Chi Sau (play time)

[mook jong man]

I'm still a novice at this video uploading bizzo so I hope the quality is ok.
This footage is from 9 months ago.
This blokes chi sau sparring has improved quite a bit since then.
I can't move him as easily as I once did , and he gets the odd strike in on me these days.

If anybody else doesn't mind putting some stuff up , I would really be interested to see how other lineages do chi sau sparring.

[video=vimeo;63798440]http://vimeo.com/63798440[/video]

 

[Cyriacus]

Besides being as interesting as your other videos that also tweak on my interest in Wing Chun (which is currently totally impossible to put into practice),

Your video uploading is fine. Your camera angle is fine - If you wanted a wider view and theres actually room to move the camera, moving it back and tilting it up a bit should work, and the only nitpick id make is that it filters bright light into white light (the sky, the sun, the area out from under cover...) which can distract from whats actually happening. But really, those are things that arent problems. Theyre just the only things that arent good, so take that as a thumbs up to the rest of how youre recording. The quality of the image doesnt matter much as long as it isnt painful to look at, which this isnt, so thats fine.

 

[Argus]

Wow. This is... different.

Alright, well, I have some big questions and concerns about this kind of Chisau. I'm not sure how to ask these without sounding disrespectful; you're much my senior in Wing Chun, and in age, and I usually find your views and advice very sound and logical. I'm in no place to judge what you do, but there are some things that just seem to me to be bad practice here (at least, in so far as my understanding of Chisau is concerned), so I would like to ask you about them.

I am of the school of thought, as is my teacher, that chisau is about building skills and attributes for fighting, and learning to apply the principles of Wing Chun; but it is not fighting, and should not be practiced as such. It should be about learning and improving. You can't do that at the kind of speed that you guys are practicing. All that speed does is cover up mistakes and build and reinforce bad habits that we should be working to overcome. I'm by no means as experienced as you, or even most of the others here on this forum, but I saw some stuff happening that shouldn't have been, and I didn't see some stuff happening that should have been.

Let's take a look at the basic roll for example. How much are you listening to eachother, and how much are you just following the hands? Traditionally, the person on bottom lifts and initiates the roll. There's a reason for this. If you raise your fook up of your own accord, as opposed to just riding my tan/bong, I should just fill the space immediately. So when I see that super fast rolling, that's cause for concern. I met a guy who tried doing this to me once. At first, he just overwhelmed me by being really fast. But then I started doing much better when I quit chasing the hands and just started filling all the space that he was opening everywhere.

Another big concern. At many times in the video, you were throwing quick snapping punches that you jerked back after hitting. Now, those are obviously not Wing Chun, since we never remove a hand without replacing it, so I assume you were trying to replicate attacks that distance fighters might throw. There's a problem, though. When you retreated your hands, your student didn't immediately move in and fill the space. If we're in chisau, and I take a hand away suddenly, you should immediately be filling that space with your fist. If we can't apply this; the basic concept of "Lat Sau Jik Chung", then we might as well be doing some form of distance fighting like boxing or muay thai.

I believe that there is a time and place to practice fighting, and practice sparring, but it isn't in chisau. Because, if you do it in chisau, then you just start forming all kinds of bad habits; bad positions, chasing hands, and "lack of listening skills."

Is this something that you normally do, or were you just experimenting/playing around in this video?

 

[mook jong man]

You are inexperienced and it shows in your very limited view of chi sau.
You can roll as fast as you want , the main thing is that you keep a smooth even flow of force , that way the opponent can't tell where the force is coming from.
I can roll very slow in chi sau and I can roll very fast .
I can roll up with my Fook Sau or my Bong Sau to off balance my opponent , you don't have to wait for them to initiate the roll if I am using it to off balance him ,
that is a very passive view of these structures , combined with stepping they can be used to attack the opponents balance.

What we were doing is chi sau sparring.
In chi sau sparring I can do anything I want , I can spar him with one hand , I can spar him with my hands down , I can spar him with my guard back at my chin , just as long as when I intercept his arm , my arm is in the optimum angle.

I can play around with this guy and break some of the rules ,because I have simply been training a lot longer than him and I can get away with it .
But if I am against someone my level then I will be a lot more cautious in making sure my guard is up and my angles are correct.

There is Chi Sau where you practice your basic rolling and then there is Chi Sau Sparring where you practice your trapping counter- trapping and other attacks.
This stuff has to be practised at proper combat speed , otherwise you are just fooling yourself into thinking that when the time comes you will just be able to magically go up a few gears and be able to apply it all , doesn't work that way unfortunately .

Heres some more rolling from my lineage.

[video=youtube_share;ifEaY0AyZfo]http://youtu.be/ifEaY0AyZfo[/video]

 

[Argus]

That's nice, but my concern still stands.

All throughout the video, he's chasing your hands, and not chasing you. Pretty severely so. You don't agree?

My concern isn't with your WC. I have no doubt that you're good, and I realize that you're just playing here, but I wonder if it's not causing your student to build bad habits.

 

[mook jong man]

That's nice, but my concern still stands.

All throughout the video, he's chasing your hands, and not chasing you. Pretty severely so. You don't agree?

My concern isn't with your WC. I have no doubt that you're good, and I realize that you're just playing here, but I wonder if it's not causing your student to build bad habits.

He's not chasing my hands , he's trying to defend himself.
If I took my hands away , he would go straight through the center.
We do a lot of work on single sticking hands and slow refinement of rolling as well as testing of forward force.

He's not learning bad habits , he's learning to make his Wing Chun functional at full speed under pressure , not just within the confines of gentle rolling.

Give the guy a break , of course he's a bit overwhelmed , he's got two years experience training once a week up against me who's been training 24 years.

How would you do up against somebody like me ?

 

[Argus]

Of what relevance is it how well I would do up against someone like you? I'm sure you would eat me alive.

I'm just wondering why when you retreat your hands he doesn't follow you in. Of course, it's a video, so it's not as easy to tell what is going on as in person, but it looks like when you break contact and/or collapse the guard your opponent doesn't have any desire to follow you in. He probably is just overwhelmed, but doesn't that mean the speed and intensity is just too much? If I'm not making my Wing Chun work as it should be, and I'm not sticking to my form, structure, or principles, am I not just learning bad habits? I'm not saying that training under pressure isn't important, but it seems that you should never up the intensity past the point where your (or the other guy's) form starts getting sloppy.

But, please understand that I'm not trying to criticize anyone. I'm not in any position to do that. However, I am going to be very discerning of what ever I come across, and I will ask questions and make observations. Maybe I'm way off the ball, or maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. It doesn't really matter. I'm here to learn. So, rather than just silently judging the guy in the video, I'd rather ask questions and see if my understanding lines up with yours, or anyone else's, or if I just don't know what I'm talking about.


Edit: Let me be more specific so you can see where my questions are coming from.
00:37
00:38
00:39
00:41
etc.

 

[mook jong man]

Of what relevance is it how well I would do up against someone like you? I'm sure you would eat me alive.

I'm just wondering why when you retreat your hands he doesn't follow you in. Of course, it's a video, so it's not as easy to tell what is going on as in person, but it looks like when you break contact and/or collapse the guard your opponent doesn't have any desire to follow you in. He probably is just overwhelmed, but doesn't that mean the speed and intensity is just too much? If I'm not making my Wing Chun work as it should be, and I'm not sticking to my form, structure, or principles, am I not just learning bad habits? I'm not saying that training under pressure isn't important, but it seems that you should never up the intensity past the point where your (or the other guy's) form starts getting sloppy.

But, please understand that I'm not trying to criticize anyone. I'm not in any position to do that. However, I am going to be very discerning of what ever I come across, and I will ask questions and make observations. Maybe I'm way off the ball, or maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. It doesn't really matter. I'm here to learn. So, rather than just silently judging the guy in the video, I'd rather ask questions and see if my understanding lines up with yours, or anyone else's, or if I just don't know what I'm talking about.


Edit: Let me be more specific so you can see where my questions are coming from.
00:37
00:38
00:39
00:41
etc.

I don't really have time to analyse the whole video.
So I will sum it up like this , it's something that I call "Scared of the Instructor Syndrome".
Usually we use a lot more contact than what is shown in the video , he knows that when we are sparring that sometimes when he comes into my range he will be hit.
Hence he can be a bit reticent to come into attack , but after quite a few hours of chi sau sparring are accumulated he will get used to being hit , lose the fear of it , and only be too happy to move in and attack Mr Instructor Man and give him some payback with interest.

It's all good , my old instructors scared the **** out of me too when I sparred them , but I got over it and pretty soon I learned to attack and get through their guard and he will too.
It's just going to take time.

 

[WingChunIan]

great to the videos being posted, I'll try to join in and post some of myself for critique. I think it's fair to say that we do things differently. When we play chi sao, we always stay in range and we place great emphasis on controlling the centre, structure, energy and lut sao jic jeung.

 

[mook jong man]

great to the videos being posted, I'll try to join in and post some of myself for critique. I think it's fair to say that we do things differently. When we play chi sao, we always stay in range and we place great emphasis on controlling the centre, structure, energy and lut sao jic jeung.

Look forward to seeing them Ian.
Don't get me wrong , when we do chi sau sparring , it can be the type where we are rolling and executing traps and other attacks from within the rolling cycle , and we will stay within that format.
But we also like to do a type where we break off and practice what we call chark jong , which is penetrating through the opponents guard and to do that we will work from a bit further out with our guards up , we also like to mix in a bit of lap sau as you see in the video.

 

[Eric_H]

Look forward to seeing them Ian.
Don't get me wrong , when we do chi sau sparring , it can be the type where we are rolling and executing traps and other attacks from within the rolling cycle , and we will stay within that format.
But we also like to do a type where we break off and practice what we call chark jong , which is penetrating through the opponents guard and to do that we will work from a bit further out with our guards up , we also like to mix in a bit of lap sau as you see in the video.

Hey Mook,

Good flowing and some good looking strikes thrown in there.

Question: Do you guys work much against Southern CMA grappling/small circle jujitsu? I see a few holes those guys would enjoy.

 

[mook jong man]

Hey Mook,

Good flowing and some good looking strikes thrown in there.

Question: Do you guys work much against Southern CMA grappling/small circle jujitsu? I see a few holes those guys would enjoy.

Thanks Eric.
No , don't train against any jujitsu.
But a long time ago I had a supposed jujitsu black belt try to grab my fingers and break them while chi sau sparring , and I punched him in the mouth with the other hand.
The other experience I had was a Hapkido guy who tried to put me in a wrist lock from chi sau sparring , his wrist lock turned me to the side so I low side kicked him in the knee.
But other than that no , but If I had a student who was skilled in that area then we would certainly work a lot more against those attacks.

 

[chinaboxer]

i do chi sau many different ways, to develop specific types of skill, here is a first person view of me doing some chi sau. i'll post different types so that everyone can get a scope of how i train. also remember MJM that when you post videos you have to accept the fact that you are allowing public opinion. some will agree, some won't and that's alright.

[yt]XpA4Ay8UYhw[/yt]

 

[Manseau]

Thanks Mook for starting this thread. Great videos and lots of different insights. I tend to agree with you that chi sau is useful at different speeds, different pressures, and can be useful for developing different outcomes. Engaging in chi sau from a distance is also useful for bridging experience. To look at a video or series of videos, I would be reluctant to paint it as anything other than information to study and absorb that which is useful. Regards, David