Maybe its just me but its IMO that sparring is the closest thing to a real fight with out the dangers of a real situation. There of course is still risk involved but the steps have been taken to make it a more safe enviroment.
I can’t see any other way to test your skills find your weaknesses and help progress your training other than sparring.
Sparring is a tool just like the dummy, chi sao, weapons, etc. It is needed to develope good gung fu.
Originally posted by akalish
[B]Katsu Jin Ken,
Wow, between school and work I am surprised that you even have any hours available for MA. That is great. I would say that you could make progress at that pace but it will be a little slower than if you put in more time. Still very much worth it though IMO. You also may want to consider switching over for a semester of jujitsu as well to broaden your experience base. Switching back and forth shouldn’t be a detraction. Best of luck.
sihing,[/B]
lol thanks. I have class in the early mornings and work late at night so i have about 10 hours a day of free time, sometimes less. Im going to have to quit classes though. I just dont have the time during the week and no weekend classes are available. Private lessions are available for $50 an hour i dont have that kind of cash right now. I guess ill have to wait a couple years. Till then books and videos here i come unless there is some other weekends classes out there.
WHAT A DUMMER
Originally posted by old jong
[B]…
I could put on a white belt and beat the $hit out of somebody!..You get the idea?..
Mods trolling!..:rolleyes: [/B]
lol, nah, it’s not a troll. He’s talking about the boxer losing, like it’s some wonderous feat - it happens, just like this WC instructor got beat.
Plus my instructor, Master Brian Lewadny, has 40+ yrs of MA training and experience and he doesn’t believe in sparring as a effective training tool, so I tend to trust his opinion too regarding training methods.
If I had people calling me Master and Grandmaster, and for some silly reason wanted to keep up the reputation some websites and internet posters gush about me, I’d stay away from sparring too.
FWIW, The other BL had the exact opposite opinion.
Anyway as an argument this is fallacious, an appeal to authority. It would be better if people could back up their own opinions without regurgitating their instructor’s opinions.
problem is I believe that it gives one a false sence of security because people get good at sparring.
There’s some truth in this, but even worse are people that get good at drills without the contact and pressure of sparring and then have an even more inappropriate sense of belief in their own ability to deal with a committed attacker.
There was a guy in the states who entered a BJJ comp at 72. He didn’t win his match, but he didn’t disgrace himself or have to be carted off to hospital either. I’m nearly 50, and I stll plan to be training alive, sparring and rolling, when I’m as old as GM Cheung is now and longer. I reckon I’ll die on a mat.
In any case, it’as stupid to limit your activities to things you’ll only be able to do in your ancient years. Live life and explore your abilities to the fullest now whatever age you are.
Katsu,
just do the best you can. Too many guys think, I can’t train fulltime and become world champion (or whatever), there’s no point doing anything. Two hours a week is a whole lot better than nothing at all. Anything is always better than nothing.
Hi Sihing,
>Plus WC is awesome for multiple opponents, I
> don’t know where you got this 1 on 1 stuff.
I agree with Rene WCK is mainly for 1 on 1.
If you are very good perhaps 2 opponents.
Three or more opponents and it is very very
difficult and luck is a major factor. Only the
extremely skilled can handle three or more
guys that are ready to fight you.
Put on some gloves, mouth guard and groin cup
and try to spar with three guys. It becomes
even harder when they are not afraid of being
hit and have little problems taking a punch.
In class when I am with 2 guys fighting 1
we always try to bring him to the ground.
Once on the ground with 3 or more guys you
are totally lost. When you fight 3/4 guys that
are kicking punching you while you are on the
ground there is almost no way out.
Bob
I would have to say WCK is more geared towards one opponet. Hence, the centerline theory and effecting the center attacking the center so on and so forth.
When dealing with multiple attackers there is no longer any center. You cannot just attack one center because there is more than one center.
Lets say you are in a bad situation. We will say 5 Vs 1 and you are pinned in the corner of a parking garage on like the 10th level. You have no where to go and have to fight. Each person can be seen as an individual center, but ultimately that probably won’t be productive. Wing chun will definately help you, but ultimately I don’t think people train hard or realistically enough to get out of a situation like this.
Multiple opponet situations are never in your favor. I know that I have been play fighting my friends in the past and they have ganged up on me. A few timse I have done a few things that put me in a position to escape them. That is the key, to get the heck out of town! However, none of these situations apply because we were play fighting. I know they would not seriously hurt me.
I go along with the 1 on 1 focus as well. WC is probably no worse than most other styles for multiopponent scenarios, but other styles such as Choy Li Fut place much greater emphasis on them.
Working multiopponent scenarios at the academy is fun, but really you wouldn’t ever want to try it for real if you had any choice in the matter.
sihing,
Originally posted by sihing
Gangsterfist, firstly I think maybe our definitions of sparring might differ. I think of sparring as two people getting together, putting on the gloves and going at it. Is this correct? We do practice a form of sparring as I mentioned earlier, but we do rarely practice what is described above. Only when the student wants to go in a competition or something like that, and if they want to do that type of training on their own. If I walked in on them practicing a sparring session like the above, would I stop them, nope. Have fun I would tell them, then give them some pointers.
Originally posted by sihing
to me sparring is a form of excercise persay, yes it is good for you to get used to someone coming at you full blast and things like that, and I would spar more if I was into the competition thing, I also think it is good excercise and builds up some good wind, problem is I believe that it gives one a false sence of security because people get good at sparring. Sparring is not necessary for one to develop fighting skills, IMHO. We work on perception drills in class and also random multiple attacking drills where one is surrounded by 4 to 6 people and is attacked by 1 to 3 techniques( intensity level is based on skill level)in a random manner. The student has to use the technique’s just trained on in the previous class. For our level 10 instructor’s test the student is attacked by 3 attackers, for self-defence(holds, grabs, rushes), combat tech(punches and kicks), weapons(knive, club), 75 reps for each one, while standing up, kneeling, sitting in the chair and the side while pushed to the ground(using the legs to defend) and then while being mounted on your back.
Thanks for the details. I am probably about to say essentially the same thing as Gangsterfist. Clearing up our respective definitions of sparring helps. First let me be clear in that I feel you absolutely need to do the types of drills that you mention above. But just doing those pre-defined drills at lower energy levels can give a false sense of security as well. Maybe more so. I believe that both are needed.
Regardless of the details, full sparring to me has the two characteristics of completely unscripted engagement and a realistic level of energy. In other words, don’t limit it to starting at a specific range or scenario or using only certain techniques. This is NOT done for conditioning or competition purposes (that is a side benefit). It is done to practice the expression of your kung fu against a completely intent opponent in an unconstrained environment. Backing off from full sparring means slowly bringing some constraints back in, such as using a 50% energy level, et cetera. Can you develop the same skills via much more constrained drills? I guess that I cannot absolutely say no, but I feel strongly that unless you have tested your skills in this manner you cannot be sure. I kinda like to be a little more sure. Thanks again…
Andy
Sparring in it’s various forms offers alot!
I would like to weigh in on this topic as I find it quite interesting. Personally I feel very deeply that sparring be it controlled or full contact offers a live opponent with living energy and resistance. I feel very strong that it would be extremely difficult to find the same experiences in any other platform. I’m not going to try to compare sparring to controlled drills. It would be like apples and oranges as I see things.
Does a good sparring practitioner equal a good fighter? I can’t say this is always true. I can also say that these skills if kept into context do not hurt one’s fighting abiltiy. I can say that sparring sets a condition that would be very close to a real situation. Of course you cannot duplicate a real combat situation in a class. But I think sparring gives a great excercise equivilant to a “lab” excercise in a biology class. The conditions of the “lab” or “sparring” are in a controlled atomosphere to guide the students and players in the direction of specific experiences. Thus allowing them to test concepts, theories,and principles. I personally think sparring is a valuable tool in pointing the student in the direction of what is real.
Chango
Chango is correct.
Katsu,
just do the best you can. Too many guys think, I can’t train fulltime and become world champion (or whatever), there’s no point doing anything. Two hours a week is a whole lot better than nothing at all. Anything is always better than nothing.
lol i dont wanna be world champion. I just train with friends now. I just dont want to start something that I’ll have to end up quitting when the summer is over. That would just be harder on me to quit, and on the sifu to lose a student.
has anyone on here seen the bio on Steven Segal called “Path behond Thought”, its bascially a bio on his Aikido, with plenty of old and new demo’s of him and interviews with his students. In bio they talk about one of the requirements for a black belt in Steven Segal’s Aikido. It basically 1 guy/gal against 3, they sit cross-legged on the floor facing each other while Segal is talking to them, then upon hearing a japenese word shouted by Segal(probably “GO”) the 3 attackers attack the 1 student. They are allowed to do anything to the student. I downloaded it from a P2P, it was a interesting form of sparing. I believe this is a standard training technique in Aikido as it also show’s Segal doing in in the early days and more recently. What do you guys/gals think of this form of sparring??
sihing
James,
Martial arts can help if kept within specific context. Males typically have a problem called ‘hero complex’, or 'chase 'em, catch 'em, make ‘em pay’.
Males with martial arts training, unless they’re careful, can sometimes be worse off because they will not avoid situations they should, and will even enter into situations they’d already avoided out of some macho super-hero self-delusion.
The recent tragedy with kick-boxer Alex Gong highlights this.
If martial arts gives you better stress-management, better body-coordination, and if it helps you fight in the small window of situations you need to fight beyond survival instinct, then perhaps it can help (I think Strong is his excellent Strong on Defense book (thanks again Andrew!) puts its importance at about 10% in Self Defense.)
If martial arts fills your ego and gets you stabbed, shot or otherwise dead because you didn’t have real self-defense tools at your disposal, then…
Victor,
Fighting, IMHO, is just one component of self-defense, and people have to make sure they don’t just improve their fighting skill and ignore the rest and then think they have all the answers. Awareness, mind setting, role-playing, pre-planning, stress-conditioning, and all sorts of other factors need to be addressed.
And while many martial artists seem to think studying a cultural artifact like Karate, Wingchun, BJJ, etc. automatically makes them expert self-defense coaches, physical trainers, life-style gurus, spiritual advisors, nutritionists, etc. etc., unless they have specific training and expertise in each of those fields, IMHO they’re doing themselves and their students a disservice .
I once participated in a Wing Chun demo in a big chinese restaurant with my school mates of the times. I had to mimick a drunken guy defending against three while holding a glass full of water! (representing some booze!)
Well the Sifu wanted us to look realistic and it did a bit more than look realistic!..The guys attacked me almost 100% and I had to defend accordingly. One fell on his head when I sweeped him and I kicked another off the stage. The other was chopped in the throat and was looking real bad. Everybody in the audience where looking at us round eyed (even the chinese people !)There was a long silence before the applauds.
I managed to save the water somehow. Was it the nervousness of being on a stage,without any rehearsal and with a few hundreds watching?..I don’t know but it produced a “reality show” of some kind.
“Strong on defense”
That book is something to read! A real eye opener for anybody.
I can only recommend reading it to all who care about the “reality” of self-defense.
Thanks for bringing it’s subject back Rene!
Re: Sparring!?!?
Originally posted by Katsu Jin Ken
[B]Do you all spar at your schools or just chi sao?
if so, is it full contact sparring or just point style soft sparring? [/B]
Hello,
I love to to spar. Its great fun putting on the gloves and all the padding and going at it full contact. If your art is kickboxing that is. I have yet to figure out how in the world to do real wing chun though with protective padding. Heck 95% of the wing chun I do is open handed. How in the heck does a person do a huen sau with gloves on! Most of my wing chun is open handed so how do I use a spade hand or fak sau to the throat in a sparring situation . I dont really want to maim or kill my partner now do I!
I am afraid I am going to have to disagree on this one. There are many ways that a wing chun person can hone there skills but its not by padding up and just throwing punches. In my sincere opinion the difference in arts that you can spar in and wing chun is that wing chun is for true self defense while the other arts such as BJJ and any type of kickboxing have been turned into sport contest. Oh well, just my opinion.
Dave C
Read Renes post again.
ji waza
Originally posted by sihing
[B]has anyone on here seen the bio on Steven Segal called “Path behond Thought”, its bascially a bio on his Aikido, with plenty of old and new demo’s of him and interviews with his students. In bio they talk about one of the requirements for a black belt in Steven Segal’s Aikido. It basically 1 guy/gal against 3, they sit cross-legged on the floor facing each other while Segal is talking to them, then upon hearing a japenese word shouted by Segal(probably “GO”) the 3 attackers attack the 1 student. They are allowed to do anything to the student. I downloaded it from a P2P, it was a interesting form of sparing. I believe this is a standard training technique in Aikido as it also show’s Segal doing in in the early days and more recently. What do you guys/gals think of this form of sparring??
sihing [/B]
Could have spelt that wrong but sound about where your coming from.
Studied aikido shodokan for about a year amd have a brother inlaw who is a senior instructor, so I managed to see a bit of this stuff between training and watching him grade.
This form of defense is done from the standing position as well as sitting with single or multiple opponents.
Its a good work out but unless Mr Seagal’s methods were different most of the attackers rush in with the overhand chop (sword blow sim).
This makes things a little easier to deal with and less random than an any strike goes multiple attacker grading or randori.
The Ji waza generally lasts for more than few minutes however and for the senior gradings both in standing and sitting positions, so fitness is telling to maintain posture and mobility.
saifa5k (Dave C) wrote:
“There are many ways that a wing chun person can hone their skills but its not by padding up and just throwing punches. In my sincere opinion the difference in arts that you can spar in and wing chun is that wing chun is for true self defense while the other arts such as BJJ and any type of kickboxing have been turned into sport contest. Oh well, just my opinion.”
While I agree that time should be spent regularly sparring without gloves, since wing chun uses such precise hand/finger striking techniques…the fact still remains that:
A - There are very thin gloves available that leave at least half of each finger exposed…so a harder form of hitting/sparring is possible without risking injury.
B - This wing chun is “for true self defense while certain other arts are not” attitude is BOGUS.
And it is precisely this attitude, IMO, that has contributed - more than any other reason - to the lack of respect (rightfully so) that many practitioners of other arts have for MANY (if not most) people within the wing chun world. (The days of riding Bruce Lee’s coat-tails are over).
C) - Without hard contact sparring (and therefore protective equipment is advised)…the very advanced self defense “efficiency” of wing chun remains THEORY…
not reality.
HI Victor,
IMHO its quite possible to do light contact “sparring” to develop your wing chun skills. Its not necessary at all to hurt your opponent or take a hard hit in order to prove who is the most profeicient (sp) or skilled. You mentioned yourself that wing chun uses precise techniques that are impossible to do with gloves on. Even light fingerless gloves inhibit a persons sensitivity and “listening” skills and promote a very waterdowned version of the art IMO.
As far as my remarks about true self defense I have studied karate for quite a few years and agree that the original art was a self defense art, however when full contact sparring was introduced into karate many of the self defense applications were lost and replaced with the kick-punch art that is predominant today.
Like I said I used to enjoy the heck out of padding up and going at it but I dont see that this type of sparring contributes to a persons wing chun skill and in fact actually can diminish a persons ability to use the art for self defense.
REspectfully,
Dave c
Originally posted by Ultimatewingchun
[B]saifa5k (Dave C) wrote:
“There are many ways that a wing chun person can hone their skills but its not by padding up and just throwing punches. In my sincere opinion the difference in arts that you can spar in and wing chun is that wing chun is for true self defense while the other arts such as BJJ and any type of kickboxing have been turned into sport contest. Oh well, just my opinion.”
While I agree that time should be spent regularly sparring without gloves, since wing chun uses such precise hand/finger striking techniques…the fact still remains that:
A - There are very thin gloves available that leave at least half of each finger exposed…so a harder form of hitting/sparring is possible without risking injury.
B - This wing chun is “for true self defense while certain other arts are not” attitude is BOGUS.
And it is precisely this attitude, IMO, that has contributed - more than any other reason - to the lack of respect (rightfully so) that many practitioners of other arts have for MANY (if not most) people within the wing chun world. (The days of riding Bruce Lee’s coat-tails are over).
C) - Without hard contact sparring (and therefore protective equipment is advised)…the very advanced self defense “efficiency” of wing chun remains THEORY…
not reality. [/B]