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How would you handle a slugger? How do you know? How did you get there?
When I am in a sparring match I call upon the power of ten tigers .... .....okay I don't, but I do keep a empty mind. I don't think here is what I do if my opponent does this or does that. I act natural and clear my mind, and when my opponent acts, I just react in a natural way. Not sure if that makes sense.
It makes perfect sense, to me that is exactly what our practice does for us. It trains our body and mind to respond spontaneously to combat situations with the correct techniques.
What kind of sparring do you do if you don't mind me asking? Is it full contact with gloves and such or non-contact pre arranged sparring like what we practice in Wahnam?
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away .... I studied chi kung, but at the same time I was studying Chens Tai Chi, Yangs Tai Chi, and Kung Fu, so we would often spar, with gloves, foot gear and face gear, and I was not the best at sparring by a long shot, but my favorite moment was when I had to spar with a guy (shortage of female partners) and he was 2 feet bigger than me and 3 times heavier, and I connected my punch (little Buddha fist style) and he was hit so hard that I knocked him into the air off his feet and 2 feet backwards he smashed into the dojo wall and rebounded off it flat on his face. I didn't mean to hurt him, I couldn't believe that I could do something like that. I have not done martial arts for many moons now.
The fear of being hit could be helped by practicing Iron Shirt. Sifu has given us instructions of how to practice it before. I'd love to do it myself, but there is just so much to choose from!
It takes a long time though. Its like a lesson Sifu once gave where he said you could choose, one beginner could practice breaking bricks for a year, another could practice the first few Taijiquan combat Sequences for a year.
After that year the one who practised the Taijiquan combat sequence would be the better fighter.
Also remember, "sluggers" are normally bullies, and many bullies are interested in easy targets, if you prove yourself not an easy target, that's already a victory (that is, most of them won't mess with you twice).
Yes thats true. I like to think that noone who ever picked a fight with me would want to do so again, or wuld have done so if they realised I wasn't an easy target. (Except for once when I ran away!)
But it didn't stop them attacking me in the first place.
However that is what I was saying earlier about wanting eventually to develop the kind of Shen and presence that would let people know I'm not an easy target. I guess thats a topic for my blockages thread
Lately I've got the impression of Ireland and the UK being much rougher places than I originally thought. Is there really so much fighting going on in those charming Isles of yours???
Depends what you compare them too. If you compare them to Asian society 30 years ago, or many other countries today then they aren't that rough.
But if you compare them to other modern western european countries of similar wealth / standard of living, for example France or Germany, then its generally accepted that the UK and Ireland are a lot rougher yes.
Hi Paul, sorry I didn't mention it before! It didn't occur to me to mention it before as it wasn't really Shaolin that I used so to speak. I will explain in a little more detail what happened.
We were standing arms length from each other and I had little room to move. He threw a standard sluggers right at me which I instinctively shot my left arm up to thread it with a cross between golden dragon and immortal emerges from cave. This left him wide open. I stepped forward onto his front leg with my right foot and at the same time or slightly after I hit him in the face with my right hand. The step was more like a stomp to his shin just below the knee. He backed right off after that! But although I used skills that I had learnt from kung fu like threading and attacking with a kick and a punch simultaneously , I don't think it was proper kung fu persay just streetfighting.
Thinking about it I cant say for sure that I did not use stances as I wasn't really focusing on them so I may have slipped into one or two instinctively.
Well I hope this is of help and your wing choon training is going well! I am off to practice the plum flower set some more.
Best wishes,
Phil
Sounds excellent to me Phil. I definitely think its Kungfu, how many untrained people can thread a punch? Hardly any.
Thanks for the account, gives some encouragement to some of the sort of defences I'm training.
When I am in a sparring match I call upon the power of ten tigers .... .....okay I don't, but I do keep a empty mind. I don't think here is what I do if my opponent does this or does that. I act natural and clear my mind, and when my opponent acts, I just react in a natural way. Not sure if that makes sense.
I think it makes sense provided you have done the background work beforehand to develop skills/force etc. Ie for a Master or a skilled practitioner, when they actually spar or fight they don't have to think they can just flow.
But for someone who hasn't done any training, or not enough, it won't make a difference if they empty their mind or not.
I think a parallel can be drawn between this concept and Sifu's answer to question 1 here:
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away .... I studied chi kung, but at the same time I was studying Chens Tai Chi, Yangs Tai Chi, and Kung Fu, so we would often spar, with gloves, foot gear and face gear, and I was not the best at sparring by a long shot, but my favorite moment was when I had to spar with a guy (shortage of female partners) and he was 2 feet bigger than me and 3 times heavier, and I connected my punch (little Buddha fist style) and he was hit so hard that I knocked him into the air off his feet and 2 feet backwards he smashed into the dojo wall and rebounded off it flat on his face. I didn't mean to hurt him, I couldn't believe that I could do something like that. I have not done martial arts for many moons now.
Nice I love stories like that! Those are the sort of things that got me into Martial Arts.
Have you ever tried to defend against a slugger or boxer type attack? I'm guessing with using gloves etc you probably did. If so do you remember any of the moves you used?
The fear of being hit could be helped by practicing Iron Shirt. Sifu has given us instructions of how to practice it before. I'd love to do it myself, but there is just so much to choose from!
What has helped me get over being hit is...just being hit. Sparring helped me me over it fairly quickly. I've also noticed that since starting taijiquan that being hit is hurting less and less.
When I am in a sparring match I call upon the power of ten tigers .... .....okay I don't, but I do keep a empty mind. I don't think here is what I do if my opponent does this or does that. I act natural and clear my mind, and when my opponent acts, I just react in a natural way. Not sure if that makes sense.
Ah yeah that makes sense to me, I usually do not think about what I am doing, and let my "inner self" guide my motions on a purely reactionary basis. Lots of the time during sparring I will flow through combat sequences I practice a lot, like basic punches an kicks, grasping the sparrows tail, and a few others, however occasionally it seems like spontaneous combat sequences will flow out that I have never practiced before in my life. Before I got into meditation, and other developmental exercises for the mind and spirit this would happen sometimes, but after I began doing the "Meditation on ones own soul" practice the empty mindset became more fluid and the spontaneous movements started happening more and more.
We did some work on this on the Wing Choon course.
At Sifu's request I had made a list of the problems I faced with sluggers, which as Sifu had observed where to do with going from a friendly sparring environment to facing an opponent with real intent to hurt.
The list I made was as follows:
1. Reaction Speed - there are punches I can defend in sparring if I know they are coming, but couldn't defend if someone just "draws off" on me on the street.
2. Punching Speed - again there are punches that I can defend in sparring speed that I can't defend at full speed.
3. Punching Force - I can use techniques like Golden Dragon to deflect some punches in sparring, but at full force some of my friends in and out of Wahnam can punch through my defence.
4. Punching Angle - the angle of a boxer or sluggers straight punch is the most awkward angle of any attack I am aware of in martial arts, particularly if he is a few inches taller.
On the Wing Choon course Sifu said to demonstrate the techniques that caused me trouble. I said it wasn't the techniques that caused the trouble but the speed / force / reaction difference between sparring and real life. Sifu said knowing the correct technique would help to overcome all that. We then had a few demonstrations of techniques that others could think of for sluggers.
Sifu also gave us advice on how to become competent fighters, by progressively sparring with better and better fighters of other styles.
I think these two things (correct technique and sparring with other styles) are what can help me overcome my problems.
I'm pleased to say I sparred with my friend who is a boxer, but more of a slugger as he relies more on force than technique and I was able to make one of the defences discussed here (and demo'd by Tim Siheng on Wing Choon) work some (not most!) of the time, which was to use a thrust kick, or a Happy Bird as he was on his way in.
That is good for before the attack starts. Next I need to be able to defend/counter once the barriage has already started.
On the Wing Choon course Sifu said to demonstrate the techniques that caused me trouble. I said it wasn't the techniques that caused the trouble but the speed / force / reaction difference between sparring and real life. Sifu said knowing the correct technique would help to overcome all that.
.
You know, Paul, that is actually a very illuminating statement by Sifu, and I wonder if you can share more. Essentially what Sifu is saying is that practising your form can improve your intangible skills, something which is usually true in the converse.
3. Punching Force - I can use techniques like Golden Dragon to deflect some punches in sparring, but at full force some of my friends in and out of Wahnam can punch through my defence.
The first thing that sprang to mind is that with Golden Dragon the hand is not actually the defence, it is the stances. When executed skillfully the defence is actually moving out of reach of the attack, the hand is just to thread the attacking arm away to prepare for a counter attack. Also because the opponents (or partners) attack is spent you are actually intercepting it at its weakest point. I remember demonstating this to a friend just the other night with my hands behind my back, showing how I am actually defending using my stances, not my hands.
Best of luck with your continued practice,
Phil
Last edited by Shaolinfist; 3 June 2010, 02:53 PM.
You know, Paul, that is actually a very illuminating statement by Sifu, and I wonder if you can share more. Essentially what Sifu is saying is that practising your form can improve your intangible skills, something which is usually true in the converse.
Hi Wuji, I don't think there was too much more discussion on that point more than what I've said, only practice of it. Maybe context of what led to it would help - when I discussed this with Sifu previously, he hit the nail on the head I thought, that my problem was going from friendly class sparring, to dealing with someone who has real intent to hit.
He asked me to list the problems I had with that, and then we'd go through them, so I made the list (on previous post).
Then on the course he asked me to show the situations / attacks I had trouble with, and I said it was not really any particular attack but rather various attacks when they switch from friendly to unfriendly as described.
Sifu said yes but knowing the correct technique would help to overcome those things.
At first I wasn't sure if Sifu had forgotten the previous discussion! Or that this was the lesson I needed to learn - I thought of it since, and was thinking that the correct technique can overcome the problem of the angle, and enable one to apply more force (for example as Phil pointed out Golden Dragon may not be the right move to use, or in the way I was using it for those attacks) and more speed - maybe I was using moves that covered too much distance etc.
I can see how this could be true even if, as you say, it may appear contrary to other things we've heard, because as a senior pointed out to me this weekend, although we might thing for example that chi flow is more important than form... the correct form can produce and enhance the chi flow. Maybe its the same with this.
When I get to that point on the course review videos (if that section is on it) I'll check if there was more and let you know Wuji. Or I can jump ahead and check it for you if you like?
Phil,
Yes sorry I was typing lazily when I said golden dragon I meant various moves where the hand defends from the inside gate either by threading or defending, mirror hand for example. I found defending from the outside gate worked better. Golden dragon was one thing I tried though, but the problem was because I lost my Shen at times, especially when trying certain moves, my timing of the golden dragon was off. I did do the step back, but often my thread hand was too early or too late to thread the punch at the same time, which meant that when I stepped back, he could step forward and press me to the wall. So there were quite a few things that came out of it to work on.
Thought I would share my experience on here and ask for yours for mutual benefit.
Basically, a couple of weeks ago I saw a fight between two men in a nightclub.
It was very typical, the one who got the upper hand used what I would call slugging, brawling or 'windmilling' to win.
By that I mean he just swung one hand after the other, as hard and as fast as he could.
Although they were not technically correct straight punches like a boxer would throw "down the pipe", they were also not the wide haymayker style punches that a lot of people think are common in bar fights.
(In my experience haymakers are not common, not big wide hooking ones at least.)
I watched this and the first thing I thought was that I would still find this type of attack extremely difficult to deal with.
I got my senior brother to attack me in this way in class and that confirmed that I could not deal with it, not even close in fact.
Obviously this is what I plan to focus on from now until such times as I can deal with this sort of attack. If I get in a fight, there is a 90% chance that this is the sort of attack I'll face.
Even if I were to enter a competition fight (which I'm nowhere near) it would still be useful training, as a lot of boxers etc do resort to slugging, many rely on it even.
So I'll let you know how the training goes.
But I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has experience of this. I am not looking to hear about what people think they would do, but rather what they have done.
I can deal with the attack if it is done in a slow, cooperative and non-forceful way. But I got my brother to attack in a way where he had force in his arms up to just before the point of contact and to where he would touch lightly if he could contact, if you see what I mean? Though I could sometimes defend the first couple of punches or more, I could not stop the barrage, nor get a counter in, and eventually he could punch his way in to the target, every time.
So I know lots of techniques to use, but what I am trying to gain and put into practice is the gong ie skill and force to deal with this.
I.e. if someone throws a left or right, I can parry, use Golden Dragon etc usually. But when they really put force in their arms sometimes they can punch right through this.
The main problem though is this: If I know someone will throw 1, or 2, or 3, or 4 punches etc beforehand then I can deal with them, then counter. But if someone throws 4 punches, I can only counter after the 4th. I cannot stop them at the 2nd etc. Therefore at present, any slugger can beat me just by throwing more and more punches.
So its the toughest problem I've had since trying to work out a defence to a boxer's 1-2.
That is one positive thing in my mind at present - there was a time when I thought I would NEVER find a good defence to a 1-2, but eventually I did!
Now it feels like I will never be able to deal with this type of attack - but I hope I am proved wrong again!
Paul
You have to find what works for you!
Everyone can give suggestions but that doesn't mean they'll work for you!
This is an attack we work on a lot in our training because it is the most likely type of attack you're going to face. I myself don't recommend doing anything that requires you to drop low unless you're very comfortable fighting on the ground. If you're dropping into a low stance or whatever and you're not comfortable fighting there... you could easily find yourself on the ground and in trouble. The problem with this type of attack is the momentum and force behind the strike. You have to either get away from it or block it in the right spot. You block it wrong and the force carries it through your block attempt.
One of the best defenses is not to be there when the strike arrives. Try to step away at an angle that carries you outside and away from the strike. You can counter once the strike has passed and you have his side or even his back open to you. If that is not an option you have to be fast and direct with your counter. You step in attack the limb on the inside between the forearm and elbow and then attack the person... but, it has to be fast so he doesn't have time to counter your counter.
Attacking the limb at that point kills it's momentum... but, you're now inside which can be a dangerous position. The problem with most suggestions to combating this technique is it's all theory. Most have never actually tried and base their thoughts of theory.... Theory is fine until the crap hits the fan and you find out that the theory lacked a few steps...like the training and arm conditioning needed to carry out most of that stuff.
I have been given a few moves and strategies recently on our Praying Mantis course in Switzerland, so I've got a little project to start soon involving drilling them and then testing them, because as you point out, till you've tested it its theory!
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.....okay I don't, but I do keep a empty mind. I don't think here is what I do if my opponent does this or does that. I act natural and clear my mind, and when my opponent acts, I just react in a natural way. Not sure if that makes sense.
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