I’m curious about variations of hubud and chisao, similar flow drills, your thoughts on their applicability to sparring, adaptations or drills you’ve used to translate them to sparring, etc.
Thoughts?
not chisao type drills but some that we do……
>“boxing” to clinch to throw…
>throw(“wrestling”) to ground work…
>we haven’t done much lately but…… restricted sparring… one guy “boxes” while the other has full arsenal… vice versa… mix and match…
>clinch work and throws with knees…
There’s definitely room for that sort of drill in this discussion. Absolutely. Cheers Suntzu.
Chisao just builds up sensitivity and feeling of your opponet. I have noticed if we chi sao for a while before sparring and am more in tuned to how my opponet reacts.
Progressively chi sao also builds up reactions into actions. By this I mean you act upon an action to counter/stop/block/etc instead of reacting to it. If you get hit in the face and punch someone back that is a reaction. If you see the punch coming in and counter it before your opponet can do anything is an action. That is how I view it. Once you reach a certain level you can do it blind folded, or have a conversation with someone next to you while you chi sao. You will notice that even though you are not paying attention or cannot see whats happening you can still feel whats going on.
oh almost forgot
We have done chisao on plat forms and table tops, so you really try harder to keep your root cuz you don’t want to get pushed off. Blind folded and not paying attention or multitasking are other ones. By multitasking I mean do something else while doing chi sao, so your mind is completely off it. You are relying on muscle memory.
another chi sao drill is chi girk, or sticky feet. It works similar to the hand version but you use your leg. Of course you can only use one leg, unless you can levitate. Many different variations of chi girk you can do. You can tangle up your legs with your partner and try to dominate over another. You can stand at kicking distance and try kick one another. Progressively you can add foot work and movement into it when one person backs off as one advances praticing these kicking techniques.
Once you reach a certain level you can do it blind folded, or have a conversation with someone next to you while you chi sao.
I think this is the point where the drill losses its value…
They do a lot of pushing hands at the kung fu school I train at…I tried it out, thought it was really cool, practiced it for a few months, then couldn’t figure out how it was suppose to help in a fight, and stopped…I felt my time was better spent doing other stuff…
push hands or chi sao is not a combat drill. Its a sensitivity drill. They are tools to help better your kung fu, they are not combat drills.
not taking the bait…
pushing hands(as i have seen it)is a softer wrestling… it’s like the step before… it a process where you are learning to feel when and where your opponant is off balance and you learn when and how to attack that place/moment… but at some point you have to put the guy on the side of his kneck…
at my school I only work out with the tai chi guys that agree I can try to sweep and throw them and we can move around as opposed to fixed step pushing hands…this one dude is extremely hard for me to through b/c I can’t get in on him…
Other than two man sets and a little pushing hands I haven’t done many “flow drills”
Except for maybe this, Chris, my jujitsu instructor and I “roll” where we don’t use alot of muscle or 100% resistance and he lets me work my techniques, while still providing some resistance…
Other than two man sets and a little pushing hands I haven’t done many “flow drills”
yes you have… i just don’t call 'em that…
Originally posted by Suntzu
not chisao type drills but some that we do……
>“boxing” to clinch to throw…
>throw(“wrestling”) to ground work…
>we haven’t done much lately but…… restricted sparring… one guy “boxes” while the other has full arsenal… vice versa… mix and match…
>clinch work and throws with knees…
we do those also. And hubud is a good one.
Like what?
Perhaps, there are different forms of taiji. I am only familiar with Yang Taiji. Push hands is a drill, and a tool to help you build up your kung fu. We do not train it as wrestling. If helps you learn how to maintain your balance and get your opponet off balance while standing. Both push hands and chi sao also help you feel for tension. If you can sense or feel tension on your opponet use it against them. I train both wing chun and taiji and that is how I was trained. There may be other systems of wing chun and taiji that are different, but I am unfamiliar with them.
read what I wrote above… flow drills aren’t just to let you ‘have your way’ with somebody… they can be situational… flow drills help work on having a smooth transition from lets say range to range… offence to defense… etc… and I could be here all day but i’m not staying here at work longr than i have to…
Well you can probably imagine from your kuoshu days when I hear “flow drill” I think of us exchanging like 3 or four moves almost like a mini two person form or even a two person form…
I think of us exchanging like 3 or four moves almost like a mini two person form or even a two person form…
we do those too… i don’t do them with u cuz u hate them…
To stick or not to stick
Great topic.
I think there are different types of flow drills designed for different purposes.
Chisao, Tuisao (Taiji Push hands), etc… are similar flow drills. IMHO they are great tools for Kung Fu as sharpening the transition between free movement phase and clinch (tied up) phase. Within the clinch phase, one could be either tied up or semi tied up. Tied up obviously is pommel, clinch, etc…which are highly grappling related. Most valuable tools for that would be elbows and knees for striking. The semi tied up is often known as trapping ranges. There are a lot more tools available with the semi tied up striking as well as Chin Na (standup grappling). Most Kung Fu styles would prefer to end the fight either during the free movement phase or semi tied up phase. Chisao and such are great drills to that end. However, there is a potential danger in getting too comfortable with skills acquired through the Chisao. It is the urge to maintain the distance which is developed out of a popular theory (distance control) of a lot of the Kung Fu styles. If the Chisao and such are understood as a mean to gain dominance in position rather than maintaining distance and is not about 36, 72, 108, etc… techniques or ways to accomplish the objectives, then they would really be meaningful tools IMHO.
Mantis108
Push hands
About the only time I really did any push hands was At Essex college During a Competition and Seminars. I was not paying for any seminars but I wondered about Pushhands-ish and waited outside of one of the seminar rooms. Someone like the events director must have gone back and forth and seen me in the same spot (Squirrel standing-nevermind:-)). The person I’m calling director talked with the instructor (female). And One of the senior instructors from the School I was attending was there. They spoke to each other in Chinese. He told her that I was a student of the School not recalling what else.
Not sure who initiated it but she and I ended up-in the high school like (but smaller) hallway. I had only seenit until then we did the touch wrists and she pressed. I yielded gradually. She might have smiled. I was proud to have doe good. Then I realized that Just because I do not press back she is not necessarily done.
With her one more step I was out -ish. But understaning what it was about, yet no opportunity to try it out again with someone her level. It was an honor to get instructed.
Learning to use alignment and siezing advantage was significant. I understood it wasn’t something in which I would like to invest. It was invaluable to realize how others think to play~.
Hubud
and such drills. When you and I did some if you can recall, it changed. I was not taught those but had the concept from my background~. It got sharper as we went. I think such things can be applied to intercepting in sparring +. If not to the reader then at least to me.
The joints can get more efficient. Suffocating the limbs is also learned. These can both be helpful. Hopefully one realizes that it is not about speed when impact is involved. Thereby realizing to balance the factors, or get hurt/sore.