Elbow techniques

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

Wing Chun has 5 elbows: rising, downward, 2 sides, backwards.
How many elbows does your style have? What’s you favorite elbow technique, and how do you set it up?

Our downward elbow is the deadliest, but it takes a lot of flexibility and I have not mastered it yet. The only elbows I have landed in sparring are inward side elbows from having my hand on the opponent’s upper arm, and my favorite is an elbow straight down on the opponents upper back if he bends over or I get behind him. This is not the downward elbow, actually it’s the same motion as the backwards elbow (Your hand coming back to chamber) but only halfway through the movement.

I would like to know more about the elbows, what really works? How to attack and how to defend?

-FJ

2

Elbows = ouch

Elbows hurt. When we spar, I’m not allowed to actually hit with the elbow :(…but that is because I would do real damage. In Kenpo we do a lot of horizantal and diagonal elbows to the floating ribs and rising (and always angled) elbows to the chin/face.

I learned a few very nasty elbow techniques from Swi zhou which have similar techniques in Kenpo as well. One is to block a right punch by a left parry while stepping toward and off angle of the oppoenent. Bring the right elbow across the oponents face. You can either sweep the opponent out or reverse the right hand to do another elbow or backhand (or an elbow to a backhand).

I only used this once to knock a cigarett out of some stupid drunk who thought it wise to pick on someone smaller. I just sidestepped, blocked his weak punch and elbowed the cigarett out of his mouth and sweeped him out. I didn’t let him drop hard, however. He let it drop after this. I think his friend bought us a beer that night.

Peace or flame on…whichever you chose.

3

I like to throw an inward then outward elbow inside on an opponent.

For instance, from a left foot forward stand shuffle forward either pushing or checking your opponent’s lead hand inward and then slam that right inward elbow toward his ribs. Continue the motion of your elbow through the opponent’s ribs and then throaw your elbow back into his ribs in the back.

Simple little changes can be added. Like targeting the head instead of the ribs, or going head then ribs, or ribs then head. Works allot.

JWT

4

Cool, JWT! There’s ALOT of that combo in bagua. It’s pretty common to see a same-side palmheel-inwardelbow combo by ‘wrapping’ inwards on your opponent (the same energy often ‘fueling’ trapping techniques with the same-sides leg - imagine stepping in so you are perpendicular to opponent, attacking side facing him, but very close, in pigeontoed stance with your lead leg having ‘hooked’ behind your opponents lead leg, such that you’re on the outside), and then ‘unwrapping’ to use the same arm for a outwardelbow-palmheel/hammerfist/backfist combo. There’s of course as many variations as you can think of - eg. on the unwind, shooting your palm down behind his shoulder and straight down his back so that his face is in your armpit, to crank out his neck and do a takedown, or just crank nastiness (mostly works with the trapping leg in place as described above).

The palm-elbow combo is reasonably tough to coordinate, but even if you bungle it, it’s really easy to to an inwardelbow on the wind, hammerfist on the unwind - or just elbow-elbow like you described.

5

we have the up, down, side to side, and elbow behind as well but as said earlier we are not allow to make contact with them just like we are not allowed to make contact with knees.

I don’t use them as much as I should. They are very close ranged and it is hard getting close enough to do one in a chair.

6

Fa-Jing, what is the downward elbow in WC look like? I have not seen it yet and am just curious.

7

I love to use elobows since mine are rediculously sharp. I’ve had both of my arms badly hyperextended at the elbow, requireing surgery to keep them together. That sucked, but it seemed to angle them a littel different and make then even sharper. I’ll bringing in some more photos tomorrow and one of them is a closeup of my elbow. I’ll post it here just for sh!ts and giggles.

JWT

8

Making contact during sparring

My teacher lets me throw these during sparring, but he may change that if I start landing more. We use headgear which offers good protection against the elbow unless you go straight to the nose, which I of course would not intentially do in sparring. I also keep it light on the elbow to the spine, naturally.

About the inward-outward elbow combo - Sifu recommends this, he also says throw the elbows fast, loose, and snappy like your punches. We have a good drill where we hold two Thai pads apart and facing somewhat in, this allows us to train the inward, and downward elbow strikes. For us, the downward elbow is like the inward elbow except you come over with your elbow and strike at about a 45 degree angle downward. Like I said, requires flexibility, and you can use the downward elbow to trap, too.

-FJ

9

My terminology is really limited to the art I’m studying, but I have a feeling that we also do the inward-outward elbow combo you’re talking about.

By title, the elbows I mostly use are:

Crashing elbow(which is downward, but from up high, you bring your arm back as if you are chambering your fist, but you continue so that the elbow comes all the way up and crashes down)

2 techs using crashing elbow

-squared off with your opponent, your right side forward, with your right hand grab just above the opponent’s left elbow, pivot your lead foot back at the same time you do a crashing elbow. This should pull him headfirst into the elbow.

-when in very close range, left leg forward, press the opponent forward at the chin or chest with your right hand, bring your rear foot behind your opponent’s lead leg(well inside his stance), at the same time releasing your right hand from his chest and doing the crashing elbow with your left elbow. This should cause him to be bringing his upper body back up(from being pressed by your right hand and his root messed with by your formerly rear leg) just as the elbow hits his chest/collarbone.

Collapsing Elbow(basically, if you held your elbow out to your side like you just elbow jabbed someone to the ribs, then circled the point of your elbow in a circle that was parallel to the ground, until it occupied your centerline, except the are itself does little of the elbow, it is almost all waist).

Techs with collapsing elbow:

-grab the opponent’s lead wrist, pivot your rear foot until its behind your opponent’s lead foot, and elbow to the kidney area.

-in very close range, you can do this elbow a lot, especially if the opponent is trying to crowd you.

Upward elbow(to my knowledge, same as in other arts)

“elbow jab”(not sure the name, a simple one, just like “ribbing” except once the student gets the related chi kung, he can implement a particularly nasty jing). It’s use is pretty simple, I’m sure everyone here has used it.

Whoever mentioned the problem with getting close above, my recommendation is to assess whether you are holding back too much. Try aggression, not as in anger, but just make a practice sometimes to just go in no matter what. You’ll get pasted sometimes, but if your goal is to get inside, like me(my art works well inside), you won’t really see what prevents you from getting in until you go there.

10

downwards elbows

i like to elbow kick, attacking the thigh ankle or knee!

I use to go around to TKD and karate schools when i was a young thug, join a class and try all my stuff out on against kickers.

i would level my ribs open for a good round house setting the poor guy up, and wham! he is on the ground in pain:D

i know im a pr!ck:cool:

11

diagonal
side
upward - I hate that one
spinning

All of these are trained on both the lead and rear hands, and also may be used while returing your hands back to a guard position, IE, if I use a diagonal elbow, I am setup to do a reverse of the technique as opposed to just bringing my arms back to into guard.

12

Bagua 12 elbows

Upwards front,
downwards front,
sideways downwards,
sideways across,
sideways drilling in,
twisting backwards,
rolling in,
rolling out,
pulling in,
pulling back,
planting,
pulling up.

These work especially well with a pair of elbow daggers;)

13

My favorite is the inward elbow, like you’re throwing a tight hook, and aiming for the face/neck. I like using those at 45 degree upward or downward angles, too. I learned to rotate the hand inward at the end of the swing, almost turning your palm towards the opponent when using that one. I feel a little more flexibility that way so I can bring the elbow across just a little more. Does anyone else do it that way? Can anyone explain the possible pros and/or cons of doing that?

I also hate the upward elbow, SevenStar. I hate it because I’m not good at it.

14

Philipino’s use some awsome elbow attacks also. A few neat methods are using your elbows to destroy the arms and as mentioned before the legs. Some one attacks and you block or parry and when you are up close in trapping range like if they grab your arm you can use up and down elbows against the joints, not even to brake but to damage, or the top part of the hand is a painful place too. At first I did not think you could hurt someon very much like this but after having itdone to me over and over and over again I could see how it can be effective.

I am a big fan of using elbows in any possible chance to the head mostly.

Here is something I have done and was supprised at how easy I could hit with my elbows in this possition.
Get close to a heavy bag or Wing Chun dummy like you clinching it and play around and see how many different ways and possitions you can use your elbows, just kind of flow with it and see what happens. Even strike and try to add a good punch in after elbowing 1 or 2 times. You can do this with your knees too and combo of knees and elbows.

15

my upward elbow is awful. In muay thai, we rotated the hand also. Water Dragon has a theory on why this may be so. If he sees this, maybe he’ll explain it.

16

8 step praying mantis elbows with applications and throws

HORIZONTIAL
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. RIGHT LONG ARM BLOCK , LEFT SUN PUNCH
O. LEFT HIGH BLOCK
D. GRAB BLOCK , PULL , RIGHT ELBOW , GRAB NECK ( TI )

VERTICAL
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. LEFT LOW BLOCK , RIGHT SUN PUNCH
O. LEFT HIGH BLOCK
D. COLLAPSE INTO ELBOW ,STRIKE CHIN ,GRAB NECK SWEEP (TI )

DOWN
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. RIGHT MANTIS , LEFT HOOK , CIRCLE NECK , ELBOW TO STERNUM

SIDE
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. RIGHT MANTIS , ELBOW BREAK ,OVER TO GROIN,CHIN STRIKE ( KO )

PUSH
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. RIGHT MANTIS GRAB , ELBOW BREAK, ELBOW RIBS , ( LOW )

OVER
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D. LEFT LOW BLOCK , RIGHT SUN PUNCH
O. LEFT HIGH BLOCK
D. STEAL , RIGHT ELBOW , GROIN STRIKE , LOCK ELBOW (BACK SOBEI)

SPINNING
O. PUNCHES RIGHT
D.RIGHT SIDE BLOCK, SPIN INTO HORSE, LIFT LEGS (DUAN)

DOUBLE
O.ATTEMPS BEAR HUG
D. OPEN BLOCK , BOX EARS , R & L ELBOW , SWEEP LEG , GRAB NECK (MA BOU TI )

17

Capoeira contains a treasure of elbow techs, in the traditional angola the elbow is used along with cutting handstrikes with both sides of the hands and fingers, often its used against the arms and fists or against kicks (like sombody descriped) or against the leg if someone tries to use a kneestrike.
In Regional or Atual the elbows are used in a more swinging and used with palmstrikes, fists and small sweeps. All these elbows can come from different angels, sometimes with half or full rotation.
One of my favorite elbows is one combined with a sideways headbutt, so that the head and the elbow hit either at the same time or one opens the target for the other.
In Frevo, a form of samba from Recife with hidden capoeira moves in it, there is a lot of elbows too.
I would really like to descripe some of these techs in detail but im really tired…maybe tomorrow.

18

yeah, those are good methods cipher. we trained to use them that way also. that can really do some damage and take the fight out of someone.

19

anyone else use angular elbows to cover the other 4 directions of attack?

of course, allot of people consider the angular to be the same as the upward or downwards making only 4 directions like musashi said.

i still have problems landing allot of the elbows, but the ones i land most are simple horizontal elbows to the ribs during an angualr step and backwards(?) ones once in close before a shoulder strike (i would do them more if i held a side stance more often, but we already had a discussion about that). if i understand what you guys mean by backwards it would be the elbow you would launch from a sideways stance accross your body or straight behind you. we simply call these palm down to palm up elbow blows.

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