the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

In this thread, I'd like to focus very specifically on the topic of the application of IP (whatever that is ) in realistic combat situations. No, I don't mean san ti standoffs that become pattycake fights as are so commonly shown as "applications" in IMA vid clips. I also don't mean situations that end with the defender simply giving the attacker a big push. For perspective, I'm talking about the kind of situations that I could discuss without caveats and asterisks to my military, LEO special teams, beat cop, forensics and counter-terrorism specialist friends without having to apologize for the silliness of the depicted tactic. Sorry to be so undiplomatic about it guys, but that's the level of realism I'm after in this discussion. Frankly, if it can't be used realistically under those requirements, it's not realistic enough to bother with anyway.

Note: the applications don't have to be tactically extreme (although they sometimes will be), they just have to be realistic to the context of a real assault. If the assault involves a single unarmed attacker not intent on killing or seriously injuring anyone, perhaps a purely defensive tactic might actually be realistic. Of course, that particular context itself is very nearly unrealistic anyway. It need not be nasty and it need not be personal, but I'll be perfectly willing to call anyone on an unrealistic suggestion, so let's keep the contexts as real as the tactics, shall we?

With that in place, how then is this IP stuff (definitions and mechanics already discussed in other threads) actually used to defend somebody....you know, the whole point of martial arts skills in the first place?

Thanks, Tom. That's exactly the sort of discussion I would most want to see. It would represent the very best of what would be possible with a dedicated IP discussion. With the initially suggested format, I don't believe that such a discussion could ever meaningfully develop. With the more open (but still dedicated) structure we have now, this might actually have a chance. I'm very much looking forward to it.

I've been concentrating lately on the uses of the hammer fist. I find that with just-right tensioning and relaxation in the kua and waist, this blow can be delivered on a diagonally rising line. This would be difficult to do with power if one were doing it merely by the light of nature, rather than trained skill. As it is, it packs a bit of a thump, verified on the heavy bag. Trying to do the same thing without IMA connections would require straining and windup, and would telegraph so badly that the Western Union boy would be old before he got there.

The value of being able to do this is in delivering an unexpected attack, targets including the liver and the side of the jaw. I think the value of IMA is being able to do some things the other fellow wouldn't have thought you could do. By using out of the ordinary muscle recruitment and ideas of movement, IMA has the advantage of surprise.

Doc Stier wrote:Chris:

Unless and until you post videos or still photos of yourself demonstrating or illustrating your points, this thread looks like just another rerun of your often repeated comments on numerous other threads.

If you lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink, there eventually comes a point where you are only beating a dead horse.

Doc, please don't make sarcastic comments that are really personal attacks in here. That is not appropriate. Keep your posts on topic, or don't post here.

Toilet must be broke, or some damn thing.

Anyway, neutralizing the other's intent is something I've had experience with as both intervener and defender. Timing is everything.

May not be direct, physical 'IP' per se, but then again, it often is.

Tom wrote:Words do just fine where words are the medium of exchange.

Perhaps that's true in some instances. However, every previous discussion of Internal Power here has stumbled over greatly divergent opinions of what IP even is, based upon a wide variety of differing personal experiences and interpretations of same.

So where exactly is the common ground necessary to discuss practical applications of something that very few agree on from the start?

Plenty of folks get it well enough to know what the others are talking about

Here's what I've experienced. I can only talk of skilled force or IP from an Yiquan perspective. One of the things that we do in Yiquan ( a lot) is standing practice or zhan zhuang. Unlike what Ken Fish says this is an active process in which different muscle complexes are engaged and then disengaged. It's not like you are doing nothing, and the mind is very active. But one of the crucial aspects is that the body is still, even though there's a lot of micro-movement going on. And we do this for hours.

This stillness translates into every day perception. All that time spent (ostensibly) motionless reveals a world full of motion. You can see it in the way people walk, bobbing up and down; moving from one state of precarious imbalance to another step by step.

But in a combat context your stillness really comes into its own. It's like the opposite of reportage where film footage is filmed on the go – lots of camera movement and it's hard to tell what's going on. Being trained in stillness (which in reality is a side effect) allows you to see much more acutely and register faster (in your brain) any movement.

So in the context of an assault you can see your opponent move, or his intention to move – just by a shift in balance – long before his actual attack takes place. Now I've seen this from a pre and post yiquan aspect. My previous training allowed me to see, from continual practice, tells or indicators of what was about to occur next by way of an attack. But nothing like as clearly or as quickly as post yiquan.

So this is one aspect of internal training.

Second. Internal training in my opinion is about getting the power of the whole body to a point in space. Often in martial arts contexts people will envisage an over hand right launched from the feet and powering on through to the point where the body is about to fall forwards as being the ultimate in a whole body strike. Weight on the rear leg moving to the front and powering it's way through. A big hit no doubt – as long as it lands. Unfortunately it is easily telegraphed and usually misses. But what if you could get that same power over a much shorter distance without overbalancing? This is the advantage IP brings to an altercation.

Are these tactics? No they are givens, if you really understand skilled force.

There is a final aspect to using IP in a fight, and that is speed. IP energizes all the body's muscles, such that movement is not about taking a muscle from a resting state and engaging it, rather it is taking an engaged/energized muscle and fully firing it. I'm not cognisant with the actual physiological processes involved with that, only that I know that a muscle just shy of firing will fire a lot faster than one that has to be energized first.

So you have speed, power and stillness that is on a scale that regular fighters/martial artists can barely conceive. As to tactics – why do I need them.

For this thread I only know there are secrets, secrets are only that which you don't already know, secrets are also that which you only think you know, I will be listening for the secrets.

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

Another secret, and then I'll stop, contact that doesn't control the elbow offer to many joints left to manipulate.

Shooter wrote:Plenty of folks get it well enough to know what the others are talking about

Shallow attempt to seem to be in the clique.

liokault: drop it. keep posts on topic.

Sprint wrote:Second. Internal training in my opinion is about getting the power of the whole body to a point in space. Often in martial arts contexts people will envisage an over hand right launched from the feet and powering on through to the point where the body is about to fall forwards as being the ultimate in a whole body strike. Weight on the rear leg moving to the front and powering it's way through. A big hit no doubt – as long as it lands. Unfortunately it is easily telegraphed and usually misses. But what if you could get that same power over a much shorter distance without overbalancing? This is the advantage IP brings to an altercation.

Yes, how please. I think you are a long way off what the OP was asking for, but this really needs to be expanded.

Sprint wrote:There is a final aspect to using IP in a fight, and that is speed. IP energizes all the body's muscles, such that movement is not about taking a muscle from a resting state and engaging it, rather it is taking an engaged/energized muscle and fully firing it. I'm not cognisant with the actual physiological processes involved with that, only that I know that a muscle just shy of firing will fire a lot faster than one that has to be energized first.
So you have speed, power and stillness that is on a scale that regular fighters/martial artists can barely conceive. As to tactics – why do I need them.

Again, this needs to be expanded. It reads like a IMA wish list rather than reality.

This "So you have speed, power and stillness that is on a scale that regular fighters/martial artists can barely conceive" should be easy to back up, but history tells us otherwise.

In Baguazhang there is a regular way to apply everything and usually just a slight variation on that for when you really want to hurt or maim someone.



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