Hey I just visited the ShenWu site. Go to the Virtual Academy section to view some clips of their most recent tournament.
Very nice.
So can you tell us who won and stuff?
That Scott vs Daniel, the dude in black clothes does a great punch sequence.
All of Tim Cartmell’s students won their fights against students from other schools. Shen Wu rocks!!!
All right!!!
Cool clips, gotta give props to the guy in white on the 2nd fight who does the spinning yield to the thai kick that was pretty sweet.
you certainly must be joking. The point of bagua is to get behind your opponent, not get him behind you. That guy would have gotten murdered if his opponent was even slightly on top of things.
All in all, I was very disappointed. It looked to me like they just took random guys of the street, slapped same pads on them on let them have.
Lets take fight 5 as an example. The guy in the sleeveless grey top didnt even have his hands up for the last half of the fight, and yet his opponent barely took advantage. The guy in the grey kept making half assed feints with his forward leg, by lifting it slower than he was walking. Finally at the end, he makes some attempt at a takedown, with no preemptive feint and miraculously gets in.
Sad.
“you certainly must be joking. The point of bagua is to get behind your opponent, not get him behind you. That guy would have gotten murdered if his opponent was even slightly on top of things.”
Ok I don’t know anything about baguazhang but can bagua practioneers really walk circles around theyre opponents and get theyre back so easily? I find this hard to believe. Who says the guy in white was a bagua man, who cares, I liked that 1 portion of the fights the best with the yield to the thai kick. Sure he spun around giving his back but the opponent gave such a commitment to this kick and the distance afforded made it safe to spinning yield, he was alil off balance when he came around but he was in position, recovered and ready to go had the opponent rushed him.
“All in all, I was very disappointed. It looked to me like they just took random guys of the street, slapped same pads on them on let them have.”
I think you should watch the clips again. Maybe this isnt the way you or I fight but its neat to see what other people are doing, personally I thought there were some good things going on in some of the segments.
“Lets take fight 5 as an example. The guy in the sleeveless grey top didnt even have his hands up for the last half of the fight, and yet his opponent barely took advantage. The guy in the grey kept making half assed feints with his forward leg, by lifting it slower than he was walking. Finally at the end, he makes some attempt at a takedown, with no preemptive feint and miraculously gets in.”
Perfect example. The guy in black had some real good shots in retreating maybe you didnt notice and he was able to get these shots by yielding first and having his opponent stretched out and open and he actually did do 1 premptive attack and hit the guy in the head when the grey shirted guy had his hands down. Is the black shirted guy a Tai Chi man or what? Whatever he’s doing I thought it was pretty good.
“Sad.”
That’s not too respectful now from your comments, there were some things I would liked to have seen but these guys arent masters and every school does things alil differently everyone wants to see what theyre school emphasizes maybe you know more then me but I thought I saw some skilled attributes in some of the fighters, its easy to say I would have done this and this but when your getting hit its not always so easy to keep your cool. Help me out and rebutt some of my comments so I can see what you see.
Um, not to jump in on this, but the idea that bagua people actually circle around their opponents to get behind them is one of the biggest fallacies about the art.
You walk the circle in practice to generate power, and rooted movement. The stepping is retained in combat, but you don’t just walk around in circles during a fight.
I am glad that Danile said it.
Walking in a circle is not all you do in Yin Fu/Gong Bao Tian bagua. The applications of the so-called linear lohan forms have a distinctive bagua flavor yet few circle around the person.
Bagua isn’t the only thing taught by Tim Cartmell. Look at the other clips.:eek:
“All in all, I was very disappointed. It looked to me like they just took random guys of the street, slapped same pads on them on let them have.”
welcome to the wonderful world of real fighting…
I remember a few clips of kohechi tohei working against a sceptical journalist. Granted, he handled him easily but it was a far cry form the perfect beutiful aikido throws we saw him demonstrate earlier.
Who do you do hsing yi under shin?
Hey Shin
Let me make this clear for you Shin. Fight #5 was round 2. Both guys were a little tired. Did you see the guy in black get hit once? Did you see how he slipped the kicks and strikes. When the guy in grey shot in the guy in black let him in as a set up to a nice reaping throw that the guy in black likes to do. They just ran out of room and had to be reset in the middle of the mat. The guy in black had a sprained toe, ankle injuries, and bad ribs. The guy in black didn’t want to look like a brawler. He was worried that the guy in grey might get one lucky punch on his ribs and the fight would’ve been over. At this point of the fight the guy in black had already racked up a bunch of points from an earlier fight sequence on the ground.
He actually wanted to it to be like the techniques he practiced. If you know anything about Ba Gua and Xing Yi you should be able to point out certain combinations. The guy in black likes to yield and counter attack because he is usually sparring with guys bigger or stronger or better than him so most of his techniques come from counter attacks while moving back or moving to the side. If the guy in black went forward it would’ve certainly ended up with more clinching and that’s not the game he wanted to play. Earier in the fight the guy in grey was throwing a number of knee strikes from the clinch. The guy in black countered with Beng Chuan. After that fight sequence the guy in black thought it would be unwise to allow the guy in grey to clinch with a head control. The guy in black was trying to protect his ribs. A knee to the rib would end the fight for the guy in black.
There were some good things being done in those “fights.”
The clips show that those who participated have no ground upon which to stand in passing judgement or making critical comments on the fighting skill of any other IMA player though.
Props to everyone for stepping up. 
Why not?
Because they demonstrated no type of high-level skill and very little in the way of boxing or any other type of skill. But they did get in and go at it. For this you have to give them much credit.
Look at the other clips of the techniques, if this is what is trained then where is it in usage? The argument about what something looks or dose not look like is ill relevant.
If the usage dose not reflect the training, and skill used to acquire the tech then I would say the training is pointless.
This is why I think many people like the mma and bbj arts/ because the training and usage is the same; this should be true of any type of training. If not whats the point?
This is not a comment on any ones ability only on what is shown compared to the other clips of usage. My question would be why are they so different.
yes i am back/ to all who commented about “black ice” i thank you from the deep well of my heart. david
They demonstrated no type of skill? That’s pretty snotty!
I’d like to see other internal martial arts player get in on this. Maybe next time it can be open to every internal martial arts school. Would you come and compete?
The selection of what is shown in the techniques clips have no correlation to what is shown in the fighting clips. The techniques clips were randomly selected and posted a long time ago. What are you looking for, actually class clips where the techniques used in the fight is being shown? Theres’ ample footage of that. You can’t see it unless you go to class. No freebies!!! If you know what to look for maybe you can see actual technique sequence. Obviously you don’t know what to look for.
In what arena has another IMA player displayed their fighting skill in a mixed martial competition? I’ve never heard of any IMA player fight in any NHB/Pancrase type rules.
Bamboo Leaf please sign up to fight next time! It would be nice to see you on the web fighting with high level skill.
I agree with david whole heartedly.
I have sparred a bit with taiji, which I know david does not approve of… 
Even so, what I found was that if I did not make a concerted effort to use the movements as I trained in them, I would get torn up, because I was essentially street fighting. You build a foundation in training. Why do so many people abandon it the second they enter a fight?
It was hard for me to understand that when I tried sparring using taiji. Naturally enough, at first there was just the nerves and the adrenaline. It had been ages since I sparred, and so I just went in there and willy nilly tossed out some sorry punches and kicks. They may have touched the guy I was sparring every now and then, but hell if they could have done damage.
After a while, I began to wonder…
“Golly, I am getting schooled. Could it be because I am not using anything I learned in taiji?”
So, I began to try to throw brush knees, a high pat horse here and there, a palm change. Certainly they werent the most beautiful things on earth, but a watcher could have clearly watched and said “2nd change”, “repulse monkey”. And naturally enough, it was my first time using them in sparring, so it was rough edged regardless.
Even so I was still getting schooled.
Why, because the guy I was fighting was a wado-Ryu karate guy, who would bounce around at a safe distance, angling for opening, bounce in and bounce out.
Essentially, I was playing his game. I may have been using techniques from taiji and bagua, but I was not using taiji or bagua.
So I began to try to do more than just a technique here or a technique there. When Karate guy jumped in, I slipped behind him. When he tried to turn, I stuck to him. When he tried to back out, I read it and added the little extra to knock him off balance and apply a high pat horse to the abs.
Thats when I was doing taiji. Did he still hit me? Sure, but thats what happens in sparring. The important part wasnt beating him, or taking him down. The important part was learning to use what I learned correctly and effective, from the ground up.
I think this is the fundemental problem with the clips here. That being said, I enjoyed them. Perhaps a bit more explanation is warranted, though. I would never have known the guy in black was holding back because of bad ribs and a sprained toe, but I did know he was holding back.
I’m sure the ShenWu people are good fighters. They can probably kick my arse no problem. But you know, I’m wondering if they are using internal principles like relaxing, sinking, maintaining jing, moving from the dantien, etc., when sparring. Or are they just using the techniques externally. That is using local arm and shoulders? How long do they train before they spar? 1 year? 2 years? 10 years?
Phantom Menace, why not what?
Why not are you afforded the right to pass judgement and negative commentary on the fighting skill of other IMA players?
I only know of one Tai Chi school in North America currently fielding fighters in the public MMA arena.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Why should I bother being respectful. If you put yourself out there on the web showing clips of your fighting skillz, then you put yourself out for commentary and criticism. I respect the willingness to receive both.
So far, not only have the shen wu failed to win my respect for their technique, they have failed to do so for the attitude they demonstrate in responding to criticism, when they have tacitly invited it. Or did I miss the banner that said, “please only comments about our techniques if you think we are cool”?
I don’t fight any more. My points come from a very long time of practice and observation. They where not meant as a put down only a reflection of what I saw.
As for me, my skill is very low compared to the many here. If some one has a question about skills then I am very happy to help them to understand my points. In person is always best.
As Daniel said I don’t favor this type of sparring because I feel it leads to confusion regarding real TC usage verses something else. What was shown is the why i think many people question CMA. There was no correlation between what was shown on the practice clips and that of free style usage even against another classmate. Aggression doesn’t count as skill but it may win a fight.
As for the skill in the clips, ask”Shooter” what he thought of how they controlled the space / ring , or how they closed the gap established a bridge and made use of the dreaded fa-jing that many talk about.
I don’t agree with what some may call TC boxing either. But that’s just me.