Drunken Monkey

wonder how many times i'm gonna have to say this. chi sau is an exercise, a game we play to test things safely. you don't fight with chi sau. chi sau is not fighting.

i'll ask again what's UPW? ok, just did a quick check. looks like the one who won his fight was an actual NCAA champion. whilst the other one, well can't find much yet... i think the funny result is that butterbean dude getting beat by the little japanese guy.

and what kung fu was that then?

i don't seem to recall anyone saying they can take a MT kicks with no problem.

not sure what happened but i had a grappler run into my knee as he rushed in once. not saying that it was anything more that sheer luck but in taht instance, i 'won'... as for being on the floor and trying to grapple. well, you seem to be forgetting the fact that you are taking a primarily stand up art that trains mainly in striking and putting the guy on his back. that is like me asking a wrestler to put on boxing gloves.

and also cos china is a VERY big country with way too many people. more people=more variations. also the very nature of kung fu being that which works for you, everyone had slight variations of the same kung fu anyway, even within the same 'school'. AND then there's the old chinese insistence of hiding things from 'outsiders'. it wasn't uncommon for the old sifus to teach 'inferior' moves to students for fear of them taking the school from the family.

and by over-simplistic, i mean you view of how we train kung fu styles, not your explaination. you seem to think that all we do is forms.

what? who exactly is is this aimed at? it seems kinda out of place and not responding to any post in particular...

more than anything, wing chun is about principles. the techiques we learn are not the be all and end all of wing chun. you can learn the moves and the forms and drills but if you don't understand the principles behind the techniques, it is practically useless. however, if you know and can follow the principles 100% then it doesn't matter if you are standing or on the floor, using wing chun 'moves' or not, you will be defending yourself easily. of course, that's why we train. part of wing chun training is learning how to prevent your opponent from adhering to the principles.

i wish people would stop talking about the centre-line.... it's just a line that bisects the body. it is meaningless without consideration of the mother-line and what follows... as for shaolin wing chun. i'm not sure if it exists. according to one legend, wing chun was created from parts/techniques that were being developed inside the temple before the burning but was only collected and developed fully outside of the temple on the opera boats. incidentally, there was a wing chun tong in the temple (at fujian i think, where the burnt temple was supposed to have been sited). also there is (i think) some connection with one of the hung gar lines as well, which ties in with the anti-ching movement that these two arts are so closely connected to. and regarding the different spellings of wing chun. most of the different spellings come from the yip man branch of wing chun and they have adopted the variations for various reason. the other lines all use 'wing chun'. and delta, about centre-line control helping tai-chi. while i'm sure being aware of how we do things will help, it's not as useful as what we do with our elbow...

back to the first bit for a little while... the idea is, before training, we have no knowldege of effective fighting. it follows that because of this lack of knowledge, in a fight situation, we would not know how to best defend, control or hit. this in turn results in a drawn out brawl taht results in greater injuries. the point of training is taht we learn how to do things properly and in doing so, resolve situations quickly and with minimal injury. as for when you have the right to kill. i think you have to think about it as an option if you are certain that it means the prevention of death of others.

not vague. over simplistic.

nearly forgot. for some, fighting/defending is their job. but then i think most of you know what i'm getting at when i first made the distinction.

well, technically satan is just the angel samael/lucifer doing his job...

chi sau is not really about using the opponent. it's more about being there before and knowing what it feels like. it's a very subtle game. in actual application, everything is done harder (albeit with the same precision). but then i'm talking wing chun here. other styles might do things differently. the centreline was never a secret. it's present in almost all chinese arts as it defines the four gates and top three routes and bottom three routes. if anything, the inside/outside gate theory is more 'secret' as it's harder to grasp hold of.

wing chun is not strictly linear... in any case there is another thread about this already. http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=9715

semantics maybe but it does show a lot about the mentality of the person. some talk about fights. some talk about when they've had to defend themselves.

but i think they would call them acts of self defence....

i think if your sensei lets you test when you are not ready he is the one who is failing you and his role.

does it really matter that you are not a white belt? why so hung up about it?

in any case, just to be safe, make sure you have your hands wrapped properly cos your wrists are under even more strain most of the time.

i think that when you first teach someone you have to be absolutely pedantic about even the most mundane things. for a start you can see how dedicated they really are about this thing you are about to impart. if they don't even take the time to learn the little things like how to tie a belt, or count to ten in another language, or how to stand, what does that say about the amount of effort they will put in to the more serious things? that is why we insist that everyone goes through at least two weeks of doing nothing but punching before we begin to teach the first of the basics. to make things a little worse, we have them do their punching exercises in the corner while the rest of us get on with our own work. how they do during this is often a good indication of how hard they will work later. we always tell people to do the drills at home, go through the forms and punching drills. that's all we can do; ask them to do something. if they don't they will ultimately be the ones wasting their time. you can't not care about it. after all, we don't want them to leave us after a few years and not be able to do the basics things. you can't say that it's not important. you have to give 100% about everything to get 100% back from them. at least that's what i hope.

but some people say that that the name james bond is part of the 007 tag. y'know agent 007 is always called james bond.

and besides i think that everyone is pretty much agreed on what we think of sano. isn't it nice that we all actually agree on something?

or keep quiet about something...