Sparring - how effective is it?

[George]

Hi Miika,

Welcome to our forum.

As i said he is fighting with Xingyi at his level. Or are you telling me about my understanding of my art? That is very arrogant, have you trained Xingyi, with whom?

I was talking about the person in the video. I only have your words right now to form any opinion about you.

As for practicing Xingyi, looking at that poem, I've been practicing all those principles throughout my training, so I feel qualified to have an opinion.

? I don't really understand where you came up with this? I never tought about it in a sense of being prod of or ashamed.. It's martial arts, fighting, that's that.

In the context of "training 3 hours a day" it sounded a bit like it. But words are easy to misinterpret.

What I meant, is that getting your "face pounded" is a poor way to develop fighting skills. Full-on free sparring is a method to measure your progress, rather than a good training tool. Yes you can learn thing by sparring, but there are safer and more efficient ways.

Of course, at a higher level, sparring becomes more of a tool, but by that point you should be able to avoid getting hit even once.

Also, to me a Martial Art is about much more than just fighting, but that is a topic in itself.

"Waist moves like a snake, while the feet are firm" Here is the way of moving in Baji put in a very nice way , alive movement with a firm firm root. There is actually a clip of my teacher where he is teaching an exercise from the basic 8 techniques of Baji that trains this. Here he is teaching at a Baji convetion in Belgium, the exercise is exactly at 0:37, very briefly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdX1cPdHikM

This video actually shows the contrast between stances and no stances quite well, when you compare how your teacher moves and how the students (especially the ones towards the end) do.

In my opinion, this video counters a lot of what you said before, because as from what I can see, your teacher always moves in stances (mainly 6/4 and forward / reverse false leg - they are all traditional stances).

"Will and intention originate from the waist" This is what i have been working on lately, everything starts from downstairs, even the smallest of movement. very nice things put into one poem, a good thing to come back to now and then.

Tell me something (if it is permitted for you to share such information), what is the internal component of your training?

What does "internal art" mean to you?


Best wishes,

[Jamie Robson]

Dear Miika,

I am very impressed with your reply, you kept calm and answered my questions clearly.

Of course, I do not wish to discredit your instructor.
However, it certainly is possible to flow with a 'push', even with the one shown in your video.

I enjoyed sparring with one of our Tai Chi Chuan instructors last week, and after that experience, I can confirm the above statement.

Best Wishes,

Jamie

[AndrewBill]

Sparring

Hello everyone!

I want to share my opinions about sparring and my experiences with you.

When I was doing Karate I attended to several tournaments. Noone of my opponents, me either, could hold our stances during the fights excepting our guard stance which we use sometimes to change directions by bouncing up and down.

First of all something about my experiences with stances.

After a couple of years, nothing changed, I believed that Boxing would be much better for me because then I don't have to train any difficult stances. There I lost my motivation continuing Karate. I was training so hard to get those stances right but in a fight I always lost it. I stopped.

Few years later, giving Martial Arts another chance to convince me of their use (which is much brighter then I thought) I found myself in the class of Sifu Andrew Barnett. I experienced Chi for the first time. And then there were something he said to his students that motivated me to learn some stances again. It's the way how you should be when you're in a stance.


Now few words to "sparring"

Since last summer there is a gathering of different Martial Artists in Zürich, Switzerland. It began when I was training Eskrima with some friends outside. Many people were curious and wanted also to test us friendly. I always represented Eskrima instead of Shaolin Kung Fu.

Eskrima against Muay Thai, Thaiboxing, Boxing, Kickboxing, Wing Tsun Kung Fu, other Kung Fu styles, Streetfighting, JKD, Kyusho aiki jutsu and so on.

Sometimes I "won" and sometimes I "lost". We're all having fun and we began to train each other and to get our weaknesses cleaned more and more.

Then once, a couple of months ago, it happened accidentally that I was using some stances during the fight. I was irritated the first time because it didn't really match with my Eskrima getting that low. The combinations were so unfamiliar.

But I think thats the reason of sparring for me. Looking forward to the time when I'm able to move in stances perfectly while sparring, also with other Martial Arts. I won't force it because it will just happen. Also I believe that when my Shaolin Kung Fu awakes, my Eskrima will fall asleep or maybe vanish. I don't know yet, I just keep on training.

I spar because I want to know how easy and relaxed and also naturally I move and fight in Kung Fu stances without forcing it.
That's the reason why sometimes I cannot just spar one style of Martial Arts against another Martial Artist of another style of fighting. Because then I have to concentrate on not doing any Kung Fu moves if I have to fight with Eskrima.

Sparring is my guarantee for a progress in my Shaolin Kung Fu training.

Sparring is in that kind effective that you learn more about you and your opponent. You grow... that is important. You don't have to be better than your opponent/friend yet but always try to get better than you are before.

Regards
Andrew-Bill

[KungFuMän]

Since you mentioned taking part in sparring competitions, did you film them? If so, do you have any video footage you could post?

Actually there was one competition this summer that i took part in and it was filmed. It was organised for traditional styles, we had tang lang people, choy lee fut and me . Full contact, MMA gloves, open head protection, punches, kicks, knees and throws/takedowns allowed but no elbows (which is my specialty, but what can you do ). Was the first time i competed with MMA gloves full contact with head contact, so it was mostly about working with the nervousness this time, will do it again next year! They haven't posted the videos yet, still waiting...

What I meant, is that getting your "face pounded" is a poor way to develop fighting skills. Full-on free sparring is a method to measure your progress, rather than a good training tool. Yes you can learn thing by sparring, but there are safer and more efficient ways.

There are different levels to "free sparring" training but that is another topic. I rarely do TOTALLY free sparring. If you do it right it's actually a very efficient way of training fighting, because you understand the framework of fighting quickly and get used to taking punches which is a very big part of using Baji. You can't fight with Baji if you are afraid of punches and can't move in while your opponent is punching and attacking. But it's not a nice way of training, it hurts .

This video actually shows the contrast between stances and no stances quite well, when you compare how your teacher moves and how the students (especially the ones towards the end) do.

In my opinion, this video counters a lot of what you said before, because as from what I can see, your teacher always moves in stances (mainly 6/4 and forward / reverse false leg - they are all traditional stances).

Well what you see in my teacher is the result of our training. And students are the ones on the path, of course it's not going to look the same. If you look through the whole clip you can see pretty well the alive movement of Baji in fighting shown by my teacher. I stand by everything i have said, this is our method of practice, there are different stages of practice.

[KungFuMän]

Of course, I do not wish to discredit your instructor.
However, it certainly is possible to flow with a 'push', even with the one shown in your video.

Well yeah, normally yes, pretty easy to absorb it you are right. But it gets harder with higher level people and some one like Wei Shuren you won't find around every corner. So no need to really worry about having to face that kind of internal power

Tell me something (if it is permitted for you to share such information), what is the internal component of your training?

What does "internal art" mean to you?

I don't really like to talk about these things with words, it's so hard to describe this stuff and people get misunderstandings always. Besides i think that this "internal" has to be present in everything you do, it's nothing seperate. External without internal is empty movement, internal without external is just in your imagination . But let's just say that right now i'm working on Heng, the 8 directions power, doing alot of standing to find Heng and trying to keep Heng in my movement. Got a pretty good feeling in my upper body right now but the legs need work while moving to keep the Heng. Also doing some partner work with a kinda freestyle "dirty" push hands (dirty because we use some elbows, knees and punches also) to keep Heng under some pressure. This is what i'm doing right now, i'm also a little familiar with small circulation and different internal movement training, but that is not my focus of training right now.

As for practicing Xingyi, looking at that poem, I've been practicing all those principles throughout my training, so I feel qualified to have an opinion

? But that poem is about Baji, Xingyi has it's own poems. Besides those are usually pretty general, not really going to deep stuff that REALLY makes Baji, nothing you could really base any kind of opinion on.

[mping]

...
I don't really like to talk about these things with words, it's so hard to describe this stuff and people get misunderstandings always. Besides i think that this "internal" has to be present in everything you do, it's nothing seperate. External without internal is empty movement, internal without external is just in your imagination

Out of curiosity, I'd like to share this quote that I found on the site of the pathgate institute (here's the link to the quote):

On the subject of developing true martial art skill, Grandmaster Wang Xiang Zhai, the founder of Yi Quan had this advice to his disciples:

“A big movement is not as effective as a small movement, a small movement is not as effective as the appearance of no movement, it is the presence of movement within the appearance of no movement that is the real movement.”

Of course, I think that the quote refers to a very high level

On the subject of stances, I think it would be wise to define what is to 'use the stances to move'. For me, this is to apply specific stances and stance changes mostly found in the sequences or patterns that I learn in real situations. Of course this requires much practice. Sometimes I do very controlled sparring with some friends of mine, and there are specific situations when I have a clear advantage because of the correct stance, although one of them weights much more than I do and the other is much taller than me. There are other situations where I can see an opening, for example, but do not have the skill to apply the correct response (like doing a side step and punching diagonally). This is from my lack of practice

and the same time i'm fighting people from other styles and in competitions getting my face pounded at a regular basis trying to develop my fighting skills.

I think I understood what you were trying to say. My personal opinion is that every martial artist should be punched once in a while just to make sure they know what it feels like (just to make things clear, I'm being half sarcastic here; it's good to know by personal experience what a real punch can do to you [although there are other ways of knowing], but it's useless to get kicked and punched without no reason besides getting the feel of it).

It's very natural for some traditional schools to keep themselves closed and do not have contact with 'real' combat situations. There's a very famous video on youtube about a Kiai master trying to apply its techniques onto a MMA fighter. The Kiai master could defeat his students without touching them, but was very easily defeated by the MMA fighter. I think that this kind of situations happens very often. On the other hand, it's equally easy to develop bad habits and skip over the fundamentals if you focus too much on fighting alone. The key here is progressive training.

My goals for Kung Fu sparring are similar to those of Andrew-Bill's:

• To be able to use real kung fu stances and patterns in sparring/combat situations, no matter the opponent's style.
• To be relaxed when sparring, and have a clear focus.
• To be able to put my chi to good use, through my focus and my stances. I already had some nice experiences with this, like being able to spar without being tired, being able to block effectively, or being able to drive a powerfull push.

Of course, this requires alot of hard work and perseverance, but that's exactly one of the reasons that I like Shaolin Kung Fu so much: it is because when you practice, you are in fact improving yourself above all!

Happy practice everyone!

[Molly]

Hi Miika,

Welcome to our forum and thank you for posting those latest videos. As for the one of Wei Shuren pushing your teacher, George was correct in his earlier post that he is in a high 4/6 stance. Yes it does look as if he doesn't have much of a stance on. From my understanding of Yang style Taijiquan, beginners start their training in long, low stances. But as they progress and develop more qi and internal force, their stances become shorter and higher.

I know very little of Bajiquan. However, watching your teacher demonstrating in the other video is very consistent with what I know and he is indeed moving through his stances.

Of course, I certainly agree that sparring or fighting situations may change technique execution slightly depending upon circumstances. A common pattern in our school, 'single tiger emerges from cave' is usually done with a false-leg stance. Though I could alter it slightly if need be, using either a unicorn step or arrow stance as the situation dictated. But my stance would be executed just as I do it in solo training. Those stances taught to me by my sifu, those stances I use hour after hour in solo training, I use them all in sparring. Every time my stances are sloppy in sparring, I know because my partner won't let me try and pass it off as useful. I have to move in good stances while sparring or else I can't even get past his guard!

I've never met a kungfu stance that hasn't been useful both in solo and partner practice.

Best Wishes,
Molly

[joko]

A common pattern in our school, 'single tiger emerges from cave' is usually done with a false-leg stance. Though I could alter it slightly if need be, using either a unicorn step or arrow stance as the situation dictated. But my stance would be executed just as I do it in solo training.

An example of "Single Tiger" done not in False-Leg Stance can be seen in "Cross-Road at Four Gates" set.

Joko

[KungFuMän]

Thank you for your welcomes! I will try to add my name and a picture today to my profile, i'm not that familiar with the controls yet.

Good posts about sparring AndrewBill and mping! Of course i'm from a more "hardline" school of thinking and our attitude to sparring and fighting differs somewhat. But i understand other methods also, it's all good.

This video actually shows the contrast between stances and no stances quite well, when you compare how your teacher moves and how the students (especially the ones towards the end) do.

In my opinion, this video counters a lot of what you said before, because as from what I can see, your teacher always moves in stances (mainly 6/4 and forward / reverse false leg - they are all traditional stances).

A little more on this subject. This stance disscussion is starting to feel like beating a dead horse. But i feel like i have to explain a little more and maybe repeat something so that everybody understands what they are seeing in that clip of my teacher that i posted. In the clip you see exactly what i have been explaining, among other things. We take our ma bu, keep the principles in our body, break it down to make it alive, this is exactly what you see my teacher doing. Of course this is only a short clip of things from here and there and you can get the wrong idea from just watching without having actually trained this method. At the 1:59 mark you can see pretty well how you move with Baji in an alive situation (that is me he's hitting and throwing), i don't see a stance being held on to, i see alive but rooted movement. But i'm starting to understand that from your point of view there are stances being used, that's okay, but that is just not the way we practice it.

It's very natural for some traditional schools to keep themselves closed and do not have contact with 'real' combat situations. There's a very famous video on youtube about a Kiai master trying to apply its techniques onto a MMA fighter. The Kiai master could defeat his students without touching them, but was very easily defeated by the MMA fighter. I think that this kind of situations happens very often.

Yes! And i can find you several more of the same kind of clips where traditional arts are getting their ass handed to them because they lose everything when they get hit, but those clips make me sad . It is a normal human reaction that when you get hit hard the first times you freeze, panic or something in those lines, you can't handle it. So i think it's better to get hit for the first times at your own dojo by your training partner and not when it really counts. When you get experience and used to that your movement becomes more confident and you can really use your art in a stressfull situation.

Okay so now i see that someone thinks that just being hit is a training method, well yes and no. We use for hardening the body training where we hit each other in the upper body, start slowly and work your way up (like in hardening methods usually), getting used to that shock and learning to deal with it in an efficient way. Then we use different half-free sparring practices for example where your partner throws punches at you and you defend, both moving lively not just standing. This training is good for many things but in the beginning especially for getting used to being thrown punches at. Here protective gear is good to use, especially in the beginning, there is a danger of developing a fear to punches so you have to know what you are doing. This is a subject i could go on and on about, but i'll try and find some other topics to post at also .

[George]

I don't really like to talk about these things with words, it's so hard to describe this stuff and people get misunderstandings always.

It's pretty simple, actually. An internal art is one that focuses on cultivating and using your internal energy. (Without the quotation marks. )

I'll be honest: nothing that I have heard so far has convinced me that you are actually practicing an internal art, or that you ever know what it is. Which is why I asked you directly in the first place.

External without internal is empty movement

Yes.

internal without external is just in your imagination

No.

But that poem is about Baji, Xingyi has it's own poems. Besides those are usually pretty general, not really going to deep stuff that REALLY makes Baji, nothing you could really base any kind of opinion on.

So you think that poem is "pretty general"?

But, whatever. I have heard enough now to draw my own conclusions.

A little more on this subject. This stance disscussion is starting to feel like beating a dead horse. But i feel like i have to explain a little more and maybe repeat something so that everybody understands what they are seeing in that clip of my teacher that i posted. In the clip you see exactly what i have been explaining, among other things. We take our ma bu, keep the principles in our body, break it down to make it alive, this is exactly what you see my teacher doing. Of course this is only a short clip of things from here and there and you can get the wrong idea from just watching without having actually trained this method. At the 1:59 mark you can see pretty well how you move with Baji in an alive situation (that is me he's hitting and throwing), i don't see a stance being held on to, i see alive but rooted movement. But i'm starting to understand that from your point of view there are stances being used, that's okay, but that is just not the way we practice it.

Which is all a lot of flowery language just to say "moving in stances".

And just for the record, I have no problem with the video of your teacher. Your interpretation of it is a different matter, however. The video goes in line with my training and experience, whereas quite a few of your words do not.

Good luck in your practice.

[mping]

...
Okay so now i see that someone thinks that just being hit is a training method, well yes and no. We use for hardening the body training where we hit each other in the upper body, start slowly and work your way up (like in hardening methods usually), getting used to that shock and learning to deal with it in an efficient way. Then we use different half-free sparring practices for example where your partner throws punches at you and you defend, both moving lively not just standing. This training is good for many things but in the beginning especially for getting used to being thrown punches at. Here protective gear is good to use, especially in the beginning, there is a danger of developing a fear to punches so you have to know what you are doing. This is a subject i could go on and on about, but i'll try and find some other topics to post at also .

I can tell you by first hand experience that some of our brothers are indeed very strong (in regards to the 'hardening' skill) and they developed it using internal training such as Zhang Zhuang (static stance training). Even my sparring friends are starting to notice some aspects of my own training, although I'm pretty much a beginner's beginnner Of course, other methods such as external hardening also work, but internal training gives other benefits not available through external training.

As for the sparring discussion, check this video link:http://www.shaolin.org/video-clips/sparring-old01.html.
This is what I am talking about when I say 'moving in stances' .

[KungFuMän]

To George: I am going to restrain myself from answering your highly disrespectful and arrogant post because i'm not into internet fighting, sorry.
If you think you know about my art more than me okay, let's leave it that.

Of course, other methods such as external hardening also work, but internal training gives other benefits not available through external training.

Yeah this stuff starts out pretty clean and simple, external if you like, and then becomes more internal with training, more fine tuned .

[Daniel]

Dear Miika,

Please don´t take it as an offense but for someone with a high level on internal arts is easy to see just from other person´s description if the latter has some experience of intarnal things, and if so, which is level is.

Nothing more to add to waht George has already and correctly said.

Greetings,

[KungFuMän]

I find it very interesting that you can draw these conclusions when i really haven't talked about anything in-depth, just stuff from here and there. I have been taught internal stuff in a bit different way, with different kind of explanations and words than you, so i'm not surprised that we can't talk about these things on the same plane. But the arrogance that your method is somewhat better surprises me , it's all the same at the end, just different kinds of paths or explanations.

[Martin Do]

Hello everyone,

I have not had a long history of experience in martial arts. I did wing chun for about 12 months in total on and off then was blessed enough to have joined Shaolin Wahnam nearly two years ago.

On the topic of stances, from my own experience, when I practiced Wing Chun at my previous school, the only stance we used in training was like a false leg stance but with about 30-40% (I can't remember exactly) weight on the front leg and the rest on the back leg. We would shuffle forward, backward and sideways in this stance. I practiced my Wing Chun quite diligently and really enjoyed it. Although it was relatively easier to learn to fight in this stance because things was kept simple (similar to bouncing around in an upright stance I guess), the thing I had always felt though with using just this stance for some reason was that I would be very vulnerable to someone who was competant in kung fu with alot of competancy in a variety of stances and techniques. I don't know why I felt this way even though I had not sparred with anyone who was competent in traditional in kung fu stances and techniques at the time. I just felt that way.

Having been at Shaolin Wahnam for nearly two years and have been taught to use traditional kung fu patterns and stances. I get a taste of the bennefits of these stances.

By no means have I mastered it, but I have done enough for myself to be convinced how advantageous they would be once I have developed sufficient skill, experience and force when applying them. Even at my level at the moment, it is obvious to see at a physical level how stable (and beautiful it looks) when you are moving in traditional stances. For example, it is far easier to unbalance or throw someone in an upright position than someone in a horse stance. Furthermore, the traditional stances enables you to execute traditional paterns with great stability.

Most importantly though from my own experience, is that these stances allows you to efficiently direct internal force from your dantien through your arms to your hands. For example, when I practice a Black Tiger or Poisonous Snake Emerges from Pit in either Bow and Arrow, or Horse Stance or Unicorn Stance, I can feel quite obviously the energy through my arms. When I try it (as an experiment) in an upright position ie boxer stance I don't feel much. When I try it in an upright position and tense my arms I feel no internal force, just external force.

My point is why bother developing internal force through stances then have no intention of using the efficient delivery of your internal force through these stances in sparring. It doesn't make sense to me......unless you intend to use your internal force to enrich your daily life .

I am sure there is more good reasons to move in traditional stances in sparring which I have not personally experienced. However, I have tasted enough to motivate me to perservere in practicing the way we are being taught at Shaolin Wahnam.

Best wishes everyone and happy practicing.

Martin