Tommy Yuen Man Fung - Knives and Pole

[Eric_H]

The idea of the economy of motion is not unique just of WC, any additional (wasted) move in the course of defend/attack serves only to give your opponent more chance of counter.

Others had pointed out, he had lost "control" of the pole during the turning, with only one knife edge in contact, he could and will get smack in back of the head with an Tan Gwan ... as others also pointed out.

Moving to the opponent's dead side?

So we may have to agree to disagree on this one, as I understand WC you can control the opponent through gravity or through angle or both. Saber fighting as I've learned works using an idea of walking the circle around the opponent, facing the square in the middle and dealing with a single line. These are more or less different ways to work strategy and leverage together.

When the guy in the video turns his back, he is using what i would refer to as circular strategy, moving to the side of the opponent so that the opponent would have to apply his pole cross body to counter (weak angle). He is attempting to take advantage through angle instead of staying straight on and dealing with potential short range mechanics of the pole fighter (from what i remember of YM pole there was some fun stuff for that). Additionally, he can be considered to be blocking the length of the pole with his body, making the pole fighter have to back up or keeping him frozen in medium/short range where a long weapon is not as effective.

I'm not saying it's the only option, I'm just saying I can see a reasonable goal to what he was trying to achieve. looking at the setup, i think walking down the pole could have worked, but would be a challenge to gravity instead of angle. I think the pole guy had more opportunity in that scenario based on the setup.


Also, live/dead side is a common stick/weapon fighting thing from CMA. We use it in Hung Fa Yi WC, I know Hung Gar uses it and I've heard of it in more than a few other places. It's a paradigm for stating how much advantage you have/how much opportunity the opponent has.

[Vajramusti]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IM7...layer_embedded

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imho- a good wc man who knows kwan usage would have taken the other guys head off as he turned.

[Wayfaring]

Whether you had played with the WC knives or not, economy of motion concept applies across all WC lineage, no matter how fast you can turn your back and reface you opponent, chance of getting hurt in that transition I personally would not take.

The grappler in me would drop the pole and take the back when the guy is spinning. Speaking of economy of motion.

[Vajramusti]

A comment FWIW. Ip Man taught only a few people the use of the bot jam do and the kwan and how to integrate them with body dynamics.
Vaguely sensing the importance of the weapons- youtube is full of people who make up their
own motions- often badly.