more on the state of kung fu in china

[wiz cool c]

so before i mentioned i am doing shaolin now in shenzhen. my teacher lived in the shaolin temple for 7 years. the school also teaches ,qi gong, tai chi,and sanda all different teachers. now although i really like the class and think it is great,there is no contact training what so ever. if you want to do any type of partner drills or sparing you have to go to sanda.

now my gf started to to tae kwon do a month ago. it is pretty popular here. and the other day she went to a competition with the school to watch. they have 4 year old white belts competing in comp,fighting. and kung fu does so much as let you work an application on a partner.

i remember last time i started this discussion,some of mentioned i am not fortune cookie enough for my chinese teacher to teach me. i am just a rude ignorant foreign for asking to learn an application from a form. sorry for my french but that is pure bull ****. the chinese government has all but destroyed kung fu in china.

and as for those who have gone to china on a two week trip,and learn applications. yeah some teachers have adapted to teaching foreigners that pay them a **** load of money and get whatever they want. my teacher doesn't teach that way cause he teaches to all chinese,except me. and the chinese people have been "taught" to think in this non violent way. i guess the korean said **** that we will teach fighting and it worked.

[YouKnowWho]

If you don't learn partner drills on day one, leave that school.

[wiz cool c]

there are several things i like about this school though. they have a systematic approach to teaching shaolin. i have had some haphazard teachers here. the teacher is a cool guy and a good teacher. and they do explain the applications to some extent,but we basically do them shadow boxing. and i am somewhat still recovering from serious knee surgery so i can't do much contact now,in the form of shuai jiao anyway. so it is ok for me. but in the future i want to be able to do these techniques with training partner. and plan to run a school in the future and don't want to teach in this way.

i guess the teacher is somewhat adapting to teaching waiguo ren cause he did agree to teach me the applications in private lessons, which i have to pay extra for haha

[RenDaHai]

if you want to do any type of partner drills or sparing you have to go to sanda.
.

Several things buddy;

Don't generalise to 'the whole of china'. Everyone is willing to believe your class sucks, but not every class in china. Though I do agree to some extent, the 'great leap foreward' and the 'culteral revolution' destroyed a lot of Kung Fu. Gong Fu you Tuo jie le.

Anyway you train anywhere you will mostly be limited to Sanda like rules for sparring. Once you put on gloves and use a sensible set of rules then Sanda becomes about the best way to spar. The alternative is to wear face masks and go ungloved but few people do that. I prefer it sometimes because you can use elbows and headbutts.

Go to the sanda class and you'll get the pad hitting and wrestling and sparring your looking for. Go to your girlfriends Taekwondo class and try it. It won't do anything the Sanda class doesn't.

What your missing is partner drills of more complex technique right? Parrying, Qin Na, push hands, striking with palms etc. Well, look for somewhere lese that does it. If you can't find anywhere that does this, then it is easy to isolate the technique you have been taught and practice it with an agreeable friend. It is far better to train as you are than despair and do nothing. If you want to weaponise a technique you have to come up with extreme ways to train it anyway.


Most importantly: Don't train something then complain about it secretly. If you don't like it, don't train it. IF you enjoy it then accept it. If you enjoy it but think it could be better then make that better bit for yourself.

[wiz cool c]

Several things buddy;

Don't generalise to 'the whole of china'. Everyone is willing to believe your class sucks, but not every class in china. Though I do agree to some extent, the 'great leap foreward' and the 'culteral revolution' destroyed a lot of Kung Fu. Gong Fu you Tuo jie le.

Anyway you train anywhere you will mostly be limited to Sanda like rules for sparring. Once you put on gloves and use a sensible set of rules then Sanda becomes about the best way to spar. The alternative is to wear face masks and go ungloved but few people do that. I prefer it sometimes because you can use elbows and headbutts.

Go to the sanda class and you'll get the pad hitting and wrestling and sparring your looking for. Go to your girlfriends Taekwondo class and try it. It won't do anything the Sanda class doesn't.

What your missing is partner drills of more complex technique right? Parrying, Qin Na, push hands, striking with palms etc. Well, look for somewhere lese that does it. If you can't find anywhere that does this, then it is easy to isolate the technique you have been taught and practice it with an agreeable friend. It is far better to train as you are than despair and do nothing. If you want to weaponise a technique you have to come up with extreme ways to train it anyway.


Most importantly: Don't train something then complain about it secretly. If you don't like it, don't train it. IF you enjoy it then accept it. If you enjoy it but think it could be better then make that better bit for yourself.

i came to china to do kung fu ,and if i want to fight i have to do tae kwon do,sanda and get my own partners to practice with, good advice. by the way i have been in china for 6 years,3 in bejing and 3 in shenzhen, i have done baguazhang ,shuai jiao,hung chuan,and now shaolin. the only school that spared was shuai jiao

[RenDaHai]

i came to china to do kung fu ,and if i want to fight i have to do tae kwon do,sanda and get my own partners to practice with, good advice. by the way i have been in china for 6 years,3 in bejing and 3 in shenzhen, i have done baguazhang ,shuai jiao,hung chuan,and now shaolin. the only school that spared was shuai jiao

What about the Sanda?
You are welcome to take your KungFu techniques to the Sanda class. But once you put on those gloves and play by those rules, it is generally best to use Sanda. The thing is anywhere you spar will tend to use similar rules to this. If you want to do very traditional sparring then you need to get inventive with gear. But few places outside China do that either. Most people just use Sanda like rules. So do the sanda class as well.

What is it exactly that would make it perfect? That you can't get from your Shaolin class and Sanda class combined? Are you looking for one step sparring kind of drills? or like Chi sao? or blocking and parrying drills? Qin Na?

[pazman]

Forget the Shaolin forms guy.

Go to real sanda gym and make friends there. A fair amount of sanda guys that I've trained with or met had a traditional background, usually through their families. When I trained sanda in Wuhan, I learned more Shaolin through my friendships than I had when I trained with famous masters. Usually, when you have a skill to teach that is valuable to them, people will gladly teach you real gongfu.

[YouKnowWho]

May be all you need is to find a training partner outside of your school. With a training partner, you can get feed back of your combat skill and modify it accordingly. I don't believe you can develop "any" skill without training partner.

[Syn7]

May be all you need is to find a training partner outside of your school. With a training partner, you can get feed back of your combat skill and modify it accordingly. I don't believe you can develop "any" skill without training partner.

That's what I was thinking. Get as much application theory as you can then go and try it out with a buddy who is near your level.

[EarthDragon]

solid advice form john wang and syn7

[Neeros]

Just use your kung fu techniques in Sanda class.

Put together a small list of combat sequences that cover attack and defense of top, middle, bottom, and side striking. Then kicking attack and defense. Then felling and throwing. Drill them over and over, adjust the sequences as necessary during sparring, and have fun training.

[Syn7]

Just use your kung fu techniques in Sanda class.

Put together a small list of combat sequences that cover attack and defense of top, middle, bottom, and side striking. Then kicking attack and defense. Then felling and throwing. Drill them over and over, adjust the sequences as necessary during sparring, and have fun training.

I think he said he was going to do sanda later maybe, but for now he is healing from an injury. Last thing you wanna do is get thrown around when you need to heal.

[GeneChing]

I trained extensively at Shaolin, but also some in Jinan (Shandong) and Beijing. Every teacher I trained under showed apps and had drills. I'm sorry you're not finding what you seek, wiz cool c.

You know, if you have a good grasp of forms, you can tell those that practice combat skills from those who don't by just looking at their forms. That's part of the point of forms, a fine point that's often overlooked because it requires a trained eye. Here in the SF Bay Area, there are so many kung fu and wushu teachers. As I've said countless times here, I can't even keep track. And many aren't combat trained. They are forms competitors. But you can totally tell just by watching their form, even when that form has 'hidden' techniques as so many TCMA forms claim. You don't have to cross hands. On rare occasions, I've met a master that could actually hide their skills enough that I couldn't tell, but never the other way. The forms shows the skills. You just got to know how to look at them.

Now, I know I sit in a unique seat in the wulin; I'm painfully aware of that fact. But I did the bulk of my hardcore training in China prior to taking this job and I still found skilled teachers (skilled at combat apps, I mean, because as we've long established here, skill at forms does not necessarily translate to fighting). Today, I'm not at leisure to spend a month training in China, but I'm sure it's still there. You may need a little guanxi to get to them, but then, you need a little guanxi to get anything good in China. Again, given my position today, I have a lot of guanxi. But even back then, when I was just a struggling freelance writer, I could manage to scrounge up enough guanxi to get by.

[David Jamieson]

You know, if you have a good grasp of forms, you can tell those that practice combat skills from those who don't by just looking at their forms. That's part of the point of forms, a fine point that's often overlooked because it requires a trained eye.

I've discovered this to be mostly true, because even the guys I've trained with that have no forms and are mma, kickboxer type guys, they can take what's in the form and understand it and criticize it or use it almost immediately from a combat perspective.

However, I've seen guys that appear to have terrible form and yet they get out there and win in a really unorthodox way. I think guys like that are more rare, but they are out there.

[GeneChing]

A lot MMA guys can't do a form to save their lives. Forms require a different kind of grace, one that isn't necessarily combat applicable. Remember Lidell on DWTS? But that's sort of the inverse of my point. Observing a good form, you can see the apps. Observing someone with good apps, doesn't mean they can execute a good form.