Swimming Dragon's Combat Potential?

[baguaboy]

Baguaboy: Ah - for throwing, yes, it may be usable early on (I was thinking more of striking, in which case it is rather difficult to get the required power while "swimming"). Thanks for the video!

Apologies but the video was not really for the purpose of SD... so i am trying to point to bits of it...

That part from the video which you see throwing in is a combination of the horizontal and vertical (dragon swings tail : 1 of 3) - forget the over the head part for now... If you break it down and isolate the two you have very clear striking patterns and change of direction footwork. The horizontal is like brushing the surface of water (3:43 and 5:25) to make ripples... . When the two hands work as one the connection across the whole of the upper back and arms makes for really strong hook/clear/cross punching...

The vertical, is very quick and hard to see as its continuous transition, is good for the clinch and escape from it with integrated striking or low/high type striking or escape...

(4:10) is the example of the 'remove helmet' which is not shown as a 'dragon' in that video. Its great defense for the head and ribs when extracted...

[Daniel]

OK, I´ll very carefully step into the minefield. I hear wearing rubber boots protects you against playing pink mist dominoes, so I have put on some green ones.

I do Daoist energy work on a daily basis, and know the subject quite a bit in depth.

The Three Dantians (3DT´s, R2D2´s unknown brother), xia, zhong and shang, lower, middle and upper, are specific energetic centers with specific functions that nothing else in a human mimics. They then have secondary points sometimes linked to them but yet without the same function, such as for LDT, the Mingmen, and the MDT has the Tanzhong.

They 3DT´s have many functions and the field of their training and studies is simply huge. The only people I know of who have it to the full depth are daoist adepts, people who have it as part of their field of research for many decades. Then part of that information has been borrowed and well used in the IMA and in some internal/external systems.

The 3 have different functions. The LDT is really the only one that can store qi, specifically; the MDT and UDT can become more open and full and well functioning, and energy can move to and from them, but they can´t be storage spaces in exactly the same way as the LDT. The MDT and UDT can, but not in the same way. In advanced Daoist work, the zhongmai and zou and youmai are also used for these practices. But this information really isn´t necessary for martial uses.

LDT is the main thing used in MA. Some more hidden styles have partial knowledge of how to use MDT and UDT for martial power, sometimes with unpleasant and long-term side-effects unless the teacher and tradition actually knows how the stuff works in the long run. Getting power is easy. Living with it might not be. Take what you want, and pay for it.

Many who do MA fall in love with energy at the LDT-level and have problems to move past that and balance the rest of their being out. Not that you must, but Daoist practices would see it as a person being locked and holding on to something instead of eventually releasing it and working on the rest.

Then there are gates and points all through the body - qimen, as they are sometimes called - that are in and around joints. Energy can be moved here, and "stored" in a martial sense during training, but not stored permanently in the same way as in the LDT, say, or in the way the MDT and UDT-practices work in filling those centers out and working with them to make them smooth and linked and relaxed through various energy- and meditation-practices.

The gates can be made into instant "centers" in Bagua. They can be linked to the LDT at the same time but don´t have to be, (or in older systems, the zhongmai) but part of the wonder and skill and audacity of Bagua is the ability to instantenously and completely move "a center" anywhere, and move the practitioner around that or with that, without being locked in the LDT.

...anyway...*whistles to himself and looks around, worriedly*...that´s my two cents...bu-bye... ...surprise, mitraillage, evanissement...*runs*


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Chris McKinley]

Thank you, Daniel. That's more than most folks have been able to tell me about it in a very long time. I especially like: "The gates can be made into instant "centers" in Bagua. They can be linked to the LDT at the same time but don´t have to be...". That's exactly how this works, and is in fact the whole point of it, as I was taught.

RE: "...part of the wonder and skill and audacity of Bagua is the ability to instantenously and completely move "a center" anywhere, and move the practitioner around that or with that, without being locked in the LDT.". I agree. It is that very quality that is part of the training of Bagua that allowed me to develop a certain degree of being able to "hide" my center when playing push hands from other neijia practitioners, some of whom were frankly much better than I at push hands otherwise. When I tell students that in neijia arts, you should strive to be a ghost with a sledgehammer, this is definitely what I mean by the ghost part. I would also mention that Baguazhang, of the three sisters, seems to be unique in that regard. I've not heard anything of the like discussed in relation to Taijiquan or Xingyiquan. I suspect that this quality is part of why some have called Baguazhang a more sophisticated or deep system. Then again, it's said by some that LHBF is more sophisticated yet, though having not had the chance to train directly with Wai Lun Choi or even converse with him, I can only speculate if that assessment has anything to do with what we're discussing here.

I have never seen nor even heard of anyone in either Taiji or Xingyi having quite this same ability, especially for demonstrable martial functionality. Perhaps a few folks in the older Yang branches might have some of it, given that my teacher came from a smaller group that way. Perhaps some of the Shanxi Xingyi guys might have something similar as well. I just have no idea. My understanding from my teacher is that Gao style Bagua supposedly has it, but that Zhang style puts way more emphasis on it and development into it. I certainly haven't seen any of my fellow Yizong practitioners demonstrate anything explicitly labelled as such, though Marcus Brinkman would occasionally use some movement that most definitely exhibited tell-tale mechanics. Still, most of what he showed was very much representative of the classical mechanics of the Gao system. I would very much appreciate if some of Luo's Yizong branch students would chime in here and give us the scoop on how much if any of this material they train.

[Bhassler]

Can anyone give a concrete example relative to application of what happens when you move your dantien? It's esoteric enough that jargon is getting bandied about and those of us not in the same club have no way of knowing if folks are talking about the same things or not. Maybe it's too weird to describe online, but then again maybe it's worth a try.

[Doc Stier]

I have never seen nor even heard of anyone in either Taiji or Xingyi having quite this same ability, especially for demonstrable martial functionality. Perhaps a few folks in the older Yang branches might have some of it....Perhaps some of the Shanxi Xingyi guys might have something similar as well.

Quite so, Kimosabe! Your hunches are right on!

[Chris McKinley]

Thanks, Doc! Now I've got a new multi-year martial arts obsession to follow!


Brian,

RE: "Can anyone give a concrete example relative to application of what happens when you move your dantien?". I may be the guy doing the most application work with SD stuff, I don't know, but I can't move my dantien so have no idea of how being able to do so might influence application. With the material I do, the concept is that there are multiple dantiens, all of which are subservient and dependent on mother dantien (the LDT), and each of which can function as a 'center' from which martial movement can originate. It's boringly un-esoteric when shown/taught in person.

I'm only speaking for what I know, though. Others may or may not be referring to something different, or they may or may not be addressing esoteric aspects of the identical material. Limitations of text-only, I'm thinking.

[Bhassler]

Thanks Chris-- could you describe a little bit how initiating from an alternative dantien is used in application, and why that could be difficult for one's opponent to deal with?

From my perspective, connected movement can originate from anywhere and the point of origination shifts fluidly depending on the situation. I'm also working under the assumption that this is distinctly different from changing the fulcrum relative to points of contact with one's opponent.

By the way, I LOVE boringly un-esoteric stuff. That way I can apply all my hard-earned cognitive abilities to making it way more complicated than it should be...

[Chris McKinley]

The easiest way to experience the contextual need/opportunity for it is in rou shou or freer-form push hands, possibly even chi sao or hubud lubud. As your opponent gives you bridge pressure, you have a choice to either receive that pressure with connection all the way to mother dantien or you can move locally, right? Most guys who move locally either simply collapse all semblance of structure (*cough*...CMC....*cough, cough*) more or less randomly or move from a fairly rigid fixed point that by necessity limits the cumulative range of motion available to receive/evade/blend/escape from the incoming pressure.

As neijia guys, we're typically taught another method, i.e., establish a connection all the way to mother dantien and root and move the whole body as a single unit, hopefully dispersing and dissipating that incoming force throughout our entire structure and providing an eventual hard limit to how much we receive before our structure rebounds that force back into the transmitting limb. And this works just fine for almost any kind of context. However, there's a tradeoff to this method in that it is of necessity almost always structurally slower than moving locally. Now, this isn't generally a problem, especially if the practitioner has developed a keen listening skill, and the benefits of the much greater structural integrity of the whole-body method usually far outweigh any cost in total reaction speed.

There are, though, those circumstances where reaction speed is absolutely crucial to survival of the encounter, such as when a blade is in play at clinch range, and the increased reaction speed of local movement can mean the difference between life and death. There is also the factor of the requirement in the classical whole-body method of zhong ding to be preserved in order to maintain the proper connection to both mother dantien and to root. As I've talked about many times here on RSF, I've yet to meet the human being who can face up to a trained magic marker-wielding opponent and maintain both zhong ding and an unmarked belly simultaneously.

Further, there's another consideration that I very rarely see discussed here on the forum and that's that, if you start out with a connection from your own center/root to your bridge, then anytime you make a connection to the opponent's center (the prime directive of Bagua is "take the center from the first motion"), it's always a two-way communication. Meaning, your opponent now also has a connection to your center, and whoever is quickest in opportunizing on the situation is the one who will control it. I've found this axiom to be quite useful when dealing with Judoka, who like to make a connection to your center but who capitalize on it comparatively slowly compared to strikers. It leaves them open to counters if you're quick to react.

Moving locally avoids that two-way connection risk, but of course it also sacrifices much of your ability to move/control his center by using your own. Now we start getting into what's a little different between moving locally in a generic way and moving locally with the SD method of having a temporary center that is more local to the point of pressure. In the SD method, not with every movement but on occasion, it's possible to develop a connection not between your LDT center and the opponent's, but between a local center on your part and the LDT center on his. This is created by the use of motion that creates very rapid torque and/or centrifugal force in your own limbs, thereby establishing a force chain connection from whatever local center you are using to your own limb's point of contact with the opponent. If your movement is skillfully applied such that it then connects through, say, his bridge to his LDT center, you now have a connection to/control of your opponent's center without the risk of a connection to your own. This is both much different qualitatively and far more difficult to execute skillfully than simply moving locally in response to pressure in a more random, haphazard way that any untrained person can already do.

The kind of results one gets when using SD movements to make contact with an opponent often have the same characteristic hallmark in which the practitioner (you) felt like you were moving effortlessly through thin air, while the opponent (your training partner) often reports a very heavy and painful blow. I often equate this feeling to students as like using your limbs as a dead-shot hammer. You don't feel the recoil, but the target feels the strike. It's actually so common that I have to warn students every time we practice Swimming Dragon material not to get too carried away and enthusiastic because it is very easy to generate levels of force that are injurious and not to realize that you have injured your partner.

[marqs]

The kind of results one gets when using SD movements to make contact with an opponent often have the same characteristic hallmark in which the practitioner (you) felt like you were moving effortlessly through thin air, while the opponent (your training partner) often reports a very heavy and painful blow. I often equate this feeling to students as like using your limbs as a dead-shot hammer. You don't feel the recoil, but the target feels the strike. It's actually so common that I have to warn students every time we practice Swimming Dragon material not to get too carried away and enthusiastic because it is very easy to generate levels of force that are injurious and not to realize that you have injured your partner.

Interesting. Somehow i'd see that related to a lot of stuff done in Systema, especially in striking... Thanks for the explanation.

[Bhassler]

Thanks Chris-- that also touches on some ongoing questions I've had about knife work (I'll wait until I've had some meaningful training before broaching that subject, though). I have a number of questions about the technical aspects of it, but I think I'll play with it conceptually for a while and see what I can come up with on my own first. Good stuff.

[Chris McKinley]

Yeah, this isn't the first time people have noticed that similarity. I think that's part of why Systema and Scott Sonnon's stuff got accused about ten years ago of being just repackaged Bagua only without the structure. I believe they've managed to disprove that idea in the public perception, but one still has to marvel at the similarities sometimes. The issue is further confused by the fact that Sonnon apparently admits to having some Bagua in his training background, though I don't remember how much. It might be more productive to ask RobP directly about it, since he's our resident Systema teacher. I won't make any claims definitively either way, but there are definitely some striking similarities from what I've seen of certain Systema clips.

I don't know if they have a concept of moving individual centers, though Rob has talked about moving from the solar plexus rather than the mother dantien before. In the clips I've seen of Systema over the years, I still haven't really seen the reconnection back to mother dantien that is part of the proper use of Swimming Dragon stuff, so maybe they did develop their stuff completely apart from any Bagua influence. Maybe Rob will see this thread and chime in.

[marqs]

Chris,
What I've seen & felt, there's some similarities with Systema body-usage and IMA. The teachers in Finland learned a lot from atleast Ryabkov, Valentin Talanov and atleast to some extent Sergei Ozhereliev + others. Many of the teachers here have a Daito-Ryu background, so that might have had some influence also. Not sure how true my observations are to Systema in general.

Anyway, Systema the way I trained it, the "structure" wasn't so much about the solid structure/root but more about relaxed body, that feels whole. IMO structure was similar, in that it was connected but root was for the lack of a better word mobile. I think it's there momentarily when punching or pushing. I don't know how common this is.

One drill that had movement from these "smaller dantiens" was for example when the "uke" grabs your arm, tori tenses the arm (from elbow to hand?) so that it becomes like a handle/stick. Then rest of the body moves the handle. Tori might initiate the movement from his shoulder, chest, hip, elbow... But if body is "whole" (connected) then the dantien-area will be involved in the movement. By involved i don't mean it's used the same way as in taiji (to the extent that i understand it). But IMO it does participate in the movement. If the body position is such that LDT area can't participate, well, then I guess it doesn't . This I understood to be similar as what I read from your description, that the movement can be initiated from any "dan tien", but it can be connected to the LDT.

[Chris McKinley]

marqs.....Yeah, in over-simple terms, the best combative material in all of Baguazhang is that which goes back and forth seamlessly from the Swimming Dragon to the classical mechanics. The speed, maneuverability, adaptability and ghosty skills of SD are a great way to deal with unchoreographed initial engagement, whereupon you can instantly re-connect back to center/mother dantien for powering knockdown strikes, repelling grapples or powering throws/takedowns. If I had to sum up the essence of SD stuff, I'd say it's all about slinging ellipses in creative shapes.

Brian,

As you can imagine if you recall anything I've ever written about knife combat on this forum, the SD material makes for some ungodly scary knife tactics. It's at the heart of the knife material I've developed for Baguazhang over many years, and is the same stuff I teach to das uber-elite soldiery types on occasion.

[bailewen]

So much to potentially respond to. I didn't realize how much this thread had evolved in just a couple pages. I guess I'll have to pick and choose.

RE: "...part of the wonder and skill and audacity of Bagua is the ability to instantenously and completely move "a center" anywhere, and move the practitioner around that or with that, without being locked in the LDT.". I agree. It is that very quality that is part of the training of Bagua that allowed me to develop a certain degree of being able to "hide" my center when playing push hands from other neijia practitioners, some of whom were frankly much better than I at push hands otherwise. When I tell students that in neijia arts, you should strive to be a ghost with a sledgehammer, this is definitely what I mean by the ghost part. . .

I think once you start to really open up some of the possibilities of yielding and changing, "hiding your center" becomes fairly unimportant. You can be the ghost and, especially from a striking perspective, that is really cool and really dangerous but in terms of grappling, especially from a push hands perspective (as was alluded to in the comment I am quoting) I have no problem guiding a person right to my center. In theory, it's best rooted, most connected, most powerful point in my whole body. This idea of "hiding your center" IMHO, leads to some of the biggest push hands mistakes I see out there. I didn't realize how widespread it was until pushing hands with various people on my last trip home. Most of them weren't very good and got a lot of coaching from the sidelines from people with a little more experience and a lot of that coaching was about helping them find my center. People would always try real hard to get their hands on my waist or dan tian area because the idea was that I was really solid there and would not be able to yield well but tactically, it's an awesome place to be pushed.

Those really solid, rooted areas, lower abdomen, hips, thigh etc. can be turned into lever points. Rather than attempting to move my center, I prefer to pull them in more. Really anchor the person on that point of solidness and then turn. Anchor and turn. You and your partner become a see-saw. You are the bridge in the middle, they are the horizontal plank across the top.

From the way I understand Taijiquan, "hiding" is not really what you want to do. You want to give people whatever they want....and then some. So a push on your center should be responded to with a pull towards your center. Never flee from the engagement.


Just my point of view.

[Marilyn]

Chris wrote:

the best combative material in all of Baguazhang is that which goes back and forth seamlessly from the Swimming Dragon to the classical mechanics. The speed, maneuverability, adaptability and ghosty skills of SD are a great way to deal with unchoreographed initial engagement, whereupon you can instantly re-connect back to center/mother dantien for powering knockdown strikes, repelling grapples or powering throws/takedowns

I think this answers the original question. SD IS combat potential...but getting to SD cannot be short circuited or faked. It presupposes you have the correct foundation and understanding to get to the place you describe above. Words of wisdom "Make haste slowly".

I love your description " the essence of SD stuff, I'd say it's all about slinging ellipses in creative shapes."
I would add ~the essence of swimming dragon is about slinging ellipses in creative shapes with the control and finesse of a dragon.


Bailewen what do you do when they don't come after your center?