the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Steve James wrote:Thai boxers use contact to clinch and throw, and they use gloves.

So? They have their own rule set and fight within that frame work.
...The old days were better. No gloves. Almost no rules. Head buts and even biting allowed...

Gloves help if you hit with your knuckles. Bas Ruten illustrated that it's not necessary to hit with them in order to knock people down and out. Even so, not having gloves on will not necessarily offer any advantage at all against a good boxer with gloves on. It will still be a question of what he can do versus what you are able to do.

Why would you want to spar without gloves against someone who has gloves? It doesn't make sense.

The point I tried to make is not about using gloves or not. It's about the mind-set and the strategy. If you like the point chasing game, gloves is fine. If you want to stand a chance against a good boxer or someone with good sparring knowledge, you either need to be better at his game (which can be hard to predict) or you need to find another rule set (or another way to fight) where you stand a better chance. The old original UFC has a lot of good examples. What did the Gracies do? They just ran people down with take-downs. It worked almost every time just because everyone already had the common ideas about boxing/kick-boxing rules fixated in their heads. So if you want to stand a chance against a good fighter, then it's better to get away from those fixated ideas about how fighting should look like. If you always spar in the common, point chasing traditional way, then even if you become very good at it, there's still a chance that you'll get stuck with a limited and limiting rule-set.
...Just IMHO.

Well, in the old days they wrapped their hands, too. Some cultures covered them with broken glass; others put studs on 'em. But that wasn't my point.

https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/upl ... stus-h.jpg

My point was really that sensitivity was used and possible even with gloves on. And that having gloves on was not a significant limitation, now was not having gloves on necessarily an advantage. I think it's an under and over-estimation that has become cliche, and unnecessary. I mean. Don't mma fighters wear gloves that allow grappling? Is having the knuckles covered so much of a limitation to an art?

It's better to stick and adhere with the forearms, leaving the hands free, but with taiji one wants to control the opponent's wrist and elbow with one's hands.

Greg J wrote:I have to say that I disagree with Mark Rasmus' statements in video one (Controlling and Breaking Structure) that before you strike you have to control/ break structure. If someone is walking up on you and wants to fight, trying to trap their hands (especially in the way he demonstrates) and break their structure before countering is asking to get knocked out. Even if someone uses trickery to get close to you and then tries to sucker punch you, a more realistic (imho) response is to get a good protective guard up (like the Thai Long Guard, or the "turtle," or the "dracula"), counter, and then get away.

Rasmus mentions "close the lines of attack." MMAists close lines of attack before making contact by occupying the center line, hand fighting, covering hands, extended guards, trapping, angles, etc. MMAists use a variety of tactics to freeze their opponent from a distance (which may be considered a form of breaking structure), before attempting their finishing attack. Although the control may be less, it's done from a safe distance and harder to counter.

Greg J wrote:I do agree that if you are grip fighting it makes sense to break structure or "throw" the limb and clear a line to strike, and I like how he was offbalancing his partner before hitting. But doing this by just lightly covering his training partner's forearms with his palms (as he was showing) doesn't resonate with me. I think that if he allowed his partner to resist/ move more we would see the limits to this approach.

I Liq Chuan also controls and breaks structure through the point of contact. In this sparring video, Alex Skalozub (ILC) vs David Gromoff (Greco Roman wrestling), it appears to be easily neutralized by a wrestler.

sanda vologda on Sep 28, 2015: wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Fk-TwngJk

Rasmus is around 6'4"//193cm and weights in at around 300pounds/135kg. He is also very soft and one of the best tai chi players I've ever seen. His wing chun is pretty good too. His partners look small as virtually everyone is compared to him.

When younger he was a very good fighter, but age and injury make b@#%$s of us all.

He mainly uses tai chi style power these days and is quite competent at it. Between Rasmus and Clyman it's hard to say who has better mechanics. That said, Rasmus is an exceptionally clear teacher.

Steve James wrote:Well, in the old days they wrapped their hands, too. Some cultures covered them with broken glass; others put studs on 'em. But that wasn't my point.

https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/upl ... stus-h.jpg

My point was really that sensitivity was used and possible even with gloves on. And that having gloves on was not a significant limitation, now was not having gloves on necessarily an advantage. I think it's an under and over-estimation that has become cliche, and unnecessary. I mean. Don't mma fighters wear gloves that allow grappling? Is having the knuckles covered so much of a limitation to an art?

some days ago i looked through some boxing magazines and noticed how "heavy" and tight binded the boxers hands are, binded in a way as given an extra layer of knuckles. i figure its like this when having a fight but not when sparring. dont know if it enhance the impact of the punches?. as in the old days when boxers put horse-shoes in their gloves(dont know if that one is true)

Taste of Death wrote:It's better to stick and adhere with the forearms, leaving the hands free, but with taiji one wants to control the opponent's wrist and elbow with one's hands.

yes i agree with this, forearms rather than hands.. it was mentioned to step in and control, then step in and control

Peacedog wrote:
When younger he was a very good fighter, but age and injury make b@#%$s of us all.
.

(kick)boxing, karate, wrestling ?

Here's a recent interview with Sam Chin that popped up.

leo au yeung on Apr 4, 2019 wrote:In this video, Sifu Leo Au Yeung is going to interview Master Sam chin and try to understand more about Zhong Xin Dao and its fighting concept.

Sifu Leo has different kind of martial arts training in his whole life, he is an accomplished & well-recognized WC instructor in Central London. His Martial Art expertise will give us a completely new vision of martial arts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8POWuBsDU

Trick,

Muay thai that I know of. Also worked as a bouncer/security type for a number of years. Trained a number of competitive fighters when younger as well.

Peacedog wrote:

When younger he was a very good fighter,

Muay thai that I know of

i would have tought something as that. with just TJQ how could he recignised as an "very good fighter". europe has produced some top level heavyweight muay thai fighters throu the years

The thing that is impressive about Mark is not just in his mechanics. His ability to switch from soft to hard and back again is really something to behold.

I agree with you that I've never met someone who only trained tai chi that has fighting ability. But Mark does have it. Well worth training with for anyone who is interested.

Trick wrote:

Peacedog wrote:

When younger he was a very good fighter,

Peacedog wrote:
Muay thai that I know of

i would have tought something as that. with just TJQ how could he recignised as an "very good fighter". europe has produced some top level heavyweight muay thai fighters throu the years

Peacedog wrote:The thing that is impressive about Mark is not just in his mechanics. His ability to switch from soft to hard and back again is really something to behold.

I agree with you that I've never met someone who only trained tai chi that has fighting ability. But Mark does have it. Well worth training with for anyone who is interested.

His background sounds similar to Sun Yang (Gold Belt winner), disciple of Chen Zhonghua subject of a previous RSF thread, who studied Sanda and Muay Thai, then added tai chi.

"throw the energy" and "throw the frisbee" are interesting expressions. he said not to use mechanics because then you get tension. "The body has its own magnetic attraction to its energy being moved" or something like that is another good phrase.

everything wrote:"throw the energy" and "throw the frisbee" are interesting expressions. he said not to use mechanics because then you get tension. "The body has its own magnetic attraction to its energy being moved" or something like that is another good phrase.

Agree very much with this kind of thinking. Personally I don’t like overemphasizing “structure” or having a rigid view in “peng”. The body needs to be very loose and have a good freedom of movement. Regardless if you yield and follow, throw, punch or whatever, you want to have your full potential range of movement and not hinder
the kinetic transfer of energy/movement in any part of the body.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HNi-84a2edQ