Is San Shou the Appropriate Full-contact Expression for Kung Fu?

[SPJ]

there is a very nice article about learning and bringing back contesting chinese long weapon.

it is from ma ming da and published in journal of chinese martial studies (HK).

the true kung fu is expressed in the battle field.

long range weapon or chang bing qi is the norm in the ancient battle field

and so are the bows and arrows.

short weapon/sword and open hand practice are not as important

---

to truly have a test of kung fu

expression of kung fu is in your long weapon.

so pick up your long spear or shuo

practice away.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnpG8WIxJrs

[HumbleWCGuy]

HWCG

I don't know about the superiority of SS over MT. If that was the case, why did the Chinese go to the Thais for leg technique and later in pro-sanda for knees? SS clinching is not better than MT either. SS has a few unique skills that stand out in comparison, including the lead leg treading/side kick and throws (as far as takedowns MT also has highly developed skills).
__________________________________________________ _________________________

They may have investigated Muay Thai as they were constructing the art but the striking maintains its kung fu character. I am not sure why people dog kung fu when it looses and can't accept it when it wins. If this were a MT board I would expect all the apologists and excuse making.

[Lucas]

I am not sure why people dog kung fu when it looses and can't accept it when it wins.

curse of the underdog

[David Jamieson]

CMA must be derided as often as possible.

keeps it humble.

[B.Tunks]

They may have investigated Muay Thai as they were constructing the art but the striking maintains its kung fu character. I am not sure why people dog kung fu when it looses and can't accept it when it wins. If this were a MT board I would expect all the apologists and excuse making.

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They didn't investigate MT as they were constructing the art. Thai technique came in very recently.

I love gongfu and I get mad excited when any kind of CMA does well against any other style in any format. I'm just speaking honestly by saying that MT is a very highly refined and effective ring sport in comparison to sanda and you would be hard pressed to find better conditioned, tougher, more 'natural' ring fighters.

When it comes to point fighting with a throw biased ruleset the Chinese have been more successful against the Thais since the late 90's. As far as damage, the Thais have clearly inflicted more at each and every meeting, with very few Thai's even being injured, let alone counted out. If what I posted earlier was correct regarding the number of K.O's in the recent meeting, I will be pleasantly surprised. However, I haven't seen the quality of the Thai team - but they have started to field more decent teams in the last couple of years. In the first few years over 50% of each Thai team were not even Thai.

I will be happy when someone like Bian Maofu or Liu Hailong (or any other sanda champ such as Salikhov Muslim) makes their mark in K1. So far no Chinese or Sanda background fighter has done very well there. I believe it's coming soon. Would have been helpful to keep Sanda Wang going though.

BT

[B.Tunks]

This was in response to a deleted post:

Ha ha, come on mate. I'm hardly a MT apologist. I'm involved in promoting sanda in my country - a country that is dominated by kickboxing and Muay Thai. I trained both KB and MT in my past yet still gravitated to sanda as my preferred format because of my CMA background. If I saw no value in it I wouldn't waste my time with it. We have our own traditional sanda format in TLQ yet no one uses it in my country outside of the club, so we enter sport sanda when the opp arises because it's near enough (also mod Thai and straight KB before sanctioned sanshou was available here).

My original point was this - if you train CMA and want to compete in combat sports but feel your basic punching, kicking and throwing skills are not enough to get you by in sanda/sanshou, then it's probably best to forget about competing. Again, I feel sanda is a far more suitable format for applying CMA than MT, but only because of the restrictions in throwing.

I have experienced corrupt officiating first hand over there so nothing surprises me result-wise. I'll make up my own mind when I see the fights.

[HumbleWCGuy]

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They didn't investigate MT as they were constructing the art. Thai technique came in very recently.

According to your website you are just a few years older than me so you don't have access to any history that I am not privy to. I can't agree with your assessment. I have been kickboxing using CMA since the mid 80's. Since Muay Thai became popular, I have only adopted a few tacits like using the swing knee and hitting with the shin more. The heavy roundhouse and diving roundhouse tactics of MT are not new to us by my understanding.

I love gongfu and I get mad excited when any kind of CMA does well against any other style in any format. I'm just speaking honestly by saying that MT is a very highly refined and effective ring sport in comparison to sanda and you would be hard pressed to find better conditioned, tougher, more 'natural' ring fighters.

When it comes to point fighting with a throw biased ruleset the Chinese have been more successful against the Thais since the late 90's. As far as damage, the Thais have clearly inflicted more at each and every meeting, with very few Thai's even being injured, let alone counted out. If what I posted earlier was correct regarding the number of K.O's in the recent meeting, I will be pleasantly surprised. However, I haven't seen the quality of the Thai team - but they have started to field more decent teams in the last couple of years. In the first few years over 50% of each Thai team were not even Thai.

If SS is more successful, why apologize for the wins? There is nothing more ridiculous in sports than having to feel like you need to apologize for winning.

I will be happy when someone like Bian Maofu or Liu Hailong (or any other sanda champ such as Salikhov Muslim) makes their mark in K1. So far no Chinese or Sanda background fighter has done very well there. I believe it's coming soon. Would have been helpful to keep Sanda Wang going though.

BT

My sense is that China is such a populated country that many of their best fighters are content fight and thrive in their own society. As an American, I am first interested in fighting and winning according to American standards and "world" standard second.

If I were the King of San Da in China, I would consider myself the best upright fighter in the world. No kickboxer in the world could stand against me. What is there to prove to K1 kickboxers or Muay Thais? Rightfully a Sanda Champion would view K1 and Muay Thai as arts that protect lesser fighters with rules. If they come to challenge me on my terms, they will lose.

[HumbleWCGuy]

This was in response to a deleted post:

Ha ha, come on mate. I'm hardly a MT apologist. I'm involved in promoting sanda in my country - a country that is dominated by kickboxing and Muay Thai. I trained both KB and MT in my past yet still gravitated to sanda as my preferred format because of my CMA background. If I saw no value in it I wouldn't waste my time with it. We have our own traditional sanda format in TLQ yet no one uses it in my country outside of the club, so we enter sport sanda when the opp arises because it's near enough (also mod Thai and straight KB before sanctioned sanshou was available here).

SS probably does suck in Australia compared to Muay Thai generally that is true in the U.S. If one wants to emerge as a legitimate SS fighter in the U.S., it is an up hill battle. Chinese SS is as devastating as anything.

My original point was this - if you train CMA and want to compete in combat sports but feel your basic punching, kicking and throwing skills are not enough to get you by in sanda/sanshou, then it's probably best to forget about competing. Again, I feel sanda is a far more suitable format for applying CMA than MT, but only because of the restrictions in throwing.

I have experienced corrupt officiating first hand over there so nothing surprises me result-wise. I'll make up my own mind when I see the fights.

I don't know about the "you" part of this. Is that an accusation? My point is that generally, kung fu throws aren't sufficient never mind my own personal expertise.

I have 3 young private students. Here is their 3 day per week training regimen.
Day 1 : 1.5 hours of bjj.
Day 3: 1.5 hours of traditional Judo
Day 5: 3 hours split between kickboxing and Wing Chun

A TCMA instructor sticking his students in the Ring Against that might want to think twice. The basics are not enough.

[B.Tunks]

Sounds like you've got it all sorted so I'll leave it at that.

[Pork Chop]

just would like to contribute
recent sanda:
3/19
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MDg5ODI0/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MDkyMDIw/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MTA4MjYw/v.swf
3/20
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MzI1MjE2/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MzI2OTI0/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...MzM0MzI4/v.swf
3/21
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...NTYyMDMy/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...NTY1NTI4/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...NTcwMjA4/v.swf
http://player.youku.com/player.php/s...NTc1NDg0/v.swf

The only guy I had heard of was Nonsai, the guy that got KOed the first day and fought again 2 days later (paycheck much?); back in January he out-pointed Dzhabar from Contender Asia, he also had a fight in canada the week before, and April 10th he's fighting again in the netherlands. Gotta stink to be kicking a guy's azz THAT bad for THAT long and get caught by a right hand outta NOWHERE. At least his second fight went the distance. Fighter Wehad fought 3 times in 3 days, winning the first by decision. Karuehard looked like he dislocated his shoulder, it was an injury that would probably otherwise been called a "no contest".

san da fighters fighting internationally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se7ljLqh_wU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKd-mB2vIdI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQILMQBeI7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-yEev5tbts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nQmr4Gw1o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQevUhApRKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpIi-FHqaH0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLB3MUxJcHE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ndrVscUDo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_ABFpfLlE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY1ydTZJ_RE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7zKz...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-irmsV2JfI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKnEf...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZjsUZsJVFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIKHpPeaws0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljb7ZScuYRE

The fact of the matter is that their record outside of China and in non-sanda-rules fights is not very good.
Shootboxing has very comparable rules to sanshou, it is an international competition (so no country vs country bs) yet there has never been a Chinese S-Cup champion. The best China has ever done is runner up.
They don't do all that well in K-1 or full muay thai rules.

I'm not going to say the Chinese fighters are cr@p, coz they're not.
They can be pretty good.

I'm just tired of this "us vs them" superiority cr@p.
They've won enough times to prove their style is viable full contact.
They've lost enough times to show that they ain't invincible.
Any attempt at furthering the argument that somehow sanda is magically superior to muay thai, dutch kickboxing, japanese kickboxing, shootboxing, draka, mma, etc etc etc is just silly and buying into propaganda.
At this point, if a fighter's better than his opponent, he'll win, if not, he'll lose.

The problems most muay thai folks have with sanda is with chinese rules & judging.
Sometimes the fighters agree to the handicap & just go for a payday; other times, rules get changed on the spot and really screw over the Thais.
The fact that Chinese can score off of any throw (apparently even sacrifice throws), and the Thai fighters can't knee the Chinese fighters in the face tends to make most muay thai fans completely disregard those competitions. I mean when the ref gives the Chinese fighter an extra 5 seconds of clinch time so he can complete a throw, and as soon as the Thai fighter has the chinese fighter in bad position to start eating knees the ref jumps in to break it up, you can't really take that kind of competition seriously.

EDIT: After a certain point the Chinese have just made themselves look bad. You can say Thailand does it too, but it's not like a foreigner has never won in Thailand (there have been foreign stadium champions going way back). Thailand is certainly not known for the complete snow jobs, like the Chinese. It's almost like every fight's to the level of K1-max protecting Masato.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Who are the elite of Sanshou in China right now? and how would they fair vs the likes of Buakaw and others?

[lkfmdc]

The problems most muay thai folks have with sanda is with chinese rules & judging.

There are quite a LOT of Muay Thai people who just can't accept that any other martial arts tradition produces fighters. We refer to them as "Muay Thai nazis" and they do indeed exist

As corrupt as some of the Thailand vs China things have been, there have been indeed times when the San Da figher was better (and/ or KO'ed his opponent). A KO is pretty much the plainest most direct win you can have, yet we hear moans and excuses from the Muay Thai community all the time

Tons of Muay Thai guys have assumed that when they fight us they are fighting some tag american KB school, they were in for disappointment

[Pork Chop]

Let me just put my statement in perspective.
I'm mainly referring to those events whose results are touted as proof of sanda's superiority when closer inspection of the video reveals that it wasn't domination.

The guy (liu ceng ceng) that knocked out nonsai is the same guy that knocked out lamsongkrom chuwattana. as fluke-y as both KOes looked, dude's gotta have something in order to be able to drop 2 big name fighters like that. Couldn't see his fight with Wehad, as the video wouldn't load, but curious to see how he did.

You've known me for a long time. I'm not a muay thai nazi. I got my start in kung fu and then went sanda/sanshou until my coach stopped showing up altogether. Sanda/sanshou is the only teaching certification i have actually.

On one hand, I use a lot of the footwork, distancing strategies, kick catches, dumps, and even some of the combos from sanshou. But yah, that point fighting style that even some of the pros use is really not my thing.

I like guys that do things differently. My favorite fighter of all time is probably Andy Hug, and there's no way you'd confuse him with a 'typical muay thai guy'. I'm a huge fan of Japanese & Dutch styles of kickboxing, which are different than pure muay thai.

I agree with you that style nazis are annoying. In this case, I'm annoyed with the Chinese sanda nazis that are trying to use tournaments that are a mix of good fights & shady fights as proof of anything.

I have a lot of respect for the thais that step up and fight anybody anywhere (albeit if some of those appearances are for a paycheck).
I respect the Chinese that have taken fights out of their comfort zone as well.
I tried to post clips in my post that showed them winning as well as losing.
You guys, Boston, and San Jose fought in any format you could and that was awesome.

I can see where other gyms might underestimate you guys though.
In a lot of the clips I posted there were pro sanda guys fighting the exact, amateur point style that you, yourself said you were annoyed with.
so maybe you could see why they would assume that a US rep of the style would fight the same way.

Those sanda events would be doing a lot of pr work for sanda fighters if they appeared to be more on the up and up. if the chinese judges actually let the Thais have some of the close fights; heck, even if the Thais could win all the ones where they were clearly dominating, it would do a lot. But the PRC refuses to show an event that makes the Chinese look bad and in so doing, they make themselves look worse.

[Pork Chop]

Who are the elite of Sanshou in China right now? and how would they fair vs the likes of Buakaw and others?

ask and you shall receive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIKHpPeaws0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljb7ZScuYRE