my san da fight...

[ashe]

Ashe,
My post was in response to gosao's which I should have quoted. I certainly wouldn't presume to teach the teacher.

lol. mine too.

besides i'm a student first, teacher second.

[Juan]

Hey Ashe,

Props for getting in there. If I may offer a suggestion, next time while in training go to a boxing gym and work with a good boxing coach. The dude you were fighting seemed to throw alot of circular/haymaker type punches that can e very easily countered with good boxing. I know that it is easier said than done, believe me. But a good boxing coach can help you set up some wonderful counters against that kind of fighter. Just my 2 cents. Great job in there, and like Neijia said...a loss is a win.

[Mut]

Juan,

While I like your recommendation of going to a boxing gym I like it for other reasons. Rather than go and learn boxing I think it could be benificial in terms of learning to apply your own (in this case Ashe's) art against people who play a different game.

Ashe,

I am sure you felt relaxed during the fight, my point is that you allowed him to gain momentum and feel as though he was imposing himself on you. I think you can stay relaxed and change that to you imposing yourself on him. Impose your intent on him and he will either have to stick to you or you will hit him.

[bailewen]

Well that's 3 more fights than I've had so take my observations with a grain of salt. Really good job and here's my critique.

First of all, Sam obviously has one main critique and I'd listen to him before any of us: MORE PUNCHING!!!

You could here him saying it all through the match. lol. On that note, I thought your opponent was, as Juan said, throwing a lot of haymakers. He won the fight purely on just being more agressive. He didn't show a lot of skill but he showed a lot of game. I think Sam is right in that just throwing a hell of a lot more punches would have gone a long way. That wasn't my personal first observation though. I just wanted to first give a nod to your Shifu's comments before I made any of my own.

Footwork.

I saw you mostly backing up. I think you need to create some footwork drills for yourself that force you to advance as you evade rather than backing up all the time. To your credit, you were not backing up in a straight line but you were still backing up. The guy was throwing wild right hands all day long and if you had made it a habit to either slip under those as you advanced or to step in to his left and taking the inside gate, it would have gone a long way towards carrying the day. My instinct is to slip under and to his outside gate but having watched you train and thinking about the feeling I got from your guys when they visited Xi'an, I think maybe keeping to the inside would play into your strengths better and more importantly, I could see the body method and footwork matching better with Yi Li Quan (sp?) Same thing for his kicks. You caught one nice one and threw him but he was giving you that same setup all through the match.

As preparation for you next match, I would create at the very minimum three drills.

1. Partner feeds you jab-cross-right leg round kick and you catch the kick and throw him.

2. Partner feeds you either jab-cross-wide looping left hook, jab-overhand right or jab-right haymaker. Your counter by either ducking under his armpit on the hook or by shooting inside the hook and establishing a new bridge controlling his hooking arm and maybe his opposite side shoulder.

I know a "real trained boxer" won't throw wide looping hooks but at this point in your Sanda "career" you are not facing well trained boxers. The guys I have seen you fight are throwing wide looping hooks and haymakers so you may as well practice capitalizing on that.

Oh yeah, almost forgot:

3. Partner throws the same combos discussed above and you only attempt to advance and outflank him. Try to take his back. . . or actually, as I keep thinking about the way you seem to like to move, maybe taking his center would be a better fit. The main thing is that you need to get your self to reflexively advance rather than retreat.

That's my 2 cents. You still looked pretty good out there. You had more strict form than he did and I could see the Yiliquan body. You did not "regress" to "basic kickboxing" or to brawling 101 so good on that.

Take care man.

[mrtoes]

Looked good to me, respect for going out there even with a visible injury. That was really refreshing to watch after the other video I just had to endure. I don't know nearly enough about anything to presume to offer advice. Thanks for posting!

Matthew.

[Dr.Rob]

I am with Omar on this one. Ashe you can't when by blocking. Great journey there and an excellent experience. You are a formidlable opponent based on size, skills and style. I felt you didn't use all your tools or your weapons.

Conan said..
1.Crush your enemies
2.See them driven before you
3. Hear the lamentations of their women


Congrats for representing your style and putting your money where your mouth is. I respect all who fight.

[Kelley Graham]

I am with Omar on this one. Ashe you can't when by blocking. Great journey there and an excellent experience. You are a formidlable opponent based on size, skills and style. I felt you didn't use all your tools or your weapons.

Conan said..
1.Crush your enemies
2.See them driven before you
3. Hear the lamentations of their women


Congrats for representing your style and putting your money where your mouth is. I respect all who fight.

conan wise in the ways of war.

[ashe]

O-sensei ad Mut,

i can't disagree with you.

part of the problem is just that i'm still very "mid stream" in terms of learning to apply ILC in real time. if you look at the outline of our system i've only completed about half the curriculum at this point, so while i know some of the particulars of our san da method, i'm still a long way off from really "having it".

my Sifu has told me the same thing after every match, "you didn't throw enough punches". i actually kept this in mind and trained to do more striking, it just didn't come out. i guess once i started getting rocked i fell back into my old habits.

and, if you watch the clip again, i think it's pretty clear that every time i close the distance to the body section, he didn't have much in the way of "wrestling" skills, so i could havebeaten him the same way i beat my last opponent, but more than winning, i just wanted the experience and was trying to expand my skill as a fighter (and obviously i still need a lot of improvement ).

also, he caught me very early on with a big hit, and i basically spent the whole rest of the match recovering. in the owrds of mike tyson, "everyone has a plan till they get hit in the face."

G,
i know a guy who works with the MCSO boxing team and he said he could hook me up with some sparring matches, which i think i'll have to take him up on, but as far as developing western boxings striking skill, that's not what i'm after. not to say it's not effective, just a different skill set.

[bailewen]

Ashe,

I could see all of that in the video. I did open my comments with just echoing your Sifu's comments.

From what I've seen so far, your ILC, so far, really excells when you get a little clinch on. I tried to throw some drills out to remedy the problem but, of course, you will need to modify them to some degree in order to bring out those specific skills you are looking for. I can see where you are coming from.

I'd say look at the specifics. Review your video and try to see what that guy was doing that was giving you trouble. Then you need to get a partner who can model those problems for you and give you the laboratory you need to find the answers.

[ashe]

Then you need to get a partner who can model those problems for you and give you the laboratory you need to find the answers.

That's part of the problem with being a bigger guy. When your 5' 9" and 180 sparring partners are growing on trees, but guys 6' 2" and 220+ are kinda hard to come by outside of an mma gym.

[nianfong]

nice fight man. you learn more from failure than success usually, so glean as much from this as you can....
a few notes and constructive criticism for you:
1) you hold your hands extended and high like a muay thai fighter, but clearly you are not meaning to expose your mid-section to strikes like they do, because you don't capitalize on any of his kicks to your mid section. IOW, your midsection is very open to getting hit in your basic stance. you might want to bring one hand down to protect that area. also, your upper hand being so far outwards limits your defensive directions with that hand. closer to the center would be a better stance, IMO.
2) you were getting wailed on with the haymaker hooks. you should work on a pao quan to counter these. it works wonders.
3) there are a few shuaijiao throws that are especially effective in the sanshou environment. knee seizing, pulling, leg blocking. knee seizing would be especially useful for you where you're at now. and also training what to do with a leg once you have it in your hand, so you can respond quickly.
4) you were getting called for holding because sanda/sanshou typically has a 3 second clinch time. you were exceeding it in many cases. in sanshou you have to work your throw fast--no time to work the clinch very long. so you have to train a couple shuaijiao throws so they come out like breathing.

[nianfong]

another note, ashe, you might wanna move this thread to the main forum to get more discussion/input.

[ashe]

cool.

[Areios]

well everybody gives some advice. My first spot was what I said to you at your traning vid. That you droop your hands. Specialy your right hand. Some head movements and train to get the clinch and a quick throw. That would be my gameplane for wilde haymaker throwers.

[johnwang]

Ashe:

When I asked my teacher how he felt about Bruce Lee, he said, "I don't know. I have never met his teacher in any tournaments." IMO, there are 3 different kind of MA guys. Those who:

- don't go to any tournaments.
- go to tournaments but just watch and don't fight.
- go to tournament and fight.

You should be proud of yourself that you belong to the top 33% of the CMA population.