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

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

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

Postby RobP2 on Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:13 am

Andy_S wrote:Alternatively:
Take the top Systema peeps; drop them alone and unarmed among a bunch of old ladies and aging hippes in the park; see how long they survive.


;D some of those old ladies are tough....

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

Postby RobP2 on Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:24 am

liokault wrote:They would starve to death if none of the above didnt buy their product.


Hmmm would be interesting to compare the cost of , say, learning secret neigong exericses with the amount I've spent on lessons with Vladimir over the years

As for the other guys I'm sure their military / professional work would keep them ticking over
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby liokault on Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:27 am

RobP2 wrote:
Andy_S wrote:Alternatively:
Take the top Systema peeps; drop them alone and unarmed among a bunch of old ladies and aging hippes in the park; see how long they survive.


;D some of those old ladies are tough....



Awsome old lady, but I kind of think its not about her being tough, its about that class of criminal still having enough "honour" not to hit an old lady. This robbery could have very easily been by guys who wouldnt have thought twice about batting a little old lady out of the way.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby liokault on Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:32 am

RobP2 wrote:
liokault wrote:They would starve to death if none of the above didnt buy their product.


Hmmm would be interesting to compare the cost of , say, learning secret neigong exericses with the amount I've spent on lessons with Vladimir over the years

As for the other guys I'm sure their military / professional work would keep them ticking over


Well, I got most of mine free; haven’t even had to pay for a lesson with my teacher for like 20 years now, including 100's of hours of private lessons at his house. How much have you spent?

Also, you call it secret, I call it discerning. Something which 1000's of people know and which is available to anyone can hardly be called secret anymore.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Bodywork on Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:39 am

Andy_S wrote: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

No fan of that type of movement
Opponants-when not taking ukemi- do NOT move like that and no one I know attacks and has their bodies respond like that. For my money Systema is looking more and more like Aikido. I have taught Systema teachers and played freestyle with them in open rooms, nothing they did worked on me. Two of whom then brought their students to train. A knife in the hand of a well trained and capable person eats them up.

There is a foundational flaw in evading that violates yin yang theory. It also sets the body up on a defensive loop. Most of the classic Japanese Koryu throws are based on yin yang theory, so are the Chinese. This..is not it. A better approach since your are trying to draw comparison to ICMA; is to use the center line as the support and you evade / invade at the same time, that way you find his back door and he falls into your door opening and you retain all power shoices, drawing and issuing. Moving the center line the way they do destroys any real chance at a balanced structure. They do it over and over. Not without merit is that several of the teachers I have trained are adopting a more balanced Yin/ yang body approach to their systema.
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Last edited by Bodywork on Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Chris McKinley on Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:57 am

To be fair, Dan, a knife in the hands of a well-trained and capable person eats just about anybody up, regardless of what they train empty-handed, including anything you or I might be doing. Statistically, nobody does particularly well against a highly trained and skilled knife fighter when they're empty-handed. Nobody. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or speaking from ignorance, and both are equally dangerous. Further, if your criterion is to be meaningful, it would have to be applied equally to the alternatives to which Systema might be compared.

I'm not a Systema guy, and I think a fair and objective look at what they do is totally appropriate for discussion. I, too, for example, have wondered that they seem to have both the attackers and defenders moving in a "Systema-like" way, for lack of a better term. That's okay if it's a two-way drill, but then IMO you'd also need to include some work where the attacker's movements are more typical and realistic. And maybe they do, I don't have enough familiarity to say.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby RobP2 on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:06 am

It highlights what I said before - Systema isn't a magic bullet, it has to be trained properly. In line with other arts, maybe some guys try to emulate the soft work of advanced practitioners without having gone through the hard stuff too. Drills are a signpost, not the end result. Context is king.

As far as knives go, nothing is easy. Even those who survive often carry scars from the encounters. If you get lucky, like one of my lads did this year, you hit him before the knife comes into play.

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

Postby Bodywork on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:20 am

Chris McKinley wrote:To be fair, Dan, a knife in the hands of a well-trained and capable person eats just about anybody up, regardless of what they train empty-handed, including anything you or I might be doing. Statistically, nobody does particularly well against a highly trained and skilled knife fighter when they're empty-handed. Nobody. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or speaking from ignorance, and both are equally dangerous. Further, if your criterion is to be meaningful, it would have to be applied equally to the alternatives to which Systema might be compared.

I'm not a Systema guy, and I think a fair and objective look at what they do is totally appropriate for discussion. I, too, for example, have wondered that they seem to have both the attackers and defenders moving in a "Systema-like" way, for lack of a better term. That's okay if it's a two-way drill, but then IMO you'd also need to include some work where the attacker's movements are more typical and realistic. And maybe they do, I don't have enough familiarity to say.

Well, as I pointed out to you when we were disagreeing.....here is yet another area where you, John, and I always seem to agree, Chris. When it comes to practical fighting movement, there really isn't much we disagree on that I have seen. My point was not that there is a winning strategy to go up against a knife empty handed...just that it is rather dumb to be showing that type of systema movement as any sort of strategy to use. :-\ Since I know these guys, soime for years now, we have discussed it in detail. I know that it is meant to teach and impart other things, I have told them they do a diservice to both themselves and the budo community to put that stuff out there without explanations.
For the record, I think I was the first one to point out to them that their atackers.... look like a systema guy moving with a knife, and then their structure collapses and "receives" ...very aikido-like, on contact with the guy defending. Why? ???
Real people do not behave that way and trained people will work you and vector you and keep coming. I always remove the fenfer out of every video in my minds eye and watch the attacker. If I don't see a real attack and response-even slow is okay provided the dynamics work, then what's the point?
Dan
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby johnwang on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:46 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... tdQkk&NR=1

Is this another one of those LKJ clip? I like the combat approach but I hate those no contact throws.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Chris McKinley on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:51 am

I suggest a different approach to the 'my martial arts daddy can beat up your martial arts daddy' thing. We all know that each of us is pretty comfy doing our own thing. Others think it's hogwash (and that works in every direction, btw), but we're sticking with it anyway. The truth is that there's nothing any of us are doing that has no place for valid criticism to land. I'm so cranky I can find something wrong with or something to criticize in the training of literally any human being on the planet no matter how good they are at it. I bet so could the rest of you.

How about this instead? If/when you see what is, to you (or me), a glaring deficiency in someone else's approach, you simply mention it as objectively as possible, and then offer/suggest an adjunct in training that you believe would shore up that deficiency. This has to be with the understanding that no one is required to accept your critique as valid in the first place, so there is therefore no guarantee that anyone's suggestion be taken.

I think if we operated a little more this way, and this applies to me at least as much as to anyone, we might avoid some of the entrenched loggerheads we've reached on this forum lately. We'd avoid crunching folks' feelings when offering criticism, at least to the extent that we're all adults capable of handling objective and constructive criticism and haven't tethered our identities to what we do.

In general, it's an issue of basic courtesy that if you're going to offer a criticism, you ought also to offer a clear solution that is as easily understood (read: non-jargonized) as possible in its place. For me, I've tried to do that over the many years I've been posting, but I'm going to try a little harder. No promises, it's a 'work in progress', but I'll do what I can to set an example.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby johnwang on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:58 am

Chris McKinley wrote:If/when you see what is, to you (or me), a glaring deficiency in someone else's approach, you simply mention it as objectively as possible, ...

Chris, I don't know you address this question to me or not. Around 2.50 in that clip, his opponent was thrown without even been touched by him. Believe me, if this kind of throws work in combat, I'll be the 1st person want to learn it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... tdQkk&NR=1

Chris McKinley wrote:In general, it's an issue of basic courtesy that if you're going to offer a criticism, you ought also to offer a clear solution that is as easily understood.

The solution is when you teach a combat application, you have to to explain the precise contact points, where is your hands and feet position. How exactly that you have destroyed your opponent's balance...

1 point contact throw is very difficult (unless your opponent crosses his legs). No point contact throw is impossible in my experience.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Chris McKinley on Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:07 am

Dan,

[quote/]Well, as I pointed out to you when we were disagreeing.....here is yet another area where you, John, and I always seem to agree, Chris. When it comes to practical fighting movement, there really isn't much we disagree on that I have seen. My point was not that there is a winning strategy to go up against a knife empty handed...just that it is rather dumb to be showing that type of systema movement as any sort of strategy to use.[/quote]

Cool, Dan, thanks for clarifying.  Not really sure how much I agree or disagree.  I'd have to work with one of their top instructors in person to give a fair evaluation.

Since I know these guys, soime for years now, we have discussed it in detail. I know that it is meant to teach and impart other things, I have told them they do a diservice to both themselves and the budo community to put that stuff out there without explanations.


Now THAT I can definitely agree with and feel strongly about.  People deserve to know what it is they're learning and why.  It's a partnership, not a doling out from on high.  To be fair, CIMA are rife with that kind of hampering and petty secrecy, so it ain't just the Russkies.

Real people do not behave that way and trained people will work you and vector you and keep coming. I always remove the fenfer out of every video in my minds eye and watch the attacker. If I don't see a real attack and response-even slow is okay provided the dynamics work, then what's the point?


Ouch, but yeah.  I can't NOT do that when watching clips and that's why I'm frequently so critical of them.  Using the excuse that it's a drill sometimes works, but the excuse that it's only to show a certain jin doesn't fly very far for me.  My mind is always asking, "Okay, but then why not show that same jin in context instead?"
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Chris McKinley on Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:18 am

John,

Chris, I don't know you address this question to me or not.


It's not addressed to anyone.  If the shoe fits, wear it.  If not, ignore it.

The solution is when you teach a combat application, you have to to explain the precise contact points, where is your hands and feet position. How exactly that you have destroyed your opponent's balance...


I don't have to, John, and I'm not sure why you feel you have to either.  Perhaps it's a limitation of SC itself or of its descriptive vocabulary.  I don't know.  Personally, I find that specifying exact contact points is both unrealistic and a bit of a red herring for most tactics.  There are exceptions, certain chokes and throws being prime examples, but in the majority of cases, there is no way to have a realistic discussion of "precise contact points" with regard to the chaos of a real fight, nor are they necessary anyway.
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby yusuf on Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:20 am

this whole thread make me lol

honestly, Kostic does some realy good work late in that clip, around 13 summtink, once the rabbits stop falling over.. his mma clips look ok for mma usage too...

do the weird basic exercises shown contribute to that level of skill?
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Re: Defense: Continuing, not Stopping, the Opponent's Momentum

Postby Bodywork on Wed Dec 28, 2011 12:30 pm

Chris McKinley wrote:Personally, I find that specifying exact contact points is both unrealistic and a bit of a red herring for most tactics.  There are exceptions, certain chokes and throws being prime examples, but in the majority of cases, there is no way to have a realistic discussion of "precise contact points" with regard to the chaos of a real fight, nor are they necessary anyway.

Yes and no. People need to learn. So bringing them through drills to methods that actually take balance and throw/ avoid same, hit and kick/ avoid same, Submit and finish/ avoid same, and in general learn how to work a guy, hard hunt and pick them apart. are tactics best learned in drills with no pressure....then gradual pressure on to freestyle. A-Z.
Of course the finished product is to be free. An old Koryu axiom is "The bound foot is the free foot." (no, not binding womens feet) What it means is that you train your body to be connected feet-to-hands-to-whole body movement, then express the ryu's technical base, and eventually when done, being free to create and express. So when fighting you are not stuck in a mode to make something look like something, you are free to "let it happen."
But in my mind you are then functioning on high level of educated body movement that neutralizes, delivers power, both makes and takes advantage of openings that...well... you know what to do with...and how to exploit.
And all from? Trianing drills.
I don't know of a way to go from A to Z without drilling and containing movement to then allow educated free expression.
Dan
Last edited by Bodywork on Wed Dec 28, 2011 12:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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