Wakacje z Yiquanem rozpoczęte

Kilka minut z dzisiaj




Zmieniony przez - dacheng w dniu 2013-07-20 21:45:02

Kilka minut z niedzieli (zajęcia trwały 6 godzin z przerwami)

Już niemal 3 tygodnie letniej serii za nami. A jeszcze 5 tygodni przed nami!

Odbywa się trening, a i rozmaite pytania wymagają wyjaśnień. Odbywa się to i podczas zajęć i na forach. Poniżej znajdują się moje wypowiedzi z dyskusji, która miała miejsce na jednej z grup na Facebooku. Planowałem przekształcić je w artykuł, jednak ponieważ wymagałoby to wiele pracy, zdecydowałem się opublikować je w pierwotnej, luźnej formie, w języku angielskim.

(1)

You can practice yiquan or taijiquan or other art for various reasons, not necessarily the fighting efficiency. But as the question is about this aspect, I will focus on this. As in many discussions I hear various people expressing oppinions which come from looking at this subject from various perspectives, I will try to talk at least about a few aspects.

Some people have kind of very idealistic and unrealistic view of asian martial arts. Actually the popularity of traditional asian martial arts in the west is in very big part due to this unrealistic ideas about them. There wouldn't be that big boom in 1960s-1980s if people were not nurturing unrealistic dreams... But later quite many became disillusioned and disappointed, in time of growing popularity of mma, muay thai, k-1 etc, where "traditionalists" got beating.

In the internal art cirles, and especially taijiquan, quite many people developed even higher level os illusion than in other arts. Less reality testing, and still thinking that what they do is the supreme fighting art.
Now, from point of view of yiquan, or point of view of Wang Xiangzhai, which in my opinion is quite realistic point of view, anything is evolving and can be further developed, and there is no end or limit to this process. At the same time this proces is not linear, there are ups and downs and thre is also moving in circles.

According to Wang Xiangzhai himself the period of developing of the chinese martial arts styles which we know presently was actually period mainly of actual degradation of martial art in China, the process going wrong way. He started yiquan in reaction to what he perceived as being not the right way.

On one hand he saw this as going back to the roots, removing wrong and unnecessary, revealing the essence again. On the other hand this was a start for process of further development.
Even now you can still see the same problems which Wang Xiangzhai noticed back then at beginning of 20th century. People doing forms and other methods, learning applications, but it's turning out quite useless when it comes to actual fighting test.

Now in my personal opinion, meeting many people who are proficient in various chinese martial arts, I see tons of valuable stuff inside them. But it seems to mee that maybe for too long periods those arts were quite deprived of reality tests regular enough to maintain the thorough understanding between using those training methods and actual fighting. Even in times of Manchurian dynasty, during uprisings, when many martial arts masters and creators of well known styles were fighting, they were actually fighting with WEAPONS. But in what we have now, weapons are taught almost exclusively as forms, without fighting, while stress is on empty hand fighting, which traditionally was something not so much stressed as less useful.

As for barehand fighting, China has very long history, from ancient times, of things like jueli, shoubo, xiangpu, which are now being described mostly as kinds of wrestling, but at those times often included hitting, also in competition. Yes long time history of competing in a way similiar to mma (except for groundwork). In some periods there were army units with members focusing just on training empty hand fighting and competing. Quite similiar to professional mma or k-1 teams nowadays. People could fight, because they had regular fighting practice, they had fighting experience, they could test how things work. Now and again there were periods where training martial arts was forbidden, but usually just relatively short periods at beginning of a new dynasty. Then under Mongolian dynasty this was forbidden completely. Under Manchurian dynasty it was the same for quite long time. Even wrestling competitions for quite long time were only for Manchurians. So while for long centuries from the beginning of China actual empty hand fighting skills could be regularly tested and improved, in the period in which most of presently practiced styles developed it didn't really continue. Instead there was developing forms, theories, interesting training methods, much of things quite interesting, valuable and useful, but there was lack of regular practical verification. Even situations of assault were mostly with weapons, at least sticks were used, not empty hands. Most of the time lack of possibility of testing your stuff against really top level barehand fighters.

So how could you compare something like this to present day professional fighters, training and actually testing regularly what they do? They verify their methods in actual fighting with other present day top level fighters, adapting and developing them. Now compare this to practicing style, where someone centuries ago maybe had this kind of experience, then through next generations there was very limited amount of practice based on reality testing and more and more focusing on forms and other methods, passing further more and more illusions, gradually more and more detached from reality.

Of course maybe it is a bit of exaggeration, but to some extent something like this was happening. Even if people creating some training methods had a lot of experience and possessed high skills, when those from next generations just repeat practicing those method, without element of practical testing, the knowledge probably will become distored and method will degrade.

Also it is important to realize that those traditional styles were created in some circumstances, where the way of fighting could depend on the local conditions, habits, clothes which they used to wear etc. In the style methods and concepts this could be preserved. But without having the experience of the creators, generations later it could become quite distorted. End even if not, then how could it be efficient nowadays, when confrontation is made under different conditions. So it is quite funny when people from some traditional style go to compete in a ring with some rules created by others, often not even realizing the fact, that methods and tactics of their style were created at different time for different condition. In other words, they don't actually know what they practice, and how it was supposed to relate to fighting (and what kind of fighting, under what kind of conditions).

(2)

You can touch hands with someone, and be impressed, feeling something unusual. But then, will this person will be able to exhibit what you expect under conditions of actual violent fight?

Now, Wang Xiangzhai's thinking, especially in later years, when he called himself "Contradictions Old Man", was based on dialectic philosophy. In situation of contradictions creating some balance, which creates next level of contradictions and so on. Relating it to developing fighting abilities and skills: when you start, any opponnent can destroy your "balance", hitting you, projecting, throwing etc. You develop some basics, and it turns out that you can deal with some opponents easily, maintaining your "balance", but still there are some who are able to destroy this "balance". Then you still develop your skill, and those are not able to destroy your "balance" anymore, but still there are some who can do it. You become really great and can deal easily with almost anyone, but still there might be someone better destroying your "balance" or even someone at the same or lower skill level can destroy your "balance". The ideal can be maintained only in basic practice, in staged demonstration or friendly exchange or when your advantage over your opponent is very big. Otherwise it doesn't matter if you are a master of hunyuan li, your hunyuan li (your "balance") will be destroyed anyway. They say in China: "behind heaven there is next heaven".

Exactly like a boxer performs beautifully when his opponent is much worse, and it becomes ugly, when there is not such big difference in skill. The same with wrestler - performing incredible skill when there is a big skill difference, but looking rather clumsy when there is not such difference or skill is similiar.

Why people expect that with yiquan or taijiquan it could be different?

Martial arts created for smaller and weaker to be able to defeat bigger and stronger? Well, but what if the bigger and stronger also learn them? Do martial arts include some magic, which gives special bonus only to those smaller and weaker? Training martial arts will increase your fighting abilities, but will not change you miraculously into some invicible deity.

Also hunyuan li is not a magic power. It's not like you don't have it, and then suddenly you get it and you can use it. No, hunyuan li is a concept of balance, balanced strength, which is to be developed and gradually improved on higher and higher levels, not something you get at some point and then just use it. Balanced strenght in all directions is some basic definition of hunyuan li in yiquan. People usually talk about developing hunyuan li by practicing zhan zhuang, then testing it through shi li, and then using it. But according to what my teacher teaches, and what is consistent with Wang Xiangzhai's philosophy, there is some kind of misunderstanding here. You can have balanced strength under easy circumstances, but you are losing it under more demanding conditions.

So you also use tui shou and then san shou to work on developing and improving hunyuan li - trying again to develop and maintain "balance"/balanced strength/hunyuan li gradually under more and more demanding conditions. You need to test your present abilities under such conditions (be it tui shou and then san shou), to be able to see and understand insufficiencies, so you know on what you need to work. You don't really realize this without this kind of testing. You might feel satisfied with what you perceive, you might think that if just practice this long enough, it will become ingrained enough to be exhibited during fight, but this is kind of illusion - when it comes to fight you lose it. You might think that it will just need some more basic practice to make it ingrained deeper, but it will not happen, because there is not enough of testing to notice and understand the problems so you could improve your basic training in right way. This is also about understanding basic training better. The progress is not just linear, but it is like spirals, coming back to the same basic things, but with better understanding, due to more advanced practice and testing, then improved basics help you to perform better in tests, where you get new experience and knowledge, which again gives you deeper understanding of basics.

(3)

So with traditional chinese martial arts we have situation that even if they are very good in a way, they were created for fighting in conditions different from present day sports formats, and they are just not good for this. But this means, that basically practicing them you will not have opportunity for regular testing your skill in conditions for which they were designed, so your perception of your skill and your ideas about fighting might be illusions.

Of course people might practice some of such styles, just because they like practicing it, learning it. But if you are serious about seeking the truth, you should not deceive yourself, you should understand things like: you cannot be sure about something, if you are not testing it, you cannot really understand it, until you put it in practice and find the actual meaning. You don't want to do it? O.K., but then you just need to accept that you will not be able to understand some aspect in depth. This is the situation when people do some traditional style and they go to modern competitions, expecting that what they learned should work there, because "this is such great martial art which I learned"... Probably with this lack of knowledge even if they were shifted back in time, and actually fought in situation in which creator of the style fought, they still wouldn't do any better than at modern competition, as they don't have this kind of experience which founder had, and they don't even realize this.

So what to do?

Practicing those arts not caring too much about practical verification? Why not? Good option for many people who like to have some interesting hobby involving physical activity.
Choosing one of the modern combative sports instead? Why not. Very good option for those more interested in doing something, progress and skill level can be tested directly by fighting.
Now, is there a third way?

Many people practice traditional chinese martial arts, but they compete in some kind of sports sanda, and if they want to be successful, then need to do a lot of training from outside of their traditional style methodology. Actually kind of practicing two styles simultanously.

In yiquan we are going different way. Wang Xiangzhai started it, Yao Zongxun and others took it further. Not switching from traditional martial art to modern sport, but adapting the art to new times. Many people from traditional arts complain, that at competitions they cannot do joint locks, cannot attack vital points, the gloves are restricting them. Wang Xiangzhai made it for us much simpler, not caring too much about dianxue and qinna. Just issue power at the point of contact, hit and also affect opponent balance by any point where contact happens, following changes. Being ready and able to issue power with any part of body at any moment in any direction. Formless, without complex application techniques, just bang,bang, hit or issue power in a way which would affect opponent's balance.

Now, with such approach it became much easier to start regular sparrings and competing than in most other chinese arts, without need of making sacrifice of part of it.
Of course this will not look like "artificially made by man" moves from traditional forms. Would it look similar to boxing or kick boxing? Maybe in a way, except for pushing, pulling, projecting etc, which are not allowed in boxing and kick-boxing. Although this similarity to boxing would be rather in layman eyes. When yiquan practitioner is doing something which superficially is looking like a punch, quite similiar to boxing punches, actually it is much different - this is not just punch - inside there is multitude of jins (strengths/forces) ready to be used in multitudes of ways. This is hunyan li. Except of aspect of balance, it means multidirectional strength - anywhere, anytime, any direction. Looks like hitting with fist, but when situation changes, it can change into hitting with forearm, with strength being ready, or into pushing, or redirecting opponent's arm - anything being ready, and used according tosituation. Hunyuan li.

It's so beautifully simple idea of martial art. And it would so easily make full contact competitions, significantly different from existing formats. Not long rounds, but short fast bouts, as when "on the street" in situation when you want to finish as soons as possible, because otherwise more opponnents could approach. Small fight area. Moving out from it symbolizing falling down from traditional lei tai platform. Combine hitting with unbalancing opponent by any part of body where contact happens, throw him down or out of the fight area.

This is what actually my teacher teaches, training leads to this. Only we need more people interested in it, we need regular testing opportunity - competitions. When there will be more people doing this and seriously interested in it, there will be chance for developing the level of yiquan in combative aspect.
Of course not everybody practicing yiquan must be interested in this (or because of age, health and other limitations being able to do this actively), there might be other reasons for practicing yiquan than developing top level combative skills based on the yiquan principles.

Anyway, presently there are not many people who are practicing yiquan with such thoughts. Only when there will be more of them, you could think about serious testing/competing and some more people training yiquan in a way making it possible to present top level of combative skill.

At the moment I'm happy that at least a few yiquan beginners, and a few people from outside yiquan turned out to be brave enough to participate in our tui shou and light contact san shou competitions. Just first small steps.

(4)

Again about the practical verification, testing of skill, as important part of the learning process.
When talking about regular testing of skill, I don't mean everyday hard full contact fighting. That would be something crazy.
Even boxing training is not just all the time hard fighting, it is only one part of the whole training, and still it is possible to this extent due to relatively limited scope of possible situations, with keeping tight guard with big gloves, which makes it relatively safe.

And in Muay Thai, training regularly like they compete would create too many injuries. So in fact in Thailand they don't really do full contact sparrings regularly. Usually they spar light contact, and only with bags and pads they hit full power. Their tests of hard fighting are at competitions, not at training. If they did it at training, they wouldn't be able to earn money by competing, because too many injuries would make it not possible.
Now, talking about Wang Xiangzhai or Chen Fake. How could they be so great without regular sparring training? But... did their opponents do regular sparring training? Doesn't seem so. Well, that would explain a lot. Like the famous "fight of century" in Macao in 1950s. The great famous masters of that time, and now on YouTube you can see their level. So this could give us some idea about fighting level at that time... O.K. So let assume that some training methods were really giving big advantage, but... over whom? Other people of those times, who didn't really spar and didn't have really much idea about actual fighting of any kind? How would that be against present day mma fighters?

Actually people like Chen Fake and Wang Xiangzhai had advantage over many others, because they at least had serious tui shou training, while others had forms and techniques, while lacking methods which would need adapting to actually resisting opponent. Even though tui shou is quite limited, in this regard I'm sure it would give advantage over opponents who didn't even do this...
Yes, there were some opponent's who did sparring. Like with Chen Fake I remember story about "fight" with some shuai jiao wrestler. Still it wasn't actual fight, but rather what they called "touching hands".
Or some other who did some tui shou, but focusing too much on soft side, without enough of solid strength.
Or talking about Wang Xiangzhai, those who did some kinds of sparring were mostly Japanese who did judo and kendo. As for barehand fighting with those Japanese guys, it wasn't really fighting, but usually situations of "what will happen if I grab you?"

So while we believe that Wang and Chen presented something unusual, we need to realize that it was usually tested in maybe not so really demanding situations. Although there are many impressing stories, we almost don't have relations about actual serious fighting.

As I know the opinions of Yao Zongxun, presented by my teacher and other students of Yao Zongxun, many times expressed also in articles, according to his relations, what they were usually doing in first half of 20th century, was either tests of "touching hands" (like tui shou), or "ending with touch" (light sparring to first touch or demonstrating situation of "I could hit you now"), or "what you will do if I do this - just do it", and reacting to quite fixed attack. Almost all chalanges they did were something very far from actual fighting.

Some exceptions were Zhao Daoxin fighting in guoshu tournament, Bu Enfu fighting in boxing, then a few of Wang students being prepared for challenges tournee around world in 1930. Then it was Yao Zongxun who in 1940 focused on introducing regular sparring with gloves and protectors. This way transmission of methods could be supplemented with more realistic testing. Also quite important is that in late 1940, after Japanese left, and before establishing PRC, Yao Zongxun and some of his fellow practitioners (at the moment I can remember name of Zhang Zhong) were doing a lot of testing their skill in fights against street gangs in Beijing. Due to this what Yao Zongxun was transmitting was much more based on understanding of actual fighting than in many other cases.

So, this is not just my opinion, but actually I'm trying to express/represent what is just generally accepted in this line of yiquan. It's about being realistic, testing things, adapting and adopting what useful. Putting theory and practice (including testing) together.

So while some training methods developed in China have their merits, and we should not lose this, at the same time it is important to continue learning, test the methods against present challenges and work on improving them. Wang Xiangzhai started it. Then people like Yao Zongxun or Zhao Daoxin were really going such path.

However it doesn't mean, what some people practicing yiquan or taikiken imagine, that you are doing some zhan zhuang, shi li and fa li and on top of this just fighting/sparring. Actually our san shou training is much more than just free sparring, including among others gongfang xunlian (attack and defense training), with various level of complexity and freedom (from fixed to partly fixed, to relatively free, to free), also practice of imagery fighting situations, so called free sparrings which actually can be limited in various ways, being relatively free, but focusing on some aspect. Full contact sparring with minimum limitations is kind of test, which should help practitioner to understand how what he learnes works in actual violent situation. This prevents from developing illusions, and helps you to improve your basic training. Actually Yao Zongxun was expressing it this way: "san shou from one point of view is a test of what you developed by training basic methods, and enables improving your basic training". This is not just learning by fighting. Actually Yao Zongxun said (and wrote in his book) that just fighting would help to increase fighting abilities to some extent, but not really high level. Really important is that without this kind of testing it is easy to develop illusions about fighting, giving too much importance to things which for example work very well in pushing hands, but wouldn't be so important in san shou, not really understanding how those skills relate to san shou.

Now, of course not everybody needs to do full contact fighting. But if in your school, organization there are such people, it will help also those who don't do this to better understand fighting and avoid illusory thinking. Also it's just honest to make it clear that if you don't do this, your understanding of fighting is not at the level with those who do your training, and additionally test it this way. Honest (not just toward others, but also yourself) attidude, opposite to presenting something as ultimate methods, while not putting it to test.

So some people can do more, some less, some more free, some in more limited way. But if no one will do top level tests, we all be at higher risk of becoming those who only perpetuate some myths...
In present day, by regular testing I mean competitions. This is why as part of YIQUAN.COmpetitions project we plan to include Elite San Shou - full contact fighting with rules which would help to present the skills being at the core of Yao's yiquan transmission. Short time, limited space (falling out representing falling down from platform, stairs, falling onto some object etc.), promoting "attack and defense being one", mixing hitting with affecting balance "in the moment of contact", "at any place contact happens". While at the same time we want to make it possible for everybody to participate in some way (fixed position tui shou, free step tui shou, light contact san shou). When some people will do full contact they will help those who can't do this to understand better how those more limited variants are related to more free fighting, and how to do them in a way which would lead toward developing skills working in full contact, instead of leading toward developing skills and methods which only work well in those limited formats.

So generally anyone can improve his level of fighting abilities, by using basic methods, tui shou, san shou in various proportions. Some basic methods might be more useful than others, so they can help with the goal of developing fighting abilities more than other methods. However we don't believe in ultimate method. There are many factors which summed up make some level of fighting skill. If for some reason you leave some of them out, you need to understand that your percentage chances of winning a fight will be lower. Maybe enough with some opponent, but not enough with another. Unified whole body strength might be good against some big muscles guy, but another big muscles guy might also possess quite unified strength. "Using soft against hard", "leading opponent into emptiness", "using opponent's force against him" are not some ultimate methods. Their efficiency is relative. When your opponent is big and strong, but not skilled, using "one directional", "flat" strength, you can be smaller, weaker, and use such skill. But when opponent uses "round" balanced strength, being able to balance his strength affected even by high frequency changes, then you start understanding limitations of "soft against hard". So while in yiquan we also have "leading into emptiness" and "using opponent's force", we don't attribute to them the same kind of meaning as those who play touching hands, and don't really test their stuff in more demanding conditions.

Z soboty 27 lipca

Kolejne pytanie, kolejna odpowiedź

"If openness and competition are such a good thing for the CMA's, why set up a separate competitive format (like Yiquan PH comps), where the level of competition will inevitably be lower than in other established formats? Why not just train for and enter judo, boxing, MMA comps etc.?"

Practitioners of various CMA should think for themselves which is the way more suitable for the art which they are practicing. Do they want to practice that art in depth or do they want to switch to those modern established formats instead? I was already addressing this issue above.

So some would practice a traditional art, and they would not engage in tournament testing, because their art is not suitable for this.

Then because of the same reason, some would rather give up that art and switch to training for modern established competition format.

And some would try to do both, training some CMA and participating in those modern tournaments. But if they don't really focus seriously (and completely or almost completely) on training preparing for those competitions, they will only be able to participate in some low level tournaments.

Now, I already stated above that we think that there is another reasonable way - establishing tournament rules which would suit characteristic of a given art.

Of course having some tests of your skill using different rules is useful too. But is this reasonable to focus mainly on using different rules, or to focus primarily on the rules which are designed to promote the core skills of your art? In my opinion more reasonable is the second.

Now, quite often you can hear opinion, which is actually quite weird, that because yiquan is "formless", it is about zhan zhuang and shi li training to develop "hunyuan li", but it doesn't teach "how to fight". So some people advice you to go to train boxing or some other art. For me absolutely crazy idea. Completely different from what we learn in Yao's line, and from what Wang Xiangzhai was teaching, and also what he was writing.

Wang Xiangzhai stressed ability of adapting to situation, instead of using sets of fixed techniques (which of course is not different from proper understanding of xingyi or bagua), but it doesn't mean that yiquan has no character if we are talking about the way of fighting. This would be a big misunderstanding. The characteristic of yiquan fighting is really not so much different from xingyi with some bagua influence. Also presence of tui shou in yiquan is important element, and our pushing hands seem to be much more influenced by Fujian white crane drills (Wang Xiangzhai for several years training together with white crane people in Fujian) than taijiquan.

Our tui shou is not so much related to grappling/wrestling, as it seems to be with some taijiquan schools. It is rather related to striking and using short moments of contact to redirect opponents arm and force, opening space for attack and also affecting opponent's center/balance through those short moment of contact ("issue power at the moment of contact"), to follow with next actions.This is quite crucial or core part of what we learn. Wang Xiangzhai mentions this himself in "意拳断手术要与意拳使用之方法“ （"Description of yiquan duan shou and yiquan application methods") written in 1959: "...意拳之技击专讲断手，意即断敌所来的手..." ("In yiquan combat 'breaking hand' is especially stressed, the meaning is 'breaking' opponents attacking hand"). Not necesarrily breaking in literal sense, but issuing power to that arriving hand, this way affecting whole body.

Now, why to focus on competing in other formats, while it is possible to develop our own format, With the yiquan characteristic? When you don't need to care much about specific points, joint locks etc., we don't have those problems which people from other arts would have, making big compromises, if trying to develop competition rules.

Why to focus on preparing for different rules, which are promoting completely different way of fighting, while we can use competitions to promote the yiquan character?

Because the level of those well established tournaments is higher? But this would be good reason only if you want to give up your art, and switch to training for those tournament rules. In most cases trying to do both would mean that you don't train enough to get to high level in those formats.

So idea that participating in those presently well established competitions formats is good for CMA is a bit weird. Lack of practical testing is kind of problem, yes, but why focus on testing under those alien rules? Why care so much about rules which were created specifically for entertainment and making money on big shows, and not really with the thought of testing martial arts under conditions for which they were created?

Our yiquan fighting characteristic is mainly about preparing for "battle" - fast, violent "street" bout, with various objects around (corner of a building wall, a motorcycle, a stone bench etc.), with danger of friends of your opponent joining, when you cannot think about tactics for several rounds, but you need to get rid of the danger as soon as possible, when none of opponents thinks about going to the ground, when being pushed doesn't mean that your opponent gets warning from the referee (like in many sports format) or that you fall into elastic ring ropes, but maybe you have your spine broken, hitting some dangerous object.

So when you train skills for this kind of fight, why you should care about competition rules which create completely different character of a fight? Why not to establish rules which would better approximate the character of your art?

Of course the level is low at the moment. Quite many yiquan practitioners are more into basic health practice, there are not many qualified instructors, there are not too many young, talented physically fit people interested in learning yiquan, who could be made top level fighters.

But there is a tremendous potential for the future, only if some more people understand this.

There exist some striking formats. There exist some grappling formats. There exist some mixed formats. But is that all? Well, it seems that people are kind of blind to some aspects and modes of fighting.

People practicing CMA should understand better. Why go to boxing, which is purely striking, while the character of yiquan (actually xingyiquan is the same) is moving into opponent, using "wedge" and leverage, affecting center, and not just striking?

MMA? Yes, it is about expanding the fighting to next areas - fighting on the ground, and how the stand up fighting changes, when opponents are willing to go to the ground. So this is aspect which yiquan people start studying. But some don't really know yiquan as it is, don't really know what we have in yiquan, and they just think about boxing and mma, and this way they lose chance to learn about something valuable, which they will not really find there.

So actually we have something interesting to offer to the world of combative sports. Some area which others don't even notice.

Make a small fight area, extremely short time of a bout, give points to opponent if he is standing and you on ground ("sure death" in a "battle" mode of fighting), or he is within the fight area, and you are outside (representing you being pushed onto some dangerous object, falling from the stairs etc.), and what you will notice? Well, you will see more or less people fighting in a way as taught by Yaos. You will soon notice how important is tui shou and tui duan shou (pushing hands including hitting) training for preparing for this kind of conditions. Next you will notice how our zhan zhuang and shi li practice is important for developing skills needed here. This way we can offer new interesting competition format and at the same time make people better understand the value of yiquan training methods.

On the other hand, if we would go toward preparing for boxing, kick-boxing, mma, what people learning with us would discover? That value of our training for preparing for those formats is minimal, and if they would think about real success in those formats, probably more than 90% of their training should be exactly what other people train, and their yiquan would become limited maybe to a few percent of training... If choosing this way, maybe it's better to give up yiquan and switch to mma training from the very beginning.

So no, this is definitely not good idea. Our choice is to show, that we have something others don't have, and use competition formats which will promote developing skills important for this part of the fighting spectrum, which others neglect or even don't realize it exists.

Of course this is quite a challenge. In China they were able to organize more or less official (trial status) yiquan san shou competitions only once, in 1998. Problem is that wushu authorities didn't like it (and unlike mma, yiquan in China is governed by wushu authorities), saying that it looked ugly and the level was low (sure, how you could have high level in a format which basically doesn't exist and there are no people training seriously/professionally), and of course in yiquan circles there are various opinions (and some "masters" didn't even practice much of combative side of yiquan, but their voice counts as opinion of the yiquan circles).

For us, now developing YIQUAN.COmpetitions project in Europe, it is not easy too. So far yiquan training seems not too be very attractive for young, talented, physically fit, fighting oriented guys. So we started from formats, which are accessible to average yiquan practitioner present days: Easy Tui Shou (fixed position), Free Step Tui Shou and Easy San Shou (hitting with light contact and some other limitations).

Even though in Easy San Shou, power of hitting is limited, so it is only quite far approximation of what we want to demonstrate, the situations of 'issuing power in the moment of contact' and affecting balance in the moment of contact of arms do happen quite frequently under those rules. Of course it is true, that most of participants are low level at the moment, just beginners, or even if they do yiquan for some years, some of them are not able to come to classes regularly (job and family obligations, distance from school etc.), but even in this situation we were able to prove/demonstrate some things (at least some people are able to notice).

In next stage, when there will be at least a few people fit for this, we plan Standard San Shou, with rules basically the same as Easy San Shou, but hitting with full power allowed.

And Elite San Shou is planned as opportunity for confronting people from various combative sports, with minimum rules, but the same small fight area, short time of a bout, points given when opponent is down, or outside the area.

Then there is also idea (when there are more people practicing combative yiquan and interested in it) expanding to format which would include some ground. But most important is now to promote what we are taught in Yao's yiquan, so it is understood and not lost, and then expanding to other areas (Opinion expressed by Yao Chengguang himself, when asked by one of my students: "Yes, you can learn ground fighting as an addition to yiquan").

Development is not about just forgeting what you have and following some novelties, but noticing good points of what you have and what others have, and then creating new quality.

A tymczasem w Pekinie opublikowana została kolejna książka o Yiquan

Kolejne odpowiedzi na pytania

It happens quite often, that people seeing yiquan sparrings or competitions (not too many of those were organized so far though) comment and criticize yiquan people for not protecting their head and not keeping proper guard or tight guard and generally lack of defense. Very often they comment: "this is just like very bad, low level boxing or kick-boxing" or "they should rather learn some boxing or kick-boxing instead wasting time for this shit".

The source of such view is taking the limited perspective of striking ring sports. And while some things actually make a lot of sense in such limited enviroment, it is quite different outside this frameset. As you can see from MMA fights, keeping the type of guard typical for boxing or kickboxing is not really often used or useful there. Well, sometimes you can see MMA fighters keeping such guard for a moment, mostly when when they are at distance several meters from their opponent, so keeping that guard is actually quite pointless then. But because coaches (and for the hitting part in the MMA the coaches often come from boxing) use to repeat: "keep guard, keep guard", many fighters develop that habit. However this habit is displayed mostly in situations of being outside fighting range, while the guard usually disappears when they enter actual fighting range. Yes, in boxing or kick-boxing, pure striking competition rules and big gloves, that element might be something important and valuable. But people should notice that it becomes quite useless under other kinds of conditions.

If you want to understand what we do in yiquan, you should forget some ideas which come from boxing or kick-boxing - purely striking competition sports, with use of big gloves, with many long rounds originally designed to make money by organizing events atracting many spectators. It should be obvious that those sports didn't develop for reason of reality based self defense, but for commercial and entertainment reasons. Those sports are great in itself. And also the skills developed by those athletes would be useful in outside ring situations. But there is a lot beyond this perspective.

Think about MMA again. How is it that in so many situations when pure boxers and kickboxers without MMA experience would take typical tight guard, you don't really see those fighters doing this? Simply it is not boxing ring situation, with only striking allowed. If catching, throwing, leg shoots can be used, there are many more dangers and risks than just being hit in the head. The focus on protecting head the way as it is done in boxing becomes quite useles under those more variable conditions with different kinds of risks.

And this is more or less the reason why in yiquan it doesn't make much sense protecting yourself by taking such guard - it simply will not work, will not save you, and in many cases you will actually become defeated exactly because of doing something like this!

Fighting includes both attack and defense. Yiquan, as many other chinese martial arts stresses avoiding separating them. As long as it is possible you want to make defense and attack simultanous. And if it is possible you want one and the same movement be both defense and attack.

Successfully hitting is a defense too. Unbalancing opponent is part of attacking, but at the same time you defend yourself. When contact with opponent's arms happens even for a split of second, it is much better if it is not only for blocking or simply covering your body against punches, but if you can use it to reasonably change direction of opponent's attack, and also use this moment of contact to disturb opponent's balance, all this to facilitate your next actions. When you possess those skills, then if opponent is just blocking and covering his head, you can use his defense against him. The actions which would work well against a striker turn out to be not so useful, if opponent learned to use any contact to "take center".

Footwork is a defense too. We stress continuous changing position and angles, which is important for both defense and attack. Changing distance too. Both moving out and moving in can be a defense. Moving in will usually mean simultanous attack. As for moving out, some xingyiquan master said: "Even when I move back, I move forward". You move back (and usually at the same time to the side), not just to move back, but to immediately enter again from more convenient position/angle, and as long as possible you want to "take opponent's center" simultanously, either by hooking or catching or making him attack you and using his momentum against him.

Unlike many present day competition formats with the rounds made long to make it a spectacle, yiquan exactly like its predecessor xingyiquan, was created for surviving fast, extremely fierce bout. Not just one on one in safe enviroment, but next assailants can join any moment or while you engage in fight with one, others might use this time to beat your dear person. We are talking about situation when you don't have time for moving back and patiently waiting for opportunity to attack.

Changing position of your body can be used too, including some leaning in various directions. However quite often the same action which would be quite useful defense if opponent is only striking, could be working against you, if he trained "taking center" (similarly if he learned more all-round ways of fighting, like mma).

In situations of serious time pressure, when the fight is really fierce, when the danger is not only the possibility of being hit, but also being violently pushed or thrown onto some hard and edgy object (situation quite different from sport fighting on a big mat or a ring with elastic ropes), typical striking arts strategies, tactics and techniques turn out to be insufficient, and training which mixes striking with destroying opponent's structure and balance becomes exactly what is important.

People who do striking sports don't understand this. They will criticize yiquan for not protecting head in a way which would suit their taste. But just think for a moment. On one side there is the risk that opponent's fist will hit your head. But on the other hand the risk that your spine or your head will hit the edge of some hard object. Which is more dangerous actually?

Please notice that on the sport ring boxers wear big gloves and apart from that their hands are binded with tapes. This is something which allowes them to hit very hard without taking the risk of injuring hands. And what happens when they are trying to hit that hard when they don't have tapes and gloves on their hands? Injuring their own hands quite frequently instead of injuring opponent...

At the competitions which we started the fight area is relatively small, and being thrown out of it symbolizes being thrown into some object. And just stepping out symbolizes falling from a platform or from stairs. You see, people must to think also about this, not only about possibility of being hit - well, actually like in many real life fight situations, unlike sports rules created because of completely different reasons.

Those who criticize us, should think a bit, and try by themselves fighting under such conditions, so they can finally understand, that their opinions are illusions.

Thinking that "not protecting head" is result of wearing helmets with mask is one of such illusions. The risk of your spine or head being smashed when hitting hard object, the risk of falling down on something hard and edgy if you step out - this is why you need to fight in different way than people educated on typical sport formats imagine.

Yiquan fighting is taking into account such things, and our competition rules are created in such a way that they help to promote the way of fighting which is efficient under such conditions and not under rules created artificially because of completely different reasons, as is the case with mosts sports.

When under such conditions opponent is using skill of mixing the hitting with upseting opponent's balance, you need to deal it with skills which people who don't do this kind of training don't realize. When they try what they know, to protect against hitting, they often fall out from the fight area - seems nothing dangerous, until you realize that it would mean for example that you fall down from high platform or from the stairs onto a hard edgy object. And even in the light contact Easy San Shou, in this case opponent gets 2 points, while for hit only 1 point. Some people would say that such rules are stupid. But just think again, what would be more dangerous in the real fight situation about which we are talking?

So when those people will be defeated by being thrown out from the fight area, they will stop protecting themselves in the way they thought was so good, because they will finally notice that their defence works against them. Of course in result they will be hit more often... Whatever they do, it works against them, because they just didn't learn the skills to protect themselves under such conditions...

And very few people learn such skills. Even people who think they practice yiquan, actually quite often have not much idea about what they are actually learning ...

There are many ways to practice attack and defense skills in yiquan. Actually tui shou is the basic method and is very usefull. Mixing striking with destroying opponent's balance in free fighting and defending against such actions is actually very closely related to tui shou training. You learn absorbing and redirecting opponent's power, balance between hard and soft, protecting center and using center, oblique surfaces (or triangles), pointing force or controlling force, attack and defense being one. Even in most basic pushing hands drills all those concepts are included. This way you can start working on it in relatively simple situations. When you can make it in simple situation, you can gradually try more difficult ways of practice.

Tui duan shou is actually kind of tui shou in which striking is included. It is very important transitory stage between typical tui shou and san shou.

San shou training includes many kinds of practice, from relatively fixed attack and defense drills, to semi free and relatively free kinds of sparrings. They might focus on different specific aspects of fighting, on different principles. Some are included in standard study program, but many can be designed and adapted according to needs, depending on what kind of problems students encounter - of course this needs a teacher who understands what it's all about.

Anyway many important san shou skills are really closely related to tui shou. Most people don't know how it works, so usually they don't even notice and hence are not able to understand what's happening during the fight which they watch. They see that someone is "not using any defense", and they don't realize that, as Wang Xianghai said; "what is important happens at a distance of one inch". It's often splits of seconds, and movements difficult to notice. They see "no defence, no protection", but if you know how it works, you will notice that in very short moment of contact balance of the person with lower skill becomes disturbed, so that person is at risk of being thrown out of the fight area, and not able to deal efficiently with someone using such skill. So next moment he rather avoids arms conctact (gives up defense using bloking, covering head - which would lead to the same result), but in result is hit or is projected, because has no chance to defend by using tui shou skills. Improving defense needs serious working on this. And the basis is tui shou.

Just hope that more people will start learning yiquan seriously, especially young talented, physically fit, so we can use competitions to promote yiquan, demonstrating high level of skill and that range of skill which many people don't even realize yet that it exists and is important for real fighting.

Rozkład zajęć w tym tygodniu. Praca u podstaw.

Niedziela 4 sierpnia - 17:00-20:00
Poniedziałek 5 sierpnia - 17:00-20:00
Wtorek 6 sierpnia - 17:00-20:00
Środa 7 sierpnia - dzień wolny
Czwartek 8 sierpnia - 17:00-20:00
Piątek 9 sierpnia - 17:00-20:00
Sobota 10 sierpnia - 9:00-12:00