Mogwai Combat

Mogwai Combat

Click on the link to be taken to my buddy Hobo’s blog. It’s just started, and he needs all the help and support he can get. Especially comments telling him you like his haircut, or that he looks stupid in shorts.

I persuaded him to start blogging for my own selfish reason; I just think he’s really funny and want to read the ramblings that spew forth from his brain.

Ostensibly, the premise for the blog is that he has basically mastered the Wing Chun kung fu system and is looking for something else to get his teeth into. He has discoved Krav Maga, and so will be chronicling his adventures in this mysterious and violent martial art that involves beating people up with bycicle seats and disarming terrorists using only your elbows or some chewing gum.

Check it out.

Real Strength!!

When I used to do wing chun, one thing I heard all the time was the sheer naughtiness of BRUTE STRENGTH.

THOU SHALT NOT BRUTE STRENGTH! Don’t bloot stlength! As the Japanese would say.

At the time, I thought it was pretty good advice, and I still do. It’s one of the lessons I am definitely glad I learned from wing chun.

Brute strength was considered taboo, which was great news for a skinny nerd like me. It meant I could use all my fancy kung fu-ery on musclebound Eastern Europeans, and the forbidden honour code of honourable kung fu students honour meant that he couldn’t resort to just ripping my arms off and beating me with them, which is what he would have done had I tried that stuff “In teh streeeyt”.

What would inevitably happen is that an instructor would first attemp the technique with “brute strength”, and then with super-mysteron kung fu power. Naturally, the brute strength method would fail miserably, and the mind-meld death force version would triumph. We all ooohed and aaahed at it.

Actually, it’s not far off the mark. It’s simply teaching proper technique over lazy, ineffective use of muscular strength. But the thing that I realised the other day, is that the people demonstrating brute force, didn’t actually have brute force. I mean real brute force, the kind that they show in movies where bad guys rip up trees and then beat people about the legs with them, or headbutt rocks until they explode, or elbow buildings until they fall over. It’s kind of like when they say “now this is how a boxer throws a punch” PAUSE! Wait a minute! No, that’s nothing like how a boxer throws a punch, but none of us know the difference or even care so please CONTINUE!

Long story short, I encountered that kind of BOLO brute force the other day, and let me tell you, it’s nothing to scoff at. I did some standup sparring with a judo blackbelt. The guy is a bit shorter than me, with arms roughly the size of an elephants leg, and thighs the size of, um, fourteen baseball bats sellotaped together. His head disappears directly into his chest, his feet are splayed almost flat from so many years of mat work, his hands are like knobbly little hunks of flesh-coloured iron that open and close with a gonad-terrifying snapping motion.

I put my hands on him and we started off slowly. Just taking a grip on his gi was like grabbing hold of some kind of large, pulsating tree trunk. I could feel the raw, hard power. Within about two seconds, my face could feel the raw, hard power of the mat as I headbutted it pretty hard thanks to some fancy trip thing by him. I had no idea what happened but I ate the mat about ten times in a row. I felt like a six year old trying to outwrestle his Dad. This guy’s strength was just unbelievable. It completely overwhelmed me.

“Wow”, I thought. “Now that is some wicked brute strength!” My instructor wasn’t very happy about it as it is pretty much forbidden to get thrown about by judo people in your own jiu jitsu dojo. He recommended me to just sit down on the floor during sparring instead of actually trying to trade throws with him, or just quit and train judo. Butthead.

Anyway, real, hardcore, external brute strength is, um, really strong.

Busy busy… but still time to think about BJJ

New posts and responses to questions will come soon.

Too much stuff going on at the moment to be able to focus on it just yet, so keep tight.

In the meantime, some random martial farts:

BJJ
note – I had to edit this because I basically said basically about 50 million times. lol.
I’m working on my hook guard… basically butterfly guard but the other person is either standing or kneeling or giving me some room to move. I grip their gi pants leg, around the shin area. Currently experimenting playing with balance. Pushing one way, waiting for the resistance, then switching and going for the sweep. Difficulties are letting go of the grip in order to clear their arm (thus giving them a chance to recover balance with their leg) and also what the hell to do when I get to X-guard. Must ask my sensei about that.

I’m also trying to literally use my head more… for guard passing, I try to use my head to control their body. I might be making a mistake there, but it seems to be working so far. Control the legs, apply pressure with my head and shoulders while I free my legs and walk them around for the pass.

Oh, and I got choked out for the first time. Hardcore.

I was rolling with Big Judo Guy®. Last time we rolled, he basically rubbed his chest into my ear for five minutes as I lay on my back completely unable to do anything about it (or breathe.) I didn’t want that to happen again this time.

This time, he squashed me for three and a half minutes, then started choking me out pretty good. I felt myself feeling a bit strange, but stupidly decided to struggle and writhe around in an attempt to escape. Next thing I know, there’s a strange feeling of release. I didn’t crap my pants or anything, but the next thing I remember I’m sitting up and there’s stars in my vision. He said to me “Shimekata.” Completeley without expression. (“Choked.”) I nodded, yes, then we shook hands and rolled again. Because that’s the way I ROLL. YEAH.

Wing Chun
My interest in dogma-fighting has been rekindled. Somebody whom I (with good reason and intentions!) focused on from my previous wing chun school, and basically bullied him into facing the truth about the wing chun he was training, has recently taken his first BJJ class, and is loving the release, the freedom, the satisfaction, the liberation – freeing his mind and body from the shackles of such a dogmatic and convoluted strain of an already difficult style.

I remember well my first week of BJJ. I was literally grinning like a maniac. It was so satisfying not to have any limits on the way to move my body. I could move it in the most natural and energy-filled way, and be told “good! good!” rather than “oh dear. You need to relax more. You suck very, very bad right now. It will take approximately 20 years before you are even close to being able to move your arm in a straight line correctly. Yeah, sorry about that. But this is the best style in the world, so, you know. It’s worth it.”

And how the instructor would demonstrate a movement that looked so difficult at first, like the triangle, or armbar from guard. And my mind was so indoctrinated with the wing chun training process, I thought it would take me literally years to be able to pull this kind of thing off correctly. But I remember my great surprise and joy when within weeks, I could begin to actually do them, and in just a few months, start tapping people out with them.

And this, my ultimate martial fart for the week.

“On the streets, there are no RULEZ! Not like in the ring, a sport, where there are RULEZ! OK! MAn I HATE THE RULZ SO MUCh they limit my wing chun quite a lot for reals.”
– Reason number 4,567 why wing chun is better than anything else in the world ever.

I was thinking about this the other day. And you know, it hit me. On the street there are no rules.

Really? What about the law? Where in the law does it say it’s okay to gouge somebody’s eye out if they threaten to duff you up? Where in the law does it say kneeing somebody in the groin, or tearing their balls of with a twist of the wrist (the movement is in the first form… if you didn’t know that, you don’t have teh real wing chun) is acceptable behaviour?

News flash! It doesn’t! Those things are illegal!

Now where can you repeatedly punch someone in the face, elbow them in the nose, or knee them in the ribs? Where in the world is it legal to pound the everloving shit out of someone for fifteen minutes? Where in the world can you take a huge dump on someone’s face and not get in trouble for it?

Everything except that last one, you can do “in the ring.”

So there! MYTH BUSTED! On the street, there are rules.

Blogging

It’s really interesting to see the stats… what people are clicking on to get here, what people are searching for to get here.

I found out someone translated my blog into (I think) Spanish. How cool is that? ES MUY ESTUPENDO!

Ala Chun contra BJJ
Nota: Éste es un inacabado, el trabajo en marcha que he abandonado. Lo pegaré aquí a marchito y muero.

Porqué BJJ es mejor en los principios del ala Chun que el ala Chun es.

Realmente me siento apesadumbrado para Sr. Ip Man (r.i.p.).

Espero su motivo, los muertos no puedo leer foros del Internet. Incluso un vistazo precipitado en el mire que es el interweb revela el hilo de rosca después de que el hilo de rosca después de que el hilo de rosca que proclama en los caracteres agudos W (v) (T/S) ING TCHUN SEA sistema de TEH GRYAYTEST FIHGTIN SEPA a la humanidad. ¿CANNO’ T SEA BEETEN ADENTRO DE TODOS MODOS SI ES THEORETICALY PERFECTO?? ¡1?!!!

No necesito entrar los detalles, porque eres todo al corriente de esta tensión particular de la Internet-fungicida-erupción ya. Era uno de los portadores de la enfermedad mismo, con una lista larga de las respuestas predeterminadas listas confundir apagado en la indirecta más mera de una ojeada alguien la eficacia de los chun del ala que preguntaban. Ése es porqué ahora río tan difícilmente en que leo los postes de los chunner del ala… Creía la misma cosa. La creía con cada átomo en mi cuerpo.

¿El RNC hace que los globos oculares de la gente hacen estallar hacia fuera y su cabeza implode? Sí. ¿El armbar hace que el empalme del codo de la gente estalla? Sí. ¿El gogoplata reverso hace que el pelo de la gente caen hacia fuera y sus shins derretir? Probablemente. Autorización, autorización. Estoy exagerando.

I translated that last paragraph back into English… rofltastic!

The RNC does that the eyeballs of the people cause they explode toward was and its head implode? Yes. The armbar does that the junction of the elbow of the people explodes? Yes. The gogoplata back does that the hair of the people they fall toward was and its shins to melt? Probably. Authorization, authorization. I am exaggerating.

PS Latest search engine terms:

escape from side control 2
feeling cocyx 2
death from holding farts 1
side control escapes 1
BLOG MMA 1
ufc vs tae kwon do self defense

Could these guys be the saviours of wing chun?

Wing Chun Fight Club

“This site is dedicated to Wing Chun Fighters. “Application is the only way to verify the truth” (Buddah, c 550 B. C.)”

Good on ya, boys!

A good wing chun student…

A Wing Chun Student’s Blog: Martial Farts on Wing Chun vs BJJ

It seems my work has been noticed by a wing chun student who has some similar feelings to the ones I experienced.

I have to commend his way of handling some of the things I wrote. Rather than recoiling and getting all defensive like most wing chunners and making himself look stupid, he has looked past some of my venom and seen the real messages behind it, and been able to identify some of the serious problems within wing chun for himself.

For that, I applaud him!

He has identified with my thoughts about unrealistic training. He is searching for the light… the light of Aliveness!

I encourage him to continue his wing chun training, but more important than that, to keep the rational and inquisitive brain he obviously has. Don’t let your peers or your Sifu tell you that what you are thinking is wrong, when it is clearly right.

Here’s a great analogy he came up with, too, along the same lines as Bruce’s famous “swimming on dry land” quote.

It’s the same as someone learning Chinese from CDs in their car and thinking they can handle it, and when they get over to Shanghai they’re totally screwed, coz they never actually conversed with anyone.

Anyway, go and check out his blog and follow his progress.

What the hell…

The last two search terms people got to my blog with…

“wing chun” real fighting
jean-claude van damme buttcheek kill

Hahahah… wing chun real fighting. L to the OL.