mantis.style

found some little gifs some old university friends of mine made. straight forward quick exchange http://x3e.xanga.com/eb2d8a6b03132134695535/w98603581.gif couple of ways to work in fancy get-ups http://xb5.xanga.com/9ffc007207234134695838/w98603841.gif http://x58.xanga.com/6d3c006013434134695719/w98603736.gif

There's also the point that if you perform a structurally correct punch against someone who doesn't have as good as form as you do, you might not actually be applying that much strength but they still crumple. Sometimes, poor skill from one partner makes the other seem heavy handed when it might not be the case.

The problem there is that people whould be polite without guns as well as with.

I don't understand how people can so easily put the "art" part so much higher than the "martial" part, especially considering the mistranslation that get's you the word "art" in the English term in the first place. You can take the "art" part out of it and you are still left with the pure fighting style but if you take the fighting out it, what are you left with? t is a clear dilemma and one that doesn't have an easy answer, especially seeing the questions regarding the validity of martial arts and the variaty of reasons for the modern student to learn them. In the modern world though, what I would like to see is a differentiation between the jutsu and the do. What I have a small problem with, is that too many do not know the difference. As said, karate is first and foremost supposed to be a fighting art; karate-jutsu. The thing is, how many actually teach it as thus? At the same time, if it is not taught as such, should they still be claiming and promoting the "fighting" aspect as much as they do? I fully understand the ideal of karate-do but I can't help but think that while it makes sense n the context of the creator of it; someone who was at the time of the creation a very competent fighter and let's be honest, a bit of a thug, I'm not sure if the ideal works if you are learning from scratch. I mean, isn't the fundemental idea a bit of paradox in the first place? Learn to do an essentially bad thing, to learn to be good?

The other thing is we talk about things in terms of the "energy" that is felt during the movements. In Chinese this i called "lik" and in practice it is where you feel tension in your muscles. To clarify, the repetive hitting isn't strictly part of the thing that is considered "chi" training but it is to do with energies of hitting. This is probably down to my mantis being newer in inception than Tai Chi and hence, it has already made a move to removing the "mystical" elements while still maintaining some of the old ways. However, with that said, breathing is a fundemental part of some of the iron shirt training and don't forget that in Chinese "chi" does mean breathe. Going back to the energies of hitting and moving. The best example would be some of the grinding exercises. This is donw in pairs often in mirror sequences. What this does is set up a situation between you and your partner where you have resistance applied to your form which you react to and against. If you slow this down to purely doing the movement with no over -reaction, you can learn which muscles you need and which muscles you don't. It doesn't take long for the obvious rhythm of the muscle tension that goes on to make itself known. Once you've got this, you can actually remove the partner and even the excercise yourself and work purely on that rhythm of muscle tension. Outwardly, it looks like you're having a minor spasm if you don't apply the tensions to the erlated form but you end up working the same muscles. I apologise for the muddle in trying to describe this sort of thing. I am having to translate into English things that don't have direct and correct translations and things that are better demonstrated than explained. I hope I've done it well enough.

Mantis isn't what I would call a internal style. There are training methods that would fall into what the modern "traditional" martial artist would call internal work but it is all still very much physical. Things are still taught in terms of the old classical names and concepts like blood sand palm and iron shirt and, short bridge "shock" power but if you practice the style, you'll see and feel that it is just very specialised and localised muscle training. It is said that in mantis, the shock power comes from the Iron Shirt training and if you ever meet a Mantis Practicioner with a good few years under his belt, the things you will notice is a brick wall back and rediculously solid forearms. Now you could say that the amount of power they can generate from short ranges/bridges is down to "chi" or you can look at the clues. Don't you think it's coincidence that certain "chi" exercises makes your muscles ache the next day? The thing with chi not being special is me saying that it isn't "magic" but that doesn't mean it still doesn't require a very long time. Tai Chi is practiced slowly because ultimately, it has to follow seven (or is it nine?) very strict rules. If you even slightly out with regards to these rules, then technically, the movement is wrong. In this respect, it is very much like old wikan magic. The process is so long and laborious that you are 99% guarenteed to get one step wrong and hence, the spell fails. Getting the pure physical motions correct is by itself a very difficult thing to do; especially when you take into account that in all cases these days, you will be learning the motions in it's original taught form, from someone who would naturally apply it slightly differently according to his physical differences from the original and then you have to re-apply your own physical differences to the original form AND his version of it in practice. In tai chi, this is made worse by the variations in applications of the original form and the differences between actual stressed practiced and slow two man drills. The easiest way is to learn is to simply keep practicing the forms and the movements in application. In this scenario, "chi" becomes a way of not having to teach or to hide the fact that you don't know as much as you say you do. I mean, hey, in ten years time when you've learnt how to harness your chi, you mediocre forms' application would be highly improved (ignoring the ten extra years that you should've put into forms training as well). Take into consideration; learning to write with your other hand. It's not impossible, nor is it something that you don't know how it's supposed to be done; it just takes practice. Chi seems to have become the cop-out excuse for not having to practice properly. I didn't mention the mental aspect because I think too much is placed on that as well. In the Chinese styles there is much more emphasis on being just used to doing something. You get used to punching solid bags to the point that walls are more or less punchable. You get used to getting hit in the ribs. You get used to bashing forearms against each other. It isn't mental in that you have to prepare yourself; it's mental in that it becomes normal like pretty much everything else you have to learn. Writing and typing isn't "normal" but use and practice makes it instintive.

While I have never come across a definite thing that is called chi gerk, I ahve done other more traditional forms of this type of training. Strictly speaking, these things aren't part of Wing Chun and is more considered as part of basic training along with stances, steps and balance work. Once we got onto the dummy and the various leg work, those movements were worked back into our basics to make more sense of them. Is taht how you guys learnt/trained this?

Actually, health is supposed to be a by-product of practicing in that manner; it is not the reason for it. The original text from which the original "chi" excercises come from and all more or less stretching and isometric excercises. Anyway, your desciption of "chi" as being pure energy directed by the mind more or less says that we hold differing views on the subject and that chances are we are not going to agree on this.

Or it could simply be that there is nothing "special" to sell in the first place. You have to remember that originally, "chi" was used as a way to name and describe the effects of doing things in a certain way. I'd say that 60% of those things are about body mechanics and 30% is about muscle dynamics and the remaining 10% is about using specific muscles that aren't normally used. Put it this way, show me a "chi" demonstration and I can probably show you how/why it works.

why is it that when some people make "fight" videos, even if they don't practice a chinese style, they seek to imitate a chinese style? Anyway. Been looking back at some of these videos and while you mean good, you really can do with a lot more practice before going for the final shoot. I've got some old fight sequences that me and a bunch of mates drew up a few years ago for fun. Some of them are in stick men form, I could mail them to you to play around with. edit: new post instead

To me, the "you don't under the concept of what chi is" is a cop out excuse. Why do you need to understand what the thing is? If you perform the movements correctly, the movements will be effective, whether or not you under the concept of chi or even if you are told the reason behind what you are doing. I firmly believe that the selling of chi as some kind of mystical force is one of the core reasons why/how many schools of chinese martial arts gets away with not teaching effective martial arts. If you have to spend 10 years to cultivate your chi in order to fight with the schools' basic forms, then that presents a very big question mark to me.

I should also add that trapping is a term that I've only ever come across when in a wing chun conducted in English. I've never heard a term in the chinese that expressively and is exclusively used for "trapping".

actually, the way the chinese styles have developed over the centuries, if you have a decent enough understanding of the basic moves, you can pretty much decipher the tai chi forms into their constituant useable parts. Generally, speaking, the various styles out there aren't actually that different when it comes to execution. The biggest differences are in the way in which they train and what they train with. Strip away the superficial aspects and you are going to be left with the same principles no matetr the style. Four doors, 12 roads, inside, outside, bridges, gates of strength, root. They just might all call them same thing.

Not all martial arts, in fact, come to think of it, none of the commonly practiced martial arts in the modern world were designed and used for actual battlefield warfare. The majority of them were devised and organised by those that usually had more money and free time than the average farming joe. That in itself shows the misnomer in the term "martial art". However, in a more general sense, they were still made for fighting and even with the "art" in the title and ignoring the fact that here, "art" means "practiced skill" and the more romantic and philosophical meaning, there is the fighting element. Do nothing but fight and learn from your experience and you have your very own martial art. Start to record it and systemise it and you have a teachable system.

Trapping in Wing Chun isn't overly complicated nor is it that technical. There is, or at least should be, a basic principle in wing chun training about your arms being in the right place. If your guard is good, it becomes the trap the moment you step forward. Trapping isn't something that you force to happen, it should already be there. The trap is also not something that exists beyond the point when contact is made. Of course you might turn the trap into a joint lock to take down but the actual moment of trapping is just that; a moment. I fear that if a school teaches trpping to be some kind of magical unbeatable tool, that the training maybe misguided; as if all you need to do is learn to trap. To me, it is focusing on the wrong part of the training.

That depends on how you train. In my experience, the ward-offs in tai chi that I practiced was not much different to some movements in Wing Chun and White Crane and even some proper old school shaolin. The only difference was that like in many wing chun schools, too much emphasis was placed on the game of tui sao instead of tui sao as precursor to fighting. There was a man in a bookshop i had a chat to that was horrified when I showed him how tai chi likes to break limbs instead of hitting the other guy. There is another increasing problem; too many schools don't have any real pressure test of their form. It's relatively easy to perform a form perfectly and to maintain proper body alignment as they do in tai chi with practice but the lack of more active training means that the practioner usually is not able to adjust their position when real pressure is applied to them. It works in tui sao but step it up and the game is gone. There was a lady here that won a tui sao cahmpionship a few years back by applying wing chun chi sao game principles instead. Make of that what you will. Of course, knowing the form perfectly is a very good start to learn fighting but I still believe that the two should be parallel not sequential. Going back to what I said earlier, if your tai chi isn't teaching you to fight, are you really practicing tai chi? Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking the style as I am very aware that it's more a result of the stylistic trends of when the style was formed and developed and it's adoption by the various health groups. I feel that now is a good time remind people that the creators of the various tai chi schools all had a history in martial arts prior to founding their tai chi styles. Again, make of that what you will. To answer the other questions directly addressed to me. Southern Mantis can be pretty hard core in its training. Everything you read about is stories about hitting buckets of sand/stone and hitting each other is pretty much true. That's not to say that all training is about making it hurt as ultimately, there are the usual small form drills as well much like wing chun's punch-block stuff. A bridge is best described as the connection between you and your opponent when your arms cross and more accurately refers to the forearms. In chinese, the term for friendly "exchange" is to "cross arms" and most things deal directly with the forearms. Going across the bridge means to cross over where the connection is made. To go under the bridge means to go under the opponents arm, sinking the bridge means to drop their arm etc etc. It also helps to know what we mean by inside gate and outside gate as well. It helps a lot when training with guys from other chinese styles because I can suggest things or ask about things without using names of moves and they'd still get a good idea of what I mean.

Why on earth do you worship him?

Why do you need a formal curriculum? All styles that I have trained in are in themselves organised in basic training, related training and fighting training and everything begins with learning how to move and how to punch. The forms themselves are progressive and I only need to teach you how to perform the form before I can get you to start taking the form apart and using it as you see fit. Once you know how the movements are used, you will naturally change how you perform the form. There isn't much teaching involved as most of what I do is purely and based on experience. There are things that I won't be able to explain to you. Ther have been times during some sparring or drill training where I've been asked "what did you just do?" or " how did you do that?" and I honestly couldn't answer them because well, I just do it when it happens. I reacted in a certain way to a certain stimulant and that can't really be replicated after the event. I can give general examples but in a lot of cases, you learn by practice and experience. Perhaps that is something that is down to the fact that the three styles tha I have most experience in are all semi-related and are all short bridge styles that emphasis short drills as part of training. The difference between learning from me and learning from a guy who has run a class for the past 10 years isn't what he knows more than me; it's how much more hands on practical experience he has than me. After all, when the style has at most 7 short progressive forms, there's not a lot of "knowledge" to absorb. There is however a lot of possiblities when it comes to using those forms. That is also why it is always so much easier to talk a good fight than it is to fight one. I can go on and on about the principles of fighting and I can name moves from my three styles to use against near enough anything you can chuck at me. Whether or not I can do it is another matter. So while I have the knowledge, I don't have the experience or skill. A curriculum doesn't mean I have the experience or skill. Let's go back to my original point, what makes one qualified to teach. How do you judge whether or not someone can teach? Does black belt or what ever mean they are good enough to teach. Can't a beginner be a good teacher if he knows his basics perfectly?

Whether or not you like it, you have to admit that anything that can put into question most schools' training is a good thing in the long term. Of course, you also have to remember that it is still a sport bound by certain rules in a set environment. As such, certain things will dominate because of it. At the same time though, Everyone who steps into that ring is bound by the same rules so it is still a fair environment to test your skills, especially you come from a school that professes to be a complete style.

I'm glad you brought up Tai Chi. Tai Chi is supposed to be a martial art. If you are not learning to fight with it as a by product of learning and practicing it, then are you really learning Tai Chi or just doing a dance slowly? If I go into a tai chi class and I am able to knock down a regular student with not much effort, then I'd say they weren't doing Tai Chi and that quite possibly, what that class needs to really test their Tai Chi is some heavy contact. I know that many classes do not start out with heavy contact but at the same time, too many classes seem to turn a blind eye to uncommited strikes and half hearted movements because of the non-contact element in training. Let's go into Mantis and Wing Chun and White Crane. From the first moment we are put in pairs to do some drill work, we are told to do it like we mean it. Bear in mind that the drills usually work against a partner so that while you aren't aiming to hit him, more usually aiming to work/test their bridge, you do it with intent. A key principle in many chinese styles is to destroy the bridge. Another is that of short bridge power. Add them together and what you end up with is lots of bruising from simple basic drills. In fact, even in beginner level drills, I want my partner to hurt me. In that respect, him going as hard as he can is also a test of whether or not he can maintain form while adding stress.

it's funny that you mention lifting knee and shrugging of shoulders. In wing chun, the knee is used/lifted to cover the lower half of your body. Going back to the asking hands I mentioned earlier, some schools also teach the knee lift as part of the asking hand movements. I should add that "asking hand" is just the name of the movement and isn't a technique. Basically, it is how you go into meet anything that incoming. As for my own guarding hand, I'd like to think that it might the first option. In all likelyhood, it's probably the latter. I have my own anecdotal stories of surprise attacks by way of things thrown at me or someone suddenly trying to stick something on me (in the playful) manner that was 100% unexpected to which I (over)reacted by way of going into my guard hands but I also know that's not the same as a sudden aggressive action. Again, though, I just want to stress that the average flinch type movements isn't that far off from our guard hands/asking hands movements. I should say though, that this is giving me ideas of what to try the next time I am leading a group in training.

I guess this is something that is a result in the differences in the styles that we practice. In the ones that I have trained with, one of the key training philsophies has always been "harder". Of course, this doesn't mean free reign to beat down on our partner but what it does do is make you responsible for how you train. If you don't like getting hit then mention to your partner and he will back off. It also comes from having a class that has a mix of age groups and sexes. In that respect, we become responsible for our own progression as well as the progression of others. If I come in at you "hard" then that must mean I think you should be able to handle it. If you can't handle it, then that means it's something you should work at, in which case, I should be coming in harder anyway.

See, I'm not sure how to go about explaining this. I flinch differently to different stimuli. If a punch like thing is coming towards me, I do instinctively put out my hands in guard hands position. That is my flinch to something coming towards my face. For me, there is no moment when I need to go from flinch to form because I don't need to change from one to another. Now that could just be my guard hands position is near enough the same as a normal open hand flinch reaction but the points is still true for me in that there is also no cognitive thought involved in me doing the guard hands position either. I do have a question though; when you say "flinch" are you talking specifically about the instant "jump" or the whole process from jump to movment (or non-movement) because I have a feeling that we are talking about the same thing but differently.

Excuse me but what? Register with the authorities? For what?

Again, this might be a difference in stylistic approaches. For me/us, everything happens after first contact is made. Before that contact, it is all about covering not blocking. All of the complex little movements you see i training are not for the most part meant to be used from the word go. However, the simple moves are. I'll use wing chun as an example as most people will know that better than a mantis style or white crane. When you flinch, most people will bring their hands up to cover their face/head, often hands semi-outstretched, palms facing out. In case you never noticed, this is more or less wing chun guard hands/asking hands position. The aim of the wing chun "controlled" version is to cover centreline with both hands with elbows to cover the outside gates if neccessary. Most schools that I know also teach the "instant guard hand" along with a step; to the point that the two are inseperable i.e you don't do an asking hand without the step. I wish I could show you because that would be so much easier than trying to explain in words. For the record and so you have some point of reference, what I learnt is in part used by the HK police. Now I know that it doesn't really mean much but especially seeing as they have different goals but you can train a flinch.