I notice a great difference between the two, and feel the difference But I train to try and make sure that I am retaining what was easier to do when going lighter. I often don't care if the sparring results in my being dominated, as long as I am playing my own game and using the system the way I am taught to use it - and most importantly, as long as I can see a progression (that from one week, or one month to the next, I am slowly doing better and improving).
If I can utilise a Kiu Sau method, for example, in simple training, and then utilise it when sparring light, I want to be able to learn to use it when going harder. It isn't easy. I often get my butt kicked. So long as I improve little by little, I don't give a cr@p.
That's why I said that Chi Kiu methods are harder to use then Lei Kiu methods, that you can learn to fight easier with Muay Thai than with Taiji.
Not trying to bait, but trying to get to the bottom of why people train a particular thing and then perhaps don't use it. If someone "trains for use", I of course don't mean that it is "used in training", but used when you actually need it.
You wrote an insult, I didn't insult you. I asked you a question.
See, there you go again.
If you asked before and I didn't reply, sorry - I have no reason to not discuss it (as I see it). I responded on the other thread with Savi, but here it is:
What is Kiu Sao and the nature of Kiu Sao?
The basic definition for us would be ‘bridge arm’, usually meaning from the hand to the elbow (but sometimes also including up to the shoulder). The nature of Kiu Sau in our system, however, would be how we use this to control – either the opponent’s bridge, or their body (via their bridge or independent of it), rather like was seen in the Alan Orr video that was posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3V...=youtube_gdata
In the latter, we would maybe just talk about Kiu methods, though how you get to them would be via Kiu Sau (ummm.. does that make sense?) I mean you might control someone’s center via their bridge, or you might not do so via their bridge arm but instead via their body (perhaps more like in Hendrik’s recent video on the dummy, where he has body contact).
But from a WT perspective, this is where things get tricky. And it is why I asked the CSL WC people (Alan and Chris), and yourself and Wayfaring from HFY, about the Kiu Sau methods in your respective systems, and how you use them.
I say tricky, because in the Wing Tsun system there are Kiu Sau methods, but they are not formalized in an obvious sense. Wayfaring said, “I mean its no skin off my nose if you don't want to explain Leung Ting's Kiu sau methods. I don't know anywhere else there's a writeup on them either, do you?”
Well, I’m happy to talk about them, but I can say he won’t find a write-up on them elsewhere – because like I say they are not listed directly.
There is no list of Kiu Methods of Key Words within the curriculum. So no syllabus that directly references things like press, swallow, slice, etc,... or lead, leak, float, etc,... or fold, sheer, pull, etc.
The Kiu Sau methods in Leung Ting’s Wing Tsun system are found within the Chi Sau sections, and then also trained in the Hong Kong Lat Sau teachings (following the progression of forms, Chi Sau, Lat Sau, Sparring).
There are many ways of training and looking at the Wing Tsun Chi Sau sections (and the various cycles that make up each individual section), but from a Kiu Sau perspective I would describe it in the following way:
All of the sections start with Poon Sau (rolling with Bong, Tan and Fook), and their ‘starting’ bridge positioning is different depending on the particular section you train (e.g. via Bong, Tan and Fook, I either have my arms, or an arm, in inside or outside bridge positions, and with an ‘on top’ or ‘under bridge position’).
From these various positions, depending on what you’ve given from your training partner (e.g. the type of attack that comes in, its direction, its pressure/amount of force, its range in relation to how far in the other person moved or how you have moved), there will different bridging responses.
The responses are typically looking off load force, or redirect, or jam, or free up, etc.
These responses are not necessarily set in stone (there’s more than one way to skin a cat), but certain some methods work better than others in certain circumstances. The key, for us, is that the positioning you have and the force you receive, the angle of the attack that comes, and the distancing involved, etc, will determine your response.
You could say it determines your ‘Kiu Sau’ response. The response might be, to borrow terms from other lineages, to press, swallow, slice; or lead, leak, float; or fold, sheer, pull, and so on.
You can mix up the various cycles within the Chi Sau sections to make things a bit more free flowing and to challenge how you deal with the bridge work, and then you can train Gor Sau to be totally free – but in either case you’ll be using the above methods (or you should be). The same applies to the Lat Sau work – you should be taking and using these key lessons learned.
If you learn the sections you can see/find the Kiu Sau Methods and Key words that over lineages use. The question people might ask is why did Leung Ting not list them directly within his syllabus? I don’t know, but maybe he thought it was easier to create the Chi Sections that have these things embedded in them. The more I study and train, the more I find embedded within the system’s forms, drills, etc.
In HFY do you have a similar way of teaching Chi Sau, Kiu Sau, etc (sections or programs) or do you have, like Robert Chu, a list of the various methods? Or both? ☺
The strategy is simply to strike and control at the same time. LLHS, LSJC. The rest is how we get there (Chi Kiu, Kiu Sau, etc).
My criticism is that the training methods Alan shows (which I think are great), were not evident in the fight clip, despite the CSL WC guys saying that how they train is how they fight. That's all.
Regarding bridging, someone could meet a bridge before striking, or during striking or after striking. The timing and the distance affects the Kiu Sau method used... the point I am making (and Alan made exactly the same point himself in the video I just linked to), is that Wing Chun (IMO) is about striking and controlling, close body work, bridge work, playing a Chi Kiu strategy and in the range that requires, etc.
@LFJ
I know that you're an intelligent guy, so this must be a case of me not explaining myself well - though God knows I have been trying to be as clear as possible.
I am not expecting Alan to post video of fights, and in those fights to see his guys using the exact drills he shows in his instruction videos. I am not expecting to see a fighter Chi Sau'ing from Poon Sau, or for the other guy to allow him to work off a sequence or training method.
What I said was missing from the fight, is the training attributes that Alan shows. Alan might say that the structure, etc, is carried over. Though as KPM pointed out, that is debatable as the general body structure we see from Alan was different in his fighter.
Regardless... specifically in the instructional clip from Alan that I linked to above, Alan is showing striking and controlling, close body work, bridge work, playing a Chi Kiu strategy and in the range that requires, etc. Those attributes were not evident in the fight clip.
A fight won't look like a drill. A drill is a drill. I understand that. But if you train the above skills and say they are used in the way your guys fight... we should see those skills in their fights.
"A minor point, but I add it for clarification so you know where I stand on this; the WT guy eating the fist looks like an EWTO student. Even if he'd done better, I don't regard this as LT Wing Tsun, and I don't train in the EWTO or use their interpretation of Keith Kernspecht's system."
I bet if the WT guy had won this bout you'd be saying quite the opposite...
and are all the cameras also missing when the good hard sparring also happen? You know if you nor anyone else can not post a single clip of wing chun in action looking as you say it should but all you can do is say what is isn't...then maybe there's either something wrong with the art or with how you see it?
I can't answer for anyone else who spars, but I know that myself and the guys I train with have no desire to record and upload it to youtube. We get the feedback we need in the act itself. And like I said, in my case I'm happy to get my ass handed to me if it means that bit by bit, I slowly make the progress I want, in the way that I want.
If I recorded that and posted it, what response would it get? More than likely people would say that yes, they could see, sometimes, that I was able to use Wing Tsun a little, but that by and large the Muay Thai guy beat me from here to Sunday. The only way to valid things in the eyes of others, like yourself, would be for me to regularly post clips to show the slow improvement over time. And they are slow improvements. And I don't spar hard all the time. Probably I should do so more - but it's all about goals. And I don't really feel the need to go to the effort of documenting it.
As you've probably guessed, I have no desire to enter a competition - of any description. I'm not training with the goal of entering, for example, a MMA event. If I wanted to, I fully admit I'd get faster results training, say, boxing and BJJ, or heading to a MMA gym. But that's not what I want to learn, and my goal is not to step into a ring/cage.
Yes, maybe you're right. But IMO, I don't think so. I've never seen any Chinese internal arts used effectively in the ring either. But years ago I met Alex Kozma (who trains Xingyi, Bagua and Taiji), and his skill level was very, very high. His speed and power were scary, as was his ability to use it to just rip right through you. I've never seen him compete. Not his focus either. Does that mean he's no good? Does it mean those arts have something wrong with them?
In your book, maybe the answer is yes - in my book, no.
At the end of the day it makes no difference to how you or I train. We do what we want to do. If people look at the clip of Alan's guy getting a good, well deserved win, and agree that the fighter was clearly using the Wing Chun seen in Alan's training/teaching clips... fair enough, I guess. I don't see it, but that's that.
You know if you nor anyone else can not post a single clip of wing chun in action looking as you say it should but all you can do is say what is isn't...then maybe there's either something wrong with the art or with how you see it?
I take it you mean in a kickboxing or MMA ring/environment? Then what you said would apply to a lot of martial arts...like....Hung Gar, Hsing I, Ba Gua, Classical Jiu Jitsu, Classical Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Southern Mantis, etc.
At the end of the day it makes no difference to how you or I train. We do what we want to do. If people look at the clip of Alan's guy getting a good, well deserved win, and agree that the fighter was clearly using the Wing Chun seen in Alan's training/teaching clips... fair enough, I guess. I don't see it, but that's that.
That's the bottom-line right there! And I don't think BPWT and I are the only ones that don't see it. Otherwise Alan wouldn't have felt the need to post several clips explaining why it really is Wing Chun even if it doesn't look like Wing Chun! But "to each his own" and "eye of the beholder" and all that! I'm sure its because "we just don't understand!"
Well, kind of. It's not that I don't like what BPWT has to say it is the fact that he is twisting my words and trying to indicate I am saying something I am not. To me that type of behavior does not earn one respect.
Your point is that you've seen a WCK strategy different from boxing? OK.One WCK strategy, and this is only one, and actually one I've seen described by Robert Chu....is this. Engage the opponent and try to knock the heck out of him. If he puts up an obstruction (tries to defend), then use that contact to bridge in and control his arms moving in to disrupt his balance and break his structure so that you can more easily strike him at will. This strategy does not include standing back and exchanging punches in a boxing scenario. You can't control anything in a tit for tat exchange of punches. I think this is what BPWT is talking about. This is a strategy suited for a street encounter, but not necessarily a ring bout or a give and take session of sparring. With this strategy when you engage an opponent you don't stop until he is down, and the goal is to put him down quickly. Granted, if not successful the first time you may have to step back and re-engage and try again. My point is that this is at least one key strategy in WCK that I have seen, and this strategy is not a boxing exchange of punches.