Ta
UWC thanks for the additional explanation. Cant quite wrap my mind around it, I’m more a visual student, when I see it I’m sure it will click.
Phil if you manage to find time to post a clip of the concept Victors talking about it would be great.
regs
namron
Phil:
I’ll send you a copy of the video I have that shows the defense against the first kick mentioned on this thread …I don’t have the second one on film yet.
YongChun wrote:
What’s wrong with these threads.
**They start from the position of “technique X is the answer to technique Y” which is already a fundamental mistake in approach (thinking). Someone taking that tack will never develop much skill. In other words, if you’re looking at the problem from the wrong perspective, you’ll never solve it.
I wonder why anyone bothers to put out any tapes and books or discusses anything for that matter.
**Books or tapes won’t, and can’t, teach one application. I have no problem with discussion – you can get a group of people that never get in the water and they can discuss how to deal with an undertow too – but they won’t come up with the “answer.” Any answer begins with first learning to swim (surprising as it may sound, that will actually provide you with the answer).
Why even teach students. Just put on the protection and let them fight.
**That is a necessary part of “teaching students” application. You learn application from application. That’s the only way.
I guess you agree with Moy Yat. Everything is OK, it’s up to you.
**Rather, application depends on me (what I bring to the encounter), my opponent (what he brings to the encounter), and the situation (circumstances). For example, I may be able to use my punch, jik chung choi, to beat his thai kick if I have an advantage in reach or speed or he telegraphs or give me the proper range or etc. I know that because I’ve done it against thai boxers and so have others I train with. That doesn’t always work since it depends on me, my opponent, and the circumstances. As they change, so will my “answer.” You learn application, what works >for you< and when, from application.
You start with a theory and then you test it.
**Actually, that is the wrong way to go about it IME. You begin with application (trying to make your tools work) and that leads you to the “theory” or principle. If you begin from theory, you’ll never get it.
THai boxing articles talk about methods and so do BJJ articles. Then you go and try these methods.
**First you get a tool, develop the tool, then put it into fighting. In trying to use that tool in fighting (and become more successful in application), one will find the principles.
The forms are examples of ideas to try.
**No, the linked sets contain the tools of WCK arranged thematically.
Don’t be so arrogant. THere are many kinds of people on this forum. How much help is your post to the beginners?
**See my first response above – it won’t help “a beginner” to have your perspective. That will only hinder their progress.
Regards,
Terence
Only one part I don’t agree with
.You start with a theory and then you test it.
**Actually, that is the wrong way to go about it IME. You begin with application (trying to make your tools work) and that leads you to the “theory” or principle. If you begin from theory, you’ll never get it.
This part, in and of itself I do not agree with. If theory was not involved prior to the event, where did the “tools” come from? The main weapon humans use to their advantage is their brains. That’s how we prevailed from the inception of time till now. “Trail and error”. Trail was the act of putting theory into practice. Error occurred when that theory was not successful in the application whereby the person would then rethink the theory and try something new. Now obviously this was usually based on something happening first, and thus the cycle begins, but to say that theories don’t lead to success is not correct.
I don’t think the wright brothers jumped off cliffs to see if they could fly. They knew already that wouldnt work and thought of a theory based on trail and error, imperical evidence, and devised that it could happen using mechanics. They thought out their theories and then tested them in application.
But then maybe I misinterpreted your statement…
Re: Only one part I don’t agree with
Originally posted by Vankuen
[B]I don’t think the wright brothers jumped off cliffs to see if they could fly. They knew already that wouldnt work and thought of a theory based on trail and error, imperical evidence, and devised that it could happen using mechanics. They thought out their theories and then tested them in application.
But then maybe I misinterpreted your statement… [/B]
Guessing at what Terence might say:
The Wright brothers weren’t real men. Real men would have jumped off the cliff first to see if they could fly. After that they would have developed a theory.
Real men start wars and then see what happens. After that they develop a theory for peace.
A real man would know that. A dryland swimming man wouldn’t.
Ray
I’m in Shock!
Well, I’m in total shock this morning. I was flipping through an issue of Grappling magazine and to my horror I saw some of the Gracies explaining five ideas for countering the mount. I couldn’t believe it. Real men don’t teach or explain things. Real me just fight. They just shut up and fight. These Gracie guys think that techniques actually work. Who are they trying to kid? What’s this, a reprint from April 1, fools day? Those guys don’t know the first thing about teaching. To teach you suit up and try to pound each other’s heads off. That’s teaching, that’s learning. Only wimps ask questions. Real men suit up and fight. All answers in martial arts come from that. That Grappler magazine is an insult to real men. Real men, fight, they don’t read and think. Just fight. They don’t discuss, just fight. Suit up and fight. Picture magazines are fine they can show the pounding someone gets. That’s for real men. Why waste time with words. Now the Gracies have also become members of the dry land swimming group.
This swimming analogy stuff is getting really old.
Please move on.
There is nothing wrong with throwing out a few techniques for people to go out and try. The important thing is that they use these as a base for developing their own feeling/preference for dealing with this stuff.
My feeling is that only two approaches give me much of a chance vs a good kicker.
Move in as soon as kicking range is reached, aggressively crowding the space, relying on position and my own attacks to shut down the kick as opposed to individual techniques.
Use mirroring/footwork to hold the distance at extreme kicking range and wait for the first attempt to kick, hope for some over commitment and move in immediately after, see above.
To be honest I have quite slow reactions so this influences my approach but I train JKD with Thai boxers and if you’ve only trained vs kicks from WC training partners you probably underestimate the speed of delivery and power these guys generate. It’s their bread and butter stuff.
If you can recognize their kicks, track them and fire off a kick of your own before you get hit you’re a better man than me.
Just my humble opinion of course.
Don’t ask questions, it hinders progress!
YongChun wrote:
What’s wrong with these threads.
**They start from the position of “technique X is the answer to technique Y” which is already a fundamental mistake in approach (thinking).
RVR – that’s totally wrong. Wing Chun is a principles based system and yet it also has techniques. If you are creative enough and have to ability to analyze something then you can actually discuss a situation in fighting from many perspectives including a technique base, a principles base and from a base of actual experience. If someone got their ankle broken from a leg lift with the toe pointing down, and writes an article that advises people to not do that, then this is useful. If someone develops a new counter to a takedown technique, then that’s useful. Of course to real men that’s not useful because real men learn from their own experience and not from the experience of others.
**Books or tapes won’t, and can’t, teach one application. I have no problem with discussion – you can get a group of people that never get in the water and they can discuss how to deal with an undertow too – but they won’t come up with the “answer.” Any answer begins with first learning to swim (surprising as it may sound, that will actually provide you with the answer).
RVR – surprising as it may sound a few people who have written articles have actually been able to swim. Another thing I found surprising is that there are actually fighters who have actually discussed something. Of course no one reads that trash. Real men wouldn’t get caught dead reading a magazine.
You start with a theory and then you test it.
**Actually, that is the wrong way to go about it IME. You begin with application (trying to make your tools work) and that leads you to the “theory” or principle. If you begin from theory, you’ll never get it.
RVR – How can you have tools if no one has given you any tools to work with? I guess you mean your own tools that you have developed when a real Thai boxer splinters up your legs. You shouldn’t read anything about Thai boxers first. You shouldn’t read about the type of conditioning needed to fight them. You should just go and fight them. If your not a wimp that’s what you do. Your tools will automatically come from that. If you get kicked often enough then you eventually learn. Don’t waste the teacher’s time by asking him something. Real fighters fight and don’t ask questions.
**First you get a tool, develop the tool, then put it into fighting. In trying to use that tool in fighting (and become more successful in application), one will find the principles.
RVR – some people they read the more useful responses in this thread to come up with a tool or maybe learn about some variation that they haven’t tried before. Then they go and try that in their club. Then if it doesn’t work they come back to the forum and ask those who have experience what the problem is. The helpful members will try to give their perspective on the situation. But real fighters would tell you to stop asking questions and just fight. Real men fight, they don’t talk.
The forms are examples of ideas to try.
**No, the linked sets contain the tools of WCK arranged thematically.
RVR – my forms contain principles for combat. They contain ideas. My forms contain ideas for developing power, for developing mobility while maintaining root. My forms contain the idea of the centerline, of economy of movement, of the changes possible. They develop a calmness to be transposed over into fighting. My forms have ideas for attack and defense. My pole form has the idea for attack and for defense. My forms have ideas and they have the techniques and tools.
**See my first response above – it won’t help “a beginner” to have your perspective. That will only hinder their progress.
RVR – there are more ways to teach a beginner than to have them pound each other out to learn the hard way how to fight. I guess you don’t have experience to teach different kinds of people? Our beginners learn the form, learn applications, learn drills, ask questions and fight. That’s what they do. Your beginners just suit up and fight. Two different ways to teach. The latter way is of course the easier way to teach. You don’t need to do anything. No forms, no drills, no explanations. Just fight. All learning comes from fighting. If your not fighting your wasting your time.
I like to translate the roundhouse kick to the equivalent of getting a baseball bat swung into your head, hip, ribs, elbow, knees or shin by a professional batter. Some students first reaction is to use the Gan sau to try to stop a midlevel roundhouse kick the same that broke the arms of two Wong Shun Leung students in Hong Kong. If I use the baseball bat idea then they can see right away that they wouldn’t like to try and stop a swing from a professional baseball batter with this technique. That’s another way to explain things as opposed to finding a real Thai fighter to see if he can bust your arms or not. The leg lift against a low roundhouse kick has the same problem in my opinion. If you want to use that then you better have pretty good conditioning and bones a lot harder than those of your opponent. In Escrima stick work they work in different least pressure zones as opposed to standing stationary and try to use so force against force block. In out Bat Jam Do set we use the same type of zoning. I try to use a simultaneous kick. Sometimes I have succeeded with the sole of the foot against the shin of the roundhouse but it’s easy to miss compared to the leg life and elbow protection method. A bat can do similar damage to the kick of a real Thai kicker but I think the kick might come in faster?
The bat analogy can only go so far however because a kick and a bat swing are two different animals. I only use it to get a point across about how forceful a good kick can really be.
Originally posted by Ultimatewingchun
. while simultaneously throwing a downward hammerfist-type blow with my left fist/forearm at his leg - which immediately turns into a grab of his leg (wrap from underneath - in other words - overhook his leg)..
Originally posted by Vankuen
One method we employ is to counter with an elbow just above the knee of the kicker as you move in to take up the space, once that stops the force we grab the kicking leg and sweep out the foundation leg.
Both of these allow you to grab the leg. The second method, however, is safer, as it doesn’t require you to drop one of your defending hands down to attack the leg. The second method also hurts the kicker more because of the concentrated force of the elbow strike. The first method also lends itself more readily to being vulnerable to the set-up of a fake kick followed by a high line strike.
In one WC school I went to we drilled a lot on getting exact distance such that you are millimeters away from getting kicked and such that it would take a single step to get in. We used a propulsion kind of step like a runner taking off in a race, lifting the heel of the rear foot as opposed to the dragging step which we also had. We would try that against a variety of kicks. The kicker would of course adjust to the tactic and make you misjudge the distance. That teacher sparred regularly against TaeKwonDo to teat out that stuff. I don’t know if he tried against any Thais. However his TaeKwonDo teacher in Holland regularly sparred against some Thai fighters there and developed various way to cope with those. One technique he had success with was the toe kick into the solar plexus when the first sign of a roundhouse kick came.
answer
just walk in
Yong Chun,
I know your query was about a low kick to the leg but here is an example of a kick to the head. The defense against a low kick to the leg would use similar foot work. The TWC side neutral stance does not have any one leg forward so an opponent would have to get past the guard (hands), to get to the leg.
http://www.free-element.com/wingchun/isolation_drill3.mpg
http://www.free-element.com/wingchun/isolation_drill3a.mpg
When I get the chance I’ll do some clips on the low kick.
PR
Originally posted by Phil Redmond
Yong Chun,
I know your query was about a low kick to the leg but here is an example of a kick to the head.
Thanks Phil. The intent of the thread was really any kind of round kick especially whatever Thais throw at you and the kick to the head is one. Clips are always nice to look at for people to get ideas to try.
Ray
ed— but- but- but what if- what if -someone does not know how to walk properly.Moider most foul…specially if they dont have hands either!!
Funny
Funny how people complain about the what if’s…when the only person that what if’d posted just before me, and it was in jest. I could see someone complain if it was happening…but cmon people…the magazines are full of this stuff…but do you stop buying the magazines because of it? Give it a rest. If you don’t want to see the what if’s …don’t read the thread. Period.
Now to what ed said…I would say that is the safest route to someone who is aggressive enough to know what to do once they’re in. Otherwise they just put themselves into a worse scenario.
I guess the whole thing is you just don’t want to take the full brunt of the kick. Deciding whether to move in or to let the kick sail by or to block is kinda like deciding to run a red light when you’re right at that point where you could stop and run the risk of not stopping in time…or drive thru it and run the risk of running the red and getting the ticket should a cop see you. It’s that awkward moment that gets people most of the time…when you’re positioning is not quite right, when your setup isnt where it was during training…when things aren’t exactly as you were hoping they would be. This is when you have to adapt and overcome…this is where the outcome is decided because things rarely every happen the way you hope they will. If that was the case people would be walking into my foot everytime I kicked.
IMHO-
Sometimes you should “just walk in”,sometimes you should step on the side,sometimes you should step at an angle,sometimes you should raise your leg to absorb,sometimes you should move back…( :eek: ) Sometimes you should kick the kick,sometimes you should kick his supporting leg,sometimes…You get the idea?..
"To be honest I have quite slow reactions so this influences my approach but I train JKD with Thai boxers and if you’ve only trained vs kicks from WC training partners you probably underestimate the speed of delivery and power these guys generate. It’s their bread and butter stuff.
If you can recognize their kicks, track them and fire off a kick of your own before you get hit you’re a better man than me."
(KingMonkey)
I agree with this completely.
Simply walking in on a roundhouse kick is very overestimated, imo. Good Muay Thai and kickboxing fighters will rarely throw the roundhouse kick at a distance where you can simply “walk in” on it.
Originally posted by Ultimatewingchun
Simply walking in on a roundhouse kick is very overestimated, imo. Good Muay Thai and kickboxing fighters will rarely throw the roundhouse kick at a distance where you can simply “walk in” on it.
Exactly. If I walk in on my shooto teacher (with long exp of thai inc contests in Thailand) he’s taking both my pansy assed groucho-marx wing chun funny walk legs!
You have to use your footwork, cos thai’s footwork is always changing, and like their kicks, unless you train that way, always faster than ours.
The snap kick isn’t as good as a stop kick imo. It’s not a sure enough stopper, and you’re more likely to go off balance.
A stop kick, whether stepping in from a longer range and hacking out their ankle, or from a shorter range to their knee or stomach (or a shorter range and using your tan gerk with a stop kick drive inwards as a knee to the stomach) is using a lot of forward motion, and putting all your weight into the kicking leg, like the thai kick, so it isn’t putting you off balance and it’s kind of beating them at their own game, yet still cutting in the shortest route to centreline.
On whether to block with the shin or the calf, I don’t think it matters (but then my shins are naturally very resilient!!!
), though I was taught the outside of the calf in my wc. I think it’s more important to get the angle of the tan gerk right, so even if it’s low it’s angling down and keeping a downward and forward energy as you bounce off/through it into your kick.
I’ve been caught out with this before (actually against a hsingyi low kick not a thai roundhouse), where you complacently twitch the calf off the ground in your self-assured back weighted wc stance, and the kick cuts through both your legs (and I landed up on my arse!). You have to have energy in it, same as the arms!!
Originally posted by Ultimatewingchun
“…while simultaneously throwing a downward hammerfist-type blow with my left fist/forearm at his leg - which immediately turns into a grab of his leg (wrap from underneath - in other words - overhook his leg)…”
“Both of these allow you to grab the leg. The second method, however, is safer, as it doesn’t require you to drop one of your defending hands down to attack the leg. The second method also hurts the kicker more because of the concentrated force of the elbow strike. The first method also lends itself more readily to being vulnerable to the set-up of a fake kick followed by a high line strike.”
(Knifefighter)
On the contrary…The first method is safer (if done right you’re definitely outside of his hand striking range). The bigger danger to the man using the second method is that it presupposes that you can simply “move in to take up his space”…and then deliver the elbow strike ABOVE his knee…
So you’ve let more than half of his kicking leg into your space before engaging it? That is a major gamble, imo. This guy is kicking very fast - presumably. No - I don’t think this is a high percentage counter to his kick.
Again…To assume that you can simply move in and take his space away is an overrated notion.
As to being “faked”…not if you’re watching his kicking knee with full attention.