http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThbqRYcVbQ0
(This will be my last post for a few days. The quarter is over and I and the family are taking a few days vacation. I’ll be back next week with posts on Chen Pan-ling, taiji fundamanetals, and other good stuff.)
Mike Martello has graciously given us another peek at his excellent miao dao training. This time he’s showing us the miao dao linking form in this youtube clip.
The very first thing that I thought was that this linking form is quite long. It takes Mike around 1:45 to complete the form. That’s pretty long for a weapons form IMO. This must be a tough workout.
I asked Mike about the sequence of training considering the amount of material that he has for the miao dao and he gave the following sequence: 4 roads basic, four roads reverse, 2 man form (basic), linking form, 2 man advanced, then long miao form called “zhiayao.” This seems like the most comprehensive miao dao system that I’ve run across.
Getting a good miao dao is very difficult. There just aren’t that many in production. These are some pics of the quality miao daos that Mike has access to:
5 responses so far ↓
1 tim // Dec 23, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Honestly Dave this form does not really tell me much. I saw the two man form, which was nice, but again, watching someone do a two man form (especially a long two man form) doesn’t tell me much either.
I’d really need to see them in a flow situation to know anything, and of course, in actual fighting with mock weapons.
My experience is that without flow training (at least) the two man forms don’t yield much. But things may be different in CMA and JMA.
2 chessman71 // Dec 24, 2006 at 12:19 am
Tim,
Instead of focusing on the combat aspects at first, what I would recommend is looking at body usage. This clip is filmed too far away for you to really see the shenfa, but my guess is that Mike has a lot going on body-wise that would be useful for IMA/neigong training. Using heavy weapons like this combined with correct shenfa can really add to your power and connectivity.
What exactly is “flow training”?
3 tim // Dec 24, 2006 at 4:56 am
Dave,
Yeah I couldn’t really see what he was doing as far as body usage.
This is what we call flow sparring (some people call it counter for counter, give-and-take, tapi tapi, etc). Basically one person strikes, the other counters, then strikes again. The particular strike and counter are not preset. Later, you learn to throw (and counter) faking movements. I’m only just getting to that in my training.
This is how we do it:
http://unleashingfong.com/?p=39
Other styles have their own specific techniques in the movement, but the basic idea is the same across most Filipino arts I have seen.
It’s a bridge between practicing the technique in isolation, and sparring. There are also separate bridging the gap exercises to move from largo to medio (long range to medium range). It’s not that any actual stickfight looks like this– rather, it’s a lot of training to dominate one split second of the fight.
4 mike m // Dec 24, 2006 at 10:46 pm
hey guys,
thanks for the comments…
Yes there is flow drills like eskrima, but done with Miao ways of course… The two man form is a product result of flow drills, results is better understanding…
Problem is getting students to basic level flow without clubing each other, these are not bats, and is hard getting basic level, then flow… I am just happy they are not swinging the Miao like a golf club!!!
I will post some in the future…
mike m
5 Johan // Jul 1, 2008 at 1:16 am
Hi !!!
I am a practitioner of Haidong Gumdo in Jakarta, Indonesia. My main interest is in the East Asian Swordmanship, I am very keen to know more about the Chinese two handed sabre, Miao Dao and its form. Kindly advice who is the supplier of the Miao Dao sword. If I want to find out more about Pi Gua Quan Miao Dao, is there any book you can recommend. Kindly advice
Regards
Johan
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