How to grab and how to break a grip

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How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby johnwang on Sat May 21, 2022 2:07 pm

I made a short video to show 2 different ways to grab on your opponent's wrist.

1. Your tiger mouth is facing toward yourself.
2. Your tiger mouth is facing toward your opponent.

What's your opinion on this?

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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby origami_itto on Sat May 21, 2022 3:06 pm

The pat Taijiquan answer is you don't grab.
You use the finger tips pressed against the opponent's arm in opposing directions.
Involving the thumb in the grip gives the opponent a better handle to work against you.

On the grip escape, working against the thumb to twist the opponent's limb or take control of their balance. For example there's a guy in San Antonio that loves to hold your right wrist to keep you from engaging with it. You just do what I know as needle at sea bottom to turn his wrist thumb down then apply pressure to the wrist joint. He lets go or he eats the ground to escape excruciating pain. He stopped doing that.

Otherwise the teacup exercises are said to condition everything you need to escape any grip or qinna by either leveraging the thumb or pulling away from the tiger's mouth or both.
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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby origami_itto on Sat May 21, 2022 3:14 pm

And in yang Cheng fu's book he says grasp sparrows tail is the chief hand of the art. Not sure what the original Chinese termb is but I understand hand here to mean the skill of the art. "When the hand is seen" for example.

So he says the sparrow's tail is the opponent's arm.

The chief concern of the art of Taijiquan is getting control of the opponent through gaining control of their arm.

In practice having two points of control on the arm makes it much more difficult to reverse the grips, particularly if they avoid the thumb. It gives you much more leverage and control.

Imagine for example working a shovel with one hand versus two.
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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby Appledog on Sat May 21, 2022 3:25 pm

johnwang wrote:I made a short video to show 2 different ways to grab on your opponent's wrist.

1. Your tiger mouth is facing toward yourself.
2. Your tiger mouth is facing toward your opponent.

What's your opinion on this?


Considering two arms there seems like 4 ways you can be grabbed; ex. left arm by his right or left, or left by his right or left. The responses would be mirrored -- but perhaps not if you have a strong side in your style. In any case, the situation is more complex when you consider that your hand could be up or down or other factors such as opponent to the left or right. So in truth there should be at least eight different basic situations you will face with a grab to the wrist alone; specifically, assuming your right hand, (1) his: left and right, (x2) each one could be thumb facing or away from you (x2=4) on the top or bottom (x2=8). If you want to be fancy, include him to the right or left (x2=16). Thats 32 basic situations, or 16 mirrored.

But the situation is actually more complex than this because most of the time the grab is in motion. This introduces a chaos factor that makes it very difficult to respond to a grab. Most people could handle the basic four types but in special circumstances or if done by suprise, especially if it leads to a lock or control, or even as origami mentioned most of the time two hands could be involved in various ways. Then a grab can be exceedingly difficult to break out of. Because quite simply you can't think fast enough to figure out what the heck is going on (where is the weak thumb, where is the tiger's mouth, which way do I step, etc) and also because with so many variations, the possibility of a feint or set-up, etc, you simply do not have time to think in order to come up with the correct response.

Thus I have developed a secret technique of kung fu in which the escape from the grab is not based on how you are grabbed but by the pressure and direction of the grab control by your opponent. By initially going along with the grab. So basically if the control shape looks like the letter S you go along with the flow but pull them into the letter C where you can terminate safely in a control of your own.

To outside observers, this looks like a "mechanical trick", and can often be taught to beginners in as little as :10. But to understand what is really going on under the hood and pull out the appropriate response without thinking in the heat of the lock, can often take between one and three years of daily training. More if you hope to pull this off against someone who has experience, in that case some people report that they do not achieve success for as many as six years.
Last edited by Appledog on Sat May 21, 2022 3:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby johnwang on Sat May 21, 2022 4:20 pm

Appledog wrote:specifically, assuming your right hand, (1) his: left and right, (x2) each one could be thumb facing or away from you (x2=4) on the top or bottom (x2=8). If you want to be fancy, include him to the right or left (x2=16). Thats 32 basic situations, or 16 mirrored.

We are talking about the front door arms contraol here that your

- right hand control your opponent's left arm,
- left hand coontrol your opponent's right arm.

Instead of to block your opponent's punching arm and then wrap it,

Image

you start with both wrist grips instead.

Image
Last edited by johnwang on Sat May 21, 2022 4:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby Appledog on Sun May 22, 2022 2:45 am

johnwang wrote:
Appledog wrote:specifically, assuming your right hand, (1) his: left and right, (x2) each one could be thumb facing or away from you (x2=4) on the top or bottom (x2=8). If you want to be fancy, include him to the right or left (x2=16). Thats 32 basic situations, or 16 mirrored.

We are talking about the front door arms contraol here that your

- right hand control your opponent's left arm,
- left hand coontrol your opponent's right arm.

Instead of to block your opponent's punching arm and then wrap it,

you start with both wrist grips instead.


For me it is important to have a reason why there is a grab, if I grab someone just to grab someone it feels like "now what?"

The same principles apply as my other post. So for example I was taught a method of grabbing from ying jow pai which does not use the tiger's mouth (to try and foil the standard responses, and avoid getting caught in a counter). I have also noticed this method seems to be well-known among a certain group of Chen style Tai Chi practitioners -- I've seen Chen Qingzhou use it, Chen liqing, and possibly FZQ, so I feel free to use it. You can tell by how they hold the crane's beak if they are using it or not.

There is a style of combat, I feel, where the first thing you do is grab the opponent's wrists to control them and/or set up a situation which you can control. For example grab left wrist with left hand, step in/cross right hand over the neck and elbow the chest (or you could take down from there I guess, numerous techniques).
Last edited by Appledog on Sun May 22, 2022 2:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How to grab and how to break a grip

Postby Quigga on Mon May 23, 2022 6:30 am

The more parts you can smack a baddie with, the more fun it becomes :D

Other than that, I learned some Metal Dragon stuff that looks like what you're doing
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