Inspiration from outside your WC...

[geezer]

My Eskrima instructor is a constant source of inspiration for improving my Ving Tsun. How does that work? Well to begin with, he is a heck of a martial artist, fighter and coach. So when he shows me how to make a movement in Eskrima more efficient and effective, it usually helps me make my VT/WT/WC more effective as well. It also helps that his system, though it may at first glance appear very different from VT/WT/WC, still shares a lot of the same concepts. Efficiency, economy, forward pressure directed through your opponent's center, and so forth.

Today's little gem: Anything you do, even "soft" checks and parries should hurt. And when this guy demos techniques, they do! Not only does pain damage your opponent, but it distracts and makes him stiffen up so that he is more vulnerable to what follows. Every class brings up something like that and focuses my mind on what should have been obvious, but was getting overlooked. Unlike my old Chinese sifu, I think looking at combat through the lenses of different styles can be hugely helpful. I don't mean by adding a mish-mash of techniques, but by making you pay closer attention to what you should have been doing all along. I know, this is nothing new... just sayin'. Any thoughts?

 

[mook jong man]

I was taught my weapons stuff by a gentleman named Ray Floro , and like you I had known about things such as being non telegraphic and being explosive in your footwork from Wing Chun , but still I don't think my understanding was that deep on the subject.

I could do them with a certain degree of success , but did not really understand the mechanics behind these attributes.

It wasn't until I started with him , and learned his method of footwork which is based on fencing and learned his method of striking with the knife which he calls the F.F.S thrust , that I really started to understand what it means to be non telegraphic and be able to cover ground with a single explosive lunge.

I was able to contrast his methods with the Wing Chun method and see that there were very common denominators at play.
One thing he believes in is training the technique very slowly at what he calls " Tai Chi speed" concentrating on moving the hand first , then the arm , and then the body.

This eliminates any telegraph so that your knife thrust will penetrate the opponents defences before he can even see it.
Much the same thing is done with the footwork , with the method he uses , the head and body does not seem to raise up one iota to telegraph an attack .

This requires a lot of repetition which is very hard on the legs , some lessons he would have my friend and I just practising the step and lunge , and the next day you could hardly walk , not too mention all the knife sparring which further honed the skills even more.

But the upshot of this is I believe my Wing Chun and my understanding of movement in itself has increased from the time I spent training with him.

I just put a little video below so you can see his knife thrusting method.


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[cwk]

Today's little gem: Anything you do, even "soft" checks and parries should hurt. And when this guy demos techniques, they do!

This is the way I've been taught from the beginning. I still remember a time when sifu hit me on a nerve cluster on my arm with a charp choi as i went to punch him, the jolt up my arm felt like I'd been stuck with a cattle prod.

 

[geezer]

I was taught my weapons stuff by a gentleman named Ray Floro...

I just put a little video below so you can see his knife thrusting method.

Great clip. Master Floro has impressive skills. He also looks like a lot of fun to train with. The clip really shows you just how fast a knife attack can be in the hands of a skilled practitioner. "DTE" founder Martin Torres did a similar demonstration on me. He effortlessly was able to thrust-in and slash my throat and I was powerless to prevent it. I've seen him repeat the demo with other trained martial artists many times. It certainly made me re-think how I would approach self-defnse against a knife attack!

 

[mook jong man]

Great clip. Master Floro has impressive skills. He also looks like a lot of fun to train with. The clip really shows you just how fast a knife attack can be in the hands of a skilled practitioner. "DTE" founder Martin Torres did a similar demonstration on me. He effortlessly was able to thrust-in and slash my throat and I was powerless to prevent it. I've seen him repeat the demo with other trained martial artists many times. It certainly made me re-think how I would approach self-defnse against a knife attack!

Yeah he's a great guy , really humble and funny , my friend and I used to be taught by him in his garage.
The first lesson I remember saying to him "What do I call you" and he said "Just call me Ray".

He thinks forms are BS basically , he prefers to use a thing he calls a strike matrix where he has a white board with all numbers on it going horizontally and vertically and where it intersects that indicates the strike that you do.

We mostly did a lot of knife sparring and a lot of work with the short stick , flexible weapons like a hand towel etc and his method of using a stick holding it with a double grip.

I did the same re-think as well , particularly concerning range , because just when I would think that I would be at a safe range where he couldn't get me .

He would demonstrate time and time again that he could stab me at will from a distance that a normal person would have to cover in a few steps but he seems to cover in one lunge.

By the same token , he has such an awareness of range that if you did get inside his range by a fraction of an inch he will nail you.

So yeah , when you think your at a safe enough distance to react in time , think again and move back even further .

 

[Poor Uke]

Nice vid Mook.

Nowadays I would say Wing Chun is more of an inluence from outside for me.

 

[Eric_H]

such an awareness of range that if you did get inside his range by a fraction of an inch he will nail you.

I really liked the Ray Floro clip, what he talks about is basically the same stuff I've been learning in my Wu Dang sword training.

Getting back to the original post, training weapons give a great awareness of range.
Training grappling gives a great idea of energy exchange.
Training boxing/kickboxing does a lot for footwork and conditioning.

All of these things exist in WC, but without going through the other MA's i have done, I would not have seen it so clearly.