Is this a real Kung Fu blockign technique?

[dbrillha]

The very first martial arts school I went to taught "Kung Fu".

For various reasons I now believe this school was pretty much made up

of stuff the instructor knew, and had seen in movies, and didn't

actually have much to do with Kung Fu. In retrospect (now that I have

studied a few other MAs) it seems like the instructor knew TKD pretty

well, and basically invented some forms, and modified TKD techniques to

look a bit more "Chinese". That's my theory anyways - I studied there

for a year or so, and it was a long time ago.

Anyways - one thing they did at this school was a type of blocking

that I haven't really seen anywhere else. One of the drills was called

"four corners". Basically the arms would be bent at the elbows, held in

front of the body, with one forearm parallel to the floor, and one

perpendicular. Standing in a horse stance or whatever, we would

practice blocking incoming punches by basically sort of pushing them

out of the way. The blocks were in sort of a motion similar to what a

windshield wiper makes (only turned on it's side for the arm parallel

to the floor). The blocks were done with a gentle "push".

Later on these blocks became very circular in sparring. The block

would end up making a complete circle. I actually was pretty surprised

to find that the harder someone was trying to kick or punch me, the

better the block would actually work - it would definately throw them

off balance. A lot of times it would end up that I would end up grabing

a kicking leg from the position I ended up in.

I actually think these blocks at this school were better than the

ridiculous blocks done in most Karate styles I have ever seen.

I think blocking in general is never as good as covering up and evading

as boxers do. I've never seen blocks that could handle combination

punches very well. I'm not entirely convinced that any of the TMA style

blocks really work all that well.

I'm curious if this was an actual Kung Fu technique of some sort, or

something totally made up. Anyone ever see anything like this?

[stonecrusher69]

sorry I replied to your post,and my accident I posted it as a new post (circular block)

[fenixsun]

i think its called chin ow and its either hung gar or lau gar. i think i know that block to what u described im only 13 so correct me if im wrong

[cheeks]

That is a real technique, we use it in Lau Gar as part of double punches.

also i have seen that block in karate as well, although they use it as a hard block, whereas at Lau Gar we do the relaxed pushing you described

[ovine king]

sounds like a modified, or even the same thing because i can't really picture what you are describing, of a type of four gates blocking. Basically, it is a method of training blocking of up/down/left/right using left and right arms in simple movments taking into account of the indoor and out door. This is done, in slightly different ways, in most chinese styles (at least all styles that I know a bit about has something like it). Each style does it differently because of stylistic and structural differences.