I am a big fan of classical Martial Arts. Through
out my long life of training I've been disappointed in
the cultural misconceptions over the practicality of
classical martial arts. I think the reason for this
is the need to learn everything right off the bat with
the idea that this may help me defend myself ie;
being a black belt, collecting forms, and so on.
the thing with classical martial arts is that it has
an awful lot to comprehend and offer as long as you
master the basics and become coordinated with
mobility between you and another person.
I grew up getting in more fights than I wanted
because I am disabled I was just plain odd there fore being a
sore thumb I got plenty of practice. I comprehended
from an early age that one or two good techniques can
go a long way in self defense. This brings to mind
stories of Bagua Chuan Masters who used to teach a
student a technique then instruct them to master it
in terms of the 8 different directional diagram and
practice it with focus for at least a thousand times.
Now a days when you go to some schools to much focus
is on getting to the next belt (because it makes
great party conversation), like going to a junk food
machine with Gong fu fighting moves you aren't fully able to
implement. This is why people of popular opinion
look at Kung fu and say "That don't work" lets try
and figure out why. When you compare western
boxing with more complex forms of martial
arts is that in boxing they spend
their full career using the same techniques over and
over giving one the advantage to learn and use
intuitively, Kung fu is the exact same, yet one can
spend many years jumping the gun and wasting their
time.
SOME GUIDLINES
EVADE THE SITUATION
1st if you have a chance do not engage in the
fight, we are humans not monkeys, we don't need to put the
one life we have to live on line for something as
malleable and intangible as pride. It is not the aim
of Kung Fu to ask you to be a Martyr for others
entertainment. Keep in mind law getting beat up is
sometimes not the only negative repercussion.
OFFENCE & DEFENSE
Blocking can leave you open and would only suggest doing
so when it is necessary, it is better to learn to
beat the adversary to the punch, if you understand the
pattern or parry and strike simultaneously as with the
Leopard style,, instead of blocking then striking,.
The tiger claw or palm strike is
more practical then your fists unless you've been
conditioning them for years you'll end up like every
other macho dim wit in the clinic with an injured
wrist and or hand. Also as far as punching goes,
I've been using Bruce Lee's fighting method
since I could read and the bottom 3
knuckles have always felt more stable, a wider
surface and most importantly in alignment with
my body weight when using my hips.
There is a lot of variations of parrying in
Kung Fu and it is a key maneuver in the Dragon style, and
Drunken styles were you swivel your body in defense. Yet when
I see people utilizing Kung Fu I see a lot of backing
up and hopping in and out, this only shows they have
not properly understood that many Kung Fu
styles are great for inside fighting.
I personally use a side stance, in more
modern mixed martial arts styles its preached against, but lets
look at lines of defense. The directions you are
moving are side to side up and down, not back and
forth so much (unless you are beginning or it is necessary)
Not only does it look bad in the ring, but if your
in a street fight you may not have any where to back
into, your training needs to reflect this. Once you
move out of range and back in all you are doing is
starting over, learn to stand your ground not play
chasy chasy.
INTEGRATION
This is mainly when learning forms, or learning
from media where you are not in an actual class. Most of
the time there will be some example of how to apply a
Technique, but try to take it a step beyond that,
Think of other ways you could use the maneuver alone what
the name of the maneuver might imply and so on.
In animal styles the melanistic
form or color of an animal (black tiger) usually means a deceptive
movement or golden dragon the “fare colored” more forceful, though it
is not always the case. Like stated above in comparison to boxing, you
can take a technique combine it defense and practice how
to box with that technique if that were all you had. You may find
that many styles are exploiting a lot of the same basic techniques
and with animal styles there is a short list of techniques per animal.
A master would have take the techniques out of order of the form and
integrate them into different situations.
THOUGHTFUL SHADOW BOXING
Shadow boxing is a very
effective form of training and
cardiovascular health. When shadow, boxing if it is
not applied lazily and mindlessly (if your goal is self defense)
you will gain many benefits. You could
replace all forms of aerobic programs if you spent 60
minutes of free style shadow boxing. One thing I do
is shadow box slowly for about 15 minutes then speed it
up. The reason I start off slowly for the fallowing reasons ;
- Effective warm up
- To a small extent you are utilizing Chi Kung in the same way Tai Chi does minus the actual self defense techniques. This is typically done with other styles as Tai Chi is not the sole practicing art that utilizes chi Kung as a way to augment its style.
- If you let your mind go and flow it will cause you imaginary opponent to execute unexpected strikes, you now have a chance to figure if you are about to do makes sense, or are you just throwing you strikes out at random.
- Slow practice insures you will do the right thing in practice, real time shadow boxing, and defense situations.
You are more likely to respond to danger with
competence and focus if you practice with competence
and focus.
