Apples to oranges. Obassi's output is completely different. In the vid with Kevin, his emotions get the better of him and he grabs on hard to Kevin's arms pushing so much with his upper body that he is out of balance and his strikes have no ground support, they are more like slaps. The situation is quite chaotic. In this other vid, he maintains composure and thus doesn't lose balance and ground support, actions are cleaner and crisper even though he uses similar hand actions. He also doesn't follow through in his actions as in the video with Kevin. It seems like he is more focused on actually using Chisao for training instead of using it as a strange proxy for a fight.
What throws me off is when the different Obassi videos are thrown out there to draw conclusions on the people he is working out with. You have the videos where Obassi is proactive; in some of the he loses it to different degrees to his emotions (Randy, Kevin), and in others he actually tries to work out. Then in others he is completely reactive; he is completely tame and even appears afraid of stepping it up against the bigger and stronger Emin while with Philipp he seems completely focused on learning. So for sure a bad comparison.
Dio perdona... Io no!
@ Buddha_Fist
Yes, I think comparing Kevin/Obasi to PB/Obasi and to Emin/Obasi is apples and oranges (with PB and EB it was clearly cooperative and learning-based).
But comparing Kevin/Obasi to the TWC Guy/Obasi is more... oranges and tangerines. There the intensity is different - but in both of these cases it is free-flowing, resisting and testing. With the TWC Guy you could clearly see he was responding with what he trains, with Kevin you couldn't.
Attitude, intensity, and follow-through make a world of difference. No tangerine there. I can work out with you focused on training or trying to rip your head off, you will feel the difference.
Dio perdona... Io no!
You think you are talking about two people here and you are, but this illustrates a bigger problem. Chi Sau, while it has many varying definitions among the families posting here, almost 100% agree is not meant to be played the way it was in the video. It's meant to be more "playful" and cooperative, where people can maintain structure, balance, etc. and exchange energies and train for what you do with energies on the bridge.
However, as things escalate from a more cooperative drill to a fully resistant partner, things get more out of control, less defined, and actions are performed more out at the end of people's abilities rather than contained well within them. it seems that chi sau really isn't applicable there, regardless of your interpretation of the definition. and what we see the vast majority of the time in video is that when that threshold is crossed people become ineffective.
This is not good. To me it's not that the art and concepts are no good, it's that people hardly ever practice them crossing that threshold between cooperative and non-cooperative. Why not? They think what they are doing is "good enough" for developing fight skills. They think doing forms and chi sau is good enough to learn how to fight. most other martial arts draw the distinction very clearly between the learning side of the skill and the fighting side of the skill. Like judo - uke / tori are the descriptions of the people involved learning the technique. uke is non-resistant or can work up to being semi-resistant. randori is the application of the technique in a resistant environment. this is built into the core fabric of training. I think people in WCK "try" to do this with the "Chi Sau/ Gor Sau" descriptions where the first is compliant and the latter is non-compliant. But from what I see those terms are very blurry, not universal at all, and don't have a standard, whereas in judo they are clearly defined, universal, and standard based.
Yes, it does make a difference, I agree. But this is why I say oranges and tangerines - the acid level is different but it's the same fruit - or fruit family My point is that in both the Kevin and TWC case, it was Gor Sau. Tougher Gor Sau against Kevin for sure, but still Gor Sau for both. And in Kevin's case a guy with 30 years Wing Chun/Ving Tsun looked terrible. Proportionate to the higher level of intensity and follow-through? In my opinion, no.
That said, if it is true that Kevin has only met with PB twice, then it is not so surprising he was unable to show PBVT during the encounter (no one has posted to say this twice-in-seven-years is inaccurate - which is a little ominous).
With Obasi and Emin and Obasi and Bayer, it was not Gor Sau. Just rolling and then one guy showing things from there.
It is true that there's no standard across lineages - but I don't exactly know how every lineage/group trains their Chi Sau.
For us we learn in sections first (done at a moderate pace and without much power); then the same sections done at a faster pace and with more power. Then we mix up elements within different sections so that we're playing by the same rules, but creating something a little less predictable - first at a moderate pace and without much power, then faster with power.
This is all separate from Gor Sau, which we do too. Again, first Gor Sau is light and we're not pushing too hard, just trying to make sure we deal with things well and while keeping good structure and position, correct use of the concepts and ideas (e.g. LLHS LSJC); then we train Gor Sau harder (more speed, more power). Tied in with this is our Lat Sau work - similar to all of the above, but starting from distance (not from contact as with Poon Sau).
The Chi Sau Sections, Gor Sau and to some extent Lat Sau (Gor Sau and Lat Sau boundaries kinda crossover) all really fall under the Chi Sau banner IMO.
This is separate from sparring, which we do too - but comes a little later, typically speaking. (we want to have a good grasp of the Chi Sau-related training before moving on to sparring)
But I'm pretty sure other WC/VT groups approach things differently.
Last edited by BPWT.; 02-05-2014 at 12:44 PM.
Wayfaring: I agree with there not being any value in what is being done in the video of Kevin and Obassi.
Fact is that Kevin assumed that they were going to do a developmental drill, Chisao, while Obassi doesn't care about developing anything and uses the drill as a weird fight proxy (all because he thought he was insulted on the internet?). Kevin stops Chisao'ing after about half a minute or so into it and simply notes that it's not Chisao.
From there, it's crazy how people draw all sorts of weird conclusions and draw faulty analogies. No actual fight, but 11+ pages of talk. You only get this kind of crap in Wing Chun, and to be honest it is embarrassing.
I'm out.
Dio perdona... Io no!
Agreed with your opinion .Few people making a mountain out of a mole hill. No one really knows the terms & conditions to this encounter accept the two party's involved Yes Kevin should have shut obassi down when it started getting twisted for this he has to pay the price of not being astute enough to detect foul play on the part of Obassi Come on now he even brought his own Cameraman, for crying out loud
Last edited by Jansingsang; 02-05-2014 at 11:26 AM.
Certainly it was a bit weird. I mean, challenges in Wing Chun are so... the 80s
That said, Gor Sau is part of Chi Sau training, and Gor Sau is developmental - it's used to test against an uncooperative partner - only within the usual parameters of Chi Sau.
I said it early in the thread, but if two people argue online and then they meet up to test each other... what was Kevin thinking they'd do? Compare SNT? As soon as you meet (two people from different groups) and you start rolling, then you play freely.
I think this is prompted by people having been exposed to 4,562,000 PBVT videos Kevin linked to, about 10 years of lineage insults from Kevin and now, finally, us having a thread that he can't delete.
Last edited by BPWT.; 02-05-2014 at 10:59 AM.
Embarrasing? Kevin insulted Obassi's skill. They rolled hands. You can question Obassi's ability all you want, but he consistently was able to strike Kevin and Kevin could do nothing about it. This has been great for Wing Chun, we finally have people from different linages testing each other out...
That and the fact that people seem to feel the need to keep apologizing for him or explaining away his poor performance. This thread should have died when the point was made pages ago. But LJF and others seem to keep it chugging along. Of course it seems to be a slow time in the forum. Nothing else much to talk about.