mantis.style

You have no idea how "chinese" osae sounds in your description. Have you ever seen Fukian White Crane or Southern Mantis forms? You, being a traditionally trained Shorin Ryu guy, would be surprised at what you see.

are you sure she was looking at the ground and not looking towards your centre of mass?

What you want to know? I don't do much gloved sparring at my class though. What classes do you have near you? I can ask my sifu about them for you.

Your problem is that you are still looking at it as an active thinking situation. If you throw a punch at me, my first instinct is to put up a guard to simply get in the way of that punch. Everything I do comes from what is considered my guard hands position and even then, my guard hands position is based on two blocking/interception hand positions. This is probably the second thing we train after the basic punch. If you were in my living room right now, I could show you. It isn't anything special. The trick is to get yourself to recognise when you have to perform that kind of reaction. I don't do it when a door is about to close on me. I don't do it when a friend is play fighting with me. I only do it when it is a real threat. That's why I have trouble when people ask "what would you do if..." because I don't have a set of moves that I have against x, y, z.

practice sparring with the heaviest gloves you have and for twice as long as your matches are going to be.

Since "cheap shots" has been brought up, I think this is a good time to remind people that the old Japanese idea of honour among warriors was introduced as a means to control the warrior class. Of course, I have a Chinese martial art history and as such, most of my primary targets such as the throat, knees, groin, eye area etc would be considered cheap.

There isn't time to actively think in a fight. What happens instead is that we rely on what things feel like. When you block something you don't see what it is; you feel what it is and you should react accordingly because of what it feels like. As it has been said, your reaction is based on what you've been doing in training - at least it should. That reaction is supposed to happen by it's own accord; as an instinctive reaction almost.

I don't actively feint movements. Instead, I try to make everything hit and if something stops it from hitting, that's when it changes. Part of wing chun's core philosophies is that everything is change-able on the fly.

As someone else has said, I have yet to see any claimed DimMak stylist perform any technique on someone other than his/her own students or a non believing person. Consider this, they have performed blind tests for acupuncture that basically proves that acupuncture doesn't work. Seeing as acupunture is based on "chi", what does that say about it's existance as some would try and sell it to you.

Thinking up the "perfect" style is a very easy thing to do. Actually doing it is a completely different matter. The biggest problem is that in words, everything is perfect whereas in execution, nothing is certain.

The point is, I see it an aspect that fits in with the point sparring environment and is not neccessary in normal fighting in that it is excess movement and not beneficial to execution of proper technique.

There are of course, other options as well. If I'm close enough to hit the head I'd be tempted to use my elbows and forearms more than either punch or palm. Specific targets on the head area also makes a difference; Palm when straight strike to face/nose area, Punch to the jaw when you are angled correctly, Downwards backfist to nose area if you are going over a bridge and so on.

There is no such thing as a linear style or a circular style. All styles deal with both.

Cliches or trisms? All chinese people know Kung Fu. It's a fact.

if you bounce, then you are commited to a set timing. Anyone who is good enough can dirupt your timing and take you while you are not grounded. Ive seen a lot of knock downs done this way is point sparring matches; catch them when they can't do anything.

My problem with the karatekid films: Machio's character: trained non realistically with esoteric exercises with the only the testing shown as a few punches that were in no danger of hitting him, done singularly with no change in direction, angle or reach. Cobra Kai; trained hard, fought hard, trained by fighting. Who wins the silly point sparring match? The ones who trained traditionally or the one who trained in a modern, non-realistic way? It is my opinion that Karate Kid, the film, created mcdojos

And it should also be noted that because of the religious and philosopical aspects that developed later in the style, in some cases, what is now considered traditional training is not the same as fighting training, even the style started off as a fighting art.

Becuase it is so near to me, I will defintely be going. I'll try and get lots of footage and photos for you guys who aren't in the UK. Can we get a confirmation here of who's going?

You misunderstand. By San Shou environment, I meant a fighting format where people who train in other styles allshare the same limitations as you do, which is why I see it as a good testing ground. First and foremost, it is a place where you can practice basic fighting skills such as punching and kicking and throwing and sweeping. These things are near enough the same in all styles and even if they aren't identical, they are basic enough to not be hindered by wearing gloves. You don't have to train specifically for san shou rules but training for san shou gives you a good idea of how good your basics are. As the saying goes to imply, if your basics aren't to scratch, then it doesn't bode well for your non-basic training.

Depends on the sparring environment. Personally, I don't and never have bounced.

I think Karete Kid was a bad film for martial arts.

While San Shou is just a set of rules, in the UK, some schools do teach/train specifically for the competitions as well, resulting in a class that is 100% San Shou Focussed. With that said, you can take any style and put it in a San Shou environment as in a sense, the format tests your basic skills of punching, kicking, throwing/tripping/sweeping and defending yourself. Put it this way, if all of your hard basic training doesn't make any sense in a safe environment where you are wearing gloves and pads, how good is your more advanced training going to be? For the record, I've used Wing Chun techniques, Tai Chi techniques, Mantis Techniques and even the odd White Crane technique in a San Shou Environment. That is of course, ignoring that the four styles that I am versed in are all fundementally very, very similar.

Stephen Chow (Sing Chi): the guy who does all of them slapstick HK films like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle trained under Wong Shun Leung. How good he got, or not, I have no idea.

Actually, the biggest difference between fight orientated tai chi training and non fight orientated is that when you learn to fight, it is the transitions between hard and soft that is emphasised. In other words, the hard and soft training can't really be separated as one does not exist without the other, nor can they be trained outside of the refence of an applicable technique. You should also note that realistically, a lot of the soft training is related to the religious and philosophical aspects of where the style came from and not related to the fighting style itself.

Not entirely the same but regarding a chinese form of kiai: iron thread anyone? The problem with trying to discuss Yip Man's wing chun is that there are great differences in what he taught depending on what you were like and when in his teaching career you were taught by him. However, with this said it is known that mostly, what changed was the wording of some elements of the teaching that in no way changed the training. Some things were omitted depending on the individual and some other things were emphasised depending on the individual. Of course, it is also well known that whether or not he actually taught you is a different matter which doesn't help because as a result of this, it is unclear who actually knows the complete Yip Man wing chun. It is interesting to note that one of the most favoured students of his and the person unofficially recognised to be his successor was a person who was skilled in more than one lineage of wing chun. There is also the question of what you mean by complete?