URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0VHiEnrJUw
Someone posted fighting videos taken at the Tang Shou Dao (TSD) school that I used to attend, and as usual, the Internet ninjas came out in force to let everyone know it wasn’t even xingyi. (Insert eyeroll here.) I didn’t know it, but the TSD guys have over a hundred videos of them sparring and fighting on youtube. See here and here. Example above.
I wrote the following over at EF as a defense of what you see in the clips. So some of the comments were addressed to other posters. I’m posting it here because the points could just as easily be used to address fighting, in general. Here it is:
First, when you put on boxing gloves you accept a lot of limitations in the types of techniques that you can use. Xingyi is a punching art, so more transfers, especially the powers and skills built into the five elements. But higher level xingyi as trained in the animals is harder to produce application-wise with boxing gloves.
If some of you have tried to wear boxing gloves in your training, you’d know this.
Second, this isn’t supposed to be high-level stuff. People need to get this “it should look just like the form” stuff out of their heads. The five elements train JINS, or ways of using power. These guys train to use those five jins in various ways that don’t exactly look like the forms. They have lots of variations on the elements that get away from the stuff shown in books.
That variation in the five elements was what I liked about training with them. They had xingyi that you could actually USE instead of just doing forms. Plus, they fight very soon after they start training. They don’t wait 10 years until their form is supposedly perfect like BS schools that “claim” to be able to fight, but somehow never get around to it.
Third, some of the techniques come from bagua, like the hooks, etc. Yes, they look like boxing hooks. No kidding? But the jins and training from the bagua are behind them. They don’t train external arts in the school. Yes, at speed it looks pretty much the same. What do people expect? Slow motion fighting?
Fourth, their clinch work does have xingyi and bagua elements, but these guys have to fight BJJ people all the time. THEY ARE OUT THERE PUTTING THEMSELVES ON THE LINE. They aren’t safely tucked away in some corner of China somewhere. They fight hard with other MMA and BJJ people, hence their grappling has had to incorporate some elements of those styles in order for them to deal with those kinds of people. Again, isn’t that just natural? Aren’t people whining all the time that the arts are “principle-based” so they can legitamately absorb other things?
Finally, some of the poor technique you see in some of the videos is due to a size/experience difference. Most of the videos feature a muscular guy whose English name is Kyle (he’s in the red shorts in the video above). I think he’s “king of fist” in the above clips. He is a Taiwan-wide full-contact champion, and he is way stronger and more skilled than the other guys. They are very cautious with him so they stay outside and jab a lot. You would too. His inside game is viscious.
Trust me. I fought that guy. He hits like a truck. I’m only glad they didn’t put the video of me fighting him up. He can go full out for 15 minutes and not get winded. He is VERY MUCH in shape, and is the school champion. I saw him break the top off of a Taiwan Beer bottle with a two-finger strike. He’s no joke.
Honestly, I don’t know what people expect. I guess people won’t be impressed with anything less than Li Cun-yi’s corpse resurrecting itself and then beng quan-ing a Gracie to death.
But I feel fairly confident in making this prediction: none of the Internet warriors putting down these clips will put anything better up.
Am I wrong?
9 responses so far ↓
1 Chad // Feb 27, 2007 at 11:55 pm
You are absolutely right. I don’t think any of the critics crying abt how it isn’t this or that can deny that the cat in the video can fight. I also would be suprised if any of them would be willing to step into the ring and ry to slg it out with them. It’s all just insecurity of poeple who know they should get into the ring and test their shit but are to chicken to do so. I don’t care how nice your forms are, when you knuckle up, all bets are off and more than likely the first few times you will just be swinging wildly trying to keep the brute at bay.
My main sparring partner is instuctor of Hapkido (registered and everything). sparring with himt aught me alot of things not the least is that if you just fight with people of your own style, you are olny effective of people of your own style. Example: people in IMA will often play around with joit locks and china and whatnot, but an art like Hapkido or juijitsu really puts those things on hard. If you havent experienced that first hand, when it happens you will go down.
The “ninjas” are obviously people who have never been in a real fighting situation and are self consious about it. so they gotta sling the arrows of “that’s not Xing Yi”. If it makes the litle dipshits happier, fine, it isn’t but it will lay you flat, no magic needed.
2 tim // Feb 28, 2007 at 10:13 am
yeah in the 2/20 video at 1:15 or thereabouts you can see the xingyi when blue shorts guy jabs, leave the hand out, then follows the hand in with footwork and drills the guy.
At least, that’s what I see, admittedly as an amateur.
3 tim // Feb 28, 2007 at 10:19 am
oh and as to the shoulder strike thing someone mentioned–
that is a really heavy hit. it is easy even for a beginner to give someone a black eye with that move. i know because i’ve seen it before in real life. it’s a function of the power of the shoulder, and using the pulling hand to snap the opponents head into the shoulder as well.
a guy the size of your classmate kyle…could easily bust an orbit or knock someone the f__ out with a shoulder hit. not something you do if you want to keep your training partners.
4 Hermann // Feb 28, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Dave,
lately the site is a little slow. Only Taiwan problem?
The TSD vids were also criticised on German forums and blogs, but this does not bother me. Those guys have never been there, so forget it.
But I really wonder what and how they fight in Shanxi. The voiced cirtisism would be fine for mainland sanda competions, they often look totally uncontrolled, unconditioned und school yard like.
But 15 min. going like this nonstop sounds unbelievable (I do!), just 2 rounds of 2 min pushing hands is too much for a lot of IMA practicioners.
Is it doing any good, what is going here on the web? I really wonder.
5 tim // Feb 28, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Herman,
it sure is doing some good having things on the web. i never, ever would have found Akuzawa otherwise.
6 mo // Feb 28, 2007 at 8:11 pm
hehe, word on the internet. i mainly use the forums as places to make contacts rather than discuss things anymore, too many arm-chair warriors.
i will say this about tadzio though. i’ve met him, and he’s a no-nonsense guy. he’s fought in tournaments in brazil, against different stylists, so he knows what it’s like to be in the ring. he also used to spar with tomasz, a hard-core polish guy i used to train with, in beijing. the fact that he doesn’t put stuff on the net isn’t his personal choice, it’s his teacher that prohibits it. i’ve also met his teacher, and i haven’t seen anyone more secretive than him. we had to go to some unknown park far away from the city center, go into a hall and lock all the doors before they would show us some song style xingyi. and tadzio’s teacher didn’t demonstrate anything, he made tadzio and another disciple show us one of the 5 elements.
i’d also like to see how the guys in shanxi move in a freestyle format. it should be interesting.
7 chessman71 // Mar 1, 2007 at 8:43 am
I think Chad nailed it with this quote: “The “ninjas” are obviously people who have never been in a real fighting situation and are self consious about it. so they gotta sling the arrows of “that’s not Xing Yi”. If it makes the litle dipshits happier, fine, it isn’t but it will lay you flat, no magic needed.”
I would add that fighting is a process, not a destination so much. As you get better, you should naturally be able to show more and more xingyi flavor. But when you’re just starting out, it’s hard to incorporate all those elements.
Second, I can appreciate what Hermann is saying about putting stuff up on the web. It’s stuff like this that cause people to not even bother. Why should they? Some clown will just come along and say it’s not xingyi, etc.
Finally, I appreciate Mo’s comment, but Tadzio is a jerk who looks down his nose at everyone else. That’s all I need to know about him. He represents everything that I and this blog are against. I want to contribute to the CMA community and help those that I can. He brags about his lineage, his discleship and his chuanpu (fist manual) but never, ever, contributes anything. He’s never been anything but arrogant and negative. I have zero respect for him. Enough said.
8 james // Mar 2, 2007 at 6:28 am
One of the first things that my xingyi teacher told me was that fighting didn’t look like the form. The form is a way of practicing and internalising the intent of the fist or whatever you should call it. Why on earth would that be surprising?
And internet MAists…
Sometime the level of ignorance is matched only by the confidence of the statements
James
9 chessman71 // Mar 2, 2007 at 8:55 am
James,
Your last sentence is so true. Welcome to the blog!
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