Recently I watched an interesting video airing on Chinese television
at the moment which follows a couple of young MMA and Wing Chun guys travelling
around to various masters in China to experience and ultimately test various
martial arts.
This episode related to the home of Xing Yi Quan and XinYi. There
was some good interesting information in the program and some interesting demonstrations
of application of forces etc on opponents, some nice forms and training methods
and some good body work on show. But with that in mind look at this video of
the exchanges.
When these ‘masters’ of Xing yi came to ‘spar’ with the
presenters they found themselves completely unable to apply their method,
principle and general combat goal. Why?? Let’s make no mistake, these are good
level masters in respected Xing Yi traditions.
The answer is fairly simple really and something that many
in martial traditions do not like to admit.
Their training has an absence of realism.
Their training has an absence of realism.
What do i mean by this? Well in my opinion training can be
broken down into a 3 areas.
1) BodyworkThis means we are building the body specifically for the combat work it will
undertake. This means functional cardiovascular fitness, power, co-ordination,
strength and mental capacity. No matter what style or approach to combat you need these basic qualities.
2)Application of force principlesThis is where we work on ‘applications’ of the frame or body to test power and co-ordination against a moving opponent.
3) Testing of combat capacityHere we work on free, unpredictable combative work. This can be sparing, free pushing hands, Situation work, and multiple opponent drills, whatever is not fixed in place.
2)Application of force principlesThis is where we work on ‘applications’ of the frame or body to test power and co-ordination against a moving opponent.
3) Testing of combat capacityHere we work on free, unpredictable combative work. This can be sparing, free pushing hands, Situation work, and multiple opponent drills, whatever is not fixed in place.
It is in that 3rd part of training that we test
our ‘Unconscious Competence’. That is our ability to do things well without
thinking of doing things well. This is the stage that a lot of people miss out
on and is the only way to realistically test how our training is affecting our
combative capability.
This is worth thinking about if training IMA’s etc. These
guys are at the source, the root and home of Xing Yi and couldn’t perform past
the basic level of an amateur sport fighter ... Does your training give you an
understanding of your ‘Unconscious Competence’??
Well said!
ReplyDeleteI don't know why people think of Sport fighting as "basic" - it's it's actually much more 'advanced' than the sort of skills you need to fight a real-life drunk guy or mugger (not taking weapons into account). While the stakes are obviously higher in 'real life', the skills you need to beat a sports fighter need to be much higher - they're conditioned, fit and very used to people trying to punch them.
Nice post. Food for thought for everybody involved in CMA!