With the competition just days away now, training sessions have gotten a little lighter - in theory at least! Obviously we don’t want to be twisting knees, bruising ribs or concussing ourselves beforehand so the contact has lessened considerably. This has given us the chance to focus on our fitness and technique, rather than our aggression, for a couple of weeks. It also gives us space to see what we need to improve upon in the run up to the competition.
I’ve taken the opportunity to do a little more cardio and fitness work. Often the knowledge that I’ll need to spar hard afterwards has discouraged me from exhausting myself in fitness and conditioning sessions; but more recently I’ve made sure I include a session of either weights or cardio before my wing chun and san shou. This has also meant I’ve increased my weight by a few kgs, and it’s far more reassuring to be at the top of your weight category than the middle! Most of the kwoon’s numerous weekly fitness sessions includes light sparring with gloves at the end, so my hand skills have improved nicely.
From Sifu’s advice I’ve also upped my wall-bag training with the reasoning that a hard, ‘heavy’ punch needs to be worked on even more when using 4oz gloves. Since most of our opponents will be grapplers and wrestlers, this seems to make sense. To this end we’ve been discourage from using hand wraps underneath as a tight fist is vital to good punch in MMA-style gloves. I’ve also been working on my core strength, both to allow faster movement from the hips and waist, and hopefully to absorb any abdominal strikes I receive. I’m always working on my leg flexibility as, especially in the winter, it disappears pretty quickly if it’s not maintained.
Technically, it’s been good to have the chance to slow down and work the basic mechanics behind of my strikes and throws. My biggest weakness is and has always been my stance. When I’m distracted or complacent my stance rises and narrows and my posture goes – making me vulnerable moth to strikes and takedowns, not to mention harming my basics in wing chun.
Now that things have slowed down a little I’m taking my time to keep checking my stance and keep it low and stable and to make sure I’m not too ‘sideways’-on, leading too much with the front foot: a throwback to my old taekwondo days. It makes my jab faster and longer, but means that the follow-up off the back hand has further to travel. Making sure I can punch in an ambidextrous manner is very important and it also helps my defence if my stance is more even. I just hope I don’t revert to bad habits when I’m ‘on the spot’ and the adrenalin’s flowing.
The mats were down again for the first time in a while this week and Sifu gave us the opportunity to practice our basic throws in some depth. We practise the set-ups for each throw 10 times, taking down on the 10th attempt. 10 each side of the body for each of our throws equals a lot of good technical practice. As with the striking, the first thing to go wrong in the throw in the heat of battle is the setup footwork so it’s critical to drill, even when you think you know it.
True to form, I still managed to injure myself, even in a light session. I managed painful clash of knees during the warm-down sparring at the end of the session, and it still has me limping a week later. It’s always the way, however careful you are!
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
Friday 30 October 2009
Thursday 22 October 2009
Adaptation
San-shou, san-da, kuo-shu… It all gets a bit confusing sometimes! All these technical terms and labels denote slightly different playing styles and rule-sets, but they’re all basically derivations of the same thing: Chinese kickboxing, with takedowns on a raised platform.
Perhaps I shouldn’t dwell too much on the nuances between them – a punch is a punch; a kick is a kick; a throw is a throw. However, in the past year we’ve trained for two different styles of competition. We started off with ‘full-size’ 10-12oz boxing gloves making for a rather thai boxing-styled approach and a number of difficulties to overcome learning how to throw someone whilst wearing boxing gloves! In a couple of weeks time we’re entering a tournament where we wear 4oz MMA-style gloves, are allowed the use of knees and elbows and get to wear an all encompassing head/face protector that makes us look like a cross between Robocop and Hannibal Lecter… Food for thought.
Relevant to this week’s session is the rule that we are not allowed to place our knees or hands down whilst performing a throw or takedown in the forthcoming competition. This has meant we have had to remove or adapt many of the wrestling and ju-jitsu style techniques we were practising, including, double- and single-leg takedowns, kata-guruma, san-shou scissors takedowns etc.
To this end we were focusing in on one particular technique where we grab the arm, ‘clothesline’ the shoulders and neck and then tap away the heavy leg, dropping our opponent on their back. This technique has all sorts of derivations and changes should our opponent try to counter by switching his heavy leg away from the tap/sweep. Much of the lesson was spent, not on the technique itself, which is fairly straightforward and required less than a half hour to get a reasonable handle on, but on adapting it: what to do if it goes wrong or if the situation changes.
Training with the premise that our opponent will be skilled and intelligent and not just stand there while we inflict all manner of complicated moves on them is vital to training. Yes of course we need to learn the basics of a technique in order to become proficient at it, but then we also need to know how to change it and ‘make it work’ in unpredictable situations. We soon found out that performing the new takedown which had seemed so simple before became far more complex in a sparring environment. An obvious point perhaps, but always worth remembering.
At the end of training today, Sifu showed a few of us a new takedown. It was for use once we have taken our opponents back and, again, answered some of the issues of the new rule-set where a suplex or rear dump-tackle may result in us falling with our opponent and not receiving the points for the throw. It looked like it would never work, but when attempted was in fact very simple; flipping the opponent over backwards, whilst keeping a stable base yourself. With this in mind, I feel more confident facing the challenges of the new style of competition. The solution seems to lie in finding specific answers to specific situations, but also knowing how to be flexible and adapt to general situations - finding our own answers during the fight itself.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk/sanshou.html
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
Perhaps I shouldn’t dwell too much on the nuances between them – a punch is a punch; a kick is a kick; a throw is a throw. However, in the past year we’ve trained for two different styles of competition. We started off with ‘full-size’ 10-12oz boxing gloves making for a rather thai boxing-styled approach and a number of difficulties to overcome learning how to throw someone whilst wearing boxing gloves! In a couple of weeks time we’re entering a tournament where we wear 4oz MMA-style gloves, are allowed the use of knees and elbows and get to wear an all encompassing head/face protector that makes us look like a cross between Robocop and Hannibal Lecter… Food for thought.
Relevant to this week’s session is the rule that we are not allowed to place our knees or hands down whilst performing a throw or takedown in the forthcoming competition. This has meant we have had to remove or adapt many of the wrestling and ju-jitsu style techniques we were practising, including, double- and single-leg takedowns, kata-guruma, san-shou scissors takedowns etc.
To this end we were focusing in on one particular technique where we grab the arm, ‘clothesline’ the shoulders and neck and then tap away the heavy leg, dropping our opponent on their back. This technique has all sorts of derivations and changes should our opponent try to counter by switching his heavy leg away from the tap/sweep. Much of the lesson was spent, not on the technique itself, which is fairly straightforward and required less than a half hour to get a reasonable handle on, but on adapting it: what to do if it goes wrong or if the situation changes.
Training with the premise that our opponent will be skilled and intelligent and not just stand there while we inflict all manner of complicated moves on them is vital to training. Yes of course we need to learn the basics of a technique in order to become proficient at it, but then we also need to know how to change it and ‘make it work’ in unpredictable situations. We soon found out that performing the new takedown which had seemed so simple before became far more complex in a sparring environment. An obvious point perhaps, but always worth remembering.
At the end of training today, Sifu showed a few of us a new takedown. It was for use once we have taken our opponents back and, again, answered some of the issues of the new rule-set where a suplex or rear dump-tackle may result in us falling with our opponent and not receiving the points for the throw. It looked like it would never work, but when attempted was in fact very simple; flipping the opponent over backwards, whilst keeping a stable base yourself. With this in mind, I feel more confident facing the challenges of the new style of competition. The solution seems to lie in finding specific answers to specific situations, but also knowing how to be flexible and adapt to general situations - finding our own answers during the fight itself.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk/sanshou.html
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
Friday 16 October 2009
Ti, Da, Shuai, Na
This week we have been looking at the three fighting ranges and the transitions between them. As most of us are predominantly Wing Chun practitioners, we function best in the middle, hand-striking/boxing range. This leaves the challenge of how to close in through the range of an opponent’s kick whilst avoiding being grappled and thrown. Obviously we have kicking and grappling techniques of our own, and Sifu helps us train hard to incorporate techniques from judo, ju-jitsu, muay-thai and others into our repertoire, but we must also recognise how our strengths compare to those of other Martial Arts stylists.
With this in mind, after the usual warm up, we started a circular drill incorporating the 3 distances. With a marker in the middle we plotted 3 imaginary circles around the centre, each one wider than the last – resembling a giant bullseye!. We then moved constantly around each circle, employing techniques practical to that distance from the target: kicks when far away, punches at middle distance and knees, elbows, body-blows and grappling footwork for the closest. At the instruction from Sifu we would then transition from one circle to the next, making our attacks flow. A kick would close into a jab; a flurry of body-blows and elbows would expand out into a long-arm boxing combo and so on.
We went on from this to boxing drills, concentrating on weaving and slipping the punches thrown by our partners. This started with a ‘hands-down’ exercise where we weren’t allowed to use our hands to block or parry attacks, but had to rely on our ability to move our heads out of the way and our bodies out of range. Thankfully our partners (at least most of them) were obliging enough to throw slower jabs than usual! It was a definite relief to progress to the next stage where Sifu allowed us to actually put our arms in the way of people trying to hit us in the face and, just like removing training weights from your ankles or putting on lighter sparring gloves, we found our overall technique had improved by temporarily handicapping ourselves. Such exercises are useful to Wing Chun practitioners as, unlike western boxers, we keep our heads still during traditional training.
The session closed with the usual sparring. We didn’t have the mats down today so it was only kickboxing, with a little grappling ending before the throw. It’s always interesting to see how the technical focus of a session can change our fighting style in a short space of time. I found myself thinking about the different methods of moving from distance to distance – holding ground or giving ground; making space or closing it down – and what the response of my opponent would be to this. It’s always going to be difficult because everyone fights differently, even if they’re rooted in the same style. I would be picked off very quickly if I didn’t change according to whether I was being attacked by Toby’s quick punches, Pan’s surprise knee-strikes or Paul’s devastating low shin kicks
Being somewhat of a kicking enthusiast (and in the minority in a class of Wing Chun fighters!) I often find myself being closed down more than I feel comfortable. The best way around this is to recognise the kick as part of a distance transition: closing space down and punching my opponent as my kicking foot returns to the floor, or creating space with hand flurries and punishing that retreat with a kick. In the end, I always find the most difficult thing is not that I don’t move fast enough, but my mind does not recognise the distance change in time. I’m so focused on one technique that I forget to link it to the next one. Something to work on for next time.
With this in mind, after the usual warm up, we started a circular drill incorporating the 3 distances. With a marker in the middle we plotted 3 imaginary circles around the centre, each one wider than the last – resembling a giant bullseye!. We then moved constantly around each circle, employing techniques practical to that distance from the target: kicks when far away, punches at middle distance and knees, elbows, body-blows and grappling footwork for the closest. At the instruction from Sifu we would then transition from one circle to the next, making our attacks flow. A kick would close into a jab; a flurry of body-blows and elbows would expand out into a long-arm boxing combo and so on.
We went on from this to boxing drills, concentrating on weaving and slipping the punches thrown by our partners. This started with a ‘hands-down’ exercise where we weren’t allowed to use our hands to block or parry attacks, but had to rely on our ability to move our heads out of the way and our bodies out of range. Thankfully our partners (at least most of them) were obliging enough to throw slower jabs than usual! It was a definite relief to progress to the next stage where Sifu allowed us to actually put our arms in the way of people trying to hit us in the face and, just like removing training weights from your ankles or putting on lighter sparring gloves, we found our overall technique had improved by temporarily handicapping ourselves. Such exercises are useful to Wing Chun practitioners as, unlike western boxers, we keep our heads still during traditional training.
The session closed with the usual sparring. We didn’t have the mats down today so it was only kickboxing, with a little grappling ending before the throw. It’s always interesting to see how the technical focus of a session can change our fighting style in a short space of time. I found myself thinking about the different methods of moving from distance to distance – holding ground or giving ground; making space or closing it down – and what the response of my opponent would be to this. It’s always going to be difficult because everyone fights differently, even if they’re rooted in the same style. I would be picked off very quickly if I didn’t change according to whether I was being attacked by Toby’s quick punches, Pan’s surprise knee-strikes or Paul’s devastating low shin kicks
Being somewhat of a kicking enthusiast (and in the minority in a class of Wing Chun fighters!) I often find myself being closed down more than I feel comfortable. The best way around this is to recognise the kick as part of a distance transition: closing space down and punching my opponent as my kicking foot returns to the floor, or creating space with hand flurries and punishing that retreat with a kick. In the end, I always find the most difficult thing is not that I don’t move fast enough, but my mind does not recognise the distance change in time. I’m so focused on one technique that I forget to link it to the next one. Something to work on for next time.
Sunday 4 October 2009
I was on the bench again this week
As much as I’m getting fed up keep talking about my injuries, I was on the bench again this week, due to my over enthusiastic sparring last week (if only I was 10 years younger).
Don’t get me wrong it’s not like we completely batter each other every week (ok maybe sometimes!) its normally very controlled and we respect each other a lot.
Although the few of us who are entering the tournaments are very excited about the prospect of representing the London Wing Chun Academy, we all want to do well and consequently have upped the training somewhat and basically trying out San Shou Kickboxing moves on each other in combat situations, maybe sometimes a little too well, we’re quite a close knit group and bounce off each other quite well so it’s all good.
I’ve noticed people evolving as fighters and it’s good to see, without a doubt the students who practice at home will start to excel at the London Wing Chun Academy.
Sometimes it’s hard to find the time but it’s time to find it (if you know what I mean) to be at the level I need to be, just need to put the hours (and heal).
Everyone looked good this week and did 80% of the San Shou/Da class with smiles on their faces, that’s what I call good sportsmanship.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
Don’t get me wrong it’s not like we completely batter each other every week (ok maybe sometimes!) its normally very controlled and we respect each other a lot.
Although the few of us who are entering the tournaments are very excited about the prospect of representing the London Wing Chun Academy, we all want to do well and consequently have upped the training somewhat and basically trying out San Shou Kickboxing moves on each other in combat situations, maybe sometimes a little too well, we’re quite a close knit group and bounce off each other quite well so it’s all good.
I’ve noticed people evolving as fighters and it’s good to see, without a doubt the students who practice at home will start to excel at the London Wing Chun Academy.
Sometimes it’s hard to find the time but it’s time to find it (if you know what I mean) to be at the level I need to be, just need to put the hours (and heal).
Everyone looked good this week and did 80% of the San Shou/Da class with smiles on their faces, that’s what I call good sportsmanship.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
Friday 2 October 2009
San Shou/Da Kickboxing: Countering the Sprawl
We started this week practising to fall properly, it doesn’t sound like much but believe me, when you start to throw each other about you need to know how to break your fall or your going to get hurt.
From the squatting position we first fell back, hitting the floor with both hands just as your body hits the floor thus ‘breaking ‘ your fall.
We then went to the side, from the same squatting position stretching one leg out to the opposite side, falling and breaking it with the hand nearest the floor. We then enhanced on this by stretching the leg out but instead of falling, placing it on the floor and pushing the hips forward, whilst making an almost crab like shape with your body. I was unsure to the meaning of this exercise, then Sifu Mark enlightened us all by demonstrating a nice looking defence to combat being caught in a sprawl, using this movement. This predicament would usually occur when you shoot for the double leg and your opponent reads this and reacts with a sprawl.
Basically you then find yourself on your hands and knees with your opponents weight on your back and their arms wrapped around your waist, you then stretch your leg out to the opposite side, push your hips forward and arc your body out (pushing with the back of your head), you are then free to take your opponents back and strike at will.
I found this an impressive looking defence and yet another fine example of Sifu Marks ability to string together endless attacks and counter attacks and yet more options if those San Da moves don’t quite work out.
It is essential to have this ability rather than one fixed attack, because as we all know in real life things rarely go exactly as planned.
Unfortunately I aggravated an injury I picked up on Sunday's Kickboxing San Da session and bust my rib so I had to sit out the rest of the San Shou class.
In Wing Chun you react a lot by what you feel, Sifu Mark explained when you are in the clinch you also have to feel for weak areas to attack, you can pull your opponent one way when he resists, pull him back the other way, constantly searching for the moment they are off balance and vulnerable for the takedown.
Our Wing Chun students went on to spar, firstly, 1 person boxing the other wrestling (I feel its good to do this type of sparring so you are forced to learn other skills rather than becoming complacent with one type of style you are used too) then sparring with just kicks, some are more comfortable kicking than others but it is essential to have this skill to some degree if your fighting the San Shou way.
It was a good San Shou Kickboxing lesson but I’m gutted I’m injured again (must be getting old) I just cant wait to be fighting fit and back in the game, especially with two San Shou/Da tournaments on the horizon (gulp!), I’m a quick healer, just hope I’m quick enough.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
From the squatting position we first fell back, hitting the floor with both hands just as your body hits the floor thus ‘breaking ‘ your fall.
We then went to the side, from the same squatting position stretching one leg out to the opposite side, falling and breaking it with the hand nearest the floor. We then enhanced on this by stretching the leg out but instead of falling, placing it on the floor and pushing the hips forward, whilst making an almost crab like shape with your body. I was unsure to the meaning of this exercise, then Sifu Mark enlightened us all by demonstrating a nice looking defence to combat being caught in a sprawl, using this movement. This predicament would usually occur when you shoot for the double leg and your opponent reads this and reacts with a sprawl.
Basically you then find yourself on your hands and knees with your opponents weight on your back and their arms wrapped around your waist, you then stretch your leg out to the opposite side, push your hips forward and arc your body out (pushing with the back of your head), you are then free to take your opponents back and strike at will.
I found this an impressive looking defence and yet another fine example of Sifu Marks ability to string together endless attacks and counter attacks and yet more options if those San Da moves don’t quite work out.
It is essential to have this ability rather than one fixed attack, because as we all know in real life things rarely go exactly as planned.
Unfortunately I aggravated an injury I picked up on Sunday's Kickboxing San Da session and bust my rib so I had to sit out the rest of the San Shou class.
In Wing Chun you react a lot by what you feel, Sifu Mark explained when you are in the clinch you also have to feel for weak areas to attack, you can pull your opponent one way when he resists, pull him back the other way, constantly searching for the moment they are off balance and vulnerable for the takedown.
Our Wing Chun students went on to spar, firstly, 1 person boxing the other wrestling (I feel its good to do this type of sparring so you are forced to learn other skills rather than becoming complacent with one type of style you are used too) then sparring with just kicks, some are more comfortable kicking than others but it is essential to have this skill to some degree if your fighting the San Shou way.
It was a good San Shou Kickboxing lesson but I’m gutted I’m injured again (must be getting old) I just cant wait to be fighting fit and back in the game, especially with two San Shou/Da tournaments on the horizon (gulp!), I’m a quick healer, just hope I’m quick enough.
http://www.londonwingchun.co.uk
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