Drunken Monkey

actually, i'm more afraid of my capoeria friend when he is up close.....

once again, i do not see what is being argued over? I have said before that the problem is not with the belt system but with abuse of the belt system. in fact, we have all said that. i can stab you with a pen so the pen is bad thing? we all know the belt system is being abused. you don't need to tell us (over and over and over....) but does that automatically mean that removing the belt system would fix the problems? i've stabbed you with a pen before so remove all pens and i won't stab you? i've asked you before, but what do you suggest we do? how would you maintain a regular, organised teaching system, maintain a organised class that has hundreds of members in many areas that may or may not meet up and hence would require a means to check levels of training? the problem i have with what 47 is posting is that he is taking some very specific points and applying them to all examples. he says that some places abuse the belt system. does that mean ALL places abuse the belt system? one thing i will address is this: "Yes, in order to motivate, forget that training was designed for boring, repetitious, and rigorous routines. We have to motivate with ranks and fun." not quite right...... you forget that the original conditions from which the fighting arts we practice originated do not exist anymore. before, training really was for fighting and your life really did/could on it, so much more than today. before the motivation was survival. today, the motivation is learning. and this is where the belt system is best. it is a good means to organise what can be a very large and complex thing into smaller chunks for easier 'learning'. fact is, we don't all move into our martial arts school and live and breathe training 24 hours a day. at best we manage 3-4 two hour lessons a week. during these two hours we would warm up, drill, spar. not much time for learning, so a system is needed to organise and methodically teach the arts. i have always drawn a clear distinction in modern training between learning and training. i have always seen the coloured belt phase of it as 'learning' and the black belt phase as 'training'. and before you pick at this, don't argue over the use of words, you know what i mean...... angela. "Anyone can get their butt kicked. Anyone can be sucker punched. Not everyone is doing MA for self defence. " this is something i'm not sure if i'm entirely comfortable with. i'm of the firm notion that a martial art, whether or not you are praticing for self defence, SHOULD enable you to defend yourself. if your training doesn't serve this purpose, then i think something is 'missing'. on the other hand, i know this is whole other debate.....

.....and the interesting thing i find, is that only ONE person can claim any 'proper' jkd lineage.....

no.... i don't do the devil's advocate thing. i think it tends to cause more arguments that would be otherwise avoided if i just say what i have to say instead. that little quote is almost a joke but the intention is there. what i mean is there should be more of a selection process involved. educational schools get to choose their students so why not the MA school? part of the problem i see with kids is that in some cases, it isn't the child's wish to do MA. i don't think it is something you should 'force' a kid to do. the skills you learn in a MA class gives you something that the average kid isn't going to understand the repercussions of. a child isn't legally responsible for his actions so why give them more things to not be responsible for? which goes back to my thing about selecting students. side note, my main wing chun sifu does not allow anyone under 12 to join in the class.

the plane that is drawn by connecting your motherline and your central line. just cos it'd help with me answering questions, who/where do you train with? i mean, not all places teaches like how i was taught.

um, that's what call the motherline. that and the centreline draws your central plane. i think that's somewhere in the earlier posts. or was it in one of the kempo threads?

what's a toothpick staff? i only know of the chinese tapered thing which is NOT for spinning. and er, they're meant to be heavy..... actually they're not heavy at all. you find them heavy because all you've been doing prior to getting your hands on a proper staff, is play with a stick. a bamboo rod even. my teacup weighs more than those things. i can comfortably 'flower' a staff.

facing his centre means facing his centreline. think of it as a right angle triangle. he is at the point facing the right angle, you aim to be facing him along the hypoteneuse. him /I\ / I \ / I \ you or you of course these are limited by what can be shown here. the angles used and when you turn to the angle varies with the situation and what you do. eg. you can walk straight into him and only take the sidestep/shift to make him off your centre at the last moment before engaging. there's actually quite a lot that goes along with this all regarding controlling/defending/taking the centre (as in the space) and timing issues but these are best explained 'hands on' as it involves actual technique. this is just about general things that you try to do in wing chun.

what the belt system offers. i) organisation of class: instant knowing of the 'stage' of leaning the particular student is at. ii) organisation of teaching: consistant, regular, methodical teaching the above two also works for the students. i) the student knows, due to the accompanying syllabus, what needs to be done ii) the student can see clearly what is being learnt and when. "Sure it has. Because it became a commercial symbol falsely meaning excellence." the belts are a dead thing; they can't by their nature, do anything. symbols are place upon them by people. like i said, if there wasn't a belt system in place, people would use something else as a basis for 'rank' (time, knowledge, age....) "And the people who rank them because there are profits to be made. Black Belt=Profits. No Black Belt=No Profits " not sure why you put this as it is just an example of how the belt system can be abused. again, it isn't the system's fault. it could be argued that without a clear grade system and syllabus, it is EASIER to suck money out of students. it happens. especially in the chinese styles because the students has no idea what is going on in terms to learning. "if the rank did not exist, many would learn for the knowledge and not the rank." you can't say that. so are you sying that all black belts out there learnt and trained just for the black belt? no offence but you really should stop citing specific examples. anyone can offer an example of something. saying that a 12 year old shouldn't get a black belt is fine and no one is going to argue with you but how do you know that the 18 year old who did it in 2 years at a very expensive school doesn't deserve it? that's another thing. i know a school in a very expensive part of london that charges a lot but they don't make that much money. the reason for the costs is primarily for the location and facilities that the place offers. does his high fees mean he is a 'mcdojo'? sure he can choose to move but then that would deny his students the use of the very expensive facilities that would otherwise cost them even more to use. we are talking general problems so try to stick with general statements. as angela keeps saying. it's all down to communication. whether or not the belt grade system is used doesn't matter. you've probably seen me differentiate between learning and training. that is how i see things. the colour belts are about learning (learning to train?). the black belt is about training (learning by training?). (no semantics please, you know what i mean) that is something that should be pressed into people more. of course there's the simple solution: stop teaching kids.......

i have to say that i don't know that much about wing chun outside of the uk and to a certain extent, hk. from what i have found from a basic google, kwok sifu is a known student of jiu wan sifu who i know to be one of the true 'masters' of the last generation. it is often said that jiu wan is actually a peer rather than a student of yip man, which is what's usually shown in lineage family trees. not sure what to say about the addition of kickboxing. i personally have also done some kick-boxing (san shou rules), rather, tried to do some kick-boxing..... if i was to say anything about this then i'd just say it was because it allows him to have a teaching/sparring format that allows some actual hands on thumping, albeit with gloves. it could also be just that he's aware that its what would appeal to a lot of students. pure conjecture on my part of course. i should say that hung gar and wing chun are two vey different animals and you can't always compare the two by appearance alone. if you look at my last proper sifu, you'd hardly think he could hurt a fly. he is also a dan grade in jiujitsu and organises ground fighting/grappling classes for us. doesn't mean anything except he likes us to 'see' more things. anyway. jiu wan was a top class teacher. fred kwok was his student. going by lineage alone, it's good. i can't give you anything other than that.

i think the belt system has a lot to offer. the problem has never been with the belts. the problem is with what people see in them or do with them. you could remove the belts but then so what? people are still going to be learning things in a certain order and they will still judge each other by what they have learnt or how long they've been training. there's always going to be 'i know more than you' and 'i've been here longer than you'

.....i've mentioned this before because this topic and the specific question of wing chun's efectiveness has come up before. wing chun, in the way that it is TRAINED, not in the way it is taught, has a problem. there is a trend that yip man started, in placing too much emphasis in the rolling hands. the point of lok sau/poon sau is that it gives you a chance to work your moves safely. what doesn't happen these days is the taking of thoses safe 'experiments' and putting them under stress situations/testing. following on from this, there is too much emphasis on use of the dummy to work moves at 'hard' pace. there is also the problem of working solely within the confines of wing chun i.e you are trained to expect wing chun type movements. add all this together and you end up with training that doesn't prepare you for REAL non wing chun attacks, fully moving/reacting partner or non wing chun reactions and more importantly, no pressure. fortunately i have seen a few classes that have started to ditch the, and i hate to call it this but can't avoid it, Hong Kong method of training. bruises and bloody noses are not uncommon. a friend of mine goes to a class that has a 'invite' fight night. incidentally, that class is run by a guy who does doors. "if you look closely, you can start to see why muay thai, kyokushin, judo, bjj, wrestling or boxing would work" not sure if it's about the style. i'd argue that these are more 'successful' because they have a good hard contact competition format and in the case of boxing, a lot of emphasis on the other aspects of training i.e circuit training. as i said, wing chun relies to much on it's rolling hands. i think wing chun needs desparately to look outside of itself for 'testing' its techniques. "As for your wing chun I would say that some of the movements are natural and some aren't" this is going to be hard to explain but the movements are natural. the thing is, some of the movements are reactionary movements. in the case of the wing arm, arguably the most unnatural move; all it is, is a way for you 'collapse' your receiving arm on being pressed. i've seen muay thai do a very similar thing. in both versions, an elbow strike is a possible outcome. what i have the hardest time doing, is trying to get people to stop using the movements as shown exactly in the form and instead to try to get them to see what makes the movement strong and the angles involved. it's pretty much like teaching guys about wrist locks. you start off by showing the perfect example. then you show them how to adjust the angles to maintain the lock on a moving/struggling partner. once again i must end with the familiar words; my posts are based on my experience of wing chun in the uk and in hk and might bare any significance on how it is taught in the us. monkey out.

.......funny how? i mean, funny like i'm a clown? i amuse you? i make you laugh? i'm here to f**king amuse you? what do you mean, funny? funny how? how am I funny.....? eck. to paraphrase my avatar. now i can get away with murder.....

"The Black Belt should not be the primary goal. Why display it as per words, clubs, etc.? It is a commercial tool to motivate students that come to want it from symbolic beliefs." .....it's all well and good saying this but then what do you suggest? would taking away the belt system suddenly make everthing ok?

why does everything you ask/post about come from a chinese vcd/dvd collection?

there seems to be a growing JKD crowd in here these days. just wondering who you guys train with and what is the training like at your 'kwoon' (or what-ever you guys call you your training place). laters.

"I especially like how the kata are actually put into use, and I admit being wrong in the past when I thought that kata were useless" little question, was this opinion made before or after learning a form properly or was it just wing chun that changed your mind? i ask cos i have very little exposure to martial arts outside of the chinese styles and so i don't really have a clue as to how karate or tkd teaches/uses forms. the only bit of tkd i ever got through was four directional punch/block and some of the sparring' drills. not sure of it was my previous way of training but i found myself 'disecting' the tkd forms as i would a chinese form. i.e i could see how to use the movements in the forms. (obeying the way of moving was a different matter though...) "after two months I am still having trouble getting down many of the moves from the first form" what do you mean? still learning how to do movements? the order of the movements in the form? how to use the movements? still learning the form after two months? i've been to one place that teaches the form as an afterthought. first they show you the loose movements and their types of use then they show the form as a way of practicing the movements. i.e you always learn what to do before learning the ways to practice it. if you're talking about not getting movements right then i say, relax when doing it. the problem with some of the moves in wing chun are reactionary, that is they occur when you feel a force applied. best example is the bong sau. this is just a tan sau collapsing. doing it in the air misses out part of the 'feel'. when learning the movements and the sequences, try to remain relaxed at first and concerntrate on the order. at this point it doesn't matter that the movements are tidy as you do them outside of the form, in a working manner, anyway. then when you've got the order right, that's when you start to tidy up the movements, fix angles, timing etc etc. then finally, when you've got the order and the movements tidy, then you start to apply some gentle forward pressure (in chinese 'um lik'). keep doing the form. there are three (probably more but i like odd numbers but can't think of 5.....) ways of doing the form. i) gentle, trying to get perfect angles/technique etc. ii) gentle+loose. using as little muscle as possible (i.e elbow/wrist work) iii) power. as above but 'united' and adding 'muscle'. also, there's nothing from stopping you from doing the variations of the movements in the form. eg. the first pak sau/palm in the 3rd section could be done with three different ways of moving elbow/wrist/forearm so why not do all three? as the bogbeast (kinda) said, 'i've got 5 minutes and 4 feet of space, why not...? ****EDIT**** something else just came to mind. i have long observed some major similarites as well as the obvious differences in some of the later kung fu styles such as mantis, tai chi, some elements of hung gar and the odd move from here and there. how about any of the other chinese style guys add a few things here and there about similar or vastly different methods?

i've got part3 on the way but before i carry on posting, i've been alerted that i should point out that this account of things is not from any ONE school. instead it is a collection of the things i have gathered from two 'official' schools, four sifus and *insert your prefered deity/object of worship here* knows how many websites and books and people i have talked to. and um, i dont have much say over what you do or do not post here but i have little request: i'm not one for accepting praises so please, if you don't have anything to say, don't post. no, 'that's great', 'nice post' or heaven forbid.... 'good point'...... if you've liked what i wrote, then good. if you didn't then that's fine also. you don't need to tell me, especially if it's the latter. well, actually, if you didn't like what i posted then perhaps you SHOULD post and tell me what's 'wrong' so to speak. eck, you're an intelligent bunch, i'm pretty sure you know what i mean by this. but please, real comments and questions only please. big headed of me i know asking sooooo much of you, i mean, asking you to NOT do something as opposed to asking you to DO something..... laters.

so here is the following thing that i've been trying to write. there are lots of holes and i have no idea how to present things and i have no idea in what order things should be emntioned..... PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS part2 to further understand how we use the movements as shown in the forms, you have to understand how we do things and the reasons behind them. the most famous is receive what comes, follow what goes. you must remember that these principles/idioms are not fixed and are not only talking about one thing. in this case, receive what comes means that you should let the opponent do what ever he wants. more specifically, let him commit to an action. (part of the wing chun way is to never be over commited) also, it means that you shouldn't be afraid of the punch. finally, it is telling you to not meet force with force (or in chinese, do not 'bash' forces) when it comes, welcome it and use it to lead him to where you want to. when it goes, do not let him have it back, keep control of it. this is also part of the 'borrowing energy' concept. an over simplified description of what this 'means' is when he pushes, you pull when he pulls, you push. in effect, if he pushes, he falls forward if he pulls, he falls backwards. this is part of how we try to disrupt balance and disrupt movements. lose contact- straight in this one, on the basic level is telling you to not seek the arms. contact/stick of the arms occurs when you need it. but when you don't have contact, don't try to find the arms, go straight in and try to hit instead. it is pointing to the fact that if you have lost contact cos opponent is trying to hit, you should hit before they do. it is at the same time, telling you that when you have dealt with the arms and they are no longer a threat, lose the stick so that you can hit. you have no idea how many guys get hung up on sticking and forget the point is to get yourself in a favourable position to hit.... there are three little ‘rules’ that you should try to observe when facing an opponent. First: point to the centre this is telling you to always face your opponents' centre the flipside should also be observed i.e your opponent should not be facing yours.... it also points to your control of the centre. second: forward pressure this is telling you to never yield. basically, everything you do should be going forwards. the only times you yield are when you are forced to in which case, you will want to re-apply forward pressure once you have made your space. refering to footwork, there is one line of thought that goes to say that there is NO BACK STEP. to this end, you aim to either step to the side, or pivot BUT the aim is to make space for you go forwards. this is also a reminder about 'strength' in techniques. i.e elbow position that doesn't collapse third: move with technique this one is a bit tricky. the basic meaning is that you use both feet and hands at the same time. stepping is considered a technique and this line tells you that you don't do things in isolation. if you step, it should be with hand technique i.e you don't just move your hands or you don't just move your feet these three points work together. i) pointing to the centre with forward pressure is useless without technique. ii) pointing to the centre with good technique is useless without forward pressure iii) forward pressure with good technique is useless without pointing to the centre. (badly explained, i know....) part3 when i have the time.

a while back, someone asked for some info about wing chun with a more personal slant. also asked for details of things taht are done. i started by posting this: TRAINING IN TECHNIQUES 1: THE FORMS i guess the best place to start is by describing the purpose of the forms. each of the three hand forms represents a stage in training. the things featured in the forms are not only done as they are in the form, nor are they taught exclusively in the forms. if you need to turn make something work, i will tell you to turn. BUT technically, the turn isn't shown until the second form. the forms are just a reference point; something that has been collected, that contains the core movements so that you can practice them in an orderly fashion. (i'm gonna give direct transaltions of the names of the forms as i can't be bothered with the romanisations....) "LITTLE IDEA in your HEAD" the first is your catalogue of hand positions/techniques/movements. everything is in this form (except about 5 'moves') you only 'use' one hand at a time in the form. there is no foot movement in the form. (footwork is shown 'separately'........ almost) as you are learning/training in this form, you should be shown how to take it apart and apply it in a live scenario. as such, there are no fixed techniques or sets of applications of techniques. what you use depends on what you are good at and what is happening. 'sparring' at this point would be no more than drills of which there are many....... we like to let the students think of drills and then they'd run them by us. we would then give our opinions and offer an alternative if neccessary. the nature of these drills is to let the student get used to be able to i) recognise what a movement can do ii) decrease the amount of time spent thinking in a 'live' situation iii) let the student get used to using what are quite 'un-natural' hand/arm positions. iv) get used to someone coming in with a 'hard' punch. as you can imagine, this kind of drilling easily leads to almost 'free' fighting as they test different possibilities. how hard you go during these drills depends on how comfortable you are and what you are training (i.e training position is different to training footwork, even though you might use the exact same steps+hand techniques) as i said before, the first form has no foot work in it. as such, during the first stage of drills/sparring, the student will come across some problems that the first form does not deal with (as it it shows 'perfect' positions). this is where the second form comes in. SINKING the BRIDGE this is all about i) bridging ii) closing iii) use of turn iv) use of step basically, the second form answers questions that the first form doesn't deal with. for a start, this form uses both hands at the same time, as well as using stepping and turning in conjunction with technique. (i should point out that during the course of the rest of the training, stepping, turning etc etc would already have been shown. the drills+sparring wouldn't work otherwise) because it features the step, kicks are also shown in the form. not much else to say cos it basically dissected as you do with the first and the individual parts used as neccessary. once again, now that turning and stepping is introduced, even more questions arise. enter the third form DARTING FINGERS. this deals with what to do when things go wrong. basically, if you step, you may sometimes overstep or your opponent closes. the same is if you turn; you might turn too much or your oponent might 'pull' your turn. this form features two extra 'concepts'/movements this form features the elbow techniques. also, the 'flaws' in the first two forms are covered here (e.g correct gan sau) this form shows the ways you can recover your position should anything like that happens. also, the basic 'rules' as shown in the first two forms are now 'broken', as it assumes you are now familiar with what they are and why they are. this breaking of 'rules' plays a part in tactical-play as well as freeing you even further, allowing you to be more open in your techniques. again, the movements in this form are to be take apart and used as necessary. to explain this better i shall have to go into the principles and ideals of wing chun. but before i go into that a few extra bits of info should be given. the forms are generally unimportant. there is in fact a form of wing chun that is a collection of loose techniques. as i said before, the purpose of the forms is to give you a reference of techniques/movements as well as give an idication of what stage you are in your training. in this way, you are actually shown all of the movements that feature in the form before you are actually shown the form. i.e before you are shown the second form, you should already be able to turn and step and before you are shown the third form, you should already know when to use your elbow. the emphasis in training is crossing hands. drills, chi sau and sparring is the main focus in class. forms are left for you to do at home. the basic punch is never neglected and will be the most practiced thing no matter what level you are at. what is encouraged is for you to find your own answers. after all, the movements are all there in the first form. it is up to you to find it. if you really can't see a way out, someone be it another student or the sifu should be able to help. think of the training hall to be a giant test bed where lots of people get together to see if things (techniques) work. i promised a part 2 so here it is (the following post that is...) if you see anything or hae any questions. feel free to post here.

"helpful, respectful of other styles and courteous" even me??? woooo...... i've recently been told that i seem to ATTACK everyone who turns up on this forum.

"Thank you for the "holier than thou" post. It really was informative " actually, i did put quite a bit of info in there. i mentioned mobility, centre, use of muscles.... i've recently been trying to keep my posts short cos it sometimes annoys people when i write essays about the littlest things. anyway. "But yes, we train them seperately and thusly can talk about them as seperates" what i meant was, i find it funny that people talk about stances without refence to what you are also doing with the rest of your body. i.e you only talk about the legs and ignore any possible hand/body/hip movements. i have seen many lessons where stance training involves standing in stances BUT they ignore the way you move from one stance to another. they would stand in "see ping", then step out of it to go into "ching gung, ho jin" and ignore the most important bit that is the TRANSITION. for me, cat stance isn't something that you should stand in as it is by it's nature, 100% action. the cat stance is a process of drawing back AND going forwards. i.e the usefullness of cat stance is going into it and getting out of it and not the stane itself. if you stop and hold the position, you are only working half of it. but then again, i have no idea what it is you train nor do i know whether or not your cat stance and mine are the same. i asked a question earlier regarding why a cat stance is so called, which is a pointer to why i said my centre goes up. the reason is that as you draw back, you arch your back like a cat. if you do this, you should feel your centre go up slightly (even though your hip is on the same line)and feel a kind of tension in your back this is where the chinese 'spring' principle manifests itself in the phrase "ready to pounce like a cat". the strenght in the cat stance as i was taught, is that, as Shorin pointed out, is that it allows you to sink weight into the following forward motion. if your centre sinks as you are drawing back, you are working against your own body weight. i.e you are not taking advantage of body structure. (which is why we only tend to sink as we go forwards) what i don't get is why you would side step AND THEN move into a cat stance. or is it sidestep INTO a cat stance to block? or is it block as you side step then go into a cat stance? in any case, if you've stepped to the outside, why yield position (by moving your centre backwards and downwards) when you can be active and force his balance with a pressuring type postion like a dragon stance or even just an extra shuffle/step? and if you've block a straight forward kick by taking a sidestep, aren't you now on his blind-side with him off balance and facing the wrong direction? what benefit does shifting back into a cat stance offer? chances are we're just debating stylistic differences. what style do you train again?

"the long fist I mentioned above is just the style called "long fist" " err..... the style called longfist was one of the original styles taught to the ancient chinese armies. longfist, both the style/forms and family of martial arts are one of the oldest chinese styles. so, it is/was a fighting art...... "Those fancy southern style I mentioned is Nan Quan, not the Nan Quan type but the style called Nan Quan" i don't know of a style called Nan Quan. um, you do know that Nan Quan means 'southern fist', right? and is used to refer to southern styles. anyway. so, um, after all that, you can only name ONE southern style that is overly fancy and it is one that i haven't heard of. no offence but your choice of words. "i believe" "i am not so sure" "i think" you don't seem to be very confident about what you are saying. very um, defensive....... so, what's your experience with the things you mention?

"Longfist is not a fighting art but rather a basic for more advance martial art styles" er... depends on what you mean by long fist. longfist IS a style as well as being a name to refer to a type of style. "One piece of advice is try to avoid Southern styles other than Wing Chun or Choy Lay Fut " so what other southern styles can you name? or should that be, what 'fancy' southern styles are there? yo warlock... "not all that can be taught... is taught... within a 2-6 year span" depends on the style/school. i know a man that would kick you out of the school if you weren't good in three years.... i'm sure i've said this before, but i could 'teach' you to do the three hand forms in about a month. i could probably show you the basic applications of the movements in another three. but then comes years of practice and this is the bit that the teacher can't control. how hard and how much you practice is up to you. the kung fu teachers here, there are a few exceptions of course, tend to be quite realistic/open in their training and there isn't much that they wouldn't show you. the real problem here is that often, it isn't the teaching that is slow per se, it's how hard the students work, or more specifically, DON'T work. after all, there's no point in showing you things from later teachings if you haven't even been practicing the basics. the chinese way of teaching assumes that you do nothing else. the old ways involved moving into the school and becoming a part of the family (unless you were rich but that's another story...). you lived and breathed training. you used to have to go and asked to be accepted. these days, you go a two hour class twice a week.

....i always find it kinda funny when people talk about stances as if they were separate, individual entities that you do isolated from the rest of your movements. y'know, as if going into a cat stance would suddenly make your strike better. (incidentally, moving into my cat stance makes my centre rise, not sink.... have you ever wondered why a cat stance is called a cat stance?) when-ever i hear things like this it really does make me question how people are taught (if they are at all.....) someone mentioned feeling muscles working in a stance. well, as i was taught, if you feel muscles working (over working?) then your stance is wrong. stances are snapshots of positions during moving. if you can't move freely and easily from one stance to another then your stance is wrong. y'know what i think? too many people watching kung fu movies and copying the low stance training from them.....