Realistic Combat Applications of IP

[BruceP]

I can't really get into this discussion without talking about this drill first:

Chris Mckinley wrote:
Here's how it works: start by having your partner feed you various random attacks, only at about 1/3 of his regular speed. Respond to these attacks and nullify them as they come, but here's the catch.....you can never, at any time, move any faster than your partner is moving. At this speed, you may find that without foreknowledge of what he's going to do next, you are still struggling just a bit to keep up with him in providing just the exact right response with perfect timing. That's okay, this is just the starting point. Have your partner slow down to half that speed, then resume the drill. You should find that it is substantially easier to keep pace with him now. If you are still having even an ounce of trouble responding with both the perfect tactical choice and perfect timing, have him slow down even more, then try again.

At some point, and you may be both very surprised and perhaps very disappointed at just how ridiculously slow this actually is, you will be able to flow with anything your opponent throws at you, generating the perfect tactical response and doing so with perfect timing. Congratulations....this, folks, is your real functional speed in a fight. That's right. This right here...this slow as molasses in winter movement speed.....is the actual speed at which you can fight effectively

I can't say enough about the benefits of this kind of work so I won't even try. Suffice to say, it changes everything in terms of how impact, pressure and tactical development occurs. Whatever body-method or power source is being developed and/or utilized in ones fight training - whether it's the true, bonafide 'IP' or not - dedicated exploration of this drill can take them from responsive to pre-emptive/pro-active in a matter of weeks. I've only been at it for nearly 2 months of regular practice with added dimensions and extra twists, so it's still early days.

More to do with the topic as it is, the different levels of conflict might need to be sorted out and put in context first. Confrontational with principals standing apart exchanging words? Ambush? Sucker-punch? Abduction, restraint or other forcible contact? I guess it's all going to go hand-in-hand with good old, non-'IP' tactics and techniques as well. Sorry, Chris, just not clear on where it's going to stand alone and on its own in a real life setting.

[DeusTrismegistus]

That drill shooter is pretty much exactly how my teacher instructs us. We vary speed too but slow training is key.

Anyways Sprint was spot on in all his points IMO.

Anyways to the actual question, I am not sure how to talk about realistic combat applications of IP. IP is not a technique that can be used, it isn't even something you apply to the other person. It is something that you do while fighting. Punch, kick, throw, lock, block, parry, evade, yield, smash, uproot, etc. are all tactics that can be used with or without anything internal going on. Adding the internal makes everything more effective and the better you are the more effective it is. This is why I don't know how to discuss applying the internal, it is either there to some degree or it is not. How much is there is dependent on training and how well you can keep it under pressure.

[klonk]

I like what Sprint said too, but it falls short of a tactic. So does Shooter's 'speed' drill, which shows perfectly why I think the TJQ strategy is to bridge and follow first, ask questions later. At the least, you can slow the other bastard down a little. But a strategy isn't a tactic. You can tell when you have crossed from strategy to tactics because in tactics, somebody gets injured.

Now, if we are to bring things down to the level Joe Flatfoot can use and understand, we won't do it out of the Dao De Jing. I may have misunderstood the idea of the thread, but what I suggested is an unexpected knockout shot.

[Daniel]

Edited for brevity.

D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Wanderingdragon]

Realistic combat applications of internal power, yet no mention of hard and soft, the separation, circulation, and intergration within ones own body, feeling it in your opponents body through contact, and the facility it offers in initiating the actual force that is internal power. What is the stillness in fighting as fighting definitely does not happen in slow speed. I have heard some very basic ideas on the development of IP but I have heard nothing that sounds like it even approaches the reality of application. In striking what is the substantial force, the strike or the reverse? How is such force generated? What is the stillness in this force? I need the secrets, Chris? Doc? Any of our illustrious teachers, please, I need the secrets.

[klonk]

[Ralteria]

Here's a stab,

Very broad basic applications of Peng:

Rams' lines of defense

1. Avoiding Conflict
2. Physical Evasion
3. Peng Barrier

Learning to guard personal space to serve as an emergency buffer against incoming attacks. While best results will be gained over a long period of practice, one can demonstrate and show basic exercises in which strength is rooted in the lower part of the body and brought upwards with intent to develop a "peng" barrier with the arms (very basic, I know). This is pretty straight forward in linking with a person's natural reaction and with intercept exercises included, sets up a "no go" zone for perceived incoming attacks.

Once a structural and mental baseline has been established the "Peng barrier" can then serve to function in a manner that opens up options for more tactical freedom including peng in the whole body, yielding, redirecting, setup for counterattack, attacking with that basic energy, etc. . All of these things can be art specific as they are modified in feel and energy per art or can function on a simple baseline for someone to incorporate.

Simple and effective and can lead to a plethora of other things.

[middleway]

IMO All realistic application of IP or any other type of power in combatives should start with Mindset ... then skillset or Bodyskill. There has to be the fight in the dog first ... so to speak. The willingness to REALLY hit someone ... to really kill them if necessarily.

There are several training methods related to the ability to 'switch on' naturally and without conscious effort in the IMAs that i have not seen in other systems. This ability to go from one state to another is intertwinned with the entire practice of IMA's in my opinion. The switch time frame decreases the more your mind and body are developed as a unit.

Going from hunted to Hunter is by far and away the most important aspect of realistic application as far as i am concerned. You can have all the body skill in the world, but without the mental capacity/willingness to apply it, you will still be left powerless in the face of real violence.

One of the difficulties when training for realistic usage is that we have to throw away the idea of style boundaries or 'using X art'. This is not to say that the way you react move and apply your methods will not look like 'X Art'. The main idea is that you act appropriately ... not stylistically.

Reacting appropriately is closely related to the principle of change and working within the present moment without pre-planning. It is said in the military that 'no plan survives first contact', this is also abundantly clear for Self defense for those who have been involved.

Taking ba gua as an example, It is often said to be 'the art of change'. But what does this mean in terms of practical application?

I would say it is the practical realization of working within the moment and changing according to the developing factors that are presented.The most useful skill you can have or develop is to be able to 'change' in accordance with the moment, This means that you will take advantage of every available opportunity naturally without concious planning.

The IMA's have several mechanisms for achieving this IMO:

- Body mechanics geared towards returning/recycling an opponents force.
strike/push one part of the body expect another to send it back to you.
- Body methods geared towards taking the opponents balance on contact
A block is never just a block a check is never just a check
- Listening skills
The ability to recognize emerging and presented forces.
- Mental and Intent training
the ability to pierce like a spear or disappear like a ghost

Now in terms of physically advantageous methods in the IMAs I would say that there are a couple of things that stand out to me immediately, that are not as clearly found in other MAists i have crossed hands with.

1. Short Power.
By this i dont mean 1 inch punches that push someone back a few feet, i mean power, pretty much from touch, that will drop a person. I have not seen this in any other systems to the extent i have in IMA's. It allows your hand to be close but not perceived as a threat and then do real damage that will help you end the fight.
2. 'Peng'
Every good IMAist i have met has a quality of resistance and projection at all times. 1 inch into a punching movement it is just as difficult to move as anywhere else on the trajectory. I was at a BJJ class weds night and there were comments from several of the guys there how incredibly hard it was to take me off my feet or apply some of the methods. Similarly i now have a fairly good MMA fighter training with me and his couldn't get his head around why he was so unstable whenever we made contact (and i am not even very good!). This, almost indefinable attribute, is something that i have only felt from IMA people. When applying this in real time usage it can have dramatic effects on the opponent. Combining it with the ability to change and you have something really powerful and useful.

Both of these attributes take time to develop however.

There is an entire area of this subject i havnt covered of course which is in the pre fight where things often training in IMA's are useful (breath control, body tension recognisation, mental control etc)

Just a few ideas

Chris

[kreese]

Once in contact, and getting there is a whole 'nother problem, IP exerts a sticking force that can automatically penetrate to the weak link in your opponent's structure and cause him to lose his structural integrity and balance, and thus disrupt his ability to exert force on you.

The sticking force is not just in the arms, for instance, even if that is the point of contact. It has a whole-body effect that can move a foot, for instance, which will f-up your opponent's base, and maybe cause a split-second glitch in his system. And you better be ready to capitalize on that chance, it might be all you have to tip the scales in your favor.

Is that the kind of thing you had in mind, Chris? I feel this thread has a very narrow scope, or maybe I'm just interpreting it that way.

---

Shooter, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the 'mechanics' of disrupting intent, that is the process of intent turning into action, not so much how to do it. I figure when you understand your own intent and how it leads to action, you can start to recognize it in others, through lots of driling in the vein you outlined. Thanks in advance.

[everything]

Every good IMAist i have met has a quality of resistance and projection at all times. 1 inch into a punching movement it is just as difficult to move as anywhere else on the trajectory. I was at a BJJ class weds night and there were comments from several of the guys there how incredibly hard it was to take me off my feet or apply some of the methods.

this is great. i tried to do this in judo (not going lately, not doing any ma). of course the bigger people are hard to move period so if your classmates are your size or larger, even better.

[BruceP]

Really good posts so far, and a few of you have helped me sort out some of the particulars of application.

Just wanted to make clear, the drill I included in my last post is some of Mckinley's work that he shared in another thread. Fixed it to show that.

kreese, I'll try to detail some of the ideas regards neutralizing intent in a bit.

[Chris McKinley]

Thank you, gentlemen, for participating. Unfortunately, there seem to be some holdover bad habits from the main forum which are coloring our consideration of the topic for discussion. I will identify these so that the topic can get back on the rails, and I will do so without making negative attributions to the posters themselves in order to set an example of what critical debate can be without cowardly and adolescent ad hominem attacks thrown into the mix.

Beside the aforementioned ad hominem, the first issue is with the concept of secrets as Wanderingdragon brought it up. I find it unfortunate that we are even discussing things in those terms on this forum...in fact, on any forum for that matter. This particular forum was created ostensibly as a clearinghouse for the exchange of good quality information, not as an "Officers' Club" for RSF mucky mucks. As such, it should have absolutely nothing to do with either the maintaining of secrets, nor with applying them as some sort of acid test, rite of passage, etc. This latter attitude is precisely what would have doomed the initially proposed closed forum to being nothing more than a self-congratulating echo chamber. This forum exists to remove the barriers of secrecy between practitioners, not celebrate them. Otherwise, those with the knowledge could simply stay off the internet and keep their secrets to themselves. Put very bluntly, WD, if you know a secret to any of this mess that we do and you have not already shared it but are instead using it as some sort of test to judge whether others know anything about combat, that behavior runs against the whole point of both this thread and of the forum as a whole. If you've got secrets, put them out there. Otherwise, you're unavoidably being clandestine in exactly the same way that the originally suggested concept for this forum would have been that we all found so distasteful. No one here is claiming to know everything about everything...if any one of us has a piece of the puzzle that others might find useful, this thread....this forum....is for sharing it.

Next, let's try and keep the discussion to the application of IP in an actual combative situation. This doesn't have to be strictly limited to combative physical tactics, but let's face it....that's ultimately what we'd all be curious about and what this thread seeks to bring to light. We all know that there are lots of prerequisites and co-requisites for using this stuff successfully, but unfortunately, what typically happens when we start bringing all of that out for discussion is yet another enormous tangent from the topic itself and the one thing that elusively manages to never get discussed is exactly what was called for in the first place. It is for this reason that I kicked off the OP with the caveat that discussions of what IP even is or the mechanics/shen fa/etc. necessary to create it are to be kept for those threads that are already in place to discuss those very things specifically. I started this thread precisely because I knew it would be the one thing that would never have seen the light of day if the format for this forum had been created as a closed invitation-only discussion among that handful of people who subscribed to a very specific interpretation of what internal power is and how it is trained and manifested. Now that we have the freedom of this more open format, let's not waste it by tangenting off wildly from the so-called elephant in the room.

Is that the kind of thing you had in mind, Chris? I feel this thread has a very narrow scope, or maybe I'm just interpreting it that way.

Yes, kreese, that is precisely what I had in mind.....and yes, this thread is purposefully narrow in scope in order to improve the signal-to-noise on this specific topic. If we pre-filter all the tangential information, we might end up with a pretty good repository of specific information for folks a year or two from now to go searching through and save them some time.

[Chris McKinley]

As a separate mention, thank you, Shooter, for the kind words regarding the material I had posted previously in your thread on the main forum. I'm very glad you have found it so beneficial. Perhaps others might give it a whirl with their IP or whatever they happen to like.

[Wanderingdragon]

I hear what you are saying Chris, but the whole reason I mentioned secrets is kind of exactly what you are advising against, I wanted to give people the remembrance that this Is exactly the place not to hold back, no right or wrong only ideas on our studies and offering honest give and take. Maybe the thought of me saying I will be looking for the secrets, gave the idea of someone lurking in the background wight the intent of judgemental regard, not at all I am looking for what I don't know and to offer what I do, mea culpa, I took the wrong approach, but if you think you know and find another that offers a different bent it is not an attack, and if you know and someone seeks clarification, or verification, it is not to say you are wrong.
That said I still am slightly disappointed at the input from many that would offer on open forum, I would suspect that this is the place to expound on the true knowledge they hold. As the author of the thread I rather expected to see you sooner to steer it away from development and back to application. Again I am looking for what I don't know and expect a higher lever content here.

[Chris McKinley]

WD,

Maybe the thought of me saying I will be looking for the secrets, gave the idea of someone lurking in the background wight the intent of judgemental regard, not at all I am looking for what I don't know and to offer what I do, mea culpa, I took the wrong approach, but if you think you know and find another that offers a different bent it is not an attack, and if you know and someone seeks clarification, or verification, it is not to say you are wrong.

And a mea culpa from me in turn then, because that is precisely how I had interpreted your comments. I'm glad I'm wrong. Generally speaking, I prefer to share information myself, 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. Technically, that made it a secret, at least outside of those with whom I specifically employed it in training, and I was enjoined from discussing it publicly myself until just a few years ago. Though it represents a large part of my distilled career contribution to the martial arts and combat training, I chose to share at least that portion of it freely with my fellow readers here at RSF as an example of putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to the issue of secrecy.

My reticence in posting is attributable to my being accused by Doc Stier of beating a dead horse and of making this thread about myself, and my wishing to provide ample time and opportunity for other posters to weigh in in order to demonstrate the invalidity of that accusation. This thread is about gathering quality content from every source possible. The last thing I want it to be is "the Chris show", so to speak. Frankly, we've all already heard what I have to say on the matter a thousand times and even I'm tired of hearing myself speak. The only reason I started it is because nobody else had. It also reflects a bit of unbridled optimism. What if, someday or whenever, we actually were able to provide a useable working description, in objective terms, of the makings of IP, what it is and how to get it, in the other threads in this forum? Assuming it were something with which many of us weren't already well familiar, we would next be understandably curious to discuss how exactly this newly disseminated information might be put to work functionally in a real fight scenario. We would want to know how it might be used where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, to give us an edge in real self-defense instead of remaining just museum curiosity forever isolated to clinical demonstration contexts.