Chi sau and Hubud Lubud....

[geezer]

Frankly I wasn't sure whether to post this here or over in the FMA department. I decided to post here because unless you do both WC and FMA you probably won't have an opinion. And many of you do both. And secondly I posted here because this thread is kinda-sorta related to the "Few techniques..." thread I just started.

Anyway, here's the deal. I practice with an FMA group that does a bit of fairly basic Hubud-Lubud from time to time and I've found it somewhat useful, moreso for weapons application perhaps. But personally, I find our WC/VT/WT chi-sau and lat-sau training to be far more practical empty-hands training. For one thing, the WC movements seem more "direct". Less messing around with limb-destructions and moving directly to striking the center or "core" in the fewest possible number of movements. By comparison, a lot of the hubud changes seem like "chasing hands" from a WC perspective.

Finally, it comes down to that whole simplicity thing, or "using a few techniques to beat many". Granted a limited amount of time to train and build muscle memory, I'd prefer to focus on fewer techniques and drills with greater applicability. I know some of the greats like Danny Inosanto seem to master everything. But there are others also renowned in FMA, like Rene Latosa, who prefer to simplify and boil things down to about five core concepts. One of these is the concept of Transition. In part, this means learning something well, and then how to adapt it to many situations. For those of us mere mortals, I find this approach to be very practical.

So when it comes to something like hubud, although I enjoy using the most basic patterns with my non-WC Escrima students, I really don't spend much time with it. I'd rather invest my time and develop reliable muscle memory in drills like lat-sau and chi-sau which work better for me. Although I've endeavored to keep my WC and my Escrima separate, after all these years I guess a WC mindset is shaping my Escrima. Any thoughts?

 

[Blindside]

I have had a couple of students come to my class with WC backgrounds and they have had good sensitivity and a almost hardwired trapping system that doesn't take into account weapons. Bong sauing downward reverse grip knife attacks or pin trapping a knife hand where the release is a lowline slash, fine technique for unarmed, not good for weapons. And the FMA assumption, or at least the assumption in Pekiti is that we always assume there is a knife present. Otherwise we could simply cover like a boxer and absorb hits rather than trying to block or parry, that is certainly a high percentage simple technique.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[Kwan Sau]

Few years back one of my WC students asked me to attend a FMA seminar with her. I went, had a good time...BUT, ultimately came to the same conclusion as Geezer. WC seemed simpler, more efficient, less hand chasing, etc. However, the instructor and I ended up becoming friends and he came to appreciate WC's simplistic/direct responses after I demo'd a few for him.

A more recent story: few months ago I was invited to an informal workout session with a Pekiti Tirsia guy. His opening move on one of his knife drills was met with me entering with a Tan sau and I punched him in the face. I liked the flow of his P.T. but a lot of the workout didn't make sense to me and so I stuck with what is coursing through my veins and that is: WC! By the end of our workout, he actually modified his P.T. drill to include a WC Tan/Punch to face.

In other news...I'd never heard of hubud lubud before so had to look it up just now. Looks interesting. Will have to cross hands with someone who knows it and gain some further insights!
Carry on!

 

[KPM]

Good questions Steve! I have done a lot of both.....Chi Sau & Hubud. Hubud is actually more analogous to our Pak Da drill. As another poster mentioned, hubud was designed primarily with weapons in mind. So while it seems like "chasing hands" from a WC perspective, this bit of redundancy is necessary for keeping control of an opponent's weapon hand. You may deflect his weapon hand with a good WC technique and it is enough to nullify a punch, but if he has a knife in that hand he can just keep on cutting! Its also about angles. If you are in close with a knife, you want to bring your knife on target. So some of the redundancy is to get an angle and opening to bring in the knife. Its like doing Chi Sau where you only plan on punching with one hand. Now when you get good at Hubud, the 3 count flow that seems so redundant to WC guys can be done in around 1 second, so what does a couple of extra movements really matter?

From an empty hand perspective, I think WC has hubud-type stuff beat. But if you try to use WC's "directness" and "economy of motion" with the small knife, you are going to end up dead! With the small knife in close its more about controlling the other guy than it is about trying to be direct. You may be nice and direct and land a killing blow with your knife, but if he has managed to stab you in the gut in the process then you didn't really win. You both lost!

I still train hubud because I train with the tactical folder. I follow Michael Janich's "Modern Blade Concepts" system, and he still uses a lot of the traditional hubud drills with some modifications. I also find opportunity to throw in more "WC-like" movements, but really the Silat/FMA approach to using the small knife is a lot better.

We also find some value in the basic #5 hubud flow for our WC as well. We use it to train to bridge from a longer range. And this comes out of our Pin Sun as well. Our second set has a movement where you flow from a Pak Sau to a Tun Sau to a palm strike all with the same hand. Pak - Tun with the same hand (like doing Pak - Tan, but where the Tan moves back instead of forward). But there is nothing to say in application that you can't do Pak - Tun with left hand/right hand. So if I do Pak - Tun - Pak (left, right, left)....this is essentially the same flow as the #5 hubud drill. So.....using the idea of being direct....if an opponent punches at me I will Pak & Punch at the same time. Right? But what if he is far enough away that he can be a threat to me with an extended boxing type punch, but I am still too far away to use my shorter WC type punch? "You step in!" I hear you say! But I am still a bit vulnerable. And what if he is far enough away that he is feinting and taunting me with that long punch of his but can't really reach me yet and I want to move in and make him pay for taunting me? That's going to require I take a pretty big step! So you move in with cover. I will Pak - Tun - and Pak (left, right, left) AS I move in so that when I do the final Pak I am in range and it becomes a Pak Da. And I have controlled his arm all the way in as I close the distance. So I have done the same 3 count flow from the #5 hubud as I close the gap. I've used it to bridge into more of a WC range. Does that make sense?

And finally, there is nothing wrong with using a WC mindset to modify your escrima a bit. While some redundancy is necessary as I've described, it can be overdone! I have seen FMA demos where I thought to myself. .....just hit the guy! Also sometimes it gets so elaborate and complicated that I seriously doubt even Dan Inosanto could pull it off in a real encounter! ;-)

 

[Blindside]

I am all for the simplicity of a parry and punch to the face, I have zero problem with that. The drill that most people train as "Hubud" or "Sagong Labo" with the "stop, pass, trap" or "parry, pass, trap" is a basic technique series. Later, the other hand gets thrown into the mix with simultaneous hits, so the first beat might be "parry and cut to arm" which might be the "gunting" motion or simple "parry and palm heel to nose." One of the problems with these drills is that the basic drill is what most people see and some practitioners never get past.

 

[geezer]

So far all these posts are really excellent. Are there any studies to see if the combination of FMA and WC elevates your IQ?


BTW, my DTE instructor also has a Pekiti background so I can definitely see what Blindside and KPM are getting at.

 

[Argus]

I think the main difference is that with short weapons, with which FMA train, arms can be cut, where as empty hand, they can't, so it makes more sense to attack center.

Again, I think fencing offers a useful analogy. Anyone who has trained with longer weapons will quickly find that applying a WC mentality; staying on the centerline, chasing the opponent, and not his weapon meets with success. However, with shorter weapons this does not hold true, because your hand is already well within range before you can threaten your opponent's body. This is why you will see more parry-reposte, and less chasing center and what we would refer to as "lat sau jik chung" in something like military sabre, or renaissance dussack, compared to rapier, longsword, or spear.

Nonetheless, I suppose if someone is slashing at your arms and chasing hands, you can still apply WC principles. Remove the hand they're chasing, and follow in with the other one. But really, from a self defense standpoint, if they're not actually trying to stab or cut your body, you should really be disengaging, not playing with them. In that sense, I think WC is still well suited to dealing with an earnest attacker.

Admittedly, as usual, I'm speculating about things which I'm mostly ignorant of

 

[K-man]

So far all these posts are really excellent. Are there any studies to see if the combination of FMA and WC elevates your IQ?

I think from what I have read that is an extremely remote possibility.

 

[Thunder Foot]

I concur with geezer. the feeling of chasing hands I kept running into went against the principles of WC I learned. As a result I didn't find a continuance in the simplification process of Martial Art that I was seeking. Alternately, I do find the simplification furthered in Do form and continue to practice it.

 

[Hinge-of-Infinity]

Thanks for the post Geezer...enjoyed reading this dicussion. This might be considered sacriligious but a lot of the debate seems to be either/or (WC vs hubud etc), what about adapting your practice? I've train longest in WC (14 yrs) and am newer to Eskrima (studying Sonny Umpad's VSCK lineage) but we've adapted the hubud drill slightly for empty hand training to incorporate the WC concepts (centerline punch, pak sao block, then the hubud trapping and keeping in contact with the weapon hand). Finding that valuable but it would be a fair criticism that where forming a less pure combined style with this more hybrid training, which may be a negative for some. Our focus is more self-defence so adaptation fits well with that ethos. Thanks for starting the conversation!

 

[drop bear]

Hand fighting.

 

[Tigerwarrior]

Frankly I wasn't sure whether to post this here or over in the FMA department. I decided to post here because unless you do both WC and FMA you probably won't have an opinion. And many of you do both. And secondly I posted here because this thread is kinda-sorta related to the "Few techniques..." thread I just started.

Anyway, here's the deal. I practice with an FMA group that does a bit of fairly basic Hubud-Lubud from time to time and I've found it somewhat useful, moreso for weapons application perhaps. But personally, I find our WC/VT/WT chi-sau and lat-sau training to be far more practical empty-hands training. For one thing, the WC movements seem more "direct". Less messing around with limb-destructions and moving directly to striking the center or "core" in the fewest possible number of movements. By comparison, a lot of the hubud changes seem like "chasing hands" from a WC perspective.

Finally, it comes down to that whole simplicity thing, or "using a few techniques to beat many". Granted a limited amount of time to train and build muscle memory, I'd prefer to focus on fewer techniques and drills with greater applicability. I know some of the greats like Danny Inosanto seem to master everything. But there are others also renowned in FMA, like Rene Latosa, who prefer to simplify and boil things down to about five core concepts. One of these is the concept of Transition. In part, this means learning something well, and then how to adapt it to many situations. For those of us mere mortals, I find this approach to be very practical.

So when it comes to something like hubud, although I enjoy using the most basic patterns with my non-WC Escrima students, I really don't spend much time with it. I'd rather invest my time and develop reliable muscle memory in drills like lat-sau and chi-sau which work better for me. Although I've endeavored to keep my WC and my Escrima separate, after all these years I guess a WC mindset is shaping my Escrima. Any thoughts?

I think it might be a style thing but the hubud I saw and practiced was very basic, it was direct like wing chun and very bare bones. I've never officially trained in wing chun but I've tried stuff out from books and videos, I have officially trained in fma though and maybe my instructor was just showing us the basics but it seemed very direct to me.

 

[geezer]

Hand fighting.

What's "hand fighting"? Is that something like thumb wrestling?

 

[drop bear]

What's "hand fighting"?

Obtaining and defending grips.

 

[geezer]

Obtaining and defending grips.

Oh... OK. Kinda like wrestlers squaring off and grabbing each other's hands.

 

[drop bear]

Oh... OK. Kinda like wrestlers squaring off and grabbing each other's hands.

Yeah. And my reasoning is this.

I am not really going to use much trapping at speed. But I will use clinching and so being able to create that dominant position in striking gives me a little more bang for buck.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Hand fighting.

Suntukan!

Those darn beloved Filipinos have so many names for crossing arms.

That's how you know it's good.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I think it might be a style thing but the hubud I saw and practiced was very basic, it was direct like wing chun and very bare bones. I've never officially trained in wing chun but I've tried stuff out from books and videos, I have officially trained in fma though and maybe my instructor was just showing us the basics but it seemed very direct to me.

Bare bones is exactly right.

Anybody can punch anything, but to cross your forearm bones with another person is something altogether.

Fundamental to central and east Asian kung fu, and why dit da jow was invented.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Bare bones is exactly right.

Anybody can punch anything, but to cross your forearm bones with another person is something altogether.

Fundamental to central and east Asian kung fu, and why dit da jow was invented.

Not sure the 3 stars is part of the WC training.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Not sure the 3 stars is part of the WC training.

It's supposed to be.

Dat saam sing is fundamental. There are soooo many Ip Man movies where he showcases this skill of smashing arms, right? The wooden dummy was designed for it ...

Thanks for mentioning it. I hope WC students notice.