By David Mandeix
Dave is a Level 5(Blue) student at Wu Dao
If you know me, then you know I enjoy a good scrap. Mind you, it was not always this way- when I slunk through the doors of the Wu Guan 4 years ago I had loads of other martial arts experience under my belt (haha), but I was terrified of fighting. This is because I was bad at fighting. Despite years of training, my sparring did not resemble any of the traditional styles I had studied so much as it did a very timid, frantic form of kickboxing.
Dave is a Level 5(Blue) student at Wu Dao
If you know me, then you know I enjoy a good scrap. Mind you, it was not always this way- when I slunk through the doors of the Wu Guan 4 years ago I had loads of other martial arts experience under my belt (haha), but I was terrified of fighting. This is because I was bad at fighting. Despite years of training, my sparring did not resemble any of the traditional styles I had studied so much as it did a very timid, frantic form of kickboxing.
Last
Friday, I was allowed to spar with the MMA group at another training facility, and
I was very eager to try out some traditional Shaolin and Choy Lay Fut to see
how it stacked up against a more modern (and arguably more popular at the
moment) martial arts system.
While I
like the mobility imparted by the MMA stance, I found myself returning to
Leaning Stance (Gong Bu) for its solid base. I do not think people expect their
opponent to fight forward like you do in Leaning Stance, and it imparts a
decided advantage by really committing you to the fight. Let me just say,
though, that if you are going to use Leaning Stance, it has to be SPOT ON. It’s
a fantastically stable stance, but the knee has to be over the shoelace (where
have we heard that before?) otherwise your front foot will get swept and you
will get dumped on the mat. A couple of false starts in Leaning Stance helped
me recognize flaws in my technique I thought I had previously polished out. You
don’t make those mistakes twice.
Awesome
news—I found opportunities to apply most of the Shi-Bah-Shi Ji Ben Gong in some
form or another while I was fighting with a number of people. Moreover, the
endless repetition of these moves we endure at Wu Dao meant that they were just
as fast to execute as the oft-drilled 1-2-3-4 boxing combo.
One of
the big winners that night was the hooking foot sweep that we see in a lot of
the 18 basic exercises. Frequently, I could just stop or counter an attack
using that. The Gong Bu Shei Xing clearing hand motion followed by a punch also
seemed to catch a lot of people off guard, and was great for clearing out an
opponent’s guard and following right up with a strike.
Another
big winner was Shaolin’s side kick, which when chambered properly can be thrown
from quite close in, and with loads of power from the coiled leg. This one
seemed to surprise folks a lot, and it got a lot of use when I had to fight
tall people who wanted to punch my face.
A really
nice surprise was Pi Tui. A lot of times people don’t expect the rear arm
uppercut, and if you can land that then the descending backfist afterwards is
almost a sure thing. At this point most people aren't really paying attention
to what your feet are doing, and so the outside crescent kick is almost always
a big surprise. Bonus- when it got caught, my weight was coming down on the
kick, and I was able to use it to help secure a grapple to counter an attempted
throw. The emphasis we place on retracting a kick clearly has a very real and
important application.
I don’t
want to give the impression that I dished out Enter the Dragon Shaolin Master
Style punishment here, though. I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m just happy
that a lot of practice hours paid off for me in a very real way, and as a
result I find that the emphasis of my training has shifted as well. Really, how
often are we focusing on something seemingly insignificant (opening the foot,
retracting the kick, etc.) and asking ourselves- “am I really going to use
this?” or “will that really matter in a fight”? As it turns out: yes, and yes.
