Any of you folks study a CMA and a JMA together at teh same tiem? How do you find them to be? I am most interested to hear, especially, if it’s some combination of hard and soft arts - i.e. I do hung gar and aikido and find the two to focus on two very different but in some funny way related physical skills.
Are you a pink, flying dog? If so, how does this effect your gripping ability for the wrist locks in Aikido?
pink flying cloud dragon
pagan.
I’m sure they will clash well together. Why wouldn’t they?
Did my sheep fur chaps give me away?
I don’t have any problems. I was doing longfist and judo, now shuai chiao, bjj and judo and I have no real probs at all. When you are trying to train in “soft” and “hard” styles, then yes, you might, as the principles will be different. I would imagine you could get confused. two hard styles may have different mechanics, you would just have to learn them both and use what you prefer.
In a manner of speaking. I train at Temple Kung Fu (yes I know it’s a McDojo) which is actually kempo karate. Possibly with some kung fu thrown in, although I don’t know how much, or what style it might be. It’s good stuff 
Learning harmony is never bad. 
They will probably do well together,all that separates them is name after all.
I´m no hung ga but as far as I know,it has tons of internal stuff in it besides external if not more when you go further.
I have studied Karate as well as Shaolin martial arts.
They both have there merits, but frankly,I am uncertain about how well they mix when trained in tandem on the same timeline.
They will leak into each other and the end result will be neither.
Having said that, you may wind up with something quite useful, or useless depending on your ability to understand and apply what you are learning.
Aikido contains many things that you simply won’t find in a lot of Chinese arts until the very advanced levels of some styles. THat’s the nature of teh two.
I can’t see an issue with working your ground skills alongside your striking skill as they have widely differing principles of applied combat.
But, if you were working one primarily striking art with another and both had different methods, then you might wind up with conflict and it likely will take you a lot longer than necessary to learn either one.
just my opinion
peace
Done properly, Hung Ga has a lot of the same chin na mentality that Aikido does.
The difference is that there’s much more emphasis on strength and power in Hung Ga, particularly when it comes to striking.
If you practice them both successfully, falcor, that’s great.
There are quite a few people who can practice more than one style and gain combat proficiency in the process.
hi falcor
before i trained many skills at the same time… mainly shotokan karate, but also boxing/muay thai, aikido and shorinji kempo.
Nowadays i study my Sifus skills: wing chun, hard qigong, wild goose qigong, but also still do some Aikido here at university as i really respect it as a skill.
the footwork is very different, but they use whole body and energy in a good way. Also its good for me to be able to breakfall without being damaged and have the feeling of someone grappling and controlling me.
hmmm… i dont know much about hung gar, but aikido is very good for learning about distance and timing, as well as how to control someones centre and body…
if you enjoy it dont worry
dawood
I do aiki and wingchun.
Despite the obviously large differences
- power generation from different parts of the foot,
- (thus) different stances,
- cutting energy versus explosive energy etc,
I find there are many similarities
- the ‘yin-yang’ of acceptance and redirection outwards,
- the sinking and splitting energies,
- triangular structure for irimi,
- huen bo steps (think maybe hung gar has these too?)
- rooting through the tanden
I also do kendo which shares ‘elbow energy’ with wing chun, and a similar head-on mentality!!!
As soon as I get enough money and manage to lengthen each day to 26 or so hours, I’ll take up boxing and bjj. Then the fun will really start!
different fighting cultures
Japanese as a race much prefer to grapple than strike. I’ve been living in Japan for around five years now, and the only street fights I’ve seen (outside of trained kickboxer street thugs) have been push-me pull-you type affairs. Young kids would be trained in sumo/judo as physical education, so most men have some hands-on experience, and this is taken into fighting too.
Aikido and traditional jujutsu came from this culture, adding the need to respond to weapons attacks - for example, with the sword, the majority of schools practice devoted one-step one-attack moves. Atemi, or striking when setting up a lock/throw, can be said to be much less developed than the chinese styles, where as the japanese grappling arts response to weapons/grappling attacks more developed. They also developed greater skill in grappling with weapons (disarming and restraining by locking etc with the staff or sword). The chinese arts focus more on striking to incompacitate and knock the guy down, rather than grappling.
BUT, some people say ‘aikido is irimi’ - a punch can also be irimi, a lock can be irimi.
I think it’s important to examine different arts - wing chun, for example, teaches you how to defend against multiple, rapid attacks - traditional aikido only teaches against one-step one-attack moves. Wing chun also teaches you to defend against non-linear attacks like hooks and uppercuts - more developed striking than found in most japanese repetoires.
As I said before though, aikido does have a lot of great grappling/weapons application, and a lot of disruptive movement like that found in biu gee.
Let’s talk a lot more about this!
Message for Mat
Hi Mat,
I’m in the Tokyo area, just wondering if you’re training Wing Chun in Japan at the moment? Could you give me the details for your kwoon? I’d really appreciate it!
Currently kwoonless. Plenty of training though!
PMed.
See you soon!
thanks
thanks for all the replies. I’ve found that definitely there are differences between HG and aikido, but also some subtle similarities too. I also find that the two arts teach similar concepts of whole body energy and balance and power in different ways and emphasis - i.e. in my HG, power from stances are taught explicitly and balance is taught implicitly, but in aikido, it’s the reverse, there is a greater explicit emphasis on balance and power in techniques is an implicit result that is derived from that. Anyway, I’m having fun and learning useful things so all is well.
Sing Fu, I thanks for your reply - I was wondering about the exact nature of why JMA empahszes grappling more than striking, and the reverse for CMA - they both have aspects of both skills, but one tends to prefer one over the other, I think. My theory is that JMA is derived from armor-wearing batle skills so in this context, grappling is preferable to striking. I’m thinking that in CMA, a lot of the arts we see were developed in a civilian context (i.e. without armor) so striking is emphasized. What do you think?
Mat, glad to hear from another fellow who does CMA and JMA. How have you found both of your art’s skills manifesting when you use them (i.e. sparring?) I find that I am doing tenkan a lot more when I sparr in my HG class instead of simply sidestepping. intersting effect, I think.
I found against karate that the footwork (irimi or tenkan) and body positioning (the angles in regards to the linearity of the karate) from aiki gave me a huge advantage.
Against wingchun, tenkan is a quick way to get nailed, unless:
- you are really fast and
- you can use your structure uncompromisingly as a tai atari to really occupy their space.
After that though, you really have to get straight back onto centreline to capitulate on their broken body structure, or they just regain theirs and kick your ass. Ideally of course, most aiki techniques should occupy the opponent’s (sorry - partner’s) centreline anyway, or at least have some direct connection to their centre of mass.
The irimi footwork of aiki is similar to a rooted entry in WC anyway, but I have to be careful not to put too much weight on my front foot for too long, or the Chunner will brutalise my legs. It soon gets you out of the tendency to lock your legs that many aikidoka have.
The kendo footwork however, though it is all from a straight legged front stance, compliments the WC quite nicely if you need to really bear downwards on them (and they don’t know what to do!). Plus the kendo footwork is very fast, which helps the WC footwork.
The aiki locks sometimes come on by accident, but would be bloody difficult to take to any conclusion other than a quick distraction or structure breaker. The throws are usually easy (if you have already taken the centreline on the inside)!
Sorry for the essay, that’s about it for now… may not have made much sense, in a hurry!
Falcor,
If you look back into Japanese history their first forms of fighting were formalized as sumo. Add this to little unarmed combat with other races (excluding the introduction of stylized chinese striking and gungfu by Chin Genpin in the 1700s - which broadened J. jujutsu’s repetoire forever). I’d say the effects of armoured fighting came later, but have been lost in most arts today - in the Edo Period most jujutsu schools started to change the big, broad movements of armoured fighting to the crisper non-armoured, complex locks/throws, and the striking we were just talking about (effective when not in armour). So as a race I’d say the japanese were into armed warfare, and would close to the clinch with weapons instead of striking.
Since most young japanese men have sumo/judo (close distance grappling) experience, arts like aikido/jujutsu were designed to counter that from a medium, rather than close, distance, which is a closer distance to wingchun/hunggar than sumo/judo is.
Mat,
I’d love to come check out your training soon - sounds like you’ve got a good experiential base in the cross-over of Japanese/Chinese arts!
SF
It’s all talk…!
Seriously dood, just checked out the MA resume you sent my PM, and I don’t know if you’ll learn anything from me!!! Where do you do that stuff?! And can you get me an intro?!
You’re welcome to come along anyway… we’ll continue this PM… Sorry board (bored!).
BTW, I agree about the J-fights…! Coincidentally, split one up this morning on the train, lots of fierce eye contact, grabbing throats and hair… etc. Some obachan were getting trampled so I got involved (unfortunately trampling them some more…! :eek: !) and it was bloody difficult trying to pull them apart… they were like limpets! Thought I was going to have to hit them to soften them up a bit, realised they weren’t actually doing any damage to each other, other than loss of face, and fortunately I think they were so surprised at a gaijin getting involved (and using my wee stock of threatening Japanese!) that they chilled.
Hey Mat,
It all SOUNDS good - just wait til we meet and you see how poor my real skills are 
Wow, I hear what you’re saying about fights over here! I saw one about half a year ago where two old guys in their late-sixties were getting territorial about a mama-san of a local sunakku bar, and I swear one guy grabbed the other and oosoto-gari-ed him to the ground and started flipping out judo-style on him.
I remember some of the racial fights back in (junior) high school in Australia - most of my asian friends (HK, vietnam, cambodia, laos, thai) used to defend themselves with plenty of hits and kicks. The younger generation of Japanese seem more influenced by K-1 and kickboxing than their parents though.