Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

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Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:31 pm

A few decades ago I did some ground cma with Sifu Tom but due to distance & circumstance I lost contact with him (I couldn't afford a car back then & mobiles+internet where restricted to the military).

I mentioned him to some lads from a local university's chinese kung fu group & they dug him up for me & did a workshop with him. This was some highlights of the self defense workshop he did with them.



It does not really do him much justice but there's some fun bits in there.

Since last year I've been training with him on regular catch ups doing his blend of ziranmen, chinna, fujian ground etc.

This is less of a post to showcase the video but more of a post with the question - want to know about cma grappling from Upper (Standing), middle (knees) & ground? Feel free to ask me what you want & I'll either answer or relay the questions.

Btw - Tom's a great personality with an encyclopedia of knowledge of many styles and he has a history of competing and training people who compete in wrestling & sanda. At 62 he still moves like lightening and is as strong as an ox (try arm wrestling him - he feels like someone double his weight).
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby johnwang on Wed Jun 21, 2017 10:12 pm

Thanks for sharing. At 0.07, he stayed on the ground and did

- right outside crescent kick, followed by left inside crescent kick.

I do that

1. right outside crescent kick, followed by left inside crescent kick.
2. left outside crescent kick, followed by right inside crescent kick.
3. repeat 1 and 2.

1, 2 drill 20 times daily in the past 30 years. This is the 1st time that I have seen that someone did the same training as I do. I believe this is one of many drills that can keep you healthy and young.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby C.J.W. on Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:16 pm

Googled his Chinese name online and found a news article with his bio. Apparently, Ditang and Dog boxing are two of his specialties, which explains the nice ground takedowns that you don't see often in CMA.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby zrm on Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:51 pm

Thanks for this. Watching this and some of his other vids his Liu He Men and Ziranmen is very close to we were taught but our school never covered the dog boxing side of things. It's nice to know there's another school in Australia that trains the same stuff.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby Pavel Macek on Thu Jun 22, 2017 12:43 am

Nice!
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby MaartenSFS on Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:05 am

Some of those techniques are very interesting.. Thanks for sharing. The Chinese name of the video is quite funny as well; Kill Someone in a Second Defence Curriculum.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Fri Jun 23, 2017 2:44 am

johnwang wrote:1, 2 drill 20 times daily in the past 30 years. This is the 1st time that I have seen that someone did the same training as I do. I believe this is one of many drills that can keep you healthy and young.


It's a great drill. I did not realise how deeply it worked the core until I started doing it.

There's also a lot of drills like the following:

- rolling from the knees to ground and back again
- rolling from a standing position while kicking over and then adding a side kick on the ground
- rolling without using the hands
- from knees dropping to the side by placing the palms on the floor and kicking out
- scissoring the legs on side position as well as pushing and pulling for ankle, knees & hip control
- doing the crescent kick but turning 90 degrees and adding a side kick
- doing the crescent kick but turning 180 degrees and adding a side kick
and others.

We practice the drills, applications, setups to the applications and working standing to the ground and back up again. They are also chained together in the forms. If anyone wants it then happy to ask him to record any requests.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:47 am

Just a bit of background on him that he mentioned. He is trained & was an instructor in the chinese sports institute (Shanghai I believe) and has learnt a big list of styles as part of the training such as:

- ziranmen
- free fighting/sanda/sanshou
- shuaijiow
- di shu & di tang
- many chinna methods
- tai chi, xing yi, bagu
- long fist
- many others I believe plus a lot of weapons

He is a walking encyclopedia of cma and has trained from when he was child.

His approach to fighting he describes as natural style fighting (ziranmen) but he mixes in different methods at different ranges.

At striking range it might be a mix of ziranmen, sanda, long fist & bagua attacking with many varied kicks, punches and using his body fluidly to sway in and out. His iron body skills make him also a nasty person to connect limbs with.
In throwing range it combines the striking in with shuaijiow, chinna & tai chi methods but he also uses the ground styles to setup take downs.
On the ground he uses the kicking and striking methods but he also has spent a fair amount of time translating the chinna he has learnt to the ground. You can see a few examples of him wrapping and locking up legs, arms, head on the ground.

My favourite part though is how he moves. On the ground or standing his is swaying and swapping his legs around which is something that is not normally seen in the ditang/dishu styles which are very upright in their standing methods. He gets this from ziranmen which he says is the strongest influence in what he does.
Last edited by dspyrido on Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby bartekb on Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:00 am

his mount escape wont work on anyone with basic understanding of groundwork.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby wayne hansen on Fri Jun 23, 2017 1:52 pm

Not only that
Quite a few times he mucks up the application and the guy does down anyway
When he tying up the two guys on the ground it takes an age and one would have moved his hand in that time
I still like his setups though
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:46 pm

Bartek - on the mount escape - yep the guy he is doing it on has no idea. The one he applies is not all bad though and works well after bridging someone in mount and they brace their arms out. Ive done it against someone with a couple of years of ground training in grappling. I also used it against more experienced people as part of a sequence to bridge, spiral for the arm while overhoking the other arm and head, they pull the arm but have left their head, now it's easy to get head and arm and sweep.

Wayne - agreed that some of those 2 person tie ups he does are not perfect demo pieces and the guys he does them on are tofu and go down anyway. Normally at the striking range he will do less full locks and more partial locks, stepping to position on the outside while striking. Maybe he just wanted to play and experiment which he does a lot of.

Personally I like his ground take down moves around the half way point. What is not shown is striking once on the ground. He likes to use locks on the ground but mainly to setup strikes from a bottom position so instead of fully tieing someone up on the ground there would be a mixture of things like upkicks, knees, elbows, etc. being mixed in with moves that look like locks. This creates space and if they connect can soften the opponent up. The strikes also go into supporting the locks with momentum.

For example he could be setting up an arm lock by kicking the leg under the arm but instead of doing it just as a lock he can put in enough momentum to fracture the arm. Then the lock becomes trivial to put on. The ground drills really make a difference when learning to hit from underneath.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby nicklinjm on Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:27 am

Very very nice, rare to find a teacher who is skilled at both the stand-up aspects (striking plus throwing) and is also able to show a Chinese kungfu approach to groundwork (prob from his ditang quan experience).

Amazing background (Ziranmen + shuai jiao + Ditang quan), his students are lucky to have him!
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby bartekb on Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:04 am

dspyrido wrote:Bartek - on the mount escape - yep the guy he is doing it on has no idea. The one he applies is not all bad though and works well after bridging someone in mount and they brace their arms out. Ive done it against someone with a couple of years of ground training in grappling.

Apart from very rare examples - like ezequiel from bottom of mount recently in UFC - there is no way of finishing an opponien whilst beeing on the bottom of the mount.
if you managed to pull it off on anyone experienced - really hard for me to imagine how it was possible wihout commenting on the persons skillset

the guy on the bottom has no way to sweep - because the guy on top can just posture on his free arm, whats more - the very basic of kimura hold is - you neet to immobilise the guy you apply it on - at least have his leg in half guard - its like grappling 101 - wirtually nothing stops the guy on top to just move.
Image

not to mention free armbar built into the application
Image

I can watch Tim Cartmell applications all day long - and at no point the applications are in contrast to general grappling skills.
What this guy does here is similar to the discussion you had on the forum when one of the members demonstrated armbar 100% wrong

rest of the applications - are not worth commenting - one can virtually demo anything on non resisting oponent hat freezes after initial attack.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:31 pm

bartekb wrote:Apart from very rare examples - like ezequiel from bottom of mount recently in UFC - there is no way of finishing an opponien whilst beeing on the bottom of the mount.
if you managed to pull it off on anyone experienced - really hard for me to imagine how it was possible wihout commenting on the persons skillset

the guy on the bottom has no way to sweep - because the guy on top can just posture on his free arm, whats more - the very basic of kimura hold is - you neet to immobilise the guy you apply it on - at least have his leg in half guard - its like grappling 101 - wirtually nothing stops the guy on top to just move.


It was not used in mma sparring. I doubt I would use it if someone has mount & pounding my head.

But I'll run the sequence when it did work:

Bridge hard. Guy braces arms out but imo not far enough.
My arm underhooks the other overhooks the elbow & twisted it. Lock hard.
Bridge again with arm lock on.
Guy has other arm braced out but with the arm lock on he lets it go & lifted his hips off to remove pressure. Weight was off me.

But then he tapped. I was surprised so we did a bit of analysis and he just said he thought his arm felt like it was going to break.

I have tried it a few times. It has not come on against more experienced guys who posture up but it does make for a distraction for other moves such as the head & arm sweep i mentioned before (not in the video).

Dont believe it works? Oh well I've tried to explain it.

As for you liking tims stuff. Great. I also like Erik Paulson's stuff but I dont see the relevance. In the end Tom shows a bunch of moves. Some I like and some I dont. This one is only so so for me but it did give me something to think about.
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Re: Takedowns, Locks & Ground with Tom Zheng

Postby dspyrido on Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:44 pm

nicklinjm wrote:Amazing background (Ziranmen + shuai jiao + Ditang quan), his students are lucky to have him!


The best part is he is happy to experiment, test and highlight what might or might not work from his view & then adapt it based on reactions. Its an open teaching method that is not all forms but many examples of applications and trying things out.
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