Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Andy_S on Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:11 am

I really like this clip of Systema instructor, Alex Kostic.
See from 9:41 onward.
"We are tuning our arms to our bodies"
"I am joining my body and continuing the movement"
"Body is waving; and we have arms; and we have rotations"

This is gold and is basically Taiji by any other definition.

There are two basic responses to a strike.
(1) Stop the strike early with a block, stop hit or push; and
(2) Parry the movement while moving your own body letting it continue on its trajectory - ie letting his momentum increase, not decrease.

The latter is IMHO, the best option, as it puts you in position to counterattack....and indeed, Kostic's first movement is, basically, the Taiji double-handed defense.

If the Russian guys have come to this defense intuitively - and/or through practice (or, indeed, from pinching other peeps' stuff) then good for them.

The Chinese have this in their tactical philosophies, basic moves and forms (in Taiji, we add a forward step to Kostic's first defense) but IME, most CMArtists don't have the drills to teach it which are, arguably, the most important thing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=gMqQpPtdQkk&NR=1[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... tdQkk&NR=1
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Niall Keane on Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:22 am

"the Jin is broken, the Yi unbroken" goes for us and our opponents. And is a difficult thing to try and master under serious pressure. All in footwork I think, well not all but you know what I mean.

As for TCC drills?

Seven star step tui shou
Five element fist Sanshou drill
Stroke the lute Sanshou drill
And in particular Cai liang tui shou

They'd be my favourites to develop the skill.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Ian on Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:10 am

Andy_S wrote:This is gold and is basically Taiji by any other definition.


Andy, why do (virtually (benefit of the doubt)) no tjq guys move like Alex?
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Andy_S on Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:19 am

Ian:

Fair question. Equally to the point, why do no (virtually) Taiji guys show themselves doing these kinds of reactive drills?
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Chris McKinley on Sun Dec 25, 2011 10:56 am

Good question, and really rather simple to answer. Above all, Taijiquan practitioners simply have no desire to be able to move this way for fighting. If they were really brutally honest with themselves, most have no interest in real fighting, or the skills that pertain to it. There are lots of methods they could be using from their own arts already, and they simply choose not to. Most, in fact, spend extremely little time interacting with another human being in their practice apart from the occasional push hands. They're just not serious about those aspects.

People will constantly project the responsibility from themselves by saying "our art has this" or "our art has that". Newsflash: your art has only what you have. And you don't have anything that you yourself cannot actually do. Talk is cheap; show me rather than tell me what your art has. It's not that complicated, it's just inconvenient. There's lots of sweat and bruising, lots of losing, and lots of showing everybody exactly what's really missing from your game right now. That's a little too much honesty for some folks to feel comfortable with. They'd rather just practice their dance choreography or get good at Chinese pattycake instead.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Ba-men on Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:26 am

Andy_S wrote:Ian:

Fair question. Equally to the point, why do no (virtually) Taiji guys show themselves doing these kinds of reactive drills?


First... few TJQ people deal in reality... we all know this...

Second..... these reactive drills "done from a defensive premise" as shown.... never ever works against somone with technical prowess. This borders on the TJQ/Aikido "Bull vs the Matador" crap that one sees...

One has to reverse engineer this stuff in order for it to be effective. I.e. learn to use it in an offensive manner. Average to highly skilled combatants (I put seasoned street thugs into this category) don't fall for a lot that was shown in the vid... they don’t blindly attack… ) Learning "learning how to use the response to your attack.... to apply techniques a shown is where it's at..."


Its a different way of looking at technique like this and.... if practice right.... IMO is very effective against even highly skilled combatants..
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby johnwang on Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:53 am

Andy_S wrote:There are two basic responses to a strike.
(1) Stop the strike early with a block, stop hit or push; and
(2) Parry the movement while moving your own body letting it continue on its trajectory - ie letting his momentum increase, not decrease.

The latter is IMHO, the best option,

There are 2 other options.

(3) prevent your opponent from striking (controling both of his wrists) - prevent problem from happening.
(4) let your opponent to run into your punch/kick (head on collision) - take advantage on the problem.
Last edited by johnwang on Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Andy_S on Sun Dec 25, 2011 5:30 pm

John:

RE:
(3) No argument
(4) Stop hit is good, but if your bridge can accelerate his momentum, your counter will be that much more effective

SNIP
People will constantly project the responsibility from themselves by saying "our art has this" or "our art has that". Newsflash: your art has only what you have. And you don't have anything that you yourself cannot actually do.
SNIP

Ha! Very true.

Mind you, my system does, in fact, have everything Kostic's systema does but, er, ummm...
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby johnwang on Sun Dec 25, 2011 7:09 pm

Andy_S wrote:(4) Stop hit is good, but if your bridge can accelerate his momentum, your counter will be that much more effective.

Agree! To pull your opponent into your punch is the best approach. That's

(2) Parry the movement while moving your own body letting it continue on its trajectory - ie letting his momentum increase, not decrease.
Last edited by johnwang on Sun Dec 25, 2011 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby RobP2 on Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:24 am

Andy_S wrote:This is gold and is basically Taiji by any other definition.

There are two basic responses to a strike.
(1) Stop the strike early with a block, stop hit or push; and
(2) Parry the movement while moving your own body letting it continue on its trajectory - ie letting his momentum increase, not decrease.

If the Russian guys have come to this defense intuitively - and/or through practice (or, indeed, from pinching other peeps' stuff) then good for them.

The Chinese have this in their tactical philosophies, basic moves and forms (in Taiji, we add a forward step to Kostic's first defense) but IME, most CMArtists don't have the drills to teach it which are, arguably, the most important thing.



A few thoughts -

It isn't Taiji :) There may be some tactical similarities in certain conditions, there may be some cross-over in terms of sensitivity training and posture, but outside of that they are worlds apart. From the start, and viewing things from a Taiji perspective as I did, I always thought that VV and MR could actually do the things we read about in the stories of old. But how they got there is a completely different kettle of fish, the more I trained the more different it became. It is easy to view Systema through a prism of whichever style you like, but to do so is to mins-understand the nature of its training (IMHO and with respect)

I think another response is to simply move and hit, let him miss and strike. I say simply but it's the most difficult one to do :)

The Russian guys have come to this through neccesity. The roots of this stuff go back at least as far as Taiji or anything similar. Remember, it's only been public for the last 15 years or so. It is interesting to see how MR and VV and others have developed during that time, their work is certaimly becoming more refined

Again, with respect, CMA doesn't have the drills. I've done the drills listed, you see straight away they are given names and definitions and set conditions. I'm not saying you can't get anything useful from them but Systema drills have a level of freedom of expression that is alien to the CMA approach. I guess every drill needs boundaries in order to make it useful - but one of the core principles of Systema is to allow people to explore, not restrict them. I've studied CIMA at length and depth and no-where (even with the best teachers) have I found the level of spontaneity that the top Systema guys all exhibit in their own way

It's unfair comparison in a way, because the likes of VV and MR are top flight military professionals, they have had the "luxury", if I can call it that, of working in some harrowing situations. Most martial art instructors are part-timers by comparison, I don't mean that in an offensive way, it's a simple fact. I do think that both men are streets ahead of virtually everything else out there and the Russian methods are slowly having an influence on a lot of training, even with people who hate the stuff. And you only have to look at people like Martin Wheeler and others to see that the method can be taught, it's not down to genetics or "being Russian" ;)

So with all the usual caveats of training it properly, good instruction, etc I thnk the Russian approach is the training method of the future. It's certainly hard to train with VV and MR and not be changed by the experience. Mind you change isn't always welcome in the martial arts world - not that I consider Systema a martial art. But I think results will speak for themselves and I can only say that my guys going through this training method are getting results way beyond anything I've experienced or taught before
Last edited by RobP2 on Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby liokault on Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:33 am

This is just like 99% of TCC, in that its a sham.

I couldnt get past 1.40 in the clip Andy posted, its just stooges falling over for no real reason, just like most TCC clips. I have yet to see a convincing systema clip.
Last edited by liokault on Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Daniel on Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:49 am

I have a question for Ian and RobP2 if I may. I have been thinking about it for some time, curious about something. One thing that has made Taiji go astray is, in a sense, it´s way of transferring information to a new generation. (Forms, single movement training, push hands - codified training that should be picked apart and trained like hell, for combat, and also filled with internal work). It´s just that over primarily the last century, the same method of transferring information has become empty, while the pressure to be able to use it in combat has vanished.

How long has Systema been around? How does it transfer information? Aren´t there any forms in Systema, simply because it´s so new? What will it look like in a hundred, two-three hundred year´s time?..

The only thing I´ve heard is that Michail Ryabko´s dad taught it to him and he trained it as one of Stalin´s bodyguards. There´s probably a lot more "lineage" information I´m not aware of, maybe even various clear Systema lineages, but the question itself interests me. Has Systema been around long enough to have to develop an information transfer system to the next generation?

If you have time to answer, I would appreciate it - I´ve actually been curious about this for a few years.


D.

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Last edited by Daniel on Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby RobP2 on Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:57 am

liokault wrote:This is just like 99% of TCC, in that its a sham.

I couldnt get past 1.40 in the clip Andy posted, its just stooges falling over for no real reason, just like most TCC clips. I have yet to see a convincing systema clip.


Well there are some opportunities coming up, for example Martin and Vlad are in London next year, or there are plenty of classes, come along and we'll make a clip :)
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby liokault on Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:00 am

RobP2 wrote:
liokault wrote:This is just like 99% of TCC, in that its a sham.

I couldnt get past 1.40 in the clip Andy posted, its just stooges falling over for no real reason, just like most TCC clips. I have yet to see a convincing systema clip.


Well there are some opportunities coming up, for example Martin and Vlad are in London next year, or there are plenty of classes, come along and we'll make a clip :)


Feel free to just post one now and save the time.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby RobP2 on Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:04 am

Daniel wrote:I have a question for Ian and RobP2 if I may. I have been thinking about it for some time, curious about something. One thing that has made Taiji go astray is, in a sense, it´s way of transferring information to a new generation. (Forms, single movement training, push hands - codified training that should be picked apart and trained like hell, for combat, and also filled with internal work). It´s just that over primarily the last century, the same method of transferring information has become empty, while the pressure to be able to use it in combat has vanished.

How long has Systema been around? How does it transfer information? Aren´t there any forms in Systema, simply because it´s so new? What will it look like in a hundred, two-three hundred year´s time?..

The only thing I´ve heard is that Michail Ryabko´s dad taught it to him and he trained it as one of Stalin´s bodyguards. There´s probably a lot more "lineage" information I´m not aware of, maybe even various clear Systema lineages, but the question itself interests me. Has Systema been around long enough to have to develop an information transfer system to the next generation?

If you have time to answer, I would appreciate it - I´ve actually been curious about this for a few years.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.


Difficult to say how long it's been around, but I think it has been long enough for generational transfer - stuff has to come from somewhere! It seems clear the Soviets put a lot of resources into researching different aspects of combat and - as it was all for military purposes - it needed to be teachable.
Outside of that I have heard of family / clan traditions but have no real evidence other than word of mouth.

We can only speculate how things will go in the future. There are already off-shoots of VV / MR / Kadochnikov which focus on specific things. In some cases I feel they are retrograde, but understandable in terms of marketing. It's difficult to sell something that has no syllabus and is based around exploring weaknesses rather than giving easy answers.

So I think in some cases it will become more codified. Overall though, because it encourages experimentation and freedom from style, it will evolve in as many different ways as there are teachers. You can already see that the expression is different amongt different teachers, which is as it should be, yet they adhere to the core principles.
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