Styles/Sparring

[MightyB]

I find myself wondering if we'd lose the different styles if everyone really trained fighting because a lot of what traditionalists do isn't that smart from a fighting perspective.

Things like the traditional stance IMO - it'd go away because you can't give away your leg and you definitely can't extend an arm, you can't leave your head open, you have to hunch your shoulders in defense... in short, the traditional stance isn't very good at all for fighting. This guy explains it better than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguQfn0QtBs

Anyway - I thought it'd be fun to hypothesize on what would happen to TCMA if everyone engaged in regular fight training.

So, how do you think TCMA would "evolve" if fighting (and regularly testing those concepts in competition and combat) became the true focus of Martial Arts?

[SPJ]

In Ba Ji

we were trained with horse stance, half horse stance etc

when in fight

the stance is some where in between, neither horse or half horse

etc

[Lucas]

chinese styles would pay much more attention to grappling.

[David Jamieson]

I find myself wondering if we'd lose the different styles if everyone really trained fighting because a lot of what traditionalists do isn't that smart from a fighting perspective.

Things like the traditional stance IMO - it'd go away because you can't give away your leg and you definitely can't extend an arm, you can't leave your head open, you have to hunch your shoulders in defense... in short, the traditional stance isn't very good at all for fighting. This guy explains it better than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguQfn0QtBs

Anyway - I thought it'd be fun to hypothesize on what would happen to TCMA if everyone engaged in regular fight training.

So, how do you think TCMA would "evolve" if fighting (and regularly testing those concepts in competition and combat) became the true focus of Martial Arts?

what traditional stance are you talking about? that dude does a couple of poses. They aren't stances lol.

I love it when guys who don't do tcma try to explain it as wrong. awesome.

Anyway, that guy seems to be going on about the rodney king material on the sbg dvds...except he's doing it wrong. LOL He has no waist movement, low mobility and he's partially killing his field of view especially in regards to overhands.

so, take that for what it's worth.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I find myself wondering if we'd lose the different styles if everyone really trained fighting because a lot of what traditionalists do isn't that smart from a fighting perspective.

Nope and this is why:
Difference is good, when you bring something different and unique to the table, you have an advantage.
Southpaws know this, unorthodox fighters know this, BJJ showed us this in the 90's.

[MightyB]

Another thought though...

If we had the time to practice, like the theoretical masters... would we need to change? I guess what I'm trying to get at- are the styles a result of being extremely good at fighting?

I had a friend who went to China during the early 90's for some training. This was before China became the China we know now with the bright lights and big cities and the young hip urban attitude with lots and lots of stuff to do. He said that in between practice sessions - he was beyond bored. So imagine being in China as a kung fu practitioner when your work / business chores are done for the day and there's still a lot of day light left. What do you do? You practice kung fu.

[David Jamieson]

Another thought though...

If we had the time to practice, like the theoretical masters... would we need to change? I guess what I'm trying to get at- are the styles a result of being extremely good at fighting?

I had a friend who went to China during the early 90's for some training. This was before China became the China we know now with the bright lights and big cities and the young hip urban attitude with lots and lots of stuff to do. He said that in between practice sessions - he was beyond bored. So imagine being in China as a kung fu practitioner when your work / business chores are done for the day and there's still a lot of day light left. What do you do? You practice kung fu.

Practice is just that. It's enjoyable too.
Time is a provision to be made these days.
I make time to train and I take time to train.

One things for sure, whatever you devote your energies to, you will get good at.

[Iron_Eagle_76]

What he is doing is similiar to the peek-a-boo defense found in boxing.

Regarding traditional stances, I train them for conditioning and transitioning. Horse stance, bow and lunge stance, iron horse, leopard, ect. ect. are mostly not stances to fight out of, but more for transition. Conditioning was another main reason for low deep stances as is the Southern Kung Fu flavor.

Fighting out of these is not too smart, although I have seen some guys pull it off to an extent. Something has to constantly change and evolve to be perficient and fighting is no different. Like Ronin said, the element of suprise can be a good weapon.

[bawang]

northern kung fu has 5 or 6 fighting stances and theyre not horse stance bow stance cat stance

[MightyB]

what traditional stance are you talking about? that dude does a couple of poses. They aren't stances lol.

I love it when guys who don't do tcma try to explain it as wrong. awesome.

You're waayyy offf base with the "you don't do TCMA" thing... anyway- it's a nice fall back statement for when people don't want to question anything traditional. Nice try at trying to duck a theoretical question

So, I did a random google image search on traditional kung fu fighting stance and found a couple but decided not to link to them because I didn't want to insult anybody. Instead I'll do a written breakdown of a typical northern fighting stance:

Right hand lead in a fist extended about 60 percent, left hand near the armpit or in front of the chest open palm. Spine is erect and over the hips, shoulders relaxed, head suspended as if by an imaginary string, right foot forward turned slightly in, hips not squared to the opponent... at least 45 degrees off center, weight is about 60 to 70 percent on the back leg, again keeping the hips, spine, and shoulders in line, and heels are down. Walking heel to toe, you know - the traditional northern fighting stance.

My criticism is that you need to be a little more square with the opponent to allow for the rear power hand to come into play and the weight in back makes it harder to sprawl to defend against a single leg. Plus, the hand positioning is bad because your head is too open. I prefer more of a traditional boxing hand position but I still tend to keep my weight back.

[brothernumber9]

That guy stole Ernie Moore Jr's squirrel defense style.

But back to the point. I get where MightyB is going. a lot of stylistics are lost or severely dminished when sparring or fighting. However I have seen some schools that fight just like they practice, unotrhodox stances and all. One in particular is Sifu Henry Poo Yee's jook lum students. They keep thier framework and fight stylistically just like thier hand sets. Some would argue that a number of wing chun schools also do the same, at least as long as they can protect center.

[David Jamieson]

You're waayyy offf base with the "you don't do TCMA" thing... anyway- it's a nice fall back statement for when people don't want to question anything traditional. Nice try at trying to duck a theoretical question

First off, I was talking about the dude in the video. NOt about you if you are inferring I was speaking about you. And that guy, was doing the peek-a-boo or "destruction" incorrectly. He had no waist movement and wasn't leaving a clear line of sight out of the cover. Just sayin....

So, I did a random google image search on traditional kung fu fighting stance and found a couple but decided not to link to them because I didn't want to insult anybody. Instead I'll do a written breakdown of a typical northern fighting stance:

Right hand lead in a fist extended about 60 percent, left hand near the armpit or in front of the chest open palm. Spine is erect and over the hips, shoulders relaxed, head suspended as if by an imaginary string, right foot forward turned slightly in, hips not squared to the opponent... at least 45 degrees off center, weight is about 60 to 70 percent on the back leg, again keeping the hips, spine, and shoulders in line, and heels are down. Walking heel to toe, you know - the traditional northern fighting stance.

My criticism is that you need to be a little more square with the opponent to allow for the rear power hand to come into play and the weight in back makes it harder to sprawl to defend against a single leg. Plus, the hand positioning is bad because your head is too open. I prefer more of a traditional boxing hand position but I still tend to keep my weight back.

For tcma practice, I do north shaolin (bsl) but not as much as black tiger, but in each, my stance for sparring, fighting or messing about in drills is same/same as a boxer stance. 60/40 lead with the left, shoulders up, hands up. :-)

If you look at people Like Lai Hung you can see how he changed the shape of the north shaolin he did to facilitate more fighting. hands are up as are shoulders.

[YouKnowWho]

the traditional stance isn't very good at all for fighting.

The Chinese throwing art is built on top of the 3 basic traditional stances, the

- horse stance,
- bow-arrow stance, and
- golden rooster stance.

The TCMA has the weight distributation in such a detail. You can start from

- empty stance (0% - 100%),
- Santi stance (30% - 70%),
- 4-6 stance (40% - 60%),
- horse (50% - 50%),
- bow-arrow stance (70% - 30%),
- monkey stance (90% - 10%),
- golden rooster stance (100%, 0%).

Different stance will give you different distance to reach to your opponent.

My criticism is that you need to be a little more square with the opponent to allow for the rear power hand to come into play and the weight in back makes it harder to sprawl to defend against a single leg. Plus, the hand positioning is bad because your head is too open. I prefer more of a traditional boxing hand position but I still tend to keep my weight back.

Boxer doesn't have to worry about foot sweep and low kick.

There are many trade off there.

- The more that you move your back shoulder forward, the more that you will expose the center of your body.
- If you cover your head too much, you will exposed your lower body for kick.
- The more weight that you put on your front leg, the more chance that your opponent will sweep you.

The best fighting stance is the stance that you can "spring" forward any time that you want to. In order to do that, you will need to put more weight on your back leg.

[MightyB]

So back on topic:

If no evolution is needed, what do we do to get a better representation out of fighters who are trying to utilize TCMA tactics and techniques?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Who said no evolution is needed?
Of course it is needed, and it will happen naturally when a member of system "A" fights full contact vs a member of system "Y" that he has never fought before.
Adjustments are made and techniques and principles evolve to deal with the "problems presented" by system "Y".