Getting up safely

[mook jong man]

It is very important in Wing Chun to be able to get up from the ground with out using your hands , in a self defence situation you cannot afford to post one or both of your hands on the ground to assist you in getting to your feet.

Your assailant will not stand there politely , and leave you alone while you get up.

Typically he will take advantage of your vulnerable position by trying to push you back down , put the boot in or rain punches down upon you as you are trying to get back up .

You need both your hands up in front of you in the guard position , to intercept any incoming arm or leg strikes .
In the TST lineage we practice this method.

• To make it harder for your self , lay on your back , stretching right out with your arms over your head , everything flat to the floor .
• Use your abs to raise your upperbody , at the same time swinging your arms into the guard position
• Fold one leg in bringing the heel very close to your backside , keeping the thigh and ankle flat to the floor , your other leg is straight out in front of you , bent with the heel touching the floor.
• Lean forward shifting your weight onto your butt cheek and the leg that is folded in , then shift weight forward while bringing the front foot in and planting it on the floor , then use your quads to spring up into a standing position .
• The leg that was folded will be behind you acting as a brace against any force coming in.
• As soon as you have regained your balance and it is safe you can square up your stance or use what ever stance your lineage advocates .

IMPORTANT POINTS

• Guard is up high through out the whole movement , protecting upper body and head and allowing for the fact that strikes will be coming in from a higher angle
• Some hard blocking will be inevitable due to not being in a favourable position for pivoting
• When down low it is advisable to curl the fingers back into fists to avoid getting them broken by kicks
• Practice and more practice until it can be done very quickly and almost in one movement
• In the class environment it can be used as reflex or conditioning tool for example on a signal from the instructor everbody gets up as fast as they can , or even mix it in with sets of sit ups . By the end of it your students will be dripping with sweat and hate your guts.
• I have taught some acrobatic young guys who thought they were Jet Li who use a flashy movement where they spring up from their back using a handspring type of motion.
• I don't advocate that technique at all because it exposes the groin and the head

Happy training and keep your guard up.

 

[bully]

I will give my back another couple of months to heal before trying this one.

I ached just reading it.

Another quality post MJM, i am incorporating quite a few of your training ideas into my regime now and will add more as i get stronger.

Cheers

Bully

 

[dungeonworks]

That's one way to do it assuming the persons abs are in somewhat good shape, but I have never been knocked down without being entirely disengaged from my opponent, nor have I ever been able to get up without eating a shot or two minimum.

At an MMA gym I trained at a couple years ago, we were taught to handle that situation a little differently, and it could be good for street use as well as ring/cage. For it to be of use, you need to get to a seated position on your bum. It is also good from either side so use your right or left hand/foot...I wrote it from a right handed perspective.

1. Sit on your bum with feet out in front of you.
2. Bring left foot in by bending knee.
3. Root your right hand on the ground while holding the left out in front to deflect/block in coming blows to the head.
4. Lift yourself off the floor by pushing on bent left leg and rooted right hand.
5. Bring right leg straight back through and behind while standing up, keeping the left hand in front at all times to offer some defense. Do this quickly as possible. The harder you push with your right hand and left leg, at the same time yanking your right leg in and through, the better momentum to help you stand and root your stance...in this case an advancing stance or boxers stance.

While in the seated position, you can scoot around and stomp kick at knees, shins, and ankles. I imagine it may not be to hard to stick to WC/WT principles from this either, but that is my "Wing Chun Green Horn" assumption. Hope I wrote it out enough to understand, but it is one thing I picked up from MMA training that I really liked for this purpose. Much better than similar techniques I was shown in Karate.

 

[geezer]

It is very important in Wing Chun to be able to get up from the ground with out using your hands , in a self defence situation you cannot afford to post one or both of your hands on the ground to assist you in getting to your feet.

Good post Mook. I agree this is a very useful, if not essential skill. While you can chose to fight from the ground, or find other ways to get up while fighting, I've often found that the method you describe worked really well for me. In fact I was at an EBMAS / Latosa Escrima Concepts seminar back in 2007, and one of our empty-handed drills in escrima dealt with being attacked suddenly while sitting on the ground. I had just come back to martial arts training after a layoff of about 16 years. I was astounded to find that I could not get up without using a hand to push!!! As you said, it's really hard to fight sitting down and only having one hand free. In the late 80's, I had been an instructor in the Latosa system. And, then after all these years I show up at a seminar taught by Rene Latosa himself and I couldn't lift my fat **** of the ground! Needless to say, I felt really humiliated.

So anyway, I went home, lost some more weight, got in much better shape and started doing pretty much the same exercise you described, working repeatedly to both sides until it got easy. Now I try never to use my hands when sitting down on or getting up from the floor. This time I hope to retain this skill untill I'm really a geezer...say at least 85 or 90.

 

[mook jong man]

You described it very articulately mate , and i have seen that technique before . As far as the method i described , yes it does definately help to have strong abs , but at our school at the end of classes we had 20 mins of conditioning which included crunches, push ups etc .

But i have seen quite big guys with guts do it with out any problem after a fair bit of practice . Once you learn to get that momentum going you can get up quite quickly . I am just worried with the MMA version in the case of multiple attackers it might leave you vulnerable to strikes from the side , in the W.C version i can raise my arms and tuck my head down into my shoulders and get a degree of protection from the front and both sides .

But if there is only one attacker and a bit of distance between you then your technique can work quite well . In our lineage if you can't get up you stay on your back , with your guard up , one knee pulled back foot flat on the floor and the other leg retracted and poised to deliver stamp kicks to any knee or shin that comes into range. (keep legs together )

The foot that is on the floor gives you mobility by allowing you to pivot around on your back to face the attacker ( always keep him at your feet don't allow him to get around to your head ) also don't go for the groin no matter how tempting it is , your foot is likely to be grabbed .

 

[mook jong man]

And, then after all these years I show up at a seminar taught by Rene Latosa himself and I couldn't lift my fat **** of the ground! Needless to say, I felt really humiliated.

Ha , did he say hurry up and get off your fat *** in a Phillipino accent , i like the Phillipino accent , especially when they're insulting people , it just makes me laugh .

 

[geezer]

Ha , did he say hurry up and get off your fat *** in a Phillipino accent , i like the Phillipino accent , especially when they're insulting people , it just makes me laugh .

No, Rene is American-born, so he doesn't have a Filipino accent. In fact he was kind enough not to say anything out loud. But he did shoot a glance my way that said it all. Groan!

 

[KamonGuy2]

My advice is not to worry about this too much. I spent a lot of time working on recovering to a standing position from the floor. I worked BJJ techniques, Muay Thai flips, karate recoveries and yet when it came to a real situation I found myslef taken out by two guys because I was trying to be too clever!

Sometimes, it is better to just work on a speedy recovery, as opposed to trying to be too technical. It is atuclly extremly hard sometimes to finish a person once they are on the ground