Realistic Combat Applications of IP

[DeusTrismegistus]

which is why I originally posted that drill that Shooter referenced. It is part of an approach that no one else was doing in exactly and precisely the same way as I developed it because it derived from what was at the time cutting-edge technology neurophysiology research that I myself initiated as well as from research by others that hadn't yet been publicly made available.

That is fascinating. As I already said my teacher's approach is basically the same thing as your drill but from what he has told me is that it is a traditional training method.

[BruceP]

kreese, the mechanics of intent and dealing with disrupting or neutralizing is dealing almost exclusively with touch and physical contact.

This is actually a pretty common thing even among those who don't explore or cultivate any kind of internal energetics as we IMA folks presume to do or actually do.

Pre-empting or even stuffing the attempt of another person to move before they move is very common in grappling arts like judo, shuai chiao, sambo etc. As in adjusting or advancing a grip, positioning a foot or even breaking off and having the other person freeze the signal before it's received and acted on by the body. Anyone who has done lots of grappling will know exactly what I'm talking about. That's more to do with ting, though, but it's definitely a part of what comprises internal method.

Neutralizing intent remotely is another thing altogether. It's a pretty big ball of hair that I'll try to get to when I have more time.

[Chris McKinley]

Deus,

There's a lot of wiggle room for "basically the same thing". I've heard that more times than I can count. Experience has told me it's not worth arguing about, not even usually in person. If you're happy with the method you're familiar with, that's great with me. Who knows? It might even be better than mine. The point is to share the information regardless, which is what I have tried to exemplify with it. We're in an age where empty-hand fighting secrets are simply obsolete by and large. No one's village is going to be overrun by hordes of marauders who have somehow gained the knowledge of our secret kung fu grip. For perspective, I don't care how good anyone's IP skills might be, the odds are they won't stand a snowball's chance against someone armed with a weapon who has the training and determination to use it. That's the truth that all of us face, whether it fits conveniently into our little martial arts fantasies or not. With that being true, we might as well have some fun and make some friends by sharing our cool new toys with fellow trainees.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Well my teacher doesn't use the same terminology as you do but in a nutshell we train free sparing at slow speed. Slow enough to be able to see and react to the situation in an effective manner. We then speed up slightly and try to maintain the same movement and focus as when going slow. There are a bunch of different things we alter to focus on specific skills as well. The crux of the method is slowing the training down to a speed that can be used and then increasing until you find the break point. Then you slow it back down and work on what broke first. We vary the speed, contact, contact points, individual techniques, etc. For example we do non-contact work where the goal is to move around your partners body and limbs. This allows you to focus on flow and continuous movement without freezing. The key is that often times the specific instructions are tailored to the student. There are skills that the class focuses on but within that the individual also is guided in how to practice for their specific needs. With new students they often do not know anything about what an effective response to a particular situation would be. When a situation arises naturally in the course of sparring the pair is stopped and the students are shown what type of response would be effective. Then they continue free sparing and when it arises again they practice that new pattern. There are no choreographed responses to specific circumstances only principles and guidelines of effective movement. With the advanced students they are expected to take more control of their own training and try to identify areas that need work and work on these themselves. Often people ask questions about how to go about working on a specific thing after class or before and it is up to them to follow through with the advice given.

Now to how this is applied. When you are use to seeing things in slow motion you learn to identify movement much faster in real time. Subtle tells become much more obvious. The difference is that these are not in the conscious awareness so much. So when something happens you are able to see it happening and react appropriately not from some standardized technique but by adapting to any situation as it arises in real time. The actual technique used could be something simple or complicated but with this training method the technique will be a response to the situation and one that is suited to the individual and not some kind of stylistic guideline.

[Wanderingdragon]

An application, tree or large pole pole falls you reach up to catch it in the palm of your hand, now you're propping it up with structure, breathing normal? Posture comfortable? No tense muscles? This is strength and power, to throw this object off you must spring form the ground up, force to the ground force to the object, structure gathers force by way of central spring exploding outward. Now see the same mechanism when throwing a finger jab that is stopped at the target, that finger jab becoming a palm strike by way of the same uninterrupted force. The stillness we train must be in our center to know how to control and issue force. To train this force lean against a wall and push yourself off by using your supporting foot and leg rather than the supporting arm.

[kreese]

Gotcha.

In my experience, working ting from the inside-out and the outside-in will probably speed up the development of ting. That's why my taiji teacher insists that solo form, qigong, and push hands all need to be practiced, and they all feed back into each other.

I think push hands tends to get the short shrift, as it could and should incorporate an infinite number of small sparring "games" that lead one to the ability to respond to any attack, not just pre-set patterns and one-punch responses. Perhaps when people tended to use their martial arts for defense and combat, there were more drills, probably held a little closer to the vest by the fighting families.

We can tackle remote intention stuffing another time, it's probably difficult to put into words

Thanks.

kreese, the mechanics of intent and dealing with disrupting or neutralizing is dealing almost exclusively with touch and physical contact.

This is actually a pretty common thing even among those who don't explore or cultivate any kind of internal energetics as we IMA folks presume to do or actually do.

Pre-empting or even stuffing the attempt of another person to move before they move is very common in grappling arts like judo, shuai chiao, sambo etc. As in adjusting or advancing a grip, positioning a foot or even breaking off and having the other person freeze the signal before it's received and acted on by the body. Anyone who has done lots of grappling will know exactly what I'm talking about. That's more to do with ting, though, but it's definitely a part of what comprises internal method.

Neutralizing intent remotely is another thing altogether. It's a pretty big ball of hair that I'll try to get to when I have more time.

[yeniseri]

Realistic combat application of IP are rarely taught to the extent that anything could be extrapolated for utility.
Last year, I attended a Protective Response Tactics (PRT) 1 day course and interestingly the manner of instruction allowed me to see that there is a common thread that can be seen in certain CMA systems. As example, using tuishou principle, when the opponent press, go with it but make the right 'lively', use momentum to bring opponent forward and/or spin. Simple enough but repetition is the key along with a non-cooperative partner (within context) who follows then switches off to see how opponent and receiver take the lesson. Lots of elbows properly used to advantage but the main purpose is not to engage but diffuse until the appropriate group gets there. Reasons for the seminar was EP/PSD Refresher.

Somehow, I find the term "IP" to be deficient in intent and practical application. It conveys nothing that can be measured for or against!
Outwardly, it appears 'without effort" while saying there is a basic thread through repetition and exposure that allows the 'effortless' to be mis-interpreted and labeled.

[Wanderingdragon]

Bagua: single palm change against wrist grab/ change under grabbing hand to take off, palm is step, after taking offend step to turn into your opponent offers the first mother palm I believe (not a Bagua guy), the hand used to tale off now hding the wrist will suck the opponent in because of the centrepedal force caused by the turning step, your grasping hand and supporting foot the central axis, allowing you to use your opponent as support fort all of your weight as you turn and strike your target transferring 100% of your weight onto the striking step. One step/palm goes from substantial to insubstantial while still affecting your opponents center, drawing him into the insubstantial step/palm as it becomes substantial in striking, properly executed this strike will deliver your chi to cause true internal damage.
Tai Chi: yielding against two hand palm/push to the chest/ at contact one yields to the oncoming force of the attacking push placing both hands in the crook of the assailants arms pushing down and back, nailing the opponent to the ground so to speak, giving him the feeling one gets stepping too hard unknowingly off of the last step, done with correct force your opponent will lose his center, you can easily injure his back and you will have the most opportune moment to strike his chest with full force.
These IMHO are some realistic and very basic applications of IP. I am not a Tai Chi guy or a Bagua guy but I dont expect to know how to apply my art without training it

[Chris McKinley]

WD,

Excellent contribution, thanks. Whatever one might think about this or that specific interpretation for application, those descriptions are very much the kind of thing I'd like to see here. I think sometimes on RSF, folks get a little gun-shy about posting that level of specifics because they rightly believe that many will dismiss it from the peanut gallery with "that's not real internal", "that's just good jujitsu", or "your shit is teh fake", etc., etc. without having the courtesy of providing constructive or even objective critique. I very much hope that that particular bad habit gets left at the door for this particular forum or else we're really just a bunch of long-timers behaving the very same way we complain about happening on the main forum that drove the creation of this new forum in the first place.

My hope is that all contributors would feel safe in posting their genuinely on-topic ideas here, knowing they could count on being treated with dignity, courtesy and respect. Thanks again for sharing that with us.

[kreese]

I should point out that Meeks website, the URL fails me at this moment, has some nice, straight forward demonstrations of bagua movements against grabs, which I think allows you to get the tactile feedback needed to know if you are just muscling it or applying your trained force in the right directions against the weak...angles, I suppose, of your opponents structure and force vectors.

I think once you get this down, you can start to see these weak angles before contact, and can enter or counter accordingly.

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If the orthodox CIMA share certain principles, a big one is not meeting force on force. From my own experiences doing tui shou and wrestling, most people (myself included) will tend to get stuck at "one", and the result is some very un-IMA looking work.

Here the philosophical aspects of IMA come into play. It is easy to say not to meet force with force, to be relaxed and able to change, but to actually accomplish this requires a total reformatting of your entire being from the inside out.

Neigong/Qigong work is not just adding techniques to the existing system, it changes the system, your OS if you will, like switching from DOS to Mac OS...but this process is gradual, subtle, and so the ji ben gong will not have the immediate satisfaction of installing a new application/techniques/movements.

Most people don't get to the deepest, ugliest parts of their inner being because you basically have to give up a lot of things that give you the illusion of strength and power, and you have to bring your weaknesses from your subconscious to your conscious mind, a process which the mind would never willingly accept.

Hence the training paradigms of the IMA, Yi, Qi, Xin, etc., are described in terms of emptiness, stillness, and other non-technical jargon, and it makes it hard to modernize the concepts underlying the training.

But real conflict will often affect us to the core; killing and/or injuring people and watching your comrades get killed and crippled may not leave physical scars, but it damages those intangible parts of us that tend not to be addressed by outside-in type training regimes.

IP could also be translated as inner power, something you can see and feel, but could never measure with equipment or other modern sensors.

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I'll look up the URL (if meeks doesn't see this) later and edit this post with links.

[kreese]

Let me balance out my off-topic post wit a simple example, a trick if you will:

Against a shove to the chest, you open the chest and roll the shoulders back. The hands/wrists make contact with the opponent's arms, letting them roll over your shoulders. BUT, you make contact as close to your own body as possible, which means you are affecting your opponent's arms in such a way as to maximize leverage. It's easier to affect your opponents arms at the terminus of the arm vs the root.

You have to be able to manipulate your torso in a way that most people can't without training, and also keep peng jin all the way to your own wrists, even though your arms are almost completely bent, your wrists near your own chest/shoulders, deflecting your opponents force near the point of contact on your body.

Later you may not need to use your arms at all, and can use your torso to do qin na, to strike, to block, etc. Your torso should be as pliable, sensitive, alive, and responsive as your hand. Then you can use every part of your body to defend and attack.

My teacher said you should be able to "bite" with every part of your body. This has to do with silk reeling/spirals as well, which is a trained movement paradigm.

You can train this by doing ji ben gong, no need for forms. But I've found that you have to hide the ji ben gong as warm ups, which most people don't take seriously, and thus their forms will tend to be missing the gong fu, which is frustrating if you're trying to teach gong fu.

That's why I don't teach anymore/at this time.

[jjy5016]

From Kuang Ping Yang taiji, defending two handed push to the chest. Takes decent timing to pull off. Yield to the push and immediately grab & push down both arms causing the attacker to go face down towards the ground. Before he can regain balance or hit the ground step up and knee him to the face or upper chest.

From the same two handed attack as soon as the palms touch my chest I lean forward. The force of his push and changing the angle of the contact area puts a lot of stress on his wrists causing pain that makes his legs go from under leaving him open for a number of counters to his head and / or neck. Also grabbing onto his elbows and pulling them towards me makes the pain worse and he goes down quicker.

Yiquan's basic answer to the two handed push attack is using the shi li Black Dragon Waves its Claws wherein the arms are held parallel to the ground with palms facing down. The elbows are pointing 45 degrees away from the body and the forearms are at 90 degrees from the upper arms so from the top it would look like one is holding the arms in a square formation and resting them on a table. As the push comes in the "square" is changed by pulling the elbow to the sides once initial contact is made with the forearms. The forearms stick to the point of contact rotating towards the opponent as the pulling of the elbows to the sides divides the incoming force from the arms. If one's skill at catching points is good and he has a strong frame then the opponent could be thrown away using the sticking and rotating on the contact points. One can then follow the attacker while he is off balance going backwards and use any number of follow up strikes.

If one doesn't have the skills for this then once the attacker's arms have been separated and he is off balance the the forearms can rotate back again and change into finger jabs or punches to the eyes, throat or any target in close proximity to the hands. The momentum of his force coming in and the division/pulling of the opponent's arms leave him in a very vulnerable position for a strike or throw because his center of gravity is lost.

I like applications against the old two handed push because about 90% of the fights I've been in and witnessed started with the two handed push attack. Even saw it happen a few months ago while practicing hsing yi "walking" in a park. Two women got into it while walking their dogs. One woman attacked the other one with a two handed push and then it got really fun to watch....

[Wanderingdragon]

When on your back, holding your opponents head on your chest with both arms wrapped around the nape, (i think classic grappling, but also just common sense), breathing naturally, with every exhale tighten your squeeze/hold like a boa constricted does it's pray, with proper strength and hold there's a possible choke/tap, for true survival find the proper angle and you can break a neck, breath work is essential here.

[bruce]

To be fair I will tell the first secret, speed is not in the muscle.

I think that is actually a deep idea.
Being in the correct relation at the correct time is important to having to position to apply a strong force.
In many self defense situations or in defending others things happen fast sometimes before you even know you are involved.
With what ever limited ip I have been able to understand In my own practice it seems what matters in creating the maximum amount of force and delivering that force to the target (but I don't think the force really starts until contact is made)

The tein gan has taught me a different kind of power than I had before. And this has opened up some ideas for defense in crowds. Absorbing and giving force are the two basic things you will need in let's say a riot where many people are fighting and attacking random people. Having the right tactics that will allow you to move distances fast, strike with great force,absorb strong fast attacks and to attack at the same time as the absorbing or redirection of their attack.

[Chris McKinley]

Nice point, bruce, especially about the dynamics of crowd situations. I'd extend your point a little to state that dealing with even individual violence in real situations in public is very much like that as well. Lack of foreknowledge, distance, 360 degree zoning, environmental obstacles including possibly numerous incidental personnel, moments of contact being abrupt rather than controlled....these are all things that happen in real situations with just one violent offender. It makes me shake my head to see so much exclusionary emphasis placed on drills emphasizing foreknowledge and starting from contact like push hands, while in most cases absolutely no training at all is given to more dynamic situations.