Bad Chi Sao has ruined WC as a fighting art!

[hunschuld]

Thread title is a bit over the top but hope it got Geezers attention!

Chi Sao is meant to train skills that you then need to learn to apply in sparring It is not meant to be a replacement for sparring or an end in itself unless. However most Chi Sao has devolved into a situation where hitting someone and superiority of Chi Sao skills is the goal. Chi sao is used in a competitive way which actually destroys the skills the exercise is trying to train. This has led to most being unable to actually applying WC skills in sparring or fighting situations with non cooperative opponents.

One example is attacking on the change. This is teaching nothing other than taking advantage of a roll and boosting the ego of the successful attacker unless you believe when you get into a fight the other person is going to put up his arms and say Chi Sao time!

Another thing is Chi Sao tag where one person is hit and then the other reaches a to get a hit of their own and feels vindicated when they tough someone at arms length.

In that video Leung Ting has put up his son,or so I was told as a victim to prove how good his chi sao is against all comers. The result is total stiffness, reaching to attack, no discernible footwork ,no balance,no use of hips and no actual skills that would translate into real fighting success. All the time they spent doing chi sao and this is what happens when faced with a non cooperative partner.

next

This even happens to WC teachers held in high regard at about 1:33 Gary starts chi sao demo with a stranger that hasn't bought into the teacher is great self Hypnosis that is the usual standard. First roll he notices the bad,lazy tan Sao of GL and the second roll he lands what would have been a powerful strike taking advantage of the bad tan sao. I am sure GL was being lazy because no one ever took advantage of this position before.
The result Gl totally lost his stance then starts to attack on contact instead of rolling when they make contact again. Taking advantage of the person who's is clearly showing his intent is to roll not fight. Gl continues reaching strikes trying to get back a hit and look at his total lack of footwork when chasing .Look at the just walking forward at the 2:30 mark.. What is the point of training chi sao if one little hit is all it takes to forget all the wing chun you have learned over 50 years?

Video 3 to show this problem is not just a Yip Man issue.

Yiu Choi wing chun from Foshan and what do we see nothing but powerless reaching strikes, arm stiffness,shoulder stiffness. Chi sao tag and nothing more. Can't see the footwork so no comment on that.

You should not play tag when doing Chi Sao. When you are hit with a strike delivered while the elbow is bent you should stop1. It is over go back and learn what you did wrong and try to fix the problem. You learn from getting hit. If you opponent stops don't take advantage and reach to hit him trying to get even.That will not happen in a fight people won't stop when they hit you and slapping someone will do nothing to slow them down.

Chi Sao can be the most important drill you do because it can teach you to function in the more dangerous fighting range learn the skills and do not think it shows you have any real fighting skills. Chi Sao skills prove nothing when it comes to fighting ability only sparring with non wing chun people can develop those skills

 

[hunschuld]

Just noticed I misspelled the thread title . Hope you all excuse my fat fingers. Should be an N instead of a B so ruined.

 

[ShortBridge]

It hasn't ruined WC as a fighting art, but is has confused a whole bunch of people and has certainly contributed to some people's overconfidence in their abilities and preparedness.

Not everyone trains the same way. Not everyone puts their stuff on YouTube.

 

[Danny T]

Though chi sao is a major training drill used it isn't the only drill used and for some of us it isn't the most important drill. In our training we actually spar more than we chi sao. I believe in cases chi sao is an overly used drill.

 

[Poppity]

Thread title is a bit over the top but hope it got Geezers attention!

Chi Sao is meant to train skills that you then need to learn to apply in sparring It is not meant to be a replacement for sparring or an end in itself unless. However most Chi Sao has devolved into a situation where hitting someone and superiority of Chi Sao skills is the goal. Chi sao is used in a competitive way which actually destroys the skills the exercise is trying to train. This has led to most being unable to actually applying WC skills in sparring or fighting situations with non cooperative opponents.

One example is attacking on the change. This is teaching nothing other than taking advantage of a roll and boosting the ego of the successful attacker unless you believe when you get into a fight the other person is going to put up his arms and say Chi Sao time!

Another thing is Chi Sao tag where one person is hit and then the other reaches a to get a hit of their own and feels vindicated when they tough someone at arms length.

In that video Leung Ting has put up his son,or so I was told as a victim to prove how good his chi sao is against all comers. The result is total stiffness, reaching to attack, no discernible footwork ,no balance,no use of hips and no actual skills that would translate into real fighting success. All the time they spent doing chi sao and this is what happens when faced with a non cooperative partner.

next

This even happens to WC teachers held in high regard at about 1:33 Gary starts chi sao demo with a stranger that hasn't bought into the teacher is great self Hypnosis that is the usual standard. First roll he notices the bad,lazy tan Sao of GL and the second roll he lands what would have been a powerful strike taking advantage of the bad tan sao. I am sure GL was being lazy because no one ever took advantage of this position before.
The result Gl totally lost his stance then starts to attack on contact instead of rolling when they make contact again. Taking advantage of the person who's is clearly showing his intent is to roll not fight. Gl continues reaching strikes trying to get back a hit and look at his total lack of footwork when chasing .Look at the just walking forward at the 2:30 mark.. What is the point of training chi sao if one little hit is all it takes to forget all the wing chun you have learned over 50 years?

Video 3 to show this problem is not just a Yip Man issue.

Yiu Choi wing chun from Foshan and what do we see nothing but powerless reaching strikes, arm stiffness,shoulder stiffness. Chi sao tag and nothing more. Can't see the footwork so no comment on that.

You should not play tag when doing Chi Sao. When you are hit with a strike delivered while the elbow is bent you should stop1. It is over go back and learn what you did wrong and try to fix the problem. You learn from getting hit. If you opponent stops don't take advantage and reach to hit him trying to get even.That will not happen in a fight people won't stop when they hit you and slapping someone will do nothing to slow them down.

Chi Sao can be the most important drill you do because it can teach you to function in the more dangerous fighting range learn the skills and do not think it shows you have any real fighting skills. Chi Sao skills prove nothing when it comes to fighting ability only sparring with non wing chun people can develop those skills

I agree with you in part but I feel that perhaps some schools' obsession with drilling chi sau is more of an appearance of eroding the martial from the wing chun system as opposed to the cause.

Chi sau has a number of issues attached certainly one of them is the belief that to test someone's wing chun you need to touch hands or chi sau with them. I have no doubt this must have been true back in the day when people were roundly skilled in the art but now, when some schools solely practice chi sau at the expense of sparring or applying on a resisting opponent... It's not going to show how well they know or can us the system.

I think the issue with wing chuns martial aspect is wider as you also have some schools over analysing a posture without even moving and concluding that a bong must be at a certain angle, ( as if someone had reverse engineered a technique from a photo) or that you must remain stationary with a man sau in a fight.

A quick scan of you tube will reveal a strange pride people have of mindlessly reciting the basic movements of the form as if this displays some profound knowledge as opposed to an abysmal attempt at physical karaoke.

There are a plethora of reasons as to why wing chun appears to be losing it's martial aspects,in my honest opinion it just comes down to how popular it is and how many people just want to teach it without learning wing chun in detail before hand.

I am not going to get into my more fringe and unpopular views on this such as how i strongly feel Ip man's sons were mistaken in attempting to solely manage their fathers legacy, or how i suspect xu xiaodong is beating up old men in southern styles with the CCPs blessing, or even that lots of supplemental techniques from other styles can be found in wing chun anyway.

in essence I agree that wing chun as a whole may appear to be losing its martial aspects,

But I guess the natural progression is that; it either continues to become more popular and you will have more people practicing a yoga like version of it whilst the pockets of people who practice it's martial aspects continue or, it becomes less popular the poor quality wing chun backwashes until your left with the pockets of people who practice it's martial aspects.

So hopefully it will all wash out in the grand scheme of things.

 

[JowGaWolf]

So what I'm understanding is that Chi Sao is not Wing Chun. It is a part of Wing Chun. Some people forget about this and focus too much of Chi Sao as being Wing Chun instead of treating it as a component like a kick, a punch, or elbow.

 

[Poppity]

So what I'm understanding is that Chi Sao is not Wing Chun. It is a part of Wing Chun. Some people forget about this and focus too much of Chi Sao as being Wing Chun instead of treating it as a component like a kick, a punch, or elbow.

I think the concern is that chi sau is being viewed as the key component or quality control test for good wing chun and this approach appears to have become the accepted industry standard.

In doing so chi sau has become a game used to measure wing chun ability as opposed to combative application.

 

[Danny T]

So what I'm understanding is that Chi Sao is not Wing Chun. It is a part of Wing Chun. Some people forget about this and focus too much of Chi Sao as being Wing Chun instead of treating it as a component like a kick, a punch, or elbow.

Chi Sao is a component of the training and practicing of wing chun. If you know anything about wrestling...there is pummeling; in muay thai there is the clinch. There is far more to wrestling than pummeling and there is far more to muay thai than clinch, and the same holds true to WC. Many in the WC world have taken chi sao as the holy grail for great fighting skill rather than actually being able to fight. I'm humble enough to say there are many in WC who are much better than me playing Chi Sao but in the same breathe I'm just as confident in my actually fighting skills to say that I'm a lot better at fighting than them. Chi Sao is but one drill for practicing elements of WC.

 

[hunschuld]

Great replies.
What things do you do at your school or have you done to to make Chi sao a skill development tool rather than the skill in itself?

For example back in the day one of the things I did that I found really effect was we did Chi Sao in a narrow hallway. With our backs against the wall there was no stepping away so you had no choice but to work on receive what comes and shift or step for angles. You really dealt with the fear of getting hit. If you made a mistake you got hit. You learned to relax when close.

 

[wckf92]

Great replies.
What things do you do at your school or have you done to to make Chi sao a skill development tool rather than the skill in itself?

For example back in the day one of the things I did that I found really effect was we did Chi Sao in a narrow hallway. With our backs against the wall there was no stepping away so you had no choice but to work on receive what comes and shift or step for angles. You really dealt with the fear of getting hit. If you made a mistake you got hit. You learned to relax when close.

Hahaha! Me too! Except it wasn't a hallway, but a really small restroom. Same idea though. Great training!

 

[ShortBridge]

Great replies.
What things do you do at your school or have you done to to make Chi sao a skill development tool rather than the skill in itself?

...

I really haven't found it difficult.

1) We don't spend all of our time on it (maybe not enough time)
2) It is far from the only non-compliant contact training that we do.
3) As with any other drill, I explain what I want people to get out of it (either before or after). Chi Sao is good for a lot of things. Someone mentioned getting over fear of being hit (or hitting someone), sensitivity, flow, structure, well rooted stance... It's a actually very versatile drill. But, it isn't fighting or even sparring and anyone who has trained with me for any amount of time would give the same answer, because I don't allow for the possibility that it could be interpreted that way.
4) It can also be a fun game and I embrace that, as long as perspective is maintained.

It's usually highly commercial lineages who are holding large seminars and posting things on-line where you find the belief that chi sao = sparring and is a test of fighting.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Do you grab on your opponent's wrist (or arm) during your WC sticky hand training?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Just noticed I misspelled the thread title . Hope you all excuse my fat fingers. Should be an N instead of a B so ruined.

Fixed that for you.

 

[hunschuld]

Fixed that for you.

Thanks

 

[hunschuld]

Do you grab on your opponent's wrist (or arm) during your WC sticky hand training?

Lop till you drop! Yes grabbing allowed and at a point encouraged..

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Lop till you drop! Yes grabbing allowed and at a point encouraged..

Don't see wrist grabbing used in both single sticky hand and double sticky hands.

 

[drop bear]

So what I'm understanding is that Chi Sao is not Wing Chun. It is a part of Wing Chun. Some people forget about this and focus too much of Chi Sao as being Wing Chun instead of treating it as a component like a kick, a punch, or elbow.

The issue also is if you Chi Sau a striker you will get your head smashed in. Because being good at Chi Sau sets up some terrible positions to strike from.

It is all hands out, chin up and standing directly in the worst possible place to receive punches from.

So from a striking point of view these are things to avoid.

Now with footwork, angles and basic striking it is a different story.

 

[wckf92]

Don't see wrist grabbing used in both single sticky hand and double sticky hands.

Those examples are from the same lineage so it may just be their method.

 

[Danny T]

Do you grab on your opponent's wrist (or arm) during your WC sticky hand training?

Yes...grabbing is a component within chi sao as is kicking, stomping, kneeing, elbowing, off balancing, tripping.

 

[wckf92]

The issue also is if you Chi Sau a striker you will get your head smashed in. Because being good at Chi Sau sets up some terrible positions to strike from.

It is all hands out, chin up and standing directly in the worst possible place to receive punches from.

So from a striking point of view these are things to avoid.

Now with footwork, angles and basic striking it is a different story.

You don't "chi sau" a striker or anyone else for that matter (as it is trained). It is not fighting. It's simply an attribute development drill, in cooperation with a training partner.