Dead horse kicked in solar plexus shock!

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
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It’s an old story.

In my shooto kickboxing (Thai and boxing) class last night, I left my guard open by mistake and was kicked in the solar plexus by a kyokushinkai geezer. I flew backwards in the air, and I heard myself going ‘hueuuuh’ or words to that effect, and landed on my knees about half a metre behind where I’d started. I was not getting up in a hurry.

Why am I telling you this?

Usually I use wing chun strategies (centre line, move in to jam up kicks and striking range etc), with mostly wing chun strikes (we don’t usually use elbows, and if we are using boxing gloves rather than MMA gloves obviously many ‘chop’ moves are inneffective). My footwork is a mix of boxing, thai and wing chun. Sometimes I try to stick to my wing chun only.

I’d crowded him keeping the advantage, but let him back off half a step to see what I could do against his kicks. Then I made my mistake.

In a wing chun format only, most of the time, this is not going to happen. Sure I dropped my guard fractionally, but since most chunners don’t have a big power kick, if you don’t spar against other arts you will not be able to defend or recognise what is coming. This guy pulled off a high-power roundhouse from most people’s punching distance. And I was finished.

OK, so that’s the first half of my sermon over.

So what, if you do spar against other arts and you keep up wing chun principles? The crowding and jamming the opponent has to work, right? If I’d kept jamming this geezer, he wouldn’t have been able to TKO me with a kick to the solar plexus right? If you don’t pressure test, you don’t know. I’ve been training wing chun for a long time, and usually I don’t drop my guard so stupidly, but hell, I’m all too human.

So say you can stick to wing chun principles and you don’t make any stupid mistakes. Jamming and sticking is a good tactic, which if you don’t drop them with the first few strikes, will necessarily involve takedowns. But again, will these takedowns work against a Thai fighter with their similar short jerky sweep type takedowns, a wrestler/JJer etc, a judoka etc? Even another guy on the street who doesn’t follow the wing chun sticky approach… try that newbie in class…? You don’t know unless you spar.

I know this post is a dead horse. You will ignore it if you think you know better, if you have the real wing chun, you will scoff at it if you’ve had this argument a dozen times and don’t believe in sparring, and you will agree if you have experience of sparring other styles.

Just wanted to add my twopennorth, as I don’t usually join these debates. I’ve sparred for years, and I still make stupid mistakes, and I too often get painful reminders that I’m human. Make of that what you will.

I still believe in forms, in traditional ways etc, but traditionally wing chun had beimo against other styles, and sparring should be part of your wing chun, IMHO.

Thanks for reading.

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Thanks For sharing your experiences,

I wish more wing chun people would come forward and share their honest fighting/full contact experiences of using wing chun against other styles, that way we would be able to learn from each other’s experiences as well as to compare experiences in order to come up with better ideas and solutions to improve our understanding of the system.

one of my sparring partner is one of the best kyokushinkai fighters in the world and is currently fighting in the K1 kickboxing organization in las vagas. He whipped UFC heavyweight champ Murrice smith, and gary Goodridge ass in training. He is about 260 pounds and I am about 215 pounds. Kyokushinkai guys are used to taking punishment because their bodies are well conditioned for receiving hits (iron body training), so they don’t mind trading blows. They have extremely strong low leg kicks, and they don’t kick as wide as does most thaiboxers, which makes it difficult to enter safely unless your timing is sharpe enough to read them early. The most important lession that I learned from sparring with him was about the correct use of wing chun timing based on the system’s principles, idioms, and theories. Before I figured that out, the only method that worked was trying to condition my body to take the hits, but that was playing his game, and since he was bigger and more trained in this he always won.

My advice to you would be to analize your wing chun timing based on the system’s theories and principles!

Thanks
Kung fu fighter

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No worries, you too.

Kyokushinkai guys are used to taking punishment because their bodies are well conditioned for receiving hits (iron body training), so they don’t mind trading blows.
A lot of them don’t actually bother with those concrete rollers and things any more, but they still take a lot of very strong punches and kicks on a regular basis. Unlike most chunners who take pattycake!
They have extremely strong low leg kicks, and they don’t kick as wide as does most thaiboxers, which makes it difficult to enter safely unless your timing is sharpe enough to read them early.
True that. And body kicks too. It was my fault though… it’d been a while since I’d sparred Kyokushin (and I didn’t know he was Kyokushin before I started!) and I was getting co(ky and playing with him, hence the dropping the guard. Mind you, I was interested to see how I fared against his best weapons. But next time I’ll stick to doing it on my terms, rather than his.
My advice to you would be to analize your wing chun timing based on the system’s theories and principles!
Timing is timing, wing chun or otherwise. When I stuck, I was getting inside his blows and bouncing mine off at short range from that position. He could only get round it and come in by switching to the characteristic kyokushin body blows (which as I’m sure you know are very f’in hard!), but that left me playing with his head.

Getting in to them to get that sticking in the first place is no problem with kyokushin if you can keep dropping your arm on their body blows (a jum or gaun - gaun seems to work best) and headhunt, cos they usually come in with just that, and they’ll fold you up if you take one straight.

Also I’ve noticed most kyokushin don’t don’t go for clinches so much, they try and push you away, often with both hands… this often leaves a little gap of vulnerability just after, but they will be fast in with a close range body blow straight after so you have to get in first.

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I was standing just outside the ring last night, watching my Muay Thai coach spar, and I saw him throw a jump/spin/back kick (Benny Urquidez style), and land it lightly on the chin of his opponent (also an experienced MT stylist), -starting from what most consider punching range. If he let it go, it would have been a sure knockout…

-Some guys have very good range transitions, and Wing Chunners shouldn’t assume that our opponent can’t can’t kick effectively just because we get to a distance where we can punch him.

-Lawrence

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Good point Lawrence.

That reminds me of one of my karate sempai who could pull off a roundhouse to my head, spinning if he so desired from punch range. He was shorter than me too. At the time I hadn’t done any wing chun.

A few years later against a similar thing I had learnt how to spot it coming and how to use my wing chun against it.

However, this brings me to another point. Most chunners in their chi sao concentrate solely on their arms and handwork. But even if you don’t like sparring and the change in footwork paradigm that this involves (ie, it not mattering how you move as long as you make sure you are grounded when you make contact), if you don’t practise chi gerk you are missing half the picture. Your legs give you your speed and stability, and no amount of static (even generously allowing for the dynamism of energy flow…!) slt or programmed ck or bj will prepare you adequately for the tuning you need when you make full contact and more importantly, miss people at full speed.

So when some geezer throws a spinning roundhouse within your punching range, logic dictates you punch into his centre, into his body mass… but what are you going to get? A lot of ribs at their strongest points on the back, spinning safely and quickly to deflect your nice penetrating punch ™… or the back of their head, again moving quickly enough to deflect most of the damage.

And I know all your years of chi sao will give you a lot of sensitivity, but you’ll still be looking for a window of opportunity for your one killer shot, or flurry of wet chain punches…!

But, if you’ve practised chi gerk, and live sparring long enough, your legs should automatically be moving into a position where you can check his post leg, or better still sweep it. And again, all the nice stamping kicks from the dummy don’t mean much when faced with a spinning post leg you have a split second to rake to a halt… unless you’ve seen it and done it for real.

Otherwise, you’ll just be mesmerised like a rabbit in the spotlight. :eek: :smiley:

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I thought logic would dictate a bit of defence when someone throws a kick at you. Punch in the body mass centre doesn’t sound particularly effective.

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Yep, well I was saying it wasn’t effective… or did you lose that…? Sorry if I wasn’T very clear.

For most kicks above waist height thrown at me from kicking range as opposed to a shorter range, I like to move in offline with a defence and a punch to the head. Especially against kyokushinkai who often neglect to protect their heads when kicking, or TKD for that matter, or several other styles who seem a bit half hearted about it.

Against a spinning/high kick in punching range stepping back out and sweeping/kicking their post leg or stepping in and checking it may be a good option, and yes of course you should have a guard.

About attacking the centre or the body mass, at least one school I went to (which I didn’t stay long at I hasten to add) and several people I’ve met from other schools would advocate the constantly moving forwards attacking the centreline pretty much head on gag, which is guaranteed to fail in this case as the only target is a spinning mass of bone.

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Actually one night in class my teacher had us practice a kickboxing defense to the rear-leg roundhouse that involved stepping forward and slightly off line and hitting the attacker with a cross. As long as you make solid contact you should be able to take the sting out of his kick. takes good anticipation to make it work.

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It really depends on the situation. Nothing’s guaranteed to work or fail. Some of these WC logic ideas don’t sound particularly good to me however it’s possible that they can work. But why would you try to do something that you’ve never been taught hands-on by someone who knows what they’re talking about. Unless you’ve been doing a drill hundreds of times, counter-punching someone the instant they try roundhouse kick you, how good are your reflexes going to be.

Any sort of jamming or clinching can work with practice. Muay Thai people have to practice it and so should WC people. But it doesn’t mean you’ll never get kicked. Of course you can.

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I have counterpunched those kicks hundreds of times. In wing chun, in karate, in thai. Again I say I wasn’t advocating trying to counterpunch the body in the way that that substandard teacher told me. And I was advocating defence, hence the mention of my guard dropping being a mistake (actually it was that I was guarding my head, and neglected to keep my elbows in). And I wasn’t saying that anythign you try will alwys work and you’re not going to get kicked, it fact I was warning against that very faulty thought-process…

so all in all Edmund, I ‘agreed’ with everything you said… before you’d said it…! :wink:

I guess when you are completely missing all the points of my posts is when we can be said to be having a communication breakdown…! :smiley:

So anyway, let me summarize:

  1. Keep your elbows in!

Relying too much on chi sao where you’re always relying on a bridge or looking for a bridge, will often be your downfall when you come to fight or spar with someone who is less rhythmical and less forward-pressing… this is because your elbows will often tend to go out to meet the inside of their arms: when your arms get tired/take some damage, you’ll be looking for an arm bridge instead of punching throught the openings.

Also, over-emphasis on headhunting will cause you to neglect protecting your body… which coupled with…

  1. Practise chi gerk and kicking in chi sao!

Otherwise you’ll neglecting half your arsenal and forgetting how easy it is to get clocked with a really quick and easy body kick.

  1. Don’t go for feints!

Go for the target.

  1. Don’t be complacent!

It’s easy to make mistakes, and it’s easy to get nailed if you’re sparring with any realism. Don’t worry about it, learn and continue.

  1. Pressure test!

You don’t know that your jamming and sticking will work until you pressure test it against another syle… which brings us back to spar spar spar!

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BTW Edmund, the fact that this thread has had 388 views and most of the ten replies have been mine suggest that maybe the communication breakdown is my fault! Perhaps I’m just too longwinded, or as Ultimate would probably say, I should just contribute to one of the existing threads… 'cept I don’t have enough time to read them by the time I get to them…

**** it, I give up!

:rolleyes: :smiley:

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I’m working on it… :slight_smile:

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Nice breakdown…

Thanks, Mat.