JerryLove

And which Silat? I've seen Seni-gayong, which looks nothing like tjikulung, which looks nothing like tjimande, which looks nothing like harimau. Since "silat" doesn't look like "silat", how can it look like kuntaw in any general sense.

Please refrain from making false generalizations about Silat.

http://www.thehaca.com/

I was a stick jock in the SCA for about 2 years. Every weekend I was out on the field with a big stick fighting. My preferred weapon was the great-sword, which has many of the same charicteristics. tuck the staff against your chest and movie it with a combination of waist movement and using the far arm (from what ever is jammed) to work the lever. The amount of power available to you should overcome most anything that's jamming.

Primarily, soldiers do not enter unarmed combat. They deploy in groups, and with weapons, and the time away from learning to fight with a rifle, or with a tank in order to improve unarmed skills is time misspent. To quote one Army seargents "I'm gonna teach you enough to get you killed". That said, it would be wrong to think that the millitary trains and-to-hand in order to teach specific skills... they don't. What the millitary sees value in is training discipline and aggression... and they see the CQB program as a way to make more aggressive soldiers. That said, they pretty much all encourage personell to spend time and effor into learning martial-arts... but from a trainign perspective.. it's just not important.

I agree with you... It seems important to get a student under the more stressful situation of someone trying to hit you from time to time. I know I make a point to get into more violent sparring methods a couple times a year. I think that better general training come from slow-motion than from speed; but without occassionally "mixing it up", I see the exact same problem that you do.

My test, and it will take some effort for others to repeat (IOW they will have to do what I did). I put in the effort (over the course of a 4-day seminat, not a great deal of time) to learn basic qigong no-contact healing. I went out and conscripted some "voulenteers". I didn't tell them really what I was doing, nor what to expect. I did not ask them about how they were feeling before hand. I did a "scan", to feel out their energy and made a not of what I felt... where I felt problems and what I thought they were (if I could guess). Then I did a healing (no contact, and behind their back). I made a note of what I thought I had fixed and what I thought I had not. Then I asked "What, if anythign did you feel. How did you feel before, how do you feel now". Here's my results. I generally located spots that represented problems for them, occasionally I missed something that bothered them. They usually felt the work I was doing, down to the ability to tell me where they felt it and that corresponding to where I was working. If I felt I had fixed something, they almost all felt an improvement there, though many felt improvements in things I had failed to fix. More importantly, I had no instances of false finds; In about a dozen voulenteers I never found something that was not there... I also had no false reports of work; I never had someone claim to feel an effect in a place I was not working (though it was not uncommon to fail to feel where I was working). Through this double-blind experiment, performed about a dozen times, I proved that it was not simply psycosematic and that a real event was occuring. Having had my base skepticism overcome (the qi does exist / work), I have since been able to better work on other aspects that had been hard for lack of proof. Now if I can just get on a reasonable work schedule; I've been missing most of my martial-arts time this past year

To whom are you addressing this? I have not asked what ki is, and JohnnyS has not disputed the answer. And Ki is common and normal.. juet like muscular action or mental activity. That said, getting out of a chair is a chi activity about as much as it's a mental activity.... your brain is involved, but it's hardly a good illustration or accurate representation of "brain power" or "a mental exercise". But again, are you talking to me or to JohnnyS?

See, that post is a terrific example of what I'm talking about. I did not ask the question, and your claim that I did is (like much of what you have stated on this thread) erronious. Further, one would not need to have a through understanding of a quantum superstring to realizeit's not a fruit drink.... similarly, anyone with any inkling of an underastading of Ki could point out the errors in your posts. It's people like you who make big posts attributing anything and everything to Ki that make in nigh-impossable for people seeking accurate information, or even credulious information on the subject.

So, to address the question that caused me to start this thread... "which do you do". I primarily spar with "slow motion sparring". If prefer the ability to train proper muscle memory, and the ability to employ, and get used to dealing with, an unlimited variety of attacks. We've found that the considered actions of sparring become reflexes and do work at speed even when practiced slowly. Further, that's the one methos that truely allows you to floow-through, even agains sensitive targets... and proper reflexes have served better than most other things we've seen. I've done every method listed above... and I certainly like hitting the others from time-to-time as part of a reality check... but for normal use, I consider slow-motion sparring superior to the other options.

There are many discussions, at present and in the past, on various aspects of sparring minutia. I'm gonna talk a bit about the varois general strategies, what I feel they offer, and what they limit. Light Contact: Light contact sparring is where one spars at full speed but "pulls the punch", that is to say that control is exercised to avoid putting force into the target. This is pretty common in Japanese arts. Advantages include: The ability to use a wide array of techniques in practice without injuring your partner. The ability to move at speed and react to someone moving at speed. Disadvantages include: The limiting of many techniques which cannot, by nature, be pulled. A limit on what and how much resistance an opponent can offer. The lack of an understanding of hitting and being hit. The training of the bad habit "pull the punch" (commiting the wrong actions to muscle memory" Limited Rules Common in the grapplig arts, this strategy allows opponents to go at near-full speed and with power by severely limiting dangerous techniques and relying on a level of control to "stop" when injury is about to occur. Advantages include: The ability to work at near combat levels with resisting opponents. A gravity dynamic (IE how hard it is to stay up or escape) very true-to life. A realistic sense of trying to apply something to someone who doesn't want it applied. The ability to fight in realistic attire. Disadvantages include: The restriction of certain techniques (anything from fish-hooks to knee kicks). The neccessairy de-emphasis of other common techniques (striking). The likely reliance on some level of padding (I've yet to see this done on standard hardwood or concrete floors) Pad up and go In this strategy, the combatitants attempt to armor their more vunerable areas to allow a higher level of striking. Otherwise, it's very similar to Light contact Advantages Include: Ability to work at speed and reasonably power against resisting opponent. Less bad habit of pulling than light contact. Disadvantages include: Unrealistic abilities and inabilities cause by padding. Unrealistic understandings of damage inflicted and recieved due to padding. A limitation of availiable techniques similar to Light Contact[/b] due to teh limitations of padding. Slow motion sparring Slow motion sparring, done most often in Chinese arts, relies on a control of speed. Combatatiants fight, but at a snails pace. Advantages include: An almost unlimited availability of techniques. The ability to work against a resisting opponent. The ability to "think while fighting" to improve on mistakes. The ability to perform a technique as you would in a fight. Disadvantages include: A lack of exposure to the timing and effect of speed. A lower "fear coctail" level than other sparring methods. An unrealistic understanding of one's ability to respond to sudden changes.

Tell you what. That answer is likely to start an entirely different discussion, so I'll start a thread to answer it.

I don't like the staff as a good place to start.. .but it depends on why you are learning it. If your looking combatively, I like the knife, handgun, and long-arm as first weapons. For forms training, your criticisms are missplaced. That depends entirely on how you use it. The European quarterstaff skills work best up close, and the indonesian spear stuff still works quite well. I do, however, agree with the "for forms, learn what interestes you" advice.

So lifting weights is not a mental exercise because you think about it, and reading a book is "physical activity"? Come on. It was neither smart nor fearful, it was suprised. That's an illustration of reflex acting before the pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain which overrides unconsious thought with consious thought) kicked in. It can be retrained. That siad, it's more an application of anxiety than fear. You are obviously not very familiar with how these things (in this case, the brain) works; please stop posting rubbish. What? Now you are discussing social nuances and ascribing them a Ki? You've dominated your dog's ki when you yell it it? It's dominated yours when it growls at you? This is absurd. No one does outside of cartoons. Dude, your doing far more harm than good; and you really have no idea what you are talking about (or are trolling)

I don't wear gloves for sparring, and we do spar on concrete (which is to say carpeting over a slab floor). I think that padding changes too much in terms of feed-back on the body and gloves remove way oo much in terms of manipulative skills (not to mention how much easier it is to block when both people are wearing gloves of any size). Also, considering how little padding can help (doesn't to anything for a kick to the knee anyway), I don't look at padded-up faighting as unrestricted enough. It's fun mind you, but I put it more in the role of "sport with fighting applications" than specifically combative practice.

That would not be a gouge but a strike. I still see no reason to exclude them as "simple" any more than you would exclude punches. Your experience here differs from mine. What is the intrensic difference between the groin and the knee? Are you arguing that grappling techniques cannot / are not generally capable of hyperextending joints? Except where those could involve lockas, chokes, or eye attacks (and that's just the list from this thread so far.. .I'd bet we could add a dozen more "excepts"). Not to mention the realism problems of relying on the surface.. or do you do suplex throws on concrete? One wonders if "100% on foam" is really 100%. You criticized techniques which are pulled while pushing grappling thechniques which are pulled as not being pulled. So a straight punch has the same characteristics as an eye-gouge (easy to do, hard to land). You see no value in including eye-gouging as a part of sparring; shall I presume you see no value in punching as part of sparring? You and others drew conclusions inconsistant with your own stances. I've pointed them out for you. Yes. I spar every class, and groin kicks, hits, knees, and most anythign else are part of that sparring.

Yes, chi and [forgot the chinese word for spirit] are different; but in attempting to explain to an english audience, I don't think there is a better English word.

Firstly, you are not beign consistant... you said "eye gouging is more of a grappling move", and now you discuss defending an eye strike thrown as a punch. Really? So turning, moving, shin blocks, knee spears, and slapping the kick will not work on groin kicks? We use them constantly in my sparring and I defend them in a manner similar to most other low-line kicks. That's not true at all. Take a really basic move like a standing arm bar. It's easy to escape even if you get put in it. If I put you in one in a fight, it won't matter if you escape because your arm was immediately broken (to be specific, your elbow was hyperextended). A great deal of grapples which are poor subission grapples work fine as breaks... And since most any grapple can be escaped from, the obvious preference (certainly mine) is to not even try to get my opponent to submit, but simply to break what I can. That said (this is still "combative martial arts" after all), grappling for a submission is not 100%, full force, or even training the correct reflex. No, as opposed to you admitting that what you are doing is "the best we can come up with to get the skills" and not delude yourself and others into believing it si "100%". So then sparring where you pull everything is fine and it's rediculious to say your not practiceing realisitically just cause you didn't follow-through? Why do you believe you can't practice light-contact sparring 100% with your opponent resisting 100%? You are not being consistant. So people shouls not train their stright punch either because it doesn't take skill? It's only in your imagination that I said anything of the kind... I have not discussed their effacy at all. you keep making stuff up. So weather it would be consistant for a school which sparred with groin kicks to spar with eye gouges is not on-topic with what we think of a school sparring with groin kicks? How do you come to that conclusion?

Neither staffs nor nunchaku are particularly carryable day-to-day; further, at close range I'd take a sword any day. That said, some obvious choices when looking at self-defense: hangun long-arm knife slap-jack stick manuverable weapons (bottle / rolled up magazine) non-manuverable weapons (brick / book / billard ball) flexable weapons (belt, jacket, shirt, rope) enhancement weapons (roll of quarters, bar from bike lock) flails (chain / weight in a sock)

"Chi" means "breath" in chinese. The Chinese believe that Chi is the energy that makes something alive; a good interpretation would be "spirit". many things are attibuted by many people to Chi. Some are influenced by Chi, some are not. unfortunately, the treatment of Chi as something mystical has frustrated any real attempts at a clear catigorization, as has the ignorance of people who disregard the existing knwoedge (such as the difference between "chi" and "yi"). There are a few things that I can do that obviously rely hevily on chi; mostly related to no-contact effects. If you look at accupuncture, it's entirely built around a concept of chi flow in the body... Accupressure / massage works on a combination of chi and other biological functions (chemicals in tissues, stimulation of the lymphatic system, etc). Chi also becomes a convienent visualization for other ideas (Yi being one). Look at the unbending arm trick... It's a bio-mechanical act that is influenced by intent (yi). Rooting adds power for several reasons, not just one. The same is true in some of the other examples. I've been playing with mentally pushing through crowds... oddly, it seems to work. It could be my imaginings (though I keep experimenting), but I think it's a subcousous response to the push that they don't consiously feel. If I ever find a test to prove it, I'll let you know Either way, it's not Charisma as many of the people involved are not looking at me (though for those who are looking in my general direction, my body-language could be why they move, and those not looking at me could be reacting to teh sutle body language of those who are without knowing it... I'm not yet convinced, though I am inclined).

I've been there. I've laid in a bed I had a good chance of never rising from, I've lost consiousness amid massive seisures in the hospital, I've had time to look down and realize that I was more likely to be dead in a year than alive. Fortunately for me, I'm still alive 3 years later, but you speak of things you don't know. I've been there and done that, and you are wrong. Don't let your ind be so open your brains fall out. I have an open mind... I'm willing to consider most anything. Chi is a good example; I didn't believe it, I looked into it, I had it proven, I now know I was wrong. As I mentioned ebfore, there are many ways to weaken a brick.

WHAT? You can't get good at stoping someone from getting the hand to your eye, but you can get good at stopping someone from gettting their foot to your groin? Anyone can kick you in the groin too, the skill somes in getting past an opponent's defenses, and that's no different from a kick than from a strike to gouge. But in a fight, I'm not going for the submit, I *want* the break. Then it doesn't matter if they could get out, it matters if I ever got it in the first place. That said, sparring for a submit is committing the wrong reflexes to memory. that's like saying light-contact punching is "100%". You seem to contradict your self. is it "not easy" or does it "not take much skill"? So it's easy to do but hard to pull off. And Drills teach you to do something, and sparring how to pull it off; so you should not drill eye gouges but you should spar with them. And pulling out eyes is not combative? and breaking limbs with grapples is not combative?

You can also get used to many bad habits. And actually yex, you can condiion for groin hits. That said, the question is "why did we add it?". We added it because we wanted more realism in our sparring situations.. ok, why not add shoes? Slaps to the groin are not difficult to perform standing... and why assume in a self-defense school that you will be standing? Also, groin kicks are difficult to practices (as noted by the fact tat you must kick lightly / barefoot and have a cup on), so again, why train one unrealistically but not another. I'd bet "groin knees" are more common. I'm being more ranty than I really intend... there's just a few subconsious buttons that got hit... I've seen too many schools / arts / people that yell at others for not being "street-oriented" and yet have extrememly unrealistic training. (not saying you were doing that, just that that button got triggered.)

A cloned zombie army of ninja attack helicoptor pilots make a good weapon too, but availablity is pretty low.

Hmmm... 1. If a cup hurts the kicker, then the kicker is in bare feet. Why would a school trying to be realistice by having groin kicks be unrealistic by fighting bare-foot. 2. Speaking of not practicing for a real situation... do you normally wear a cup around town? If not again, why train for a situation different than the real one. 3. Why just groin kicks? Why not groin hits, and eye rakes, and stuff. Seems odd to add one thing (rpesumably for realism) and not others.