Controlling an Opponent's Balance

[KPM]

I maintain that good Wing Chun will involve gaining control over an attacker's balance or center of gravity. Its not just about standing back and punching. By turning and off-balancing an attacker you limit his ability to continue to respond. Its not enough to cross his arms or trap him, etc. You need to turn him, make him step, or otherwise disrupt his balance. That's why Wing Chun is a "close in" system. I've always been told we are to "eat up the attacker's space." A more modern axiom I've heard is "you're standing in my spot!!!!"

tc101 disagreed with this idea on another thread. He said:

Can a person control an opponent's balance and COG? Sure. Momentarily and very infrequently. So to have your goal or objective to do that seems highly impractical since for most of the fight its not going to be there. It does not make much sense to say don't chase his hands really means control his balance and COG when you could just say control his balance and COG in the first place.

Where are the wing chun people who can control someone's center of gravity who are really fighting with them? Can you point me to a video of them?

Yes. I can. Here is Alan Orr talking about controlling the opponent's balance. He's not actually fighting in this clip. But Alan and his guys certainly fight with their Wing Chun! He wouldn't teach something in a clip like this that he didn't think was useful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTEy-yMEv0Y

So what do the rest of you think? Is disrupting an opponent's balance and controlling their COG a realistic goal or objective for good Wing Chun?

[Grumblegeezer]

I maintain that good Wing Chun will involve gaining control over an attacker's balance or center of gravity. ...Here is Alan Orr talking about controlling the opponent's balance. He's not actually fighting in this clip. But Alan and his guys certainly fight with their Wing Chun! He wouldn't teach something in a clip like this that he didn't think was useful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTEy-yMEv0Y

So what do the rest of you think? Is disrupting an opponent's balance and controlling their COG a realistic goal or objective for good Wing Chun?

Excellent clip. I really like the way Alan explains this. I would disagree with him on stance only in that I feel that there is a time and place when it may be beneficial to yield and shift your center to work around an opponent --if he is much stronger and uses very heavy pressure, Then you let his force shift your center and slip aside like a bullfighter slipping around a charging bull. The dummy teaches us that. Otherwise I love the way he turns his opponent to control his balance and get an angle. I'd love to get LFJ's take on this. I'm betting he'd like it. Realistic, practical, and in other clips you can see Alan and his guys really apply this stuff. No BS here.

[LFJ]

I'd love to get LFJ's take on this. I'm betting he'd like it. Realistic, practical, and in other clips you can see Alan and his guys really apply this stuff. No BS here.

Right. First of all, I can't see his feet when he's talking about turning "on the heels" (as a bad thing) but it looks like he's turning on the balls of the feet and "moving the heels". I think he's saying it backward. That's the only way you can move away. If you're actually turning on your heels you won't go anywhere. If you turn on the balls of your feet and move your heels letting your body follow, that will move you away.

Anyhow, I've watched all of his Q&A videos. We may not do things totally the same way, but overall I completely agree with his direction. The videos on basic range, distance, and positioning are all good. Also that taan, fuk, etc. are concepts that he absorbs and uses in his striking. Many people say he's not doing good Wing Chun because it doesn't look like Wing Chun. But good Wing Chun is more about overall body behavior than hand techniques. He demonstrates and uses the core of the system, not the skin literally taken from the forms. He says that's a beginner level understanding. I say it's a fundamental training mistake/misunderstanding of the system to ever take these hand shapes into sparring. They stop at chi-sau.

The good thing about his demos here is that even though they are done slowly, he's not doing five things to his opponent's one punch, and he's keeping himself in a safe position while showing practical responses. That is a realistic demonstration, even done slowly while giving description.

[BPWT..]

I like this expression "de-linking". I saw this clip a while back, and grabbed a training partner so we could run through some Chi Sau sections with just this idea in mind; this idea appears throughout the sections (though the term de-linking is not one I've heard specifically in our line).

@Grumblegeezer: agree with the bullfighter analogy Again with the sections, I like to break them down into the short cycles they usually contain, and then have a partner play those attacks as hard as they can, stepping in with as much force/momentum as they can. Becoming the "bullfighter" is a great way to add control over their centre of balance, and it can help you control your own.

[tc101]

I maintain that good Wing Chun will involve gaining control over an attacker's balance or center of gravity. Its not just about standing back and punching. By turning and off-balancing an attacker you limit his ability to continue to respond. Its not enough to cross his arms or trap him, etc. You need to turn him, make him step, or otherwise disrupt his balance. That's why Wing Chun is a "close in" system. I've always been told we are to "eat up the attacker's space." A more modern axiom I've heard is "you're standing in my spot!!!!"

tc101 disagreed with this idea on another thread. He said:

Can a person control an opponent's balance and COG? Sure. Momentarily and very infrequently. So to have your goal or objective to do that seems highly impractical since for most of the fight its not going to be there. It does not make much sense to say don't chase his hands really means control his balance and COG when you could just say control his balance and COG in the first place.

Where are the wing chun people who can control someone's center of gravity who are really fighting with them? Can you point me to a video of them?

Yes. I can. Here is Alan Orr talking about controlling the opponent's balance. He's not actually fighting in this clip. But Alan and his guys certainly fight with their Wing Chun! He wouldn't teach something in a clip like this that he didn't think was useful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTEy-yMEv0Y

So what do the rest of you think? Is disrupting an opponent's balance and controlling their COG a realistic goal or objective for good Wing Chun?

You can maintain whatever you want and you can offer all the non sparring and non fighting videos you want but see you still cannot do what I asked and show me the fighting or sparring where a wing chun guy is controlling the opponent's balance and center of gravity in the fight. There are videos of the Orr team sparring and fighting yes? Do you see them doing this in their sparring and fighting? No. Yes but he would not teach something he did not think was useful. Really? His guys are not doing it when they spar or fight? Do you not understand that?

Why maintain we should do this or that when no one ever really does it?

[Hendrik]

It is much much more then you think.

Read this issue of wing chun illustrate, issue 16, on sifu Robert Chu interview to see for yourself.

I maintain that good Wing Chun will involve gaining control over an attacker's balance or center of gravity. Its not just about standing back and punching. By turning and off-balancing an attacker you limit his ability to continue to respond. Its not enough to cross his arms or trap him, etc. You need to turn him, make him step, or otherwise disrupt his balance. That's why Wing Chun is a "close in" system. I've always been told we are to "eat up the attacker's space." A more modern axiom I've heard is "you're standing in my spot!!!!"

tc101 disagreed with this idea on another thread. He said:

Can a person control an opponent's balance and COG? Sure. Momentarily and very infrequently. So to have your goal or objective to do that seems highly impractical sinche for most of the fight its not going to be there. It does not make much sense to say don't chase his hands really means control his balance and COG when you could just say control his balance and COG in the first place.

Where are the wing chun people who can control someone's center of gravity who are really fighting with them? Can you point me to a video of them?

Yes. I can. Here is Alan Orr talking about controlling the opponent's balance. He's not actually fighting in this clip. But Alan and his guys certainly fight with their Wing Chun! He wouldn't teach something in a clip like this that he didn't think was useful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTEy-yMEv0Y

So what do the rest of you think? Is disrupting an opponent's balance and controlling their COG a realistic goal or objective for good Wing Chun?

[Grumblegeezer]

His guys are not doing it when they spar or fight? Do you not understand that? Why maintain we should do this or that when no one ever really does it?

Yeah, I understand what you are saying, but I believe that his guys do use these concepts. It's just that in actual sparring or competitive bouts this kind of "control" happens for very brief moments, it's messy and hard to see. But it can be felt when its happenning. Same in any clinch fighting or grappling.

So I tend to go by what the fighters feel as much as what you can see. After sparring ask both fighters if they felt this going on. Alan and his guys say they do. Now if you don't believe them, OK. Take nothing on faith, but try it for yourself. If it doesn't work for you, that's all you need to know.

IMO, this is what good chi-sau training is designed to do. Think about it. All that contact drilling when put into a fighting environment might help you to gain control of center for just an instant. Hopefully you can capitalize on that instant and win the fight. Yeah, I know, that's too "iffy" for some, but it makes sense to me.

[kung fu fighter]

It is much much more then you think.

Read this issue of wing chun illustrate, issue 16, on sifu Robert Chu interview to see for yourself.

Hey Hendrik,
Great Article, looking forward to reading part 2 in the next issue.

[KPM]

Here's a clip of Jerry Yeung showing another way of controlling an opponent's balance or COG....stepping through their center and putting your palm in their face!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWLHE...TXOH0UPObdrm_Q

[KPM]

You can maintain whatever you want and you can offer all the non sparring and non fighting videos you want but see you still cannot do what I asked and show me the fighting or sparring where a wing chun guy is controlling the opponent's balance and center of gravity in the fight.

Here are a couple of videos of Alan Orr doing some light sparring with one of his guys. Notice how much of the time he has his sparring partner off-balanced. And his partner Aaron Baum is no scrub! He’s probably had more MMA fights than Shaun Obasi. You may not see the obvious turning and angling Orr talked about in that other clip unless you watch pretty closely. But it’s part of what he does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqWcr3QGZ8M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT8pOjrtXXU

Here’s a clip of Aaron in an MMA bout. This is MMA, so it doesn’t look a lot like pure Wing Chun. But notice how much Aaron keeps his opponent off-balance at the beginning of the fight. He is using angling to essentially “turn” the opponent like Orr talked about in the other video.

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

[KPM]

Hey tc1! Found something for you.

Terrence Niehoff used to be a member of this forum. You remind me of him in several ways. He had a solid foundation in good Wing Chun and was big on testing it out in sparring and fighting. Like you he was convinced that someone couldn't know whether their Wing Chun would actually work if they had never really went at it with a seriously resisting opponent. Classmates weren't good enough! He thought we all should be making the rounds to the local boxing and MMA gyms and sparring with their best guys. But he got so obsessed with this idea that it became his constant mantra in practically every discussion he was involved in. It got real old, real fast! He got into an on-line feud with Victor Parlati that got them both banned from this forum. As you might have guessed, its pretty **** hard to get banned from this forum!!! Anyway, this is something he posted a few years back. Note that when he says "breaking structure" he is talking about disrupting the opponent's balance or COG. Again, this is a guy that sparred regularly with non-Wing Chun people. But he seems to have seen something different than you.

From my perspective, the key to WCK is breaking the opponent's structure. That is the thing around which everything else revolves.

And it is the thing I look for in determining how good someone's WCK is (and in, for example, determining how well I am doing).

When we break the opponent's structure, we take away his strength and his speed, we take away his offense and his defense. If you've ever had your structure broken by someone who knows what they are doing, you feel like you are being tossed around like a rag doll. What breaking the opponent's structure provides is control (and safety).

If you don't break an opponent's structure, then he is free to use all his strength, all his speed, free to attack you -- and you have to deal with all of that.

So how can we break an opponent's structure and keep it broken? You can do that through striking him in certain ways. Is striking alone enough? Rarely. But, you can also push, pull, press, lift, jerk, etc. him, using leverage and momentum, to break and keep his structure broken.

[tc101]

Hey tc1! Found something for you.

Terrence Niehoff used to be a member of this forum. You remind me of him in several ways. He had a solid foundation in good Wing Chun and was big on testing it out in sparring and fighting. Like you he was convinced that someone couldn't know whether their Wing Chun would actually work if they had never really went at it with a seriously resisting opponent. Classmates weren't good enough! He thought we all should be making the rounds to the local boxing and MMA gyms and sparring with their best guys. But he got so obsessed with this idea that it became his constant mantra in practically every discussion he was involved in. It got real old, real fast! He got into an on-line feud with Victor Parlati that got them both banned from this forum. As you might have guessed, its pretty **** hard to get banned from this forum!!! Anyway, this is something he posted a few years back. Note that when he says "breaking structure" he is talking about disrupting the opponent's balance or COG. Again, this is a guy that sparred regularly with non-Wing Chun people. But he seems to have seen something different than you.

From my perspective, the key to WCK is breaking the opponent's structure. That is the thing around which everything else revolves.

And it is the thing I look for in determining how good someone's WCK is (and in, for example, determining how well I am doing).

When we break the opponent's structure, we take away his strength and his speed, we take away his offense and his defense. If you've ever had your structure broken by someone who knows what they are doing, you feel like you are being tossed around like a rag doll. What breaking the opponent's structure provides is control (and safety).

If you don't break an opponent's structure, then he is free to use all his strength, all his speed, free to attack you -- and you have to deal with all of that.

So how can we break an opponent's structure and keep it broken? You can do that through striking him in certain ways. Is striking alone enough? Rarely. But, you can also push, pull, press, lift, jerk, etc. him, using leverage and momentum, to break and keep his structure broken.

What does breaking structure really mean? I do not like these sorts of terms.

Look I have personally experienced through boxing training what it takes for people including me to go from no ability to box to developing into a boxer. I've seen amateurs and pros train. I've trained with them and helped train them. When you go through that training you see for yourself how much conditioning and realistic training and sparring it takes just to make just the easy things work for you. You know that without doing that sort of training no one would be able to really make any strides in terms of fighting skill. That is where I am coming from. Boxers are not out there teaching unrealistic ways of moving against unrealistic attackers for example like Maul because they operate in reality. Reality teaches you things.

Many things sound great and might be great IF YOU CAN REALLY DO THEM. I hear some of the talk I just don't see anyone really doing these things they talk about. It almost appears as if the ability to do these things is taken for granted. Yes yes just break his structure or control his center of gravity or turn him or whatever. I am trying to say this guy will be fighting you as hard as he can, wrestling with you, hitting you, moving at his top speed with his full power and doing everything in his power that he can to not let you do what you are trying to do. So we need to be realistic in our expectations. Realistic training teaches you that also.

Realistically or practically you are most likely not going to be able to control someone cog or break his structure or turn him so what then? If you do not believe me when I say you will not be able to then see for yourself through trying to really do it. For example it is EXTREMELY difficult to just land solid shots on someone who is fighting you. They just don't stand there and let you hit them. It takes LOTS of sparring and lots of hard work to just get there and have some ability to do that.

[tc101]

What does breaking structure really mean? I do not like these sorts of terms.

Look I have personally experienced through boxing training what it takes for people including me to go from no ability to box to developing into a boxer. I've seen amateurs and pros train. I've trained with them and helped train them. When you go through that training you see for yourself how much conditioning and realistic training and sparring it takes just to make just the easy things work for you. You know that without doing that sort of training no one would be able to really make any strides in terms of fighting skill. That is where I am coming from. Boxers are not out there teaching unrealistic ways of moving against unrealistic attackers for example like Maul because they operate in reality. Reality teaches you things.

Many things sound great and might be great IF YOU CAN REALLY DO THEM. I hear some of the talk I just don't see anyone really doing these things they talk about. It almost appears as if the ability to do these things is taken for granted. Yes yes just break his structure or control his center of gravity or turn him or whatever. I am trying to say this guy will be fighting you as hard as he can, wrestling with you, hitting you, moving at his top speed with his full power and doing everything in his power that he can to not let you do what you are trying to do. So we need to be realistic in our expectations. Realistic training teaches you that also.

Realistically or practically you are most likely not going to be able to control someone cog or break his structure or turn him so what then? If you do not believe me when I say you will not be able to then see for yourself through trying to really do it. For example it is EXTREMELY difficult to just land solid shots on someone who is fighting you. They just don't stand there and let you hit them. It takes LOTS of sparring and lots of hard work to just get there and have some ability to do that.

Let me add something. When I began training in boxing my trainer told me to not to focus on trying to KO my opponent instead to focus on landing solid shots (make it a habit) and he said that if I landed and put together solid shots then the KO might come. Might since some people have great chins and there is no guarantee that you can KO someone. Landing solid shots is a realistic goal and as simple as it sounds it is very very difficult to do and the better your opponent is the more difficult it becomes. You don't just get that ability by wanting it but through lots of trying to do it. I also think this shows that the focus should be on those sorts of basic things instead of breaking structure or controling the cog or whatever which how will you do if you cannot land solid shots?

[KPM]

What does breaking structure really mean?

As I said, its the same thing as disrupting the opponent's balance, making them take a step to catch themselves, making them pivot or turn.

I also think this shows that the focus should be on those sorts of basic things instead of breaking structure or controling the cog or whatever which how will you do if you cannot land solid shots?

I think breaking structure would actually be easier than landing a solid shot. How many times have you seen boxers clinch and neither is able to land a solid shot but one guy shoves the other guy away to break the clinch and makes him take a step to catch his balance or bounce of off the ropes to catch his balance? How many times have you seen Thai boxers in a clinch and one guy grabs the other around the neck and slings him around the ring so that he can't get set to land a solid shot? That's breaking structure or disrupting balance and COG. How many times have you seen an MMA fighter land a good roundhouse to the leg that buckles the opponent's leg and turns him a bit and makes an opening for a hard punch? That's breaking structure. This kind of stuff happens all the time. That's why I can't see why you keep saying it doesn't or is unlikely. Look at Alan Orr doing it in a Wing Chun Chi Sao context in those videos above.

[JPinAZ]

From my perspective, the key to WCK is breaking the opponent's structure. That is the thing around which everything else revolves.

And it is the thing I look for in determining how good someone's WCK is (and in, for example, determining how well I am doing).

When we break the opponent's structure, we take away his strength and his speed, we take away his offense and his defense. If you've ever had your structure broken by someone who knows what they are doing, you feel like you are being tossed around like a rag doll. What breaking the opponent's structure provides is control (and safety).

If you don't break an opponent's structure, then he is free to use all his strength, all his speed, free to attack you -- and you have to deal with all of that.

So how can we break an opponent's structure and keep it broken? You can do that through striking him in certain ways. Is striking alone enough? Rarely. But, you can also push, pull, press, lift, jerk, etc. him, using leverage and momentum, to break and keep his structure broken.

For all of T's personal flaws, in a general sense he's right with what he's saying here. This is what I would call basic Wing Chun 101