What are these "skills" gong fu people talk about?

[wayne hansen]

10 ft vertical jump ?

[Bao]

It makes sense of the spiral movements of IMA, and of the way the footwork operates alongside the hands.

Spiral movement... In what way do you mean?
Entrap the opponent's arms? Anyway, IME, spiral movements support and strengthen the structure. It works as a 3-dimensional support by using collaboration of movement in several opposing directions. Not easy to bend a limb or break through a guard.

But to my eye, in CMA, much of this control skill tends to be overly focused on tying up the opponents' hands.

Very true.

control the root and center and you control the whole body..

[johnwang]

much of this control skill tends to be overly focused on tying up the opponents' hands.

If to "control your opponent's body" is what you are looking for, you may be interested in this clip. IMO, he should use his right hand to "guide" his opponent's left arm and "tuck" it under his opponent's right arm. This way when he step in, his opponent's left hand won't be able to punch on his head. This is also a common issue when someone just thinks about throwing as "sport" and ignore the possibility of "striking".

If you want to control your opponent's body, you should first control his arms, you then control his leg/legs.

[Daniel-san]

.

[kenneth fish]

A jump of over 5 feet vertical is impressive enough - lets not stretch it beyond belief!

[Steve James]

A jump of over 5 feet vertical is impressive enough - lets not stretch it beyond belief!

It's how "wild history" starts. Thanks.

[Ian]

Nice

You can also see plenty of impressive vertical jumps on youtube - high jumpers, those Kenyan highschool boys, Olympic weightlifters, regular gym dwellers showing off...

No special esoteric training. Just lots of jumping.

[wayne hansen]

World record 8 ft 4

http://youtu.be/7n6NhV4CaiU

[Daniel-san]

.

[wayne hansen]

My point exactly

[Ian]

World record 8 ft 4

http://youtu.be/7n6NhV4CaiU

Yes, but we're talking about jumping from a stationary position - no run-up.

The pro athletes with the highest standing vertical jump are apparently olympic lifters. You could try lifting...

What does this have to do with fighting though? This topic is becoming pretty weird

[shawnsegler]

World record 8 ft 4

http://youtu.be/7n6NhV4CaiU

Yes, but we're talking about jumping from a stationary position - no run-up.

The pro athletes with the highest standing vertical jump are apparently olympic lifters. You could try lifting...

What does this have to do with fighting though? This topic is becoming pretty weird

And herein lies the problem with trying to fit everything into a narrow vision of what something should be. A lot of this stuff was developed by guards and bodyguards traveling over varied terrain. It fits that you would put in skills to maximize agility if you're doing stuff in random terrain rather than thinking of all fights as specifically you and another guy in the street or "octagon".

Don't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you want to narrow your view of what you're looking at, you'll succeed.

Best,

S

[Gringorn]

What are these skills gong fu people talk about?

For my part, 2.20 into this clip are some good examples of skills that turned me on to I Liq Chuan. Never heard about similar qualities/skills outside of IMA.

http://www.ilc.no/video.php?vid=5&1437774056

[dspyrido]

Being able to hurt someone with a hit from a couple inches using any point on the 7 stars is a good skill that is not often seen taught outside ima. Unfortunately it's also not often a realised skill in ima but that's a different problem.

[Ian]

And herein lies the problem with trying to fit everything into a narrow vision of what something should be. A lot of this stuff was developed by guards and bodyguards traveling over varied terrain. It fits that you would put in skills to maximize agility if you're doing stuff in random terrain rather than thinking of all fights as specifically you and another guy in the street or "octagon".

Don't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you want to narrow your view of what you're looking at, you'll succeed.

Best,

S

A lot of fighters practice explosiveness:









Though I'm fairly certain that, historically, this had nothing to do with jumping up walls and being nimble on terrain.

So what's the point? The good thing is we don't have to guess. 'Why' its important has been made abundantly clear in recent decades. We also don't have to look into the murky past to witness amazing feats of athleticism. It's all right here:



As for narrowing one's focus, you can lift heavy, practice explosiveness, drill, spar, fight, condition yourself to sustain high intensity scrambles over extended periods of time, move slowly to improve body awareness / coordination / get rid of compensation / heal...

Pros did that in the past, and pros still do that now.