Seperating drills from practicallity

[Mr Punch]

How does that have anything to do with what I said? I said, forged in the fire of combat, lop sao would probably become something very similar, because what they have is very conceptually similar to wing chun's lop sao.

The fact that you're using 'would probably become' suggests to me that you've never tried it in anything like real fighting...! I've used a 'real' 'classical' grab and pull lop sao against a guy in the street who tried to sucker punch me from behind (he was ostensibly trained in karate, a bit of boxing and something else): I caught wind of it, turned whilst ducking to some extent, 'caught' it on the outside and jerked him fist-first into a lamp-post behind me. Sprained wrist, instant capitulation (he was a drunk arse what-iffing, but was still trying to take my head off): saw him two weeks later, and his hand was still wrapped up.

I've tried using lop in FC sparring against Shooto fighters with considerable wrestling/JJ/judo experience... turns into a poor cousin of their positional hand work, BUT if you can get close enough quick enough and smoothly (non telegraphically enough) you can use their slightest repositioning as your opening. But let me tell you, those grappler boys can read a body better than most of us fools with our chi sao, and they're more likely to read what you're doing and drop you than vice versa. Why? Because they don't do chi sao: they wrestle! And that's all about reading bodies and sensitivity, but at full speed with full resistance and full strength attacking and defending... which chi sao ain't!

But then again, the concept of lop sao is up to the practitioner and who he or she has learned from.

Nope, the concept of lop sao is up to the quality and experience of your opponent!

You can talk to Violent Designs about the way we do chi sao. Its basically like sparring, just starting from a very close range. Why not spar, you might ask?...

If it's like sparring, then it isn't sparring!

And not only 'Why not spar?' but, why not start in a clinch trying to knee each other in the thighs, in the ghoolies, headbutt each other, elbow each other and box out each other's livers...?! Since, you know, that's the range you're saying chi sao is for developing to an expert degree.

... So our sparring is actually very much like our chi sao, only we have less outside-range fighting and more inside-range fighting, since we start on the inner ranges. I think the strongest point of it is that he isn't even a Wing Chun practitioner. So there aren't any imaginary rules built into it.

So you do actually spar too? And there aren't any imaginary rules to it?

I would say experience in fighting does that for you.

I would have to agree.

I'd like to say how I fight and how anyone I teach fights, is to use the understanding of the concepts learned, to find the openings in balance, striking, everything, and to forget about complex performances like the one you suggest... There is a trend among all martial arts where people over complicate what is actually very simple, and over-simplify what is actually very complex.

You'd like to say... you haven't fought in any capacity have you? I mean, in the street, on the door, in a bar, at school, in a ring, even in FC protected sparring with a 'ref'? The way you're explaining this IT IS a complex, over-analysed performance...! And you teach, too? Have your students fought using what you've taught?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a real pop at you. It's just you seem to like to debate and discuss and like Liddel said, I think you're a little inconsistent to say the least, so I'm just trying to help you out by strengthening your argument!

Experience in the doing, for every subject, will give way to real knowledge. Does that mean we shouldn't try to speak or understand what is effectively art, science and philosphy, on the deepest level possible?

I think you're missing some stuff at the shallow end first, mate! You can get really lost in the depths!

I only "Grab" with Lop Sao because Lop Sao is a descriptive term for a grab. ...

I'll tell you a little something that was useful for me after the first five minutes of playing with grapplers: there really is NO lop, jum, gaun, jut etc discernible at all when you're trying for position or trying to create an opening (be it for underhooks, a strike, a kick or whatever) - all there is is movement. If you freeze-frame it some of it may resemble something you may think you're using, but it's all irrelevant. Principle over technique, every time.

[k gledhill]

lop is not jut

jut is in SLT/CK , a primary fighting action because it is born from an interrupted lead strike , plus if the jut misses or whatever it doesnt leave the centerline you simply strike or retract to a cycle of man/vu attcks...

Lop is in Bil Gee...we use lop as a grab, we dont want to grab normally, because it makes the grabbing hand 'dead' for that time its grabbing ...jut doesnt require grabbing and lateral turning as lop does.
Lop is to turn the opponent on their axis line running head to toe, doesnt require force , just leverage...the reasons we adopt lop are to turn the opponent if they arent turning themselves or we have had our attack line /intent stopped ...we change the course of the assault by using lop to turn and then gain a flanked side ...what happens then is up to you and your reality...shove /kick strangulation...rear naked choke...

Keep the idea in your head that VT is trying to overwhlem the other fighter with 2 free strikes in constant rotation , as soon as you grab the guys wrist [lop] you stop hitting and are now in a relatively equal position ...2 arms engaged in grab and grabbed , 2 arms free to strike....so whats the purpose of randomly grabbing with the man sao, if its just stopping the primary idea ?

primary idea is to be the attacker for longer than the other guy can attack you.

2 free hands that are trained to each have the capability of acting like 2 actions ...

simultaneous attack and defense in one arm action....add another arm and we have 2 arms capable of acting in thoughtless rotation ....

jum/tan ^ tan\jum everything else is to make a path to keep delivering tan/jum

[AdrianK]

That most wing chun is NOT natural expression. It is forcing natural reactions into unnatural expression. Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing: sometimes you have force yourself into unnatural patterns of movement for the sake of a useful technique/strategy (e.g. I don't like most of the throws that involve you throwing yourself to the ground from a Russian arm drag - they seem very unnatural... but done that way the result is what I want: someone on the floor hopefully under me or set up for an arm bar). But in a lot of wing chun you force yourself to internalise these patterns... and then force yourself to change them when you use them in fighting...!!! Doesn't make sense.

Oh absolutely. I completely agree.

My point is that dodging and riding blows are HUGE parts of fighting, and to have a 'style' that eschews these things, that even forces you to have a fairly motionless upper body is a HUGE flaw. You can't move your whole body out the way of a full speed strike or kick, but you can by using moving your upper body. Also, despite chun having a hook and an uppercut, these are still based on the premise that your upper body is a solid unit. Which is daft.

Again, I completely agree that these are major parts of fighting. I dislike the idea of style for anything else except as a terms of reference for a group of ideas. The idea that you must fight as a style is ridiculous, because then as you said, things like dodging and riding(or anything else), which are highly effective, are lost on the practitioner.

Point taken: no need to get touchy. Maybe I should have said 'something missing from your list'. It's a turn of phrase, and not an accusatory one.

Boxing is rigid for absolute beginners in their first couple of weeks. As soon as they get into a ring it’d had better’ve gone. BJJ, wrestling etc, MAY be rigid for a day or two… but again it soon has to go… same with Thai, same with kickboxing, even karate as soon as they fight. So I don’t know what you’re trying to say here.

With boxing, BJJ, wrestling, thai boxing - Their philosophies allow a lot of room for personal expression. In boxing, all of the top boxers own their jab, their cross, etc. - When I say almost all styles, I don't include these for the most part. I mean the many, many schools of karate and kung fu in particular, especially wing chun, that force their practitioners into a rigid, static expression. That you are forced into doing things exactly as they are taught, and that there is no other way.

I never encountered this in any of the bjj, boxing, or muay thai I've ever taken. But man, the kung fu and karate schools, even some of the jkd schools out here, I've seen this.

I also don’t know what you’re trying to say in terms of ‘science’. To call any fighting methods ‘science’ is to show a fundamental ignorance of scientific method, and of fighting! Even just to say that they are ‘scientific’ is conceit! Are you really telling me that in some way knowledge of leverage and physics and statistical probability as to the potential reactions you’re going to get has anything to do with how you fight?!

Definitively, Scientifc method is a means of understanding. Hypothosis, experimentation to determine truth or falseness.

Does it have anything to do with how you're fighting in the moment? No. Can it help you to develop your training methods and what you train and attempt to understand? Absolutely.

Now, I don’t think you’re getting what I’m saying. Lifting your arms to cover up is natural. Specifically, lifting your arms with your hands palm-in by your head and your elbows forwards or down is a natural cover up. Bong is not. From what you’re saying, the boxing cover, or even the Thai guard which is different to the boxing one, are the same as each other, are the same as the spike/shell guard, and are the same as the bong sao. You could argue the first three, but the bong sao is up when the others are down. You’re not trying to argue that up is down, are you?

I don't mean to say they are exactly the same. I believe they are fundamentally different with the same original idea in mind. It could be argued that bong sao's development started with this idea to cover up, and evolved to serve a more effective purpose.

And AGAIN, like with bong and covering, you were upholding specifically the lop as a grab itself that covers any variable? It doesn’t. Apart from the fact that we’ve then got the argument Liddel brought up that it more often than not isn’t even a grab… you’re agreeing with him while holding that it’s THE wing chun example of a grab to rival judo/JJ’s/wrestling’s grab positioning work? Sounds like the bong sao up = down argument again to me!

I didn't mean to say it was *the* wing chun example of a grab. It is in some forms of wing chun. And literally the name means grabbing hand. But in WC it is whatever the lineage says it is. I'm saying take the WC or "Style" out of the equation and saying I use it to describe the idea of a grab. Ehh, that doesn't mean I don't use the WC ideas in ways that don't "grab". In TWC, the first WC style I started out with, it wasn't a grab. But its a personal classification based on language.

The *reason* I use lop to describe my knowledge of grabbing outside of style, is just a better way for me to catalog what I've learned on that specific subject, regardless of what style it comes from. Its just a name for a very basic concept. Then the knowledge and variables supplement that very basic concept.

The WC expression specifically can be many different things depending on who you talk to. I'm not saying my idea of lop sao, is the WC way.

The fact that you're using 'would probably become' suggests to me that you've never tried it in anything like real fighting...!

I say "probably" only because it depends on the person.

but at full speed with full resistance and full strength attacking and defending... which chi sao ain't!

Chi sao should be, IMHO.

If it's like sparring, then it isn't sparring!

The reason I classify it as different from sparring is because the focus is fighting on the inside. And you'd stop and restart when that focus is lost. Only because the focus is training your inside fighting to a higher level.

And not only 'Why not spar?' but, why not start in a clinch trying to knee each other in the thighs, in the ghoolies, headbutt each other, elbow each other and box out each other's livers...?! Since, you know, that's the range you're saying chi sao is for developing to an expert degree.

Both me and him have trained (or in his case, do train) muay thai, and the clinch, knees, elbows, headbutts, inside boxing, throws, shoots, wrestling, all of that is fair game, full force and full speed.

So you do actually spar too? And there aren't any imaginary rules to it?

Absolutely. Sparring is essential to martial arts.

You'd like to say... you haven't fought in any capacity have you? I mean, in the street, on the door, in a bar, at school, in a ring, even in FC protected sparring with a 'ref'? The way you're explaining this IT IS a complex, over-analysed performance...! And you teach, too? Have your students fought using what you've taught?

Absolutely I've fought and sparred plenty. I've fought in a smokers at some local gyms too. Last one I did I blew my knee out, so I had to take a break for about a year, but I'm training right now to go back.

The reason I say "I'd like to say", is because I'm not an elite MMA fighter. I've fought, but I can't say I know just because I can beat up people on the street who, who knows what they know or don't know. There are no standards of fighting on the street. And since I've never fought(sparred, but not fought) a professional fighter and not just some dude at a smoker or amateur fight, how can I say, yes, for sure I apply everything perfectly.

As for teaching, I've taught some of the concepts I've learned to help give some people a different perspective, but I don't have enough time in my day to have any "students". I've helped teach some people who have their own trainers, to help them break out of the rigidity and think outside the box.