Mike Brewer

OH MY GOD!

Red Rum, what's the deal? First, Kamon is the only place to go for Wing Chun because they're the only ones who are getting it right. Now, even if you go to Kamon, you might not be getting the good stuff because you're not in the right classes at Kamon? What the hell kind of school is Kamon, anyway? They teach crap to some people and good stuff to others, and I guess you need to know where the secret door is and how to do the secret handshake when you get there?

Grixti seems like someone who has the drive and desire to train for true self-protection. He seems to ask relevant and realistic questions. And now you're telling us that even though he's at your school and that he has actually trained with you personally, he's still not seeing the real Kamon?

Give us a break...

Red Rum

Which part dude?
The 'learn the art then train' comment?
In Kamon for example, you learn structures, shapes, body mechanics, energy, etc. Then we spar using good technique. In my experience, if you throw two people together to spar who haven't learnt good techniques, sparring is a mess.

Sparring, for me, should be about applying the techniques you HAVE LEARNT, and not to teach someone how to do a technique

What is the point of hittig a pad if you are hitting it incorrectly?

That is why I like an art that has both the namby pamby stuff (forms, drills etc) and the harder, more intensive stuff (sparring, padwork, conditioning etc)

Red Rum

My point (and if you reread my posts you might pick up on this) is that the Kamon I know and love trains intensive drills. I have listed the classes where this is done. I cannot speak for all the classes in Kamon as I cannot train everywhere!! So it would be unfair for me to say what some classes do if I have not been there!!

ALL Kamon classes should be training sparring and pad drills, and my point was that I didn't believe Grixti could be training at Kamon if he had not experienced this. I have asked Grixti numerous times which classes he trains at, and he has not answered either on her or by PM.

And I have never said that Kamon was the only ones gettng it right. All wing chun schools train differently. Some light, some hard. Kamon incorperates both the soft and the hard.

Ghost

Why cant you learn technique on a pad?

If anything you can do it better because you get to do it at different angles, with footwork or simply with a static padman. I cant see how learning a strike on a pad can be negative.

However, i was asking about the sparring, how is hard sparring not that relevant for the street, you said it wasnt ideal, though you did say it had relevance you said it was "okay"
how is it just ok? whats wrong with it in terms of preparing for a street fight or any fight?

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Ghost

The guy says hes trained with you though.

Grixti is needed, back in lad, tell us what its like.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Mike Brewer

It's a negative when the guy holding pads doesn't know how to teach with them.

Otherwise, it's brilliant! In fact, for many years (and even predominantly today) Mexican fighters in the boxing arena learn almost exclusively on pads. They're easier to carry around and cheaper than bags, more versatile, and more alive. Mexican boxers are widely considered to be some of the toughest, hardest fighting, hardest hitting boxers in the sport, and learning on pads works just fine for them.

Maybe it's not a problem with pads, but with Wing Chun instruction methods?

Red Rum

Oh I see...
What I meant was that the sparring we play with (and that I do at other martial arts), you are encouraged to keep your distance at range. The danger of this is that the avergae joe knows how to hit from these kind of ranges

If you shut the distance you take away your opponents leverage

Therefore hard sparring at range is not relevant for street confrontations.
(The last time you had a fight or argument, were you in kicking range of that person?)

Mike Brewer

Why the hell would you spar in ways that are not relevant? I just don't get a lot of what you're saying. I have never been anything but an advocate of making sparring model reality. If reality happens at close range, then you can bet your ass close range is what you'll be "encouraged" to work. If the opponent is no good at it, he has precisely two choices: Get better or lose. Are you saying that when you go to these other schools (and by your own words "destroy" and "decimate" those martial artists of other styles) you willingly throw your own system out the window and just do what they "encourage" you to do?

Ghost

Even in Muay Thai, the specialized close range art. Thats where MT excels is in close range standing. Id say something close to 80% of the technique is in close range.

What gym did you go to where they didnt let you spar hard close?

In fact, ive never been to a boxing gym that didnt allow you to spar close either. Have you actually trained at gyms or just with people from them?

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Red Rum

Mike Brewer -'Why the hell would you spar in ways that are not relevant? I just don't get a lot of what you're saying. I have never been anything but an advocate of making sparring model reality. If reality happens at close range, then you can bet your ass close range is what you'll be "encouraged" to work. If the opponent is no good at it, he has precisely two choices: Get better or lose. Are you saying that when you go to these other schools (and by your own words "destroy" and "decimate" those martial artists of other styles) you willingly throw your own system out the window and just do what they "encourage" you to do? '


Yes. I spar in the way that that particular system asks me too.
For example, I have just started karate. It would be easy to outbox them or come in with close quarter techniques, but they train in a certain way and I respect that

Yet they hit hard and do the ‘heavy sparring’ that Grixti is looking for. Doesn’t mean it works or is relevant.

The MT gym I went to did not want me to spar up close and kept breaking us up. The same happened in boxing. I have trained MT for a while and I know that they are devastating close range. Yet a lot of their sparring work comes at distance.

Ghost

Bizarre, change gym.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Grixti

OK........

I train in Richmond under Roy Fretwell, i thought you knew this Red Rum? I think he is a brilliant instructor. Hes probably the oldest guy in the class but still out performs every sinlge person there during the warmups. But my ideas or criticisms arent directed at him, im just trying to air my thoughts on how to improve the classes in general. It seems to me very strange that all these things that i am suggesting actually happen in other classes - like Roy's class is some kind of exception where we arent learning the "proper stuff".

I have already said that we do use pad work, but that it is very limited. Its mainly just for exersize purposes (walking up and down the room doing sets of 1-3-5-continuous chain punches). Sometimes uppercuts or 2 punch combinations tops.

Red Rum, i think you have this image in your head of two people bouncing around at range like amateur boxers attempting to spar each other. This is not what i am talking about!

It seems to me totally illogical that the moves we learn in Wing Chun cant be practiced on pads?

Lets take a combination that i have learned in class as an example:

Someone throws a right hook at you. Block that hook (Tan Sau) on the inside with your left hand, punch to the face with your right hand at the same time as the block, then use your left hand to extend past the neck and grab, elbow with your right etc..

I might not of explained that too well but you get the idea - its a Wing Chun combination that we might use in a fight.

Now couldnt we practice a similar combination on pads? Say i am holding a pad in each hand, i throw a hook with my right and put my left hand (padded) to my face anticipating the punch. Then all i have to do is leave that hand up there (maby reinforce it with the other hand) to anticipate the elbow. By doing this the defender (who will become the attacker) gets to practice the Wing Chun moves with power.

After we have a bit of a repertoire built up of these pad combinations we can start randomising them a bit. Have some basic solutions for a right hook, left hook, upper cuts, straights etc and practice defending against them by actually striking pads.

I cant see why this is such a hard concept to understand.

Theres a million videos on youtube of boxers in the ring hitting pads in a similar way as we have discussed. The padder uses some kind of triggers (verbal or visual) and the attacker lays out combinations. Surely we can do this with Wing Chun, what makes it so different that this is impossible?

Ok, closing the gap... Practice closing this gap with someone holding pads and then lay in a few elbows ON THE PADS and then take the pad guy to the floor and hit another pad?

Maybe we wouldnt even do this in a standard Kamon class, maybe they could have special classes for padwork like this - i have a friend who does Fujian White Crane Kung Fu who have a seperate day for pad work and sparring. Im sure we have the resources to do that.

It all comes down to what i said: "I want to be able to practice my Wing Chun in a situation that is most like a real fight (i have to say it again - with power under pressure)". The more we do this the better prepared we will be when it actually comes down to it in real life. Surely?!

Ghost

Grixti have a look at this mate, You can see here that the fighter sometimes can just throw shots and sometimes hes given cues. And he has to react to the padmans attacks. Bit of everything in this one. Same fighter you saw before, different video, this one is better.

YouTube Video

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Grixti

Ghost, i see what your saying. But the fact is i dont really want to be a competative fighter. Im not all for getting my face smashed in, well not just yet

I am keen to learn a martial art that i can stick at for a long time but my problem with the whole thing is the massive divide between contact sports like Boxing/Muay Thai and Martial arts. I dont think there has to be such a big gap. I just want to be able to fight well without getting concussed a hundred times in the ring. I want to be able to learn and train hitting hard and dealing with the pressure of unknown attacks but as i have more of a self-defence view rather than a competative fighter view i dont want to do the 12 rounds. By that i dont mean i wont work my arse off, i will. I just want to be able to combine the effectiveness of training like a boxer without the goal of a 12 round fight.

I think thats what this whole thing comes down to: Combining the effective training methods of Muay Thai and Boxing but in a street fighting scenario. Forget the 12 rounds and think more of the 60 or so seconds you have to defend yourself on the street.

Ghost

Mate, if you go to a thai boxing gym you dont have to be a fighter, not at all, they will never make you fight. You dont have to spar either. Usually when its time for sparring the class splits up between those that want to spar and those that dont, which is usually 80% dont.
You only spar when you want, as much as you want. No one makes you do anything.
Its very relaxed.

EDIT: im not telling you to go and do it, im just saying your thinking really seems to lean this way and im just making the reality of it clear for you, so you can make an informed choice.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related