how bagua can improve a fighter

[Jin Gang Dao Dui]

Last time I saw Luo Dexiu he told me a professional MMA fighter from Taipei asked him to work with him because he had lost his last two fights. He was looking for something different for his standup-standing grappling that could help him become a better fighter.

First I post two fights of the fighter called who is called Sung Ming Yen before he worked with Luo DeXIu
He fights out of a BJJ gym.

and


And now I post two fights after having worked with Luo on some ideas.

Luo said he only had like 2 months before the next fight to work with him.
short fight and most of it on the ground.

It's nice to see Luo Dexiu getting props after the fight.

and second fight which goes three rounds and is mainly standup


Luo indicated to me what he worked upon and so to me it is pretty clear how working with Luo made a difference for this fighter.
Main difference is a change in tactics and footwork.
He goes from linear movement to circular and curved actions. From being very aggresive and going forwards to stepping back, sideways and changing guard. He uses more counterpunching and incorporates throws (snake throw) that use his opponent's inertia against him.

It is not very often we get to analyze something like this so I hope you guys enjoy it
Any thoughts are welcome.

[yeniseri]

Bagua, by itself, is meaningless, in the improvement of an overall outcome of an encounter between 2 similarly placed fighters.

The overall physical conditioning with exposure to a wide range of training scenarios is far more conclusive in that encounter than the elements of just baqua knowledge or placement in the improvement of that outcome. At simplest level, escape and evasion, bob and weave or any similarly named change is the epitome of any positive concept so as long as the strategy is employed

[dspyrido]

Luo indicated to me what he worked upon and so to me it is pretty clear how working with Luo made a difference for this fighter.
Main difference is a change in tactics and footwork.
He goes from linear movement to circular and curved actions. From being very aggresive and going forwards to stepping back, sideways and changing guard. He uses more counterpunching and incorporates throws (snake throw) that use his opponent's inertia against him.

It is not very often we get to analyze something like this so I hope you guys enjoy it
Any thoughts are welcome.

I don't think the title reflects the Luo scenario. Training with a good coach is a great thing and Luo probably filled a gap:

MT - striking and some takedowns but not specialised in stand up grappling
BJJ - ground and not as specialised in stand up grappling

Gap? Do some stand up grappling and learn some chinna/shuajiow (Beijing bagua really shares a lot with shuajiow). This would round him out nicely. It might also add a surprise factor. There are many people are being bred in the same MT/wrestling/bjj stables so adding something they are not familiar with can confuse an opponent.

So it's not just the system but a great coach who can recognise the gap and knows how to fill it.

[middleway]

Cool! Nice to see that this fighter is opened up to such things.

So it's not just the system but a great coach who can recognise the gap and knows how to fill it.

Agreed.

But with that said, looking at Ba Gua as a system there are some very useful things in there for sport fighters which do not seem to be present in alot of guys in my opinion. The obvious one is unpredictable footwork, strange attack angles etc. This is seen in fighters like TJ Dillishaw and some of the other new breed though so ba gua certainly isnt the only source they can get this from. Also specifically from Gao/Cheng the take downs and throwing can be pretty unique. Also the 'anti throw and take down' stuff i learnt is very powerful and i use it all the time in grappling comps.

cheers

[neijia_boxer]

I was just telling someone the other day how my former MMA coach, a pro MMA fighter who had extensive years of Amateur fighting in Muay Thai, Boxing, and BJJ experience really like the "Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chang" book by Park Bok Nam with the chapters on stepping, angles, pivot stepping, V stepping, Y stepping, that he even used them when teaching Muay Thai. Since they were nearly the same, but he never had a name for them in boxing and muay thai. it comes down to Universal fighting principles, he often said.

At that time I was training at his MMA school, I was also training at a Bagua school. so if I sparred at the bagua school i would do more of the muay thai and boxing stuff to confuse my sparring partners, and at the MMA school, would do more of the Bagua stuff to confuse my MMA sparring partners. Good times.

[marvin8]

Happned to come across this website with a recent update on Sung Ming Yen, a student of Luo Dexiu: https://www.facebook.com/manchesterbagua/

Manchester Bagua
January 14 at 6:58am

Another (longer) fight from Sung Ming Yen after he came to Luo Laoshi to learn some Bagua ideas in order to improve his stand up game you can see "Chan" (houtian 1.8) at 3.10 and 7.56, a dragon throw from double overhooks at 3.25 and a classic snake throw at 4.47 (and I'm sure you will find lots more) mainly he improved his control of distance and angles to bring the opponent on to him and control the tempo of the fight - in his earlier fights he tended to just steam straight forward:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3HtzCKyK6Y

Here's one of Manchester Bagua's recent sparring clips, Published on Jan 7, 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhkia_pXBYs