busling

My school teaches 'Grappling' - it is from the traditional Kung Fu - basically anti-grappling. Its aims are either move into mount then Ground n Pound, OR escape from the ground to a standing position and continue the fight from there. Consequently we learn BJJ escapes and traditional kung fu Anti grappling techniques. We have had a few people go into MMA tournaments and do well. This is partially because they also practiced BJJ in their own time.

There are many variations of the Shil Lum Tao form. Hence you really should get the information from your Si-Fu. My Si-Fu has it on video that students can borrow. I suggest that you ask your Si-Fu if they have some thing similiar.

From 2nd level and up we do point sparing with protective gear. (used by light contact and I miss it). From 4th level and up, we do Chi Sao sparring with just a mouth guard. On the weekends, we can do, point, light or full contact. Full contact has to be with head guards, 16oz gloves and belly pads. Sometimes we also do some grappling sparring.

Hi, I personally do not get the opportunity to sparr with people from other styles of martial arts. I would like to but do not get the chance. We do spar in class quiet often. A white belt in my style could easily stop a boxing hook. I have only come across one person would use the Sao punch* as you mentioned. He came up with it himself, it is not taught by our teachers. He was a high level then me, but is not that far advanced from me. At first the Sao punch was unexpected and difficult to deal with. It took me a couple of rounds of sparring with him before I learnt to deal with the Sao punch. That was all about 6 months ago. He no longer trains and he had stopped using Sao punch on me anyway as I could defend it easily in the end. In the last 6 months I have expanded my range of techniques. Some of which would help me against the Sao punch. I expect that anyone with a black belt in Wing Chun should be able to deal with Sao punch. * It sound wierd to write Sao Punch. As far as I understand Sao means arm, so to say Arm Punch sounds weird. How I take it to mean a round punch that starts above the shoulder, it punches down and across the body.

If chi is one your focuses it makes sense to me that you take 'soft' style as your main style. Hence I can not see that a hard karate is the right style for you. All of the great martial artist that I know have taken several different styles, in their life time. I surmise from that, they tried a style and found it was not quiet right for them. They kept trying out new styles til the found the one that was right for them. An interesting thing I saw on TV last night might help you make your decision. Roger Federer the undisputed #1 mens tennis player, spent 1 year pursuing an old champion as his coach. He eventually convinced this guy to become his new coach. So if the best in the world thinks he can improve by changing coach, could you?

I feel that sport in general has sharpened my reflexes. Martial arts training and my associated(sp?) learning has made me focus on my situational awareness. Hence I am much more alert as I walk the pubs and streets of my neighbourhood.

Thank you for your informative posts

For your stretching you should be doing Dynamic Stretching, check out Dynamic Stretching and Kicking by Bill Wallace http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer/explore-items/-/0865680183/0/101/1/none/purchase/ref%3Dpd%5Fsxp%5Fr0/104-8223718-2204753

A suggestion may be to explain with a fair amount of detail, why you are doing something the way you are doing it. So instead of saying "perform 10 front kicks, make sure to raise your knee first" you could say "we are about to do 10 front kicks, when we do a front kick it is important to raise our knee first, this makes it harder for our opponent to read our kick, it also allows us to deliver a stronger kick by combining the legs strength with our hip thrust." The older person MAY be more inclinded to follow instructions, as the understand why they are doing it. If they are open to new and better ways of doing things. Of course they may just be an egotisical #^&$&^$ and beyond help

I have heard "structure" mentioned several times from several different sources. However I have never heard a proper explanation of what it means. My current understanding is: Structure is the sum of Stance, Posture and Position. Stance – what my legs are doing. Posture – what my arms, head and body are doing. Position – where I am standing in relation to my opponent. Firstly is my above explanation correct or close to correct? With my explanation above in mind, I can see that it is very important to have good structure. It would seem that good structure would give me an advantage over my opponent. Is it true to say that the correct structure for a given situation; would allow me attack my opponent with relative ease, while making their job of defending difficult? What else can be said about structure? The reason I ask all of this is that I am trying to form an understanding of my system. I would like to know why we do things the way that we do. I feel that once I truly understand the principles of the system I will be better able to apply the skills that I have learnt.

Some of the guys from my school, participate in MMA tournaments. Some rules sets have no head shots, others that include head shots. Grappling is involved in these fights. They have fought in Toowoomba, Queensland and Brisbane, Queensland. There seem to be tournaments on every couple of months.

Guys thanks for the responses, they are all helpful. I will add "Elbow escape" to my list. I would really like to train a lot more and get to time to roll around. I am restricted by time, hence I will have to settle withless reps then are needed and probably less time rolling then I would like. Life is a balance and I will do the best I can. I am not training BJJ for gradings or competition so it is not really high on my priority list.

Provided you explained it clearly to your instructor, I would say no. Sometimes stories become twisted in the telling, so your instructor may have said it was ok when you view of events was twisted? Not being there I can only assume that what you tell me is what happened. (and it does sound very reasonable) Hence you sure did the right thing, how else will this cocky guy learn reason. The other thought that pops up in my head, was that mr cocky did this intentionally to piss you off; so you would go full on at him and he could test himself.

My school has stopped holding dedicated BJJ classes and now just throws in the odd technique into our Standup classes. This is not enough BJJ for my liking. Hence I plan to select 10 techniques to work on. With the time between our standup classes I want to grab a partner and practice these techniques. I plan to do each technique 100 times total over a period of a couple of months. I know 1000 is what John Will (BJJ dirty dozen bb) recommends but BJJ is only a small part of my game hence 100 will have to do. I am very much a white belt (I have only done about 60 classes). I am wondering which techniques you would recommend? The techniques that I have chosen so far are: 1. Armbar from mount 2. Triangle choke from guard 3. Escape guard, under leg 4. Escape guard, over leg 5. Escape side control (they not controlling my neck) 6. Escape back control 7. Escape head arm control 8. Can openner from side control 9. Our 4 basic sweeps (back, front, reefing, can't remeber the last one?) [edit] 2, 3 & 4 did say mount [/edit]

ovine king, I see what you are saying about pressure. I find that my mind tells me this will be hard, but after a minute or so, it becomes a lot easier and the mind relaxes.