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.

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