Counters to diagonal flying?

[Inner_man]

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Agreed its well too late to recover from this without breaking root but hey this is about not getting busted up and youre going down anyway so..

roll with it and drop, the lift the right knee and kick hard. he'll go down for sure, you can drop him in mid air while falling with a knee kick.

Of course this position (as per photo) is way too late and you really dont want it to get to this so if his ribs are exposed beat him to the draw and break a few with elbows etc, or push forward into his hip to break his root as he comes in.

Never say die or call it quits, its not over till I say so - that my motto and its gotten me out of trouble in the past. Kind of expands on the theory of "if your opponent moves then you move first".

[GrahamB]

In Bagua, we go you one better. According to the Bagua mandala, the Taiji is just a subset that the Bagua mandala contains, so we have defined ourselves as "whatever Tai Chi is, only more".

Hmmm.. I thought in the progression that bagua is generated from yin and yang.... meaning it's just a more detailed break down of taiji.

http://www.chiflow.com/html/Baguazhang_Intro_p2.htm

Anyway... to return to the topic. One fun thing to do against this



Would be,

As he puts starts to put his left arm across your face you need to a) get your balance back somehow - in that situation usually is is by getting your hips back underneath your shoulders, even if that means standing only on one leg (your left) for an instant - basically doing Golden Rooster stands on one leg briefly) then...., b) bump his left arm with your right shoulder, using your left hand on his left wrist to create an arm-bar. I would then either

i) circle step to my raised right leg behind his forward left and reverse the technique on him, or do something like what they call iriminage in Aikido, - push his hips forward from behind with my right, and use my left arm to attack his neck/upper chest to make him fall.

ii) circle step to my raised right leg behind his forward left and keeping hold of his left wrist, bend his arm in a vertical circle, lifting it up and over behind him, causing him to fall backward. You can add your right hand as support to this if you need it, or hit them with it as you do it if you're feeling mean.

That all requires that you a) get you balance first. If you haven't got your legs you can't do anything like that against it.

If it's too late then as you fall just try to hold onto some part of them, then when you end up in the floor in a ruck together you whisper in his ear "I"m a BJJ black belt, want to give up now?"

PS I'm working all that out in my head, so it may change slightly when I do it on somebody, but I think that should work as a basis for something. I might video this with one of my guys this Monday and post it if I get time. I could also add in a few 'completely ridiculous' counters just for fun

[johnrieber]

think it might be useful to drop back from the picture of choice a little bit, if we're going to talk about countering the move. and it might be better to talk about the technique in terms of neutralizing it before the full shape and energy of the damn thing is there.

really--at the pictured angle and point of application, outside of the context of two-person exercise, the shit is over. your trachea is at least half-collapsed, your head is whipping back, and in a second and a half your skull is going to be bouncing off the ground. and then you're going to be lying on your back, choking, hoping that your opponent is kind and has beat medicine experience. if you try to snake away from the elbow to the throat and the throw by giving up your root, all your opponent has to do is go with your screw-the-principles evasion--drop with you while wrapping your neck, slap the back of your neck down onto their knee, and drive through. life just sucks, if this picture is your starting point. it's a little too late to pull down, if you know what i mean.

the yang two-person form teaches diagonal flying as a counter to diagonal flying. but--and hey, it's the point of the form--the counter is about sustaining such a high level of flow that you dissolve the potential wrist grasp and elbow lock before they happen, and shift back and sink and clear the opponent's penetrating arm before the opponent has the advantageous position.

[GrahamB]

I agree with your main point, that it would be much better to counter this before it starts - however, I think that everything is still not lost, even in that photo from Dr yang(unless they are being nasty and that is an elbow strike to the neck, but a lot of the time, people do it as a throw not a strike) - once you start falling, then everything is lost.

[Inner_man]

once you start falling, then everything is lost.

Only your root is lost. You can still do damage from here without a doubt

[GrahamB]

Considering the speed of the fall (done properly, not in slow demo mode) I think the best thing you can do in that fraction of a second is try to hold on to something like an arm and take him down too, however anything is possible, and I don't know what you're thinking.

[Andy_S]

not sure I follow you.

You do diagonal flying as shown on Dr Yangs vid cover, as per body and stance, but instead of your left arm either pressing up under his right (he can just step out of this) or taking the neck (ditto, though of course, one could apply that as a strike) your left arm bypasses his right arm and underhooks his left arm. Then you just turn your waist and down he goes.

[Daniel]

...umm...yeah, I was a bit confused about this thread until I re-read it with a bit more focus and saw the first lines of "in a sport setting" and a take-down answer. Right.

Lots of good answers. I find that John Rieber´s answer to it has a good echo in my system: "If they are good you won´t have noticed, because you will have put yourself in it." Yes, that would be really good Taiji and incredibly difficult to counter from that level.

Besides all the zillion fast fajings and shock-strikes and elbows, forearms, rakes, breaks, butt-strikes and whatnots, one solution that suggests itself to me from the photograph is to twist in and down and close the kua simultaneously really fast on the contact side and project that through the guy´s hip-structure letting it get locked in the joints so the shock stays there. Changing the angle into him like this should give you space enough for that to strike him before he can move your head that extra bit. You´ll have to move your head an extra bit ahead of his arm to get the space. You bounce your center down into that kua and have intent to break in his pelvis. Not great-looking, but I think it would work. Have to take it away for polishing with my scary practice-buddies to check.

...a very unoriginal thought would otherwise be how the hell did you let yourself end up with someone having gone that far with a technique like that on you? (see John´s answer as the possible one for that too.)

Wuji - Taiji - Liangyi - Sixiang - Bagua - Wuxing - Sancai (tian/ren/di) - Bianhua - Coffee.

My view of the differences between Taiji and Bagua is that really high quality Taiji teaches you how to use change from a primary yin setting; Xingyi teaches you how to use change through primary and relaxed yang; Bagua is change only, the bianhua that makes both yin and yang move, hence much more difficult. This is also the reason why it is very good to have a solid foundation in at least one of the others first to really understand yin and yang before getting into just change itself.

D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[everything]

> how the hell

here's an animated gif from that Machida takedown thread again, inline, as I think no one clicked the link:

( http://a622.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/im ... 094b55.gif )

> "I'm a bjj blackbelt, want to give up now"

LOL. good one.

[Daniel]

Nice clip, Everything. Since it seems to be an answer to my - half-joking- question, I would have to answer that if you have good IMA-skills that have been trained for real-life fighting, then there is so much that can happen during that instant before and during the intro. You would also have root, of course, advanced listening- change- and cunjin-skills, and the ability to change down like I mentioned in my post.

But, having checked your bio, I am certain you know all of these anyway , and put it up for illustrating the point. Thanks. And thanks for having a good bio over your background too. I like that.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Well honestly the easist counter I know is if you see/feel it coming early enough you just step back. I can usually only get a shoulder or forearm strike out of diagonal flying because no one lets me get close enough to step behind their front leg.

[GrahamB]

Well honestly the easist counter I know is if you see/feel it coming early enough you just step back. I can usually only get a shoulder or forearm strike out of diagonal flying because no one lets me get close enough to step behind their front leg.

Bad body odour?

[everything]

Nice clip, Everything. Since it seems to be an answer to my - half-joking- question, I would have to answer that if you have good IMA-skills that have been trained for real-life fighting, then there is so much that can happen during that instant before and during the intro.

yeah first off that guy appears to lean in telegraphing and machida throws first (leaves after, arrives first). if I stupidly did that, machida's left would've KO'ed me. But, he would've lost an opportunity to diagonal fly me because I'd be flying back unconscious already. So there, take that, diagonal fly dude.

seriously, he has this left-fist/diagonal fly as a nice combo, and in some cases his left fist connects first. diagonal fly is only gravy.

here is the page someone posted earlier: http://www.spladdle.com/?p=124 - check out the first one. in another one, it looked like he did "press" instead, due to the angle. does this guy study taiji, or does his karate just do these same two moves? ha. just kidding. doesn't matter. i really admire machida. he is really techical and precise and 10,000-to-1 not many mma fans see the "tai cheese" here.

[johnrieber]

nice clip. thanks.

[johnwang]

In Chang Taiji, when you have your arm

- "above" your opponent's shoulder like in this picture, it's called "Wild Horse Ruffling Mane".
- "under" your opponent's shoulder, it's called "Diagonal Flying".

When your opponent use:

- "Wild Horse Ruffling mane" on you, if you can move your leading leg behind him (leg escape), you can use "Diagonal Flying" to counter him
- "Diagonal Flying" on you, if you can move your leading leg behind him (leg escape), you can use "Wild Horse Ruffling mane" to counter him.

In SC, if you counter him

- straight back, it's called Zhuang (Trunk Hitting) and you need to use your leading leg to hook your opponent's back leg.
- to the side, it's called Kao (Advance Squeeze) and you need to trap your opponent's legs with your leading leg.