Notes on chinese martial arts. Part 4.

This was part of disscussion in one of Facebook groups. Planned to make a proper article based on those notes, but it would take quite a work, so finally decided to publish it in original form.

Again about the practical verification, testing of skill, as important part of the learning process.

When talking about regular testing of skill, I don't mean everyday hard full contact fighting. That would be something crazy.

Even boxing training is not just all the time hard fighting, it is only one part of the whole training, and still it is possible to this extent due to relatively limited scope of possible situations, with keeping tight guard with big gloves, which makes it relatively safe.

And in Muay Thai, training regularly like they compete would create too many injuries. So in fact in Thailand they don't really do full contact sparrings regularly. Usually they spar light contact, and only with bags and pads they hit full power. Their tests of hard fighting are at competitions, not at training. If they did it at training, they wouldn't be able to earn money by competing, because too many injuries would make it not possible.

Now, talking about Wang Xiangzhai or Chen Fake. How could they be so great without regular sparring training? But... did their opponents do regular sparring training? Doesn't seem so. Well, that would explain a lot. Like the famous "fight of century" in Macao in 1950s. The great famous masters of that time, and now on YouTube you can see their level. So this could give us some idea about fighting level at that time... O.K. So let assume that some training methods were really giving big advantage, but... over whom? Other people of those times, who didn't really spar and didn't have really much idea about actual fighting of any kind? How would that be against present day mma fighters?

Actually people like Chen Fake and Wang Xiangzhai had advantage over many others, because they at least had serious tui shou training, while others had forms and techniques, while lacking methods which would need adapting to actually resisting opponent. Even though tui shou is quite limited, in this regard I'm sure it would give advantage over opponents who didn't even do this...

Yes, there were some opponent's who did sparring. Like with Chen Fake I remember story about "fight" with some shuai jiao wrestler. Still it wasn't actual fight, but rather what they called "touching hands".

Or some other who did some tui shou, but focusing too much on soft side, without enough of solid strength.

Or talking about Wang Xiangzhai, those who did some kinds of sparring were mostly Japanese who did judo and kendo. As for barehand fighting with those Japanese guys, it wasn't really fighting, but usually situations of "what will happen if I grab you?"

So while we believe that Wang and Chen presented something unusual, we need to realize that it was usually tested in maybe not so really demanding situations. Although there are many impressing stories, we almost don't have relations about actual serious fighting.

As I know the opinions of Yao Zongxun, presented by my teacher and other students of Yao Zongxun, many times expressed also in articles, according to his relations, what they were usually doing in first half of 20th century, was either tests of "touching hands" (like tui shou), or "ending with touch" (light sparring to first touch or demonstrating situation of "I could hit you now"), or "what you will do if I do this - just do it", and reacting to quite fixed attack. Almost all chalanges they did were something very far from actual fighting.

Some exceptions were Zhao Daoxin fighting in guoshu tournament, Bu Enfu fighting in boxing, then a few of Wang students being prepared for challenges tournee around world in 1930. Then it was Yao Zongxun who in 1940 focused on introducing regular sparring with gloves and protectors. This way transmission of methods could be supplemented with more realistic testing. Also quite important is that in late 1940, after Japanese left, and before establishing PRC, Yao Zongxun and some of his fellow practitioners (at the moment I can remember name of Zhang Zhong) were doing a lot of testing their skill in fights against street gangs in Beijing. Due to this what Yao Zongxun was transmitting was much more based on understanding of actual fighting than in many other cases.

So, this is not just my opinion, but actually I'm trying to express/represent what is just generally accepted in this line of yiquan. It's about being realistic, testing things, adapting and adopting what useful. Putting theory and practice (including testing) together.

So while some training methods developed in China have their merits, and we should not lose this, at the same time it is important to continue learning, test the methods against present challenges and work on improving them. Wang Xiangzhai started it. Then people like Yao Zongxun or Zhao Daoxin were really going such path.

However it doesn't mean, what some people practicing yiquan or taikiken imagine, that you are doing some zhan zhuang, shi li and fa li and on top of this just fighting/sparring. Actually our san shou training is much more than just free sparring, including among others gongfang xunlian (attack and defense training), with various level of complexity and freedom (from fixed to partly fixed, to relatively free, to free), also practice of imagery fighting situations, so called free sparrings which actually can be limited in various ways, being relatively free, but focusing on some aspect. Full contact sparring with minimum limitations is kind of test, which should help practitioner to understand how what he learnes works in actual violent situation. This prevents from developing illusions, and helps you to improve your basic training. Actually Yao Zongxun was expressing it this way: "san shou from one point of view is a test of what you developed by training basic methods, and enables improving your basic training". This is not just learning by fighting. Actually Yao Zongxun said (and wrote in his book) that just fighting would help to increase fighting abilities to some extent, but not really high level. Really important is that without this kind of testing it is easy to develop illusions about fighting, giving too much importance to things which for example work very well in pushing hands, but wouldn't be so important in san shou, not really understanding how those skills relate to san shou.

Now, of course not everybody needs to do full contact fighting. But if in your school, organization there are such people, it will help also those who don't do this to better understand fighting and avoid illusory thinking. Also it's just honest to make it clear that if you don't do this, your understanding of fighting is not at the level with those who do your training, and additionally test it this way. Honest (not just toward others, but also yourself) attidude, opposite to presenting something as ultimate methods, while not putting it to test.

So some people can do more, some less, some more free, some in more limited way. But if no one will do top level tests, we all be at higher risk of becoming those who only perpetuate some myths...

In present day, by regular testing I mean competitions. This is why as part of YIQUAN.COmpetitions project we plan to include Elite San Shou - full contact fighting with rules which would help to present the skills being at the core of Yao's yiquan transmission. Short time, limited space (falling out representing falling down from platform, stairs, falling onto some object etc.), promoting "attack and defense being one", mixing hitting with affecting balance "in the moment of contact", "at any place contact happens". While at the same time we want to make it possible for everybody to participate in some way (fixed position tui shou, free step tui shou, light contact san shou). When some people will do full contact they will help those who can't do this to understand better how those more limited variants are related to more free fighting, and how to do them in a way which would lead toward developing skills working in full contact, instead of leading toward developing skills and methods which only work well in those limited formats.

So generally anyone can improve his level of fighting abilities, by using basic methods, tui shou, san shou in various proportions. Some basic methods might be more useful than others, so they can help with the goal of developing fighting abilities more than other methods. However we don't believe in ultimate method. There are many factors which summed up make some level of fighting skill. If for some reason you leave some of them out, you need to understand that your percentage chances of winning a fight will be lower. Maybe enough with some opponent, but not enough with another. Unified whole body strength might be good against some big muscles guy, but another big muscles guy might also possess quite unified strength. "Using soft against hard", "leading opponent into emptiness", "using opponent's force against him" are not some ultimate methods. Their efficiency is relative. When your opponent is big and strong, but not skilled, using "one directional", "flat" strength, you can be smaller, weaker, and use such skill. But when opponent uses "round" balanced strength, being able to balance his strength affected even by high frequency changes, then you start understanding limitations of "soft against hard". So while in yiquan we also have "leading into emptiness" and "using opponent's force", we don't attribute to them the same kind of meaning as those who play touching hands, and don't really test their stuff in more demanding conditions.