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.

Here is a bunch of exercises. Unfortunately I am rushed and some of the descriptions are too brief and may not make sense. Stomach excercises - Situps - Situps while holding a medicine ball - Situps with partner, passing medicine ball to each other at top - Situps with partner, passing medicine ball to each other at bottom of - situp - Oblique(sp?) Situps (right elbow touches left knee, L elbow touchs R knee) - Crunches - V-Hold (put legs out straight, hold legs and torso up, hold in a V shape) - V-raises (lie flat, then pull up to the V-hold position, return to lying down) - Leg raises (lie face up, holding onto something with hands, lift legs up perpendicular, lower them) Back excercises - lie face down on floor, raise torso up, pushing elbows back, lower - lie face down on floor, keep legs together and raise them up, lower - lie face down on floor, keep legs raised, scissor them in and out - lie face down on floor, raise torso and legs at same time, lower Crouch on a swiss ball and try to balance without holding anything

We occasionally practice Chi Sao with our eyes closed. When we do this usually just one person out of the pair is instructed to close their eyes. Often both people will close theirs with out a second thought and happily continue their training. I agree that it is not everything in Chi Sao training; however I find that it is highly valuable. I find that when doing Chi Sao with the eyes closed the brain is better able to process the incoming signals. This I think is because the eyes are not sending useless information to the brain. Part of our level 8 grading (of 10 levels, before master levels) is to do several rounds of blind folded Chi Sao sparring. This is again tested in the level 10 grading (Gold Belt).

Thank you all, those posts were just what I was looking for. Now I will have to go away and practice.

The only problem I have with sport BJJ, vs 'street' BJJ is that sport BJJ will teach you to put your hands in positions that often leave you open to punches to the head. The sport BJJ will teach you heaps of techniques that can be used. You just need to think about where to put your arms to protect your head when you get into a fight.

I find this to be an interesting conversation. I have no experience in Karate* hence can not comment on the differences between Wing Chun and Karate. I can comment on the time to learn my own style of Wing Chun. I takes rough 3 to 3.5 yrs for the average student to reach black belt. My instructor has informed my that this is roughly equivalent to a Karate black belt. It then takes a further 3 to 4 yrs to finish learning the basic/public knowledge skills (our Gold belt). There is more to learn after that but it is mostly refinement/mastery of the already learnt skills. Si-Fu has indicated that his long term students 10+years are close to properly understanding the system. My view is the after 2 years if you have right mentality then you are ready for an average street confrontation. To me it seems that Wing Chun is reasonable quick to learn enough to get by, but still takes a very long time to 'master'. On other notes regarding our style of Wing Chun: * uses a lot of hip movements in the kicks. Including a round kick pretty much identical to what Kickboxers use. * We learn to block and strike similateously (sp?) * We use a lot of trapping and Chi Sao training. * Involves sprawling, grappling and cross training into BJJ. * Has limited self-defense techniques. * Practices 'combat' and multi opponent drills * All blocks are really strikes to secondary targets. * Has stick and knife training as well as the tradional Butterfly sword and Dragon pole. *Yes I realise that there are many many styles of Karate and to do a propery comparison you would have to pick one style of Karate and one Style of Wing Chun.

[edit] Should probably be in the 'Internal Arts' section [/edit] I have just found out that having good control over my internal energy flow (chi), is an important step in my martial arts learning. My problem is that I have a strong foundation in Western medical knowledge. I accept that Chi can be harnessed, however my western knowledge makes it difficult for me to visualise and hence control my Chi. My instructor has shown me a series of movements to practice that will lead to control. I need help with what to think about while doing this. Does anyone have any tips for learning to visualise your internal energy flow?

keep on posting 14 posts in 1 day, you are going strong.

I started Martial Arts for fitness and self-defense. I will always try to verbal stop the situation. However I will not hold back if the situation dictates that I use force to subdue someone. If a situation is escalating towards violence, my best chance of survival is to strike them before they are ready. Along a similar line to Sun Tzu's thinking. The drunker you get, the more likely you will want to fight, but the less capable you will be.

In our school that is called Chi Sao Sparring. We also do "normal" sparring. For our Chi Sao sparring, we start in contact as they are doing in the video clip. Usually doing Chi Sao rolling, when someone feels an opening the execute a technique. It is all focusing in on close range technique and touch sensivity. At higher levels we do Chi Sao sparring blind folded. In the video clips it looks like they are jump straight to performing the techniques without rolling first.

In our school we have a range of "attack sequences". Basically they are about 2 to 5 moves that are learnt in sequence. Also we have over 14 "sets" on the wooden dummy and three "forms/kata".