Why people said that Sanda is not CMA?

[johnwang]

Sanda is an art that integrate kick, punch, lock, and throw. If your CMA system has all those building block, you can teach a Sanda team and that will be 100% CMA. If your CMA style doesn't have enough building block, you can always cross train other CMA styles and fill in those missing elements.

Let's examine all the major building block used in Sanda:

- jab, hook, upper cut (exist in LF and PM).
- front kick, side kick, round house kick (exist in LF).
- head lock, shoulder lock, elbow lock (exist in SC and eagle craw),
- single/double legs, leg hook, hip throw, under hook, over hook, ... (exist in SC).
- knee strike (exist in SC).
- elbow strike (exist in LF).

So why people keep saying that Sanda or Sanshou is not CMA? Do you truly have to train boxing, MT, TKD, wrestling, Judo in order to be effective in Sanda? Can you cross train Taiji, XingYi, Bagua, LF, PM, Baiji, WC. SC, ... and be a effective Sanda coach?

[cerebus]

Well the modern sport San Da these days is comprised primarily of Muay Thai with Judo throws, boxing hands and extra Taekwondo kicks thrown in for good measure. Don't know why. Probably because these arts often don't carry the same mystical and esoteric baggage as many of the Chinese arts. At least that's my guess...

[nianfong]

san da is not an art. it's just an arena for fighting. arguably, MMA isn't an art either, and JKD was always defined as the style of no style. but there ya go.

[Juan]

Bah, I'm done with all this type of conversation. No disrespect Sifu Wang, it's just that people are always going to say this is not (insert art) or that (art) is fake. Even today, masters of old are getting called out on their shit being fake. To me it's just plain boring. If people wanna say Sanda is not CMA then that's their opinion. If people want to say Sanda is CMA then that's their opinion too. Bottom line is that it's a fighting art. If a Sanda guy is kicking your ass, are you going to question if his style is Chinese, Thai, Korean, etc... or are you going to be more worried about blocking his punches and kicks and about figuring out how to make this guy stop hitting you?

just my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth

[ashe]

I agree with Fong. Its a venue, not an art. I use ILC when I compete in san da. How could it be otherwise when its the only art I've rally trained.

I guess another way of saying it is that san da is the venue under which I use my training.

But that's at the amature level. At the pro level I doubt there are many who are training strictly traditional styles. I imagine most of the high level guys are training exclusively at mma gyms.

I think the line can get pretty blurry though. You can pretty much find parallel techniques across styles...

I guess the crux of the matter would be whether or not you incorporate at least some traditional training methods as part of your program, like tui shou or ILC spinning hands as an example.

[Andy_S]

To answer the main questions:
IIRC, Sanda was developed at Beijing Sports University in the 1980s as an offshoot of their boxing programs. And the main techiques and training methods - bar the SC (which certainly IS a critical element) - come from kickboxing.

I don't see many LF or PM schools training Thai pads, hook and jab work, roadwork and bagwork the way the sanda guys do. LF and PM may have uppercuts, round kicks, etc, but to me it is pretty clear the way they are trained has much more to do with kickboxing influence than CMA influence.

The only "CMA technique" that is not really present in kickboxing that I see in the striking portion of sanda is the sidekick.

Perhaps one CAN train traditional CMA and coach sanda, but I suspect first one will have to be willing to adopt a range of training methods - most of which, let us be honest, originate in kickboxing.

SNIP
I agree with Fong. Its a venue, not an art.
SNIP

Hmm. USED to be.

Like much of today's MMA, the venue has forged a new art: ie not just the techniques that have been found to work best, but also the training methods required to make those techniques work effectively. Clearly, many schools and individuals teach sanda as an art of itself. In modern Wushu curricula AFAIK, the sanda and the forms work are entirely separate.

While SOME peeps who do TCMA (eg Ashe) may compete in sanda with varying degrees of success, I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of them have little to no traditional influence in their sanda training and fighting, unless they are SC stylists.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Modern Sanda/Sanshou is not CMA because it has been primarily drawn from Muay Thai, Judo and western boxing.

There is virtually no training regimens associated with it that are drawn strictly from a given Chinese martial art. All methodologies of training this sport are taken from the boxing training, muay thai training and judo and sometimes jujitsu training.

This is of course speaking of it's current sportive combative form.

Real San Da is the free style use of the given system of CMA that one has learned.
So if you went to a mantis school you would expect to see mantis techniques all over teh place as the players engaged in the training combat.
For Hung Ga, you would see those techs and for clf those and wing chun, those and so on.
In some cases there would be no throwing, in others there wouldn't be a lot of kicks and so on and so San Da in actuality is not governed by rule sets, it is an expression of the fighting techniques of a given style.

San Shou/San Da these days is a sportive combative component added to contemporary wushu in order to give validity to the martial backgrounds of wushu.

If it were to be used in the correct and original context, then Lei Tai would come back and that would be some real nhb fighting.

Only problem is you would wind up with lots and lots of shit no matter how long you ran it and eventually you would need a near inflexible rule set.

[mrtoes]

I train a bit of sports Sanda/San Shou (terms are interchangable right?) on the side at a WC school, and my experience correlates with what Andy says, the way it's trained is pretty straight up boxing, elbow and knee work with thai pads, kickboxing kicks with some judo style throws put in. I don't think that detracts from it at all. From what I've seen of their WC classes the Sanda is still a very separate training.

Whether it's CMA or just down to definitions IMO - I'm a hsing i guy, the other peeps are mainly WC (some muay thai) so that's our foundation, but the training is very different to that I've seen used in either style. It's defined and limited by the situation and the ruleset.

[Ian]

I agree with Fong. Its a venue, not an art. I use ILC when I compete in san da. How could it be otherwise when its the only art I've rally trained.

Very easily, my friend

I once pulled off a few armbars in competition and I'd never trained them before. Only saw them on youtube.

Then I stopped because it's not Pure True Traditional CMAs (tm)

[neijia_boxer]

what is PM your talking about? Pak Mei?

In all the schools I've been to Taiji, CMA/kung fu, and Wushu- san shou/sanda was like the pinnacle of the training after forms, fight sets, two person drills, and weapons.

Each of the forms learned (taiji, longfist, even hsingyi and bagua) had encoded in them- voice training, striking techniques, kicking technique, throws, qi-na, and special techniques. In sparring class usually called 'san shou' you would spar and try to use what was learned.

Sanda training did come along later when a Sanda coach immigrated and stayed. The training changed to more pad, bag work, and strength conditioning. There was much more sport specific emphasis on take down and throwing techniques from Shuai Jiao and more emphasis on boxing and kick boxing training.

I still think Sanda is CMA, but it depends on what your teacher background is- some sanda can be more wing chun style, Long fist style, taiji style, ect. whatever works for you.

[Chris Fleming]

Yeah I had a guy come up to me and ask how long I've been training san da when it was clear I was going to be competing in the event later on that day. I was like, um, well, I don't "train san da" as a style. Thinking about it though, anytime you make a sport you make certain rules and you immediately create a training method which trains for those specific rules, so I guess that is more along the lines of what the man meant.

[cloudz]

hmm..

as i understood sport sanda grew out of combat sanda.

the programme, again as I understood, was put together to teach military and the like a combat system quickly and effectively. different elements were chosen from a number of trad cma styles.

san shou was the term used in traditionally (perhaps amongst others) to denote 'free fighting'. Sometimes it's used to describe tecniques, sometimes sparring/fighting.

Now days san shou and sanda are used to describe one and the same. No probs.

far as I'm concerned Sanda = CMA and cross training is all good. It has in some ways become a style in of itself due to ruleset, like mma or boxing.. but i don't see that cross training negates it as being first and foremost a Chinese style of fighting. Genuinely certified Sanda coaches shouldn't have to be teaching Judo!

There is enough by way of kicking, punching, wrestling, locking in CMA to be getting on with. Some import of the odd techniques is all well and good. I think were most non traditional elements come in is in the training methodologies employed. Combat Sanda was formulated to teach large groups quickly and effectively so from the outset there was a different mindset to the training philosophy to your typical trad cma.

Some of the comments so far - maybe some is more accurate than others (myself included), but overall it's a shame that there is even the questionability that Sanda is or isn't CMA..

[Chris McKinley]

Hmm...just to be predictable, I'll throw in the fact that in reality there is no such thing as a martial art. The term is an abstract label for a set of physical behaviors. With that reality in mind, the difference between whether Sanda is an orthodox traditional art or is simply a more modern approach to training certain fighting techniques for competition becomes meaningless. The reality is as Juan put it so succinctly, "If a Sanda guy is kicking your ass, are you going to question if his style is Chinese, Thai, Korean, etc... or are you going to be more worried about blocking his punches and kicks and about figuring out how to make this guy stop hitting you?". Whether you call what you do to get you to where you can stop that guy an "art" or not is purely a matter for academicians.

[cloudz]

lol

anyways, just popped back to post this link, for those folks interested.


http://www.wushu.org/eng/sanda.php

[Wanderingdragon]

Chris, Art is Art, if you can be creative with it , it's art, as for the rest it's just chewed up Grass, as you said in so many words the idea is to be able to walk away smiling , no matter how you figure it out. But you gatta admit ... if you whoop an ass with style it is a pleasure to behold.