In the interests of open disclosure...

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
21

“… skimmed through the first three, no ChiSao yet. … skimmed the last one, some light stuff between you taking it pretty easy on someone of obvious lesser skill.” (Tom Kagan)

***A PERFECT EXAMPLE of the kind of attitude about chi sao that I’ve been talking about for years now on this forum. And I say this with authority because I spent 8 years training under the same instructor as Tom Kagan did (Moy Yat)…

although Tom went to train with Moy Yat some years after I left to become William Cheung’s student in TWC.

And that attitude is the following:

CHI SAO IS BASICALLY THE END-ALL-AND-BE-ALL OF WING CHUN TRAINING.

The phrase “taking it pretty easy on someone of lessor skill” clearly suggests that Tom thinks that chi sao should be a rough and tumble “match” of some kind. Which is understandable because there was basically NO REAL SPARRING going on in Moy Yat’s school…

just endless hours of forms and chi sao…and more chi sao…and more chi sao…and some wooden dummy…and then more chi sao, etc.

Which is why John Cheng and myself decided to get together privately (at my suggestion) and train once a week doing full contact sparring with protective gear back in 1979.

The same John Cheng (Moy 4) who walked into Danny Inosanto’s school one Monday night at 6:00 pm (after John’s employer at the time sent John to California for a week on a business trip)…

and was invited to participate in Dan’s JKD class every night that week.

And the same John Cheng who impressed Dan so much WITH HIS SPARRING ABILITY WHILE USING WING CHUN that Dan now wanted to meet Moy Yat - and promptly paid Moy’s plane fare to come out to California…

and the same Dan Inosanto who then came to NYC a few months later and stayed a week at John’s house in order to help celebrate the grand opening of Moy Yat’s new Chinatown school.

AND THE SAME JOHN CHENG WHO CAME BACK FROM THAT FIRST TRIP to California and told me that if it wasn’t for our private sparring workouts none of this probably would ever have happened…

and the same Dan Inosanto who very shortly after coming to NYC ended his relationship with Moy Yat (yes, Dan paid Moy some money because he now wanted to learn some wing chun after seeing what John could do)…

but soon discovered that there was quite a dis-connect between what John could do and what was being taught in Moy Yat’s school.

Moral of the story?

Chi sao is chi sao and Sparring is sparring.

And this is the problem with tons of wing chun, even today, February 2009.

People still don’t get it. Chi sao is a training drill.

AND NOTHING MORE.

And in fact is just preparation for the most important aspect of all martial arts training: SPARRING…(and competitive rolling, for those who also understand the importance of that).

22

[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;917870]

The same John Cheng (Moy 4) who walked into Danny Inosanto’s school one Monday night at 6:00 pm (after John’s employer at the time sent John to California for a week on a business trip)…

and was invited to participate in Dan’s JKD class every night that week.

And the same John Cheng who impressed Dan so much WITH HIS SPARRING ABILITY WHILE USING WING CHUN that Dan now wanted to meet Moy Yat - and promptly paid Moy’s plane fare to come out to California…[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure whether or not Dan was impressed, but if he’s the guy I’m thinking about, I know the guys who sparred him weren’t impressed.

23

[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;917870]The phrase “taking it pretty easy on someone of lessor skill” clearly suggests that Tom thinks that chi sao should be a rough and tumble “match” of some kind.[/QUOTE]

I’d say that’s a pretty big leap to suggest what I’m thinking, Victor. I’ve said nothing regarding what ChiSao should or should not be.

ChiSao isn’t a match; it is form of practice. But what I’ve skimmed thus far is not at all what I’m looking for within the queue of things on which I find compelling enough on which to comment or ask questions. That’s all there is to my posts in this thread: nothing more, nothing less.

Feel free to talk about whatever subject you wish. But don’t put words in my mouth. And, stop treating every little thing which doesn’t quite fit your current thoughts on which you want to express as an offense. Otherwise, I’ll just write off your writings and videos as the rantings of an attention wh[size=+1][size=-1]o[/size][/size]re regardless of any merit which might contained within the morass.

24

[QUOTE=Alan Orr;917858]Hi Guys

Some of my Chi Sao clips -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKkp19KV9xg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPOlQyO6jkA&feature=related

My best

Alan[/QUOTE]

Very nice.

Do you ever play a lighter more technical game as well? Most of the WC people I know start off similar to your video but eventually develop a very different sort of game. They almost always play it super heavy for at least the first 3 years and only play light after they’ve built up some serious hitting power.

btw,

That second clip made the point I was trying to make earlier regarding the clips by “Ultimatewingchin”. It was hard to explain in text:

For instance, at 20 seconds in, the first example you give in the clip, why would he want to use the fuk sau to push across the line. The fuk sau should simply follow the line to your face which then, in turn, forces you to bong sau. If he pushes the fuk sau across the line he gets an elbow to the face as in biu ji (the form, not the techique)

Your example in the second clip regarding the pak sau is exactly what I was trying to figure out how to explain.

25

“Feel free to talk about whatever subject you wish. But don’t put words in my mouth.” (Tom Kagan)

***SORRY, Tom…but I’m going to have to call bull5hit on this.

You put the words in your own mouth, and here they are:

“…some light stuff between you taking it pretty easy on someone of obvious lesser skill.”

WHICH OBVIOUSLY MEANS THAT YOU WOULD PREFER TO SEE SOME HEAVY STUFF GOING ON BETWEEN TWO GUYS GOING HARD ON EACH OTHER WITH AT LEAST THE SAME APPROXIMATE HIGHER SKILLS.

And now you’re trying to tell us with a straight face that this isn’t the description of some kind of competitive match ???!!! :rolleyes:

26

If you instead put up a dozen or so videos of the steps and phases of an actual match culminating with you KTFOing a scrub, I would have had pretty much the same reaction if I wanted to see a match.

Five minutes of ChiSao between your students just practicing normally and forgetting about the camera would have told me everything I wanted to know about your ChiSao that I feel I could gather about it from video. Any more would actually require spending a significant amount of time with you. But what you want me to watch is you trying to TEACH ChiSao across the internet. That’s not what I’m interested in watching right now or commenting on… and that says nothing about you, the subject matter, or your ability to teach.

Interpret my words any way you want. But if you start speaking FOR ME I’m going to make it clear every single time that you don’t have a clue when it comes to REPRESENTING ME on a given subject.

27

one thing i notice in SO many chi sao videos i see…even when the sifu does it…i often see the center is exposed. the elbow is not protecting the center

28

First of all, Tom..I don’t “want” you to watch anything. Secondly, it was described on the first post of this thread as a series of chi sao TRAINING vids I decided to make for my students - and that I’m now sharing that with whoever else would like to see them.

And again, I didn’t speak for you…

you spoke for yourself.

29

I am a tad confused, Vic tor made it clear that they are Chi sao Training videos, not chi sao competion ones.
It’s pretty clear on the clips that its for beginners and such.
Almost an “intro” to Chi sao…

30

But what I’ve skimmed thus far is not at all what I’m looking for within the queue of things on which I find compelling enough on which to comment or ask questions.

Tom, I don’t mean to insinuate anything as I am genuinely curious, but can you post or PM me chi sao vids that you do find compelling and interesting?

31

Hey Paul, (sanjuro)…

I noticed that you posted this on another thread:

“When I trained Moy Yat we did lots of full contact sparring and being one of the few with a varied MA background, I was used to ‘test’ WC on.”

***I TAKE IT you trained with one of Moy Yat’s students. Which one?

32

[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;917954]First of all, Tom..I don’t “want” you to watch anything. Secondly, it was described on the first post of this thread as a series of chi sao TRAINING vids I decided to make for my students - and that I’m now sharing that with whoever else would like to see them.

And again, I didn’t speak for you…

you spoke for yourself.[/QUOTE]

This is what you said:

[indent]The phrase “taking it pretty easy on someone of lessor skill” clearly suggests that Tom thinks that chi sao should be a rough and tumble “match” of some kind.[/indent]

I didn’t say that at all.

“Light ChiSao” means LIGHT CHISAO. You decide that mean I think ChiSao is some “rough and tumble match”.

You could have very well said everything you wanted in your the post from which I quoted above. You didn’t. You decided to speak for me an announce to the world I think ChiSao should be a certain way. I didn’t say squat about what ChiSao should be. I gave a description of your videos.

I agree completely with your assessment. But I asked beforehand whether this was talk about ChiSao or ChiSao. Victor directly responded to me saying it was ChiSao. It wasn’t it was talk (albeit of the better kind) and a little bit of ChiSao. And what is ‘for beginners and such’ and ‘almost an “intro” to chi sao’, if not ChiSao lite? And where did I ever suggest ChiSao should any sort of a competition?

Victor,

As I said before, I appreciate the effort it took for you to put this together and put it up. And you can say whatever you want regarding your own time of training with Moy Yat or even use that to infer information about my own training. But if you decide to try and tell others what I think about a subject, that’s bull[size=+1][size=-1]s[/size][/size]hit. I’m right here, able to post for myself. If you talk for me, we have a problem.

33

Yeah, you have a problem alright, Tom…and I’m not the least bit interested in it at this point.

34

There are some folks on this forum who will never back off an incorrect position, idea, argument, etc. regardless of how clear, logical, and precise the evidence against their position, claims, and ideas might be.

So I’ve decided that I need to do at least one more chi sao vid - aside from the ones I mentioned wherein applications/translations of chi sao to fighting are demoed.

An advanced chi sao at random vid done with someone of much higher skills than the guy on the vid#13…wherein we will really “go at it” for a minute or two.

And then perhaps we can move on from the valley where this thread seems to have degenerated to. :cool:

35

[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;917870]“… skimmed through the first three, no ChiSao yet. … skimmed the last one, some light stuff between you taking it pretty easy on someone of obvious lesser skill.” (Tom Kagan)

***A PERFECT EXAMPLE of the kind of attitude about chi sao that I’ve been talking about for years now on this forum. And I say this with authority because I spent 8 years training …[/QUOTE]Victor,
I think your point may be better made without the preamble on lineage bashing. Tom speaks for himself, as you and I speak for ourselves. Yes, we have obviously been heavily influenced these things, but in the end our comments are a reflection of our own personal POV.
For example, Tom’s comments do not agree with my understanding and yet we are both the same lineage. So please, just focus on the point you want to make and leave the politics out of it. :slight_smile:

Thank You,
Bill

36

That’s fair, Bill.

And even with what went on at Moy Yat’s school, I stayed there for 8 years, all the way to 1983. Because I respected his knowledge of wing chun and wanted to learn as much as I could from the man.

And paid a spontaneous visit to Moy Yat one weekday afternoon about 10 years after I left, just to say hi. We had a nice chat. He started me on my wing chun journey, and I still value quite a few things that I learned from him - including some issues having nothing to do with martial art training.

Enough said.

37

Too bad that the discussion went astray.

I am far removed from both Moy Yat and William Cheung brands of wing chun but I am interested in what first generation Ip man student lines typically do. In keeping with the underlying curiosity
about other lines, I have stayed on the forum to date and worked out with and met and communicated with people from major lineages-mostly Ip man but some from other non IM lineages as well.
I appreciated the time and effort that it took Victor to put his vids up.I was going to comment and chat but decided it was not worth the hassle- given the turn of the thread. On Moy Yat he may made the point in a different way but his comment on Moy Yat’s school not doing any sparring was basically a factual issue- true or not?.
I have met some Moy yat students- here, there and in Toronto so I was curious who Sanjuro
sparred with.
I thought that Tom was somewhat catty with his comments and Victor responded in kind.I think backing off and responding in civil fashion would get us further.
If I met Victor, Bill or Sanjuro or Tom in person I would be happy to compare POVs in a non threatening way.

I have “sparred” much with gloves and have had serious altercations without them…but FWIW,
I think that chi sao, advanced footwork, weapons work, lop sao.chis sao in all their variations, man sao, gor sao and lat sao is great way to develop martial skills specially if you have access to good observers who can spot possible problems.It stands you in good stead not just in the wc world but with respect to folks from any style as well. We don’t really always see ourselves and egos can get in the way of our progress in wing chun.

There it be- the way of so many threads. Could be the nature of the medium.

PS. Too bad that chi sao king left the forum. Tempting to follow his exit. Different lineage but he made a real effort to communicate without being catty, sarcastic or ego driven.

Joy Chaudhuri

38

Nice post, Joy. And I agree with your assessment about the importance of being civil and in being willing to learn a different take on things by comparing notes - and of the value in chi sao, lop sao, gor sao, weapons training, etc. These things are excellent training tools.

39

[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;918313]That’s fair, Bill.

…

Enough said.[/QUOTE]Victor,
Thank you for being so understanding.
I appreciate the consideration.

Peace,
Bill

40

[QUOTE=Vajramusti;918318]If I met Victor, Bill or Sanjuro or Tom in person I would be happy to compare POVs in a non threatening way.[/QUOTE]Joy,
I would be honoured to discuss these things with you. You are always a gentleman, and I appreciate that.
For the record, Victor and I met in person a few years ago, and he was a very generous host. We enjoyed a few hours of training and a meal. There was never any tension, just sharing of ideas in a very good natured way. At least that’s how I remember it.
To me that’s what Wing Chun should be. If we take a position, it should stand on its own merit. If we shared ideas instead of trying to alienate each other, I think we would all be better for it. Maybe I’m a bit naive, but I think we would be a stronger art today if we focused on what we have in common instead of driving wedges between families.

Bill