pull the index finger as much as you can towards the thumb. Dunno about you but for me it engages the hand, forearm, upper arm and shoulder much more. One small change brings lots of change. I've got plenty of examples like that, where a minor change completely changes everything. This is just a simple "trick" with moving a finger, I've got things like that that apply to the whole body. The finger one is easy for anyone to try and less important than a body one. I've got another good "trick" I'd like to mention but it's probably best to refrain from posting it publicly. Anyway, nothing secret or "internal", it's just training in a different way, building a machine by individually tweaking all the parameters.

So in reply to:

What i want to know form you guys is how 'In your opinion' does practice of the internals maifest itself in your application of Wing Chun....

What does it add to the use.... So we can actually get some valid info rather than the "i cant mention the methods cause its secret" BS.

I dunno. I don't have a control sample since it's ingrained. I'd like to think that it makes me stronger, faster, better than a hypothetical control sample. It certainly hurts more so I can feel myself working harder. I've lifted a lot of weights so as an analogy it feels like the weight's always going up - it never gets easier. I know I'm doing the work so hopefully it's producing results. Dunno.

[Mr Punch]

...I find the idea of the 'internals' from my own POV to be entwined in the VT i do, its not here's VT now well do some internal training, its inherent in my actual style if you will. We train our bodies to behave and have the physical atributes to assist the body mechanics for the techs we're using as were doing learning them...

So this is why from my own POV i find it interesting when people talk about the internals as being a kinda seperate entity etc...

Nicely put. This is what I've been slowly trying to nudge HW towards.

If I had to choose, I'd say my wing chun was external. But it has a lot of internal components. Chi is not one of them.

Anerlich is bravely trying to recouch the 'What is internal?' question. Well, that question is eternal!

Briefly put, to me internals are training parts of your body you can't see. It manifests itself in structure: an awareness and connectedness to kinetic chains in the body and how they effect your opponent through principle and technical application.

But that's all bull. There's no need for the distinction.

[Mr Punch]

I just found the following short clip from a DVD made by sifu Douglas Wong, where he demonstrates some Snake techniques that should be of interest to Wing Chun practicioners.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lKR48H30UG4

Sorry, if it has been posted before.

I liked it.

Can't see it's relevance to my wing chun. I don't do any hand conditioning that would safely enable me to use finger strikes, finger strikes are overrated in Yip Man lines even within biu gee, and I don't any sideways heading strikes unless I'm well inside working in or getting out of a clinch.

Maybe it has more relevance to mainland styles.

That stuff either will not work or is such low-percentage to make it useless.

If you have the position, you've conditioned your hands, don't have much knowledge of submissions and for some reason don't want the uncertainty of just hammering his head, I don't see why it wouldn't work. However, those four criteria make it pretty low percentage!

This just underscores the problem of having nonfighters, like Wong, teaching fighting -- they are the blind leading the blind. They have no significant, useful experience with fighting (and trying to use their "techniques") to draw upon, and so can't develop fighting skill, judgment, or understanding.

Sorry, do you know this bloke?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Finger strikes can and do work, if you have properly conditioned fingers, something that very few do.
Look up Shinjo Sensei from the Uechi-ryu and see what he can do with his fingers.

[HardWork8]

Look up Shinjo Sensei from the Uechi-ryu and see what he can do with his fingers.

The same probably holds true for Morio Higaonna of Goju ryu who has been conditioning his hands for decades.

[By the way, and this is going back a bit and is off topic, but has to be stated for the sake of enlightenment - Higaonnas Goju-ryu DOES address the ground scenario, just like Kyokushinkai did many years ago!]

[t_niehoff]

If you have the position, you've conditioned your hands, don't have much knowledge of submissions and for some reason don't want the uncertainty of just hammering his head, I don't see why it wouldn't work. However, those four criteria make it pretty low percentage!

That's precisely my point -- people don't "see" because they approach this from a theoretical POV (you THINK it should work). Instead of approaching it from theory, from conjecture, why not approach it from the POV of experience? When, where, etc. have we ever seen it work?

Try this experiment, get a decent opponent, someone with some good boxing, muay thai, MMA, etc. skills and with some decent attributes, then have him put on goggles, and spar with you at 100% -- tell him to really try to knock you out, take you down, pound the living daylights out of you. Then, you try to hit him on the goggles with your fingers. See what happens.

[Mr Punch]

That's precisely my point -- people don't "see" because they approach this from a theoretical POV (you THINK it should work). Instead of approaching it from theory, from conjecture, why not approach it from the POV of experience? When, where, etc. have we ever seen it work?

Early wrestlers in Virginia were infamous for gouging out eyes, biting off noses, ripping off ears etc... where have we ever seen them!?

Oh.

Try this experiment, get a decent opponent, someone with some good boxing, muay thai, MMA, etc. skills and with some decent attributes, then have him put on goggles, and spar with you at 100% -- tell him to really try to knock you out, take you down, pound the living daylights out of you. Then, you try to hit him on the goggles with your fingers. See what happens.

Blah blah blah... I don't need to! I've gone the full contact route, and I don't pretend to have the conditioning, the skills or the will to do what that guy was advocating in that vid: and I do know enough good submissions not to need it.

But my point still stands: let me rephrase it as you don't seem to have understood it the first time...

It's low percentage, but...
If you have the position, you've conditioned your hands, don't have much knowledge of submissions and for some reason don't want the uncertainty of just hammering his head, it would work.

Oh, and Terence... do you know that guy?

[sanjuro_ronin]

somewhat relevant:

A buddy of mine and I will debating the use of fixed blades, not wither they work, but more like the size of them and things of that nature.
We got to the knife used in the move "the Hunted", called the tracker, not an ideal fighting knife to be sure, but a good survival/all purpose type blade.
His view was that it was too bulky and too heavy and too un-balanced to be of any good as a decent fighting blade, my point was that if one trained with it, the law of specificty would "take over" and and one would be as good with it as ones training allowed you to be.
He argued not, so I gave him a Khurki, far bulkier than the tracker and mentioned how well the Ghurkahs use them, he was unconvinced so we "sparred" a bit ( as much as one can with a live blade, LOL), he afterwards agreed that someone well trained with a heavier blade can make it work, though we were BOTH in agreement that it is far than the ideal blade for knife fighting.

[Vajramusti]

You have to have a top quality Gurkha to show you what a kukhri(of various sizes) can really do.

As in other activities there are differences between rank and file and the elite.



joy chaudhuri

[t_niehoff]

Early wrestlers in Virginia were infamous for gouging out eyes, biting off noses, ripping off ears etc... where have we ever seen them!?

Oh.

I see . . . so your evidence is that these things have been done (on the ground and Wong showed it being done in stand-up) by poorly skilled fighters against other poorly skilled fighters in the past. Do you think it wise to base conclusions about fighting on what one poorly skilled guy can do to another?

Blah blah blah... I don't need to! I've gone the full contact route, and I don't pretend to have the conditioning, the skills or the will to do what that guy was advocating in that vid: and I do know enough good submissions not to need it.

You may have done "full contact" but that isn't what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about drawing conclusions from evidence (experience) as opposed to theory or conjecture.

But my point still stands: let me rephrase it as you don't seem to have understood it the first time...

It's low percentage, but...
If you have the position, you've conditioned your hands, don't have much knowledge of submissions and for some reason don't want the uncertainty of just hammering his head, it would work.

And let me repeat, no, you BELIEVE BASED ON SPECULATION that it would work.

Oh, and Terence... do you know that guy?

He's quite well-known.