Tiandu Yuanshaui Wubeizhi 田都元帥的武備志

[Midnight-shadow]

Lo and behold! One technique and so many different interpretations! We had “crane drinks from the water”, we had a modern technique by Bas Rutten, a suggestion to break the symmetry and even go with O-soto-gari (which is a great throw, and very useful), and now we even have a “shin-bite” form shuai-jiao.

The amount of interpretations way exceeds my expectations. Isn’t Chinese gongfu wonderful?

Wonderful or confusingly unhelpful, depending on your point of view

 

[Dudi Nisan]

Don’t worry about it! I used to feel just as you do, and I still feel so sometimes.



Three things: Coca-Cola, amazon packages and movement.



This is how I see it: we got used to the fact that when buying a can of coke in NY City, in a small stall on the shores of the Amazon or in a small store on the outskirts of the Sahara desert it will taste exactly the same. And it is the same: same can and same chemical composition.

We also like to order packages. Packages are neat, and whe can just take the whole thing back home, or even better—have the whole thing send to us.

These expectations, of things to be the same, of things being neat and easy to carry (and by implication—to spend exactly the amount of time we expected to spend on something) we carry over even to gongfu; we want it to be neat, and clear, and easy to carry, and “just give to me because I am in a hurry to…”,

But gongfu isn’t like that. Life isn’t like that. We cannot expect it to be a Coca-Cola can.



And second, if you look at gongfu as a collection of techniques than you are right—it is confusing. Because in a collection each and every technique should be clearly defined.

But if you look at gongfu as systems of movement than there is nothing confusing about all those interpretations. Because when you understand the principles of movement the variations are practically endless.

I see gongfu as systems of movement. Thus, I see all the above interpretations as being valid. Just pick the one that suits you best.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

That picture shows a very important MA principle. When you control your opponent's arms, you should also control his leading leg as well.

 

[Dudi Nisan]

Kung fu Wang: I like the application you posted!

Henning Wittwer informed me of a karate kata called “Pressing the throat” (“nodo-osae” 咽抑).

There are two clips on YouTube:

and

This takes us back all the way to the White Crane--Karate connection Midnight-shadow pointed out