Nice clip

[Robadob]

I agree with WSL.

IMO chi sau is actually very versatile. To me it is like flow rolling in grappling. The goal is to improve movement, and the % involved is like 25% or so of overall sparring.

If people would just spend an equal amount of time in live sparring with no pre-arranged arm contact first that they do in chi sau, I don't think there would be this epidemic. The methods would lead to the skills - teachers and students keeping it real together. But people don't. Many teachers teach WCK by having students do forms and chi sau only. It's sad. The lineages I've had exposure to have a progression through chi sau (Moy Yat, HFY). But I would like to see a whole lot more correlation to what is going on in a chi sau drill to an aspect of real fighting, and keeping the other isolated aspects of the drill as live or real as possible.

There was one quote on that thread of the boxer knockout of the WCK guy that to me pretty much sums up what I've heard said about WCK by fighters:

So, we can all be in agreement here. Chi Sao is not sparring or fighting and I have not claimed it to be either! When I started, training would be half an hour physical training/warming up, one hour of forms and drills training and tha last half hour semi contact sparring with mma type gloves. For everyone, including beginners. Anyone who visited our school was invited to spar with us. One time only, did one of us get suckerpunched by a guy who could not deal with the amount of strikes and blinly struck my friend with a hook. Mind you, my friend was friendly sparring and did not cosider this to be a real fight. The outcome would have been much different!
As for the boxers and kickboxers, yeah we sparred with them also. We were invited to the MP training school to spar with their instructors. Chased them all around. Were considered to be too agressive for them to put it in their training methods. PB and WSL managed to show us their superior skills though.
Nowadays I study PB Lineage with less emphasis on sparring. In a way, I miss the old days, the sparring I enjoyed a lot! Wouldn't advise it though for at least after several years of VT Training. As pointed out, there is a danger of chasing hands and forgetting about body structure entirely.
My final point about the thumbs or throatstriking is this. My height is below average here. In a real fight, chances are my opponent will be larger and possibly stronger and also, maybe even a skilled fighter. It takes a lot to get me to fight, but when it happens I fight to survive and will use all my skills to end it as quickly as I can. This includes eye gouges, knee stomping and if taken down biting a pice out the opponent.

[wingchunIan]

Just a btw a " signature hand in face " is a palm strike/po pai, under control and or thumb in the eye as the hand touches the face.

My issue though kev is that after the initial contact the hand should cycle and do something else whilst the other hand hits not push as a secondary action that is disconnected from the initial move. Also if the practitioner is trying to show that they could extend through the target why the extra step with the push?

[Wayfaring]

So, we can all be in agreement here. Chi Sao is not sparring or fighting and I have not claimed it to be either! When I started, training would be half an hour physical training/warming up, one hour of forms and drills training and tha last half hour semi contact sparring with mma type gloves. For everyone, including beginners. Anyone who visited our school was invited to spar with us. One time only, did one of us get suckerpunched by a guy who could not deal with the amount of strikes and blinly struck my friend with a hook. Mind you, my friend was friendly sparring and did not cosider this to be a real fight. The outcome would have been much different!
As for the boxers and kickboxers, yeah we sparred with them also. We were invited to the MP training school to spar with their instructors. Chased them all around. Were considered to be too agressive for them to put it in their training methods. PB and WSL managed to show us their superior skills though.

Good to see a WCK curriculum with some at least semi contact sparring with gear.

Nowadays I study PB Lineage with less emphasis on sparring. In a way, I miss the old days, the sparring I enjoyed a lot! Wouldn't advise it though for at least after several years of VT Training. As pointed out, there is a danger of chasing hands and forgetting about body structure entirely.

I would advise the exact same type of sparring you describe earlier on either the first day the student enters the school or after an introductory class showing them how to be comfortable sparring. Learning how to stay relaxed in a heightened contact scenario is one of the most valuable lessons you'll learn in any kind of martial art.

My final point about the thumbs or throatstriking is this. My height is below average here. In a real fight, chances are my opponent will be larger and possibly stronger and also, maybe even a skilled fighter. It takes a lot to get me to fight, but when it happens I fight to survive and will use all my skills to end it as quickly as I can. This includes eye gouges, knee stomping and if taken down biting a pice out the opponent.

Of course everybody's mental picture is they will go all out for the rips and hooks in a real fight. And yet evidence shows the delivery system behind the rip and hook you are attempting is more important than the technique itself. For example if I can take you down at will and obtain a mount position, all the rips and hooks in the world aren't going to help. The top guy can do all the same stuff, except with gravity. And punch too. I've seen highly questionable WCK videos attempting to teach this stuff too. For example, biting a guy with a RNC sunk is likely to just get your jaw broke, unless you know enough grappling to put yourself in a solidly defendable position before biting.

[guy b.]

I think wayfaring summed it up best in his reply to this. I just don't see this as being too much different, just a little less 'cooperative', but surely not trying to hurt (pressure/resist) each other in any real sense.

There are some good matches in the kfq series

[Jansingsang]

I think wayfaring summed it up best in his reply to this. I just don't see this as being too much different, just a little less 'cooperative', but surely not trying to hurt (pressure/resist) each other in any real sense.

Look, from how you was reacting in your first post like everything is Complicance Seen it all before Wc knock Blah blah Like i said not the way ill handle them dudes
But they got balls get in there and have a go , Quote Just a little less cooperative

Just show,s were your at If there Sh!t wasnt funtional they would have had there arsses handed to them Chinese Dont want too ever lose face Your entilted to what you Perceived what you saw dude

[JPinAZ]

Look, from how you was reacting in your first post like everything is Complicance Seen it all before Wc knock Blah blah Like i said not the way ill handle them dudes
But they got balls get in there and have a go , Quote Just a little less cooperative

Just show,s were your at If there Sh!t wasnt funtional they would have had there arsses handed to them Chinese Dont want too ever lose face Your entilted to what you Perceived what you saw dude

Not really sure what you're gettin at here. Chi sau is a cooperative 'drill'. It has it's place in training to a point, but is way too heavily focused on in a majority of WC lineages IMO And the clip I replied to was of chi sau drilling & the same thing you can find 100's of examples of all over youtube. I didn't say it was bad, but at the end of the day it's still nothing we haven't seen before - not a big deal.

The next you posted showed a bit more live stuff, but IMO still wasn't what I was reffering to in what I would like to see as a 'good clip' fo WC skill. Sorry if you got hurt feelings by it not being what I was talking about - I never asked you to post it

But, if you think that second clip of the 'slap boxing match' took 'balls', I feel a bit sorry for your idea of 'what takes balls' It's cool they got together for a light exchange, but IMO that's all it was - a friendly low contact slap fight where neither guy was really trying to hurt the other.

What I would really prefer to see a lot more of in clips is along the lines of what Wayfaring posted up of the WC guy and the taller boxer putting on gloves and mixing it up. Win or lose, to me, THAT is a good clip of someone putting their art to the test against a resistant non-compliant person from different art.

[guy b.]

the clip I replied to was of chi sau drilling & the same thing you can find 100's of examples of all over youtube. I didn't say it was bad, but at the end of the day it's still nothing we haven't seen before - not a big deal.

The next that got posted in reply showed a bit more live stuff, but IMO still wasn't what I was reffering to in what I would like to see as a 'good clip' fo WC skill. And I'm entitled to my opinion, just like you are.
But if you think that second clip you posted of the 'slap boxing match' took 'balls', I feel a bit sorry for your idea of 'what takes balls' IMO, that was just a friendly low contact slap fight where neither guy was really trying to hurt the other.

This is how all Chinese martial arts compare skills. They are bare fisted hitting arts for the most part and this is what has evolved as the level below an actual fight. Many of the kfq clips are not cooperative. There are some genuine misunderstandings and aggression with the hsing yi guys for example. But nobody steps outside the conventions of CMA comparison, because then it would be an actual fight. If you appreciate what it is then you can get plenty from it.

[guy b.]

This clip contains most of the skill comparisons from the series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxFsAaC4XK8

[JPinAZ]

This clip contains most of the skill comparisons from the series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxFsAaC4XK8

Not sure why this is here again - you've already posted this. Do you get royalties from the channel by upping the view count or something?

[k gledhill]

Well at least you have a defined goal that is not chi sau for it's own sake. I think I actually said that to me its goal would be to develop movement, which is actually quite different from sensitivity.

What I see in flow rolling in grappling is that over time it helps increase hip movement, which is crucial to increased skill in grappling. In other words, people go from kind of locking down in one position very rigidly in a bull-like fashion to transitioning better between positions.

In my perspective I view chi sau as similar if trained right and balanced.


Specific scenario and skill drills. That's good. Training with a purpose.


I don't personally see value in trying to use chi sau to train punching power. That's more the heavy bag's job to me, or maybe the dummy. But elbow position, angles, foot movement - all yes.



I think the first step is buy an interval timer. Next, I think chi sau rounds (3-5 min timed) would be a perfect warm-up for sparring. 2 rounds chi sau at the beginning of the sparring section of class for a great light warmup, then into sparring with no pre-arranged beginning. First round light contact but speed, then normal.

Oh and for all you traditional style teachers out there - interval timers are what you use during the sparring section of class. And the sparring section of class is the section of every class where you spar. As you are trying to develop realistic fighting skills which need to be practiced in a live environment more than once a year. If you haven't added this section in to your classes yet, just go ahead and do it. If you keep contact real light during the first month or so all around, then the 120# college professors in your class won't quit, and they will actually learn to have a whole ton of fun at it, bit by bit.

Making chi Sao a grappling drill is incorrect. The arm contact is to coordinate arm actions without retraction prior to or during recycling striking attacks. If we make errors like shoulder rotation or retracting arms without certain techniques allowing " leaking attacks. "
I can see the obvious correlation to using the chi Sao as a grappling base but that's more like push hand drills than isolation of Lin sil di da, lat Sao Jik Chun.

[guy b.]

Not sure why this is here again - you've already posted this. Do you get royalties from the channel by upping the view count or something?

No, it's just an easy clip to see the comparing without all the training bits. Simpler to pick out the parts people have issue with than the longer clip

[Wayfaring]

Making chi Sao a grappling drill is incorrect. The arm contact is to coordinate arm actions without retraction prior to or during recycling striking attacks. If we make errors like shoulder rotation or retracting arms without certain techniques allowing " leaking attacks. "
I can see the obvious correlation to using the chi Sao as a grappling base but that's more like push hand drills than isolation of Lin sil di da, lat Sao Jik Chun.

No, I don't see it as a direct correlation. Only in a very general sense to help increase necessary mobility for fighting scenarios. It is a true "like this" in a drill sense, not in the details of what you are trying to accomplish.

[Paddington]

I agree with WSL.
[...]
If people would just spend an equal amount of time in live sparring with no pre-arranged arm contact first that they do in chi sau, I don't think there would be this epidemic.
[...]

Just to ask for some clarification on whether doing chi sau (or utilizing it) the way I am about to describe would help to mitigate against, to whatever extent, the cause of this epidemic (?).

When trying to bridge the differences between gor sau and a fight we (my training partners and I) sometimes begin without a contact, move in and bridge then roll through several positions and shapes before working into a po pai or kick or any technique that would allow us to create a gap again. Sometimes the gap can be formed passively by just breaking off at an angle.

Following the gap we bridge it again with attacks and shapes and go through another set of positions and shapes until one is in a position to create another gap to be bridged and so on. With each iteration the intensity can go up or down.

Of course it is very easy to slip into other systems, such as boxing, muay thai etc. and I've sometimes found it hard to maintain a wing chun attitude in my techniques, when moving closer to a full on fight (intensity?).

Interested in your thoughts here.

[...] Also if the practitioner is trying to show that they could extend through the target why the extra step with the push?

Ian, I know your question is out of context to what I say above but it does provide an answer in another context at least; here to recreate a gap to be bridged as a part of this training exercise?

[k gledhill]

My issue though kev is that after the initial contact the hand should cycle and do something else whilst the other hand hits not push as a secondary action that is disconnected from the initial move. Also if the practitioner is trying to show that they could extend through the target why the extra step with the push?

If one is near a wall the drive could smash the head into a solid sharp surface. Keeping the head turned can also make the opponent turn to make a better position for us.
As a thumb gouge the hand stays .... And grabs the ear at the same time ; )

[wingchunIan]

If one is near a wall the drive could smash the head into a solid sharp surface. Keeping the head turned can also make the opponent turn to make a better position for us.
As a thumb gouge the hand stays .... And grabs the ear at the same time ; )

All reasonable points except that in the vids the head is almost never turned as the force goes straight back and the what you are now describing is a deliberate push whereas the original justification is that it was somehow showing that the practitioner had the ability to extend their arm upon contact.
Anyway, I'm going to let it go now as it was only an observation in the first place.