retraining your martial art for fighting.

[doug maverick]

this isnt a tma v mma thread...this is a thread about adjusting your martial art for fighting... how many of you do pad and bag work, that isnt just kickboxing? but actualy practicing the movements from your form? i practice xing yi chuan, and have so for the last 6 years..my sifu taught way different, he asked me did i want to learn xing yi to teach to fight or for health? i said to fight but i would like to learn it for health as well. so he started me off for the first two months doing nei gung, san ti and these basic xing yi exercises. then i learned the five fist, but he wouldnt let me move on to learn the next fist until i could accurately apply the one ive been working on...so it took me a while to really learn it... wasnt until i started doing heavy bag work at home actually using the techniques, pi chuan, beng chuan etc...that i started realizing how they can be applied in a real life situation.


once i learned all five fist, my sifu use to make me do alot of bag work using all the five fist but in combos like boxing, learning how to flow from one move to the next, he always told me that xing yi was relentless and the fighter didnt stop, you cant thing of what is the next move or application(he never taught me applications) you just have to react to the situation.


ok there is the back story...but the question is how many people train this way in kung fu? learning to actually use what you've been training all along for? ive totally eliminated forms from my training...i just do basics from different styles ive studied, like chain punching, and kicking from wing chun, the ten hands from hung ga, stepping movements from lung ying, and pole training from lung ying, and then i do the five fist, and some of the animals i know, then with my body all tired i do about 40 mins(with breaks) of bag and if i have a friend pad work. and some sparring.

whats your regimen? what do you train kung fu for?

[dirtyrat]

these days i get together with a couple a buddies. one of them is a taekwondo/hapkido practitioner but also had practice hung gar, and we practice at his place. we don't practice forms.

after a brief warm-up, we practice breakfalls.

then my friend has us do some taekwondo/kickboxing combo drills on the pads. we may do some light sparring.

next we practice locks that common to all our styles.

and finally we practice some self defense scenarios (we have rubber knives, clubs & gun). we all add our twist from our respective styles.

[David Jamieson]

I'm not of the mind that you have to retrain so much as you have to train to fight. How is this done? Simulated fighting aka sparring. Flow drills, fire and return drills, actually rounds.

gear up and use your stuff.

a word to the wise, you WILL sustain injuries the more you ramp up training and the more realistic and pressurized you take it.

It is good to mix it up with guys with different backgrounds.

You should at least once take it full blast to help you really understand wtf is going on in that dynamic.

But you don't have to change your training so much as take it into that aspect.

So get yourself another like minded individual and get to it.

[Dragonzbane76]

By spending time on all areas of fighting equally in a resistant environment.

[Iron_Eagle_76]

Originally Posted by Dragonzbane76

By spending time on all areas of fighting equally in a resistant environment.

This. There is no reason to make things more complicated than they are. The Kung Fu techniques you practice should be done on a heavy bag, on mitts, and on an opponent sparring. Your grappling and Shuai Jiao should be done on an opponent practicing technique than with freestyle grappling or randori.

If it seems too intricate, complicated, pretty, and ineffective, chances are, it is.

[David Jamieson]

Originally Posted by Iron_Eagle_76

This. There is no reason to make things more complicated than they are. The Kung Fu techniques you practice should be done on a heavy bag, on mitts, and on an opponent sparring. Your grappling and Shuai Jiao should be done on an opponent practicing technique than with freestyle grappling or randori.

If it seems too intricate, complicated, pretty, and ineffective, chances are, it is.

yes. low percentage stuff can be kept at. Any knife you choose to hone out of bluntness will be a good weapon.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Originally Posted by Iron_Eagle_76

This. There is no reason to make things more complicated than they are. The Kung Fu techniques you practice should be done on a heavy bag, on mitts, and on an opponent sparring. Your grappling and Shuai Jiao should be done on an opponent practicing technique than with freestyle grappling or randori.

If it seems too intricate, complicated, pretty, and ineffective, chances are, it is.

Take your common sense somewhere else, we're peddling crazy over here !!

[Iron_Eagle_76]

Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin

Take your common sense somewhere else, we're peddling crazy over here !!

LMAO, it's good to see not much has changed here!!

[Pork Chop]

Bounced around a bit, so I'll break it up.

Jow Ga:
We did a lot of pad & bag work in class anyway.
We spent a lot of time with push kicks (thrusting through the heel vs using the ball like muay thai), as well as sidekicks & round kicks.

We did a fair amount of partner work for throws & kick catches leading to throws.

I used to do a lot of gwa-sow-charp on the bag; I'll still break it out occasionally.
There are a couple of other jow ga combos I used to do as well:
gwa-pow-charp
double kup

Also in Jow Ga there are a few combos in the forms that are basically just flashy versions of basic stuff:
grab with lead, punch with rear
sidestep/angle, parry with lead, punch with rear

*I think Jow Ga actually switches the terminology, so I'm going with the more common terminology:
gwa = backfist - either falling, rising, or horizontal
sow = overhand/haymaker
charp = lead straight that you really sit on
pow = upper cut
kup = hook

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Mantis

When I did it, we only hit stuff on Saturdays. That was also our sparring day.
We did a lot of low round kick, mid round kicks, push kicks, side kicks.
Remember doing a lot of Ng-Lo-Choy (hook, grab, punch) and even a bit of overhands (thought it was fan che, but might've also been sow choy).
We did a lot of breakfalls at one point, which i continued at a shuai chiao school.

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Xingyi

I've done the 5 elements on the bags & with partners.
Didn't string them together as much as Maverick described.
We did a good amount of twisting push kick.
I used this stuff in sparring much later on in san shou.

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Taiji

When I trained we did a lot of form, a bit of partner work, and free-form push hands.
Later on, in san shou, we picked out a lot of the throws as counters to attacks - like the wave hands through clouds kick catch, snake creeps down fireman's carry, and some push kick scoops. Brush knee push can also break down to a simple lead parry - rear punch counter.
Still use a lot of it.

[Shaolin]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

what do you train kung fu for?

This

[SavvySavage]

Just as an aside:
A guy I know just graduated from the New York Police academy. He said thy they regularly sparred pretty full contact resulting in many minor injuries. The NYPD arguable have the toughest job as opposed to other cops. The fact that they make everyone spar(men against women, big vs small, two people are randomly picked) is telling in that they want their officers prepared for the real deal. Doing soft compliant technique work may be part of the equation but a small part(this is in reference to striking as grappling is more complicated IMO)
If the nypd thought form work best prepared you for working the streets they'd do that a lot instead of sparring.

Just saying.

In responses to the original thread I would add a lot conditioning deprecate from forms work. Stamina, speed, strength/power, etc. I've heard people say that conditioning should be done outside of class to save time for partner work. This assumes everyone works out outside of class. Students need to be directed in how to condition themselves properly and this can only be done by giving them exercise drills in class. Then they know what specifically to do and can eventually make up their own drills.

Even people that work out at the gym, only focusing on maximal strength, need direction as well.

[Drake]

We had so many injuries from Army combatives, that we started tracking them. A LOT of people were getting hurt.

I've had busted lips, bloodied noses, black eyes, bruises, hyperextended elbow, and a dude drop his knee into the side of mine on the mat.

I've walked away a few times looking like I've been mugged. But... I love the stuff...

[David Jamieson]

Originally Posted by Drake

We had so many injuries from Army combatives, that we started tracking them. A LOT of people were getting hurt.

I've had busted lips, bloodied noses, black eyes, bruises, hyperextended elbow, and a dude drop his knee into the side of mine on the mat.

I've walked away a few times looking like I've been mugged. But... I love the stuff...

In training or comp?

In training it's bordering on unacceptable.
In comp? Stop complaining, that's your goal to get there isn't it?

oh wait, you're not complaining....freak.

[Lee Chiang Po]

If you really want to test your stuff, start a fight club. Don't train with any of the members, and don't tell them what you do. Don't pick and choose who you fight, but draw lots to see who fights who. That will more represent the street fighting factors. He might be smaller or larger, stronger or weaker, taller or shorter, and he might have a martial skill or not. You then have to make your stuff work on him or not. Wear a mouth piece only and go at it. Rules of fight should only be you can not kill someone deliberately or break a bone deliberately. Other than that, go at it like your life depends on it. Anything short of that and I don't care how serious you are, you are not fighting. I used to go to the boys club and spar with the guys involved with the golden gloves. I got paid for it too. I would make it hard for him to hit me, and make him work so I couldn't hit him. We didn't try to end it with a knock out. That was not the purpose of sparring. It helped them with timing mostly. That is all sparring does. But in a real fight, you have to stop playing if you want to see what you really have.

[Yao Sing]

I don't recall ever sparring in any of the places I trained where fighters were selected by size or weight. You got who you got and that was it

We also did things like freestyle multiple attackers until you were down and could no longer fight back, class lines up and goes at you one at a time, class circles you and teacher nods to whoever to attack you (from any direction) whether you're done with current opponent or not. Also, for testing, matches weren't stopped for injuries for street applicability.

Although I did get stopped and hollered at for bleeding on my teacher's floor during one test when the big guy broke my nose.