Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

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Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby yusuf on Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:35 pm

HI all..

Well I thought I would write up a small review of the Sam Chin workshop. Firstly, thanks must go to Sam for an amazing two day high energy trip through the basics of ILC, to Serge Augier for facilitating and Eric Ling for hosting. There were 20 total participants from all round europe and a lot of them had heard about Sam through other teachers. I was intrigued because my own teacher talks so highly of Sam and the other seminar reviews talked about stuff which seemed a bit far fetched. It wasn't.

You can always see what a man is about by the way he laughs, why he laughs. Sam laughs as he shares secrets that martial arts masters hide, when he talks about combat, when he trains with you, when you get vaguely close to anything threatening & then laughs as you go staggering off after having been unbalanced, qin na'd or hit. If you hit the man he laughs, as I imagine a mountain would if being attacked by a rubber dingy. It's infectious and I saw many smiles at the absurdity of how easily Sam threw them around, and how gentle he was in doing it. I ended up being thrown, hit, unbalanced and thoroughly schooled, then Sam would carefully explain how it was done, how to get the skill to do it.

In terms of appearance, from all of the masters I have seen, only a handful actually look like they have done what the arts are for. Sam is definitely one of them, his build is like a tank disguised as a smiling bear, i think he is smaller than me in height, maybe 5'10, my cheescake gut says I am in no position to comment on his weight :) This size disguises his sensitivity which is astounding, but simple because it seems to be based on a central unifying principle that underlies everything he does, awareness.

Awareness seems to be the key ILC principle and Sam teaches how to utilise it in everything.The two things we looked at were how to organise the body, and what happens when engaging the opponent. Both parts were shared in a way so all the participants could take the principles and apply to their own practice.

The first was done from how they body works, down to the fine detail of weight, mass, structure, body wrapping and alignment, movement. It's was hands on and we all had to do various exercises to get the body organised. There were various levels of ability, some of us were rather less coordinated than others, but it was good fun and Sam managed to get us through with humour it despite the aerobics class next door on morning 1, and the evangelical god basher this morning. I talked to many people who were newly motivated by what they learnt. Sam said repeatedly 'the secrets protect themselves', and shared them openly on this basis. You only get the secret if you train it. We came away with a clear explanations of many shortcuts to the underlying principles.


The second thing we looked at is spinning and sticky hands, engaging the opponent in my vocab. The spinning hands is where we got lots of interaction and the skills being taught hands on were astounding. Forget taking your center, Sam can pretty much take and hold your center through your arms. It's a physical thing, and he shares the details of angles and forces necessary to be able to do it, how to deflect incoming forces etc. We then trained the methods using two person drills. We all got to train with Sam, Serge took some ferocious limb destructions, the rest of us were spared to being lightly hit, and unbalanced. I have been hit by several CMA teachers and it is a different sort of power that Sam has. One of Serge's students said it was like being hit in the skeleton and having taken one to the shoulder I have to agree. The whole skeleton hurts.

It was all about awareness again, and acute fine details about body angles and alignment, and physical forces interacting between the two people. I can say that I got unnervingly unbalanced into an untenable position every time Sam wanted to. One real brown trouser moment was when he just touched my arms with his palms, and managed to freeze me, I mean my head moved ok, but i couldn't move somehow. It's part of his awareness, how my body is moving. Which also led to the zombie walk. He repeatedly put out his arms and walked in on anyone who wanted some. You can;t do anything, punches neutralised, arms tied up, centre taken, hit/throw. Very cool.

Anyway, it's late and the hour I spent writing this I could have been doing far more interesting things. If you get the chance you should check out Sam. He is a very generous teacher who can explain and demonstrate some very valuable methods that students of fighting can utilise. Thanks to Sam, to the organisers. Hope to see the other participants again.

cheers

yusuf :)
Last edited by yusuf on Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby middleway on Sun Feb 28, 2010 5:48 pm

brilliant write up Yusuf and far far more eloquent than anything i could put down. Glad you mentioned his laugh ... it certainly fills the room with a good energy.... although a little disconcerting when your trying to stay on your feet but he wont let you ... and he is finding it extremely amusing. hahaha

Sams ability to touch and immediately off balance you is something very special. I do not mean this in any sort of an esoteric or mystical sense ... he touches you and you are on the balls of your feet or your heels or your rooted into the earth with no chance to kick. if you go 'floppy' it doesnt matter, if you go strong it doesnt matter, if you sink it doesnt matter, if you meet it doenst matter, if you touch light as a feather it doesnt matter. ... you get the picture. lol

Secondly his mental capacity to expand upon a single thing and explain the extremely fine details is staggering ...It may have been a bit much for some as the concepts however simple can appear very deep ... but when he lays his hands on you or connects with you it is clear.

If you have chance to take a seminar with this Funny, highly intelligent, happy, Laughing teacher then i suggest you jump at it. He certainly has 'the goods'.

Many thanks to Sam and Eric for arranging. Was also good to see Serge, Yusuf and all the people there.

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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby ashe on Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:28 pm

sounds like you guys all got your moneys worth! 8)

thanks for taking the time to do these reviews guys!
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby johnwang on Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:58 pm

Sam Chin once said, "Most people are interesting in Fajin, but not everybody are interesting in how to create a chance to apply Fajin". Did he cover this idea in his workshop - How to create a Fajin opportunity? IMO, this concept is very important. It switches from the solo training into the partner training, and also switches from "Fajin into the thin air" into "Fajin into the object".
Last edited by johnwang on Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:05 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby eddie mush on Mon Mar 01, 2010 1:27 am

Great review Yusuf! Sounds like an excellent weekend with great people.

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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby canard on Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:20 am

I would like to echo Yusuf's thanks to Sam for the teaching over the weekend, Serge for facilitating and Eric for organising the seminar.

I think Yusuf did a great review of the seminar so I'll just add that apart from his martial skill, which is astounding and scary and inspiring all the same time, he seems content, which really is a rare thing both inside and outside martial circles.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Eric on Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:44 am

Yusuf, thanks for taking the time to write up your excellent review.

It was a very successful workshop with a great turnout, so thanks to everyone who participated. It was great to meet you all. Thanks especially to Serge who was instrumental in making this happen, and of course to Sam for sharing his Art so openly with us.

There is definitely enough interest to get a training group together, so anyone who wants to train what we learned on a more regular basis will be able to do so. And if we can continue to draw this kind of turnout, we should be able to have more workshops here in London in future.
Last edited by Eric on Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby yusuf on Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:55 am

johnwang wrote:Sam Chin once said, "Most people are interesting in Fajin, but not everybody are interesting in how to create a chance to apply Fajin". Did he cover this idea in his workshop - How to create a Fajin opportunity? IMO, this concept is very important. It switches from the solo training into the partner training, and also switches from "Fajin into the thin air" into "Fajin into the object".



Hiya John,

We didn't cover any fajin at all.. I can't speak for ILC or Sam but the spinning hands seems like it can be used to control someone, or to open them up so a hit/fajin can be applied.. we covered the basics of that...

cheers

yusuf
Last edited by yusuf on Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby cloudz on Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:59 am

Great reviews here and not much I can add. Sam is great, infectious laugh, great character and highly skilled man. his system is great!

Thanks to all the people instrumental in getting him over and respects to everyone there, it's always nice to see familiar faces and training buddies again.

:)
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Azer on Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:24 am

Yeah, as people said, great guy, great seminar. Thanks to all involved! Definitely worth it!
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Serge Augier on Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:37 am

we are lucky to see such skills.

Thanks again to Sam for his openness and sharing.

I hope we will have many more seminar in London.
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby mrtoes on Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:05 am

Many thanks for the organisers for organising an excellent seminar. Scary skills! I can't say I managed to absorb a fraction of what Sam was sharing, but is my limitation rather than his - it's good to see someone so skilled and open in sharing the knowledge. Highly recommended.

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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Ben on Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:35 pm

yusuf wrote:I mean my head moved ok, but i couldn't move somehow.



Hes done this to me before. Very cool. I found the only direction I could move was backwards/away from him.

I'm going to see him in a few weeks in North Carolina. I'm looking forward to it. ;D
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Martin on Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:40 pm

Thank you Sam. Thank you Serge.
Thanks to Eric for organising.
Thanks to everyone else for the training.

Ben - last place I want to go is away from Sam... because then he will fill the space and whack :-) Better smile nicely until he decides to let go...
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Re: Review of Sam Chin Seminar, London

Postby Ben on Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:32 am

Probably a better strategy than retreating. :P
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