Response to a low single leg

[GrahamB]

When we're allowed to roll again, I will impersonate a squashed frog and let you know how it goes.

[jaime_g]

In 1983 US national SC tournament in Ohio State University, many Ohio State University wrestling team members competed in that tournament. During the heavy weight championship fight my opponent was from Ohio State University wrestling team. He tried to attack me with single leg twice. In both rounds, I took him down by "downward pulling" within 7 seconds. That was the easiest rounds that I ever had in my tournament years.

4 years ago, a group of wrestlers wrestled on the grass in Dinosaur Cave Park, Pismo Beach, California. I asked the wrestling coach if I could wrestle with him (I was 69 and the coach was 24. I weight 175 lb and the coach weight about 220 lb). The coach also attacked me with single leg. I used reverse head lock (guillotine) to took him down until he taped out. That could be the last round in my life that I had wrestled against a stranger (don't want to get injury in old age).

When someone uses single leg on you, he has to cover a good distance to reach to your leg. Your hands can either press down on the back of his neck (let him to kiss the dirt), or reverse head lock around his neck. Since you will have body weight on top of him, you should have the advantage.

I don't like my opponent to use double legs on me. The SC stance is always wide enough so my opponent cannot reach to my back leg.

These are good options against the single leg, but low single is often too low to get a neck control without a full sprawl and you wouldnt stop the low single if he kisses the dirt (and he wouldnt lose under wrestling or grappling rules). Think on someone grabbing your ankle instead of the leg and you would have a much better picture of the low single problem.

by MaartenSFS on Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:10 pm

No worries, I just didn't want to get lumped together with sll those that claim to do TCMA, but don't. Definitely check out Jingang Daodui. I blinded someone for five minutes with that. Scary power!

how would you use that against the low single? Bending over to reach more?

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

I certainly appreciate JW's post about his experience with wrestlers, but feel that Master Wang must be a true outlier. Skilled wrestlers are difficult to deal with. Over the course of my life it was always wrestlers (not bjj, judo, or any other MAists) who gave me the most trouble. Their ability to change levels and "disappear" for a shoot is formidable. It seems to me that if you take a wrestler and familiarize them with the rule set of SJ, they will dominate. The reverse doesn't seem to be the case. For example, the accomplished college wrestler, Matt Furey, won the Shuai Jiao world championships in Beijing with only a year of SJ competition under his belt. From the videos I have seen, this was accomplished with single and double leg takedowns. I think that this attack is a weakness of SJ and Judo (especially since Judo barred the grabbing of legs in international comps).

All that said, I agree that the front guillotine and attacking the head, neck, or spine, can work. But, I think these are not "high percentage" defenses.

[Steve James]

All that said, I agree that the front guillotine and attacking the head, neck, or spine, can work. But, I think these are not "high percentage" defenses.

I think it's always a matter of how good one competitor is at what he does. There are many guys who do one thing very well, including single legs. They will succeed 90/100 times against trained opponents, and 100/100 against untrained/unwary opponents.

Imo, the only way to find out what works is to try. Hopefully, it won't be against someone who's looking for the single leg in order to heel hook or knee bar you. That's another thing about wrestlers, though. They will wear ya down.

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

All that said, I agree that the front guillotine and attacking the head, neck, or spine, can work. But, I think these are not "high percentage" defenses.

I think it's always a matter of how good one competitor is at what he does. There are many guys who do one thing very well, including single legs. They will succeed 90/100 times against trained opponents, and 100/100 against untrained/unwary opponents.

Imo, the only way to find out what works is to try. Hopefully, it won't be against someone who's looking for the single leg in order to heel hook or knee bar you. That's another thing about wrestlers, though. They will wear ya down.

Ah, the perennial individual vs system framing. There is some truth to it, but I still think it comes more down to the system and training methods more often than not. I suppose that you are right that the wrestlers I had fun engagements with were all pretty high level, but there was still something about the wrestlers' techniques that were just hard to deal with. Also, the shorter they were, the harder to defend as they could change levels even faster. I had a crusty co-worker who kicked my ass just about every day for the better part of a decade. Finally, after about ten years I started to get the better of him, but it was a combination of my skill getting better from competition, training, growing stronger while Mike was getting older and slower (although no less mean--always sticking my head down holes on the construction site once he had me pinned, or, shoving dirt down my pants, etc...).

[Steve James]

Well, yes, it's a wrestling style thing (:). Single legs aren't even permitted in some styles. Still, Greco-Roman guys are also very tough.
My point was basically that there's no single technique that will consistently work except the one that you can use better than the other guy. It's like the judoka who consistently win with an o soto gari. The opponents know exactly what he wants to do, but can't do anything about it.

[MaartenSFS]

In 1983 US national SC tournament in Ohio State University, many Ohio State University wrestling team members competed in that tournament. During the heavy weight championship fight my opponent was from Ohio State University wrestling team. He tried to attack me with single leg twice. In both rounds, I took him down by "downward pulling" within 7 seconds. That was the easiest rounds that I ever had in my tournament years.

4 years ago, a group of wrestlers wrestled on the grass in Dinosaur Cave Park, Pismo Beach, California. I asked the wrestling coach if I could wrestle with him (I was 69 and the coach was 24. I weight 175 lb and the coach weight about 220 lb). The coach also attacked me with single leg. I used reverse head lock (guillotine) to took him down until he taped out. That could be the last round in my life that I had wrestled against a stranger (don't want to get injury in old age).

When someone uses single leg on you, he has to cover a good distance to reach to your leg. Your hands can either press down on the back of his neck (let him to kiss the dirt), or reverse head lock around his neck. Since you will have body weight on top of him, you should have the advantage.

I don't like my opponent to use double legs on me. The SC stance is always wide enough so my opponent cannot reach to my back leg.

These are good options against the single leg, but low single is often too low to get a neck control without a full sprawl and you wouldnt stop the low single if he kisses the dirt (and he wouldnt lose under wrestling or grappling rules). Think on someone grabbing your ankle instead of the leg and you would have a much better picture of the low single problem.

by MaartenSFS on Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:10 pm

No worries, I just didn't want to get lumped together with sll those that claim to do TCMA, but don't. Definitely check out Jingang Daodui. I blinded someone for five minutes with that. Scary power!

how would you use that against the low single? Bending over to reach more?

I use Jingang Daodui after using Maoxilian. You could replace Maoxilian with a similar Taijiquan technique, but I have found that Maoxilian is more aggressive and will dissuade them from pursuing. The scooping circular movement destroys their balance and protects both high and low whilst hurting them by pummeling their head with the edge of your palms. Such a good technique. The Jingang Daodui is essentially bashing them on the base of the neck when they get in close enough. The downward stomp works great if they actually managed to get your leg. The combined power of Fajin and stomping is devastating. I was really worried for my sparring partner when he was blinded. He told me that he could see a dot for hours after that. He was a tough opponent too. Provincial Sanda champion, or second place. I forgot. He was short, but strong.

Being 192cm, bending down would not have much effect... I used to sprawl very well, though, but that is purely defensive and I agree that the guillotine is not a high percentage technique compared with those other options, though I used to employ it quite frequently during my Sanda days.

[johnwang]

These are good options against the single leg, but low single is often too low to get a neck control without a full sprawl and you wouldnt stop the low single if he kisses the dirt (and he wouldnt lose under wrestling or grappling rules). Think on someone grabbing your ankle instead of the leg and you would have a much better picture of the low single problem.

Depending on your opponent's head level. If his head is

- high and vertical, you push on his eyebrow (same counter for front bear hug).
- high and parallel, you reverse head lock on his neck.
- low and parallel, you push down the back of his neck.

Your contact point depend on what opportunity that your opponent may give to you. The main point is still to pull back your leading leg on time.

[johnwang]

take a wrestler and familiarize them with the rule set of SJ,

If you are a wrestler and compete in SC tournament, you will not use single leg. Since your body is so close to the ground, by using just a little bit downward force, your both knees (even an elbow) will touch the ground. In SC, any 2 points besides your feet that touch the ground, that round is over.

This is why my teacher always said, "In my area ...". All sport has rule. The wrestling single leg is not suitable to be used in the SC tournament.

This is the "single leg" used in SC. You only use on hand to reach to the leg, It's similar concept, but your body doesn't have to get so low and you can still maintain your "mobility".

[zrm]

When we're allowed to roll again, I will impersonate a squashed frog and let you know how it goes.

This makes me very happy. Hey maybe you should record it so we can send it to the fight commentary breakdown guys for analysis?

[bailewen]

fwiw, in western terms, John, that's not a "single leg". We call that a "leg pick".

At least that's how I learned it.

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

I see what JW is saying and you, too, Omar. John, we have the same rule in Sumo, which I practiced since childhood. Only the bottoms of the feet can touch.

The video I saw of Matt F competing in SJ showed him using a lot of double and single (leg picks if you like) to completely dominate expereinced SJ competitors. As I mentioned, he won the World Championship after competing for one year. I have never heard of the inverse happening.

I do understand John's point that it's different from the low single (I learned it as the "ankle pick"). But, my point was that the low single or any single or double leg take down is a hole in primarily standing arts as well as other ground arts (eg: judo, SJ, Sambo, and even BJJ).

It's a good thread because I think dealing with the ankle pick is a good place to start addressing some of the reasons we don't see TCMA doing well in high level fights.

That said, I don't want to ever try anything like that on "tree hugger" JW. I'd like to keep my ears and my life. He has both the specialized conditioning and the tight technique to make me understand that there is only the need to learn from him, not to challenge him.

[johnwang]

fwiw, in western terms, John, that's not a "single leg". We call that a "leg pick".

At least that's how I learned it.

Instead of using the SC term "扣(Kou) - Knee seizing", or "撿(Jian) - Foot picking", I use the term "single leg" much loosely. As long as I can pick up my opponent's leading leg into my arm, I'll call that "single leg". I can do that by knee strike, shoulder strike, shin bite, foot scoop, foot sweep, outer hook, inner hook, ...

I do think the SC single leg is safer to use than the wrestling single leg. At least you can use one arm to control your opponent's arm/arms. Your opponent will have less chance to punch on your head (compare to the wrestling single leg that your opponent's both arms are still free).

I feel there is a major difference between Chinese wrestling and western wrestling. In Chinese wrestling, even if the punch is not allowed, you still assume that your opponent can punch you. In western wrestling, that concern is not there.

Here is an example that you can use inner hook to pick up your opponent's leading leg. Please notice that you

- control your opponent's right leading arm elbow joint so his right hand cannot punch you.
- hide your head behind your own right arm so your opponent's left hand cannot punch you.
- This 1, 2, 3 hand technique is called "磨盘手(Mo Pan Shou) - 3 rotation hands" in the praying mantis system.

[zrm]

I have seen both single leg and leg pick taught as traditional chinese martial art applications. I've also seen Erik Paulson video where he adapted an technique that what essentially the same chinese high single leg I was taught, into a low single leg variation.

What I rarely see, if ever (outside of competition arts like Shuai Jiao), is chinese martial art teachers teaching the counters to application in the form, or counters to the counters. Or mixing even mixing these types of applications into other drills or freeform practice. You might see a counter to an application in a two person form, but that would show only one counter and (in my limited experience) for counters to be effective in clinch like situation you usually need at least two complementary different options because if an opponent knows the counters he will attempt to block one option off immediately.

Maybe I just haven't found the right teachers? I've had some amazing chinese martial art teachers that have insane biomechanics that make them almost seem supernatural. But when I go through libraries of Chinese martial art instructionals I see millions on forms and foundation drills. A small minority regarding about how to interpret these forms into applications. There is almost next to nothing regarding two person free form drills outside of push hands. It also seems that anybody in China can make a chinese martial art instructional video and plaster it all over the internet, regardless of actual skill level or qualification, with very little consequence. It's at the point now where if I had been shown a good Chinese Martial art response to a low single leg from an traditional chinese martial art instructor, nobody would believe me anyway because they have never seen it shown before in the towering mountain load of crap on the internet. I would have to back that counter up with some pictures in an old book or something to prove its a real Chinese technique and not taken from some other martial art.

I would say whether the counter to the low single leg was "chinese" or not doesn't matter, as long as it was good counter. The only problem with that is we are on a forum that focuses explicitly on the Chinese internal martial arts.

I have no solution to this problem.

[dspyrido]

I didn't say wrestling culture didn't exist before mats

True. You only said ...

I think it's unlikely that a low single would exists without a strong wrestling culture, and (MOST IMPORTANTLY) mats on the ground.

So China did not have a strong wrestling culture because they didn't have mats & these "warriors" were worried about skimming their knees. Therefore it would not occur to them to be concerned with a low single.

Now you say you have decades of TC & XY experience. Why not provide a response to the original question with this frame? Or where you never taught or did it never occur to you that in CMA there might be responses to a low single such as the suggestions that have already been posted?