Kempo & grappling

[delta1]

How does your system aproach grappling?

 

Unfortunately, groundwork is one of the things that Mr. Parker was working on adding to American Kenpo at his death. We do have a lot of standup grappling in the system, and some groundwork can be extrapolated from the standup techniques. But ground fighting emphasizes a different set of principles and concepts. For example, leverage is much more important on the ground. So a lot of AK schools also teach a ground system like Sambo or BJJ.

 

I understand some of the Okinawan systems have incorporated Jiu-jitsu and ground fighting. Is it taught with the striking part of your art? Does it relate the principles in the standup game and ground game? How much emphasis do you put on locks, throws, and rolling as compared to your standup skills?

 

For you EPAK types, does your school teach grappling as a seperate system? How is it integrated with your base? My parent school teaches Sambo, and the students there are expected to be able to make a comparison themselves with the principles, concepts and moves. Unfortunately, I'm not close enough to be able to take advantage of this. But I try to add some simple stiuff when I can, and convert the standup techs to ground techs.

[Red J]

Grappling! This is one of my favorite areas.

 

Shaolin Kempo recognizes grappling from standup and on the ground. The basics are from Ju-Jutsu, and Chin Na. The founder (Villari) put this in as part of his system. At my school we have weekly groundwork. Since many of us have wrestling backgrounds, we eat this stuff up. As in other systems it is all instructor dependent if they want to emphasize this. Luckily my instructor is all over it. We also have a bit of ground experience from some of the senior members. Its good stuff and part of our advanced curriculum. Grappling is even part of the advanced tests, so yes it is emphasized and recognized.

[kempocos]

The RYUKYU (OKINAWIAN) KEMPO I train is more a grapple art than striking. The term TUITE ( grab/grabbing hand ) was used by Taikia Oyata and has been picked up by many others to describe grappling useing Pressure/vital points, Muscle Tears and joint destruction. TUITE comes from Chin Na since many Chinese lived in Okinawa and Okinawian Te. Some factions of Ryukyu Kempo such as Dillmans stay standing and emphisize striking, while others look to how to use the TUITE concepts on the ground. I have also been lucky to have an instructor base that see the need for ground work. Wally Jays Small Circle Jujitsu has some great techniques that we use. We also bring in someone who trains BJJ under Renzo Gracie and has trained in Catch as catch can and hook wrestling.

 

I have found when taking standup grappleing concpets to the ground the base is the tough part. The limbs have the same range of motion it is just findig the base to create the proper fulcrum to create the stress damage.

 

example: the classic armbar

 

while the person is on thier back the floor is the base, when you lean back and postion the elbow your leg is the fulcrum. When the pulling the wrist down the stress damage happens to the elbow and perhaps shoulder depending on the postion of thier arm to your leg.

[italian_guy]

We do some grappling in go ju ryu, for instance in the latest 2 weeks we did a lot of grappling and ground work drills (for a while I thought that maybe my dojo was evolving into a JJJ dojo ). I saw also that some advanced kata bunkai (not yet my level) have grappling.

[Sauzin]

It always amazes me how much kata can translate to ground work. You don't actually go to the ground (off your feet) in kata, yet it seems to change the way you move. Even on the ground. Not to mention people who practice kata seem to maintain control and balance better when they do go down. I don't really understand the correlation exactly. Some of the movements seem totally different, yet they come naturally and I know kata is the only explanation.

[doubletwist]

My current school does not really do any ground-work. I believe about once a month or so there will be some grappling done on a Saturday, but I have not been there for any of those yet.

 

THe first school I attended had a bjj brown-belt who would teach a bjj class before the normal adult class 2-3 times a week.

 

I wish my current school did more ground-work, but at the same time, my head is already stuffed full with all the stuff we're learning.

 

DT

[Sasori_Te]

We were always lucky enough to have a few folks that had previous training in jiujitsu. As Kempocos said Okinawan Kempo is a lot od standing grappling. I too have had the pleasure of training with some small circle folks and also some danzan ryu jujutsu guys.

 

Simple answer is we supplemented our stand-up grappling with ground fighting as the opportunity presented itself. Some of us, myself included, trained with other people on a part time basis to attempt to fill these perceived gaps. As someone else said, there are bunkai applications for kata that translate to ground work but I haven't had the chance to study them closely yet.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

We do a lot of stand up grappling as a matter or normal instruction along with the karate training. I'd have to say that the only real weakness of this system is on the ground grappling...but if you're a good standup grappler, you should "hopefully" not be going to the ground anyway.

 

We do a LOT of shifting of our bodies for positioning and arm/wrist and leg locks and unbalance our opponents. I've had many people (wrestlers, grapplers, street fighters) over the years try to put me on the ground by diving at my legs or muscling me to the ground, and so far, they haven't succeeded. This is not to say that I can't be taken down by someone that really knows what they're doing (some of those people were VERY good wrestlers), but you're hopefully going to take some good lumps in the process (hands/elbows/knees) to the point that (again hopefully) you won't be able to get a good enough technique on me before I can get away.

 

I may be old and getting grayer by the day (groan), but I'm a sneaky old bugger!

[Shane]

We work a lot of ground work, without the ground techniques I feel that your just some what incomplete, due to the fact that so many real fights end up on the ground. And I would not want myself or my students to have to only depend on stand up techniques and stand up grappling. We train to take are oppenent to the ground and finish him while we are still standing, but things dont always go as planned so we work a lot of ground work, sticking to the basics on the ground and learning all of the variations of the basics gives you years worth of training right there hahaha so thats just more to add to your basket of tricks. As far as working it in with a regular stand up curriculum thats easy, first train them seperate until basics are understood for stand up and ground then blending the two together will make sense. My beginners will spend time working different stand up techniques locks chokes etc. and then we will break from that and go to the ground and work ground techniques, as they advance we learn to move from standing techniques to ground techniques and of course they are training takedowns/throws that is part of the stand up training. The hardest thing is not to feed to much information at once. Otherwise your going to get no where with it.

 

My opinion and it works for us

[Pacificshore]

We have a self defense set called ground techniques. However, it is like most have describes as a standing grappling done on the ground. All the attacks start from the stand-up, at which time it ends up on the ground by attacking joints for a take down of sorts. This could include sweeps to throws. After your on the ground, we finish up with strikes to the vital areas of the body.

 

The set does not include attacks where we are actually taken to the ground, so in a sense there is not any grappling done in the true meaning of the word. Do I see my ground skills as limited....yeah probably, but that's where I incorporate some of those skill from elsewhere whenever possible.