Is there some concensus as to what these concepts mean and translate to in training? I would be concerned if there are people who believe there is some 'fixed' boundary or delineation that you merely have to 'step' over to move from say co-operative to non coperative, rather than degrees of co-operativeness, both from the physical and mental perspectives of training. Unless you just go at it and try to 'kill' each other.

Any form of sparring is co-operative because the people invovled agree to restrict themselves to doing only certain things. Basically physical in relation to techniques, strike zones safety equipment, environment etc. The 'aliveness' of the sparring would depend on each individual's ability to work within those restrictions and make the most of the opportunities afforded them, in other words enter into the 'spirit' of the thing, obviously more a mental thing. Its realism is contextual in relation to the 'situation' or situations being 'modeled' and the balance attained between the factors being controlled and those being allowed freedom of expression.

The one i have most confusion over what people mean is the fully resisting opponent one. If they are talking more in relation to a kind of mental attitude i would agree, but from the physical perspective, degree of resistance is going to vary widely between styles, ability and level of training.

I too wonder at what is meant by 'fully resisting'.

For someone coming into my club for the first time, this usually means 'stiffen up and don't let them do anything to you'. Except being stiff makes it easier for you to be manipulated - anyone can throw a clothes dummy. Plus, an easy way to demonstrate the impracticality of stiffening your body is to hit the guy. Then he'll start moving, no worries.

The only interpretation that makes any sense to me is that full resistance means he is trying to do to you even as you try to do to him. Fighting back, in other words.

Jellyman,

To me, ‘fully resisting’ means trying their darndest to not let you do whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s the same as saying non- cooperative. Whether they stiffen-up or not is their problem to deal with.

Training goes like this- learn a technique
1st- do it with a cooperative opponent (they offer no resistance but only fall if you make them)

2nd- do it with a less cooperating opponent (they offer a little more resistance)

3rd- do it with a non-cooperative opponent (both of you trying your darndest to throw the other and thwart any attempt at throwing you).

The difference between ‘fully resisting’ and ‘fighting’ is the absence of mallice. Last night Tim and I tried our darndest to throw each other (fully resisting)for 20 or 30 minutes- neither was trying to hurt the other (...or I’d be dead).

Peas,
Shane

Push hands is cooropative, and basically everything else in Tai CHi is about harmony and cooporation just like Aikido, btw did you check out that tai chi sparring thread on empty flower. I think it could awnser your question why there is no sparring in tai chi.

Maciej,

Your understanding of Tai Ji and that E.F. thread only answers the question why you and those guys can't apply Tai Ji.

When a Lion runs along side and pounces on a zebra, sinking it's teeth into the zebra's throat as it rides the zebra to the ground for it's final breath- the lion is blending and harmonizing with the movement of the zebra- but I doubt the zebra would consider the encounter cooperative.

It sounds like you and Chris would. I suppose your and Chris Seaby's broad definition of the word cooporation could be applied to just about anything: car crashes (both cars struck each other, that's cooperative isn't it?)

Beginner level push-hands is cooperative. At higher levels it is about an uncooperative as your mother was during your conception.

Bob, does it hurt being correct so often?

My father wants to know.

Jesus, mi Espanol es no mas bueno. Hable su padre vio con dios a ban'o por favor.

hi maciej,

fwiw, shane's reply seems right on to me, and describes a situation not too different than it might be in other arts. you learn techniques in a more cooperative way, and then up the ante. for instance, this was also my experience in judo, when i was younger. we started by feeling through the techniques, and then moved to levels of resistance/uncooperativeness through varying levels of randori. same with swimming, fencing, etc. you start by trying to learn some principles and techniques, and build up ability gradually, and go from there, into more competitive situations.

i don't think harmony/blending really implies lack of conflict (in the sense of lacking a genuinely resisting opponent). rather it attempts to avoid using force against force, with the idea that you may run into someone stronger than you. and if you can learn to listen and determine where the other guy is going, you can learn to avoid him and counter.

so it's really an attempt to deal with an opponent in the "smartest" way, rather than merely struggling with them. if no one was potentially stronger than you (nor had abilities to overcome strength), you could just grab them and twist them into a pretzel. you would be king kong, and there would be no need for MA.

while a lot of tcc teachers (unfortunately) don't go beyond cooperative work, there are those who do, to varying degrees. including sparring and full contact. the first real teacher i had was training people for full contact, and winning by knockout against all comers, back in the 70's.

i in no way mean to be condescending. and i understand why some people training in other arts have opinions of the kind you've expressed.
this happens partly, imo, because a majority of tcc teachers don't take things past a certain level.

but my suggestion, if you are interested in finding out more, would be to do as i and others have done: seek out those teachers and practitioners who go further, and see if you have anything to learn. i certainly have found i have lots to learn.

"fully resisting", is i suppose a relative term. training situations aren't usually life and death, in any endeavor. there are usually agreed upon rules, either overtly or tacitly. but this is only to say that in a training situation, you aren't really trying to kill each other. who would want that? nevertheless, it doesn't mean that varying levels of resistance, as shane described, aren't useful for training. i think, as you do, that they are necessary.

i like very much shane's distinction of "absence of malice." that says it all. but it doesn't preclude resistance necessary to learning.

heck, even in chess, you learn the moves, and then try to deal with an opponent.

bob#2, ah, your inimitable style. i always enjoy what you have to say.

jellyman, i have a lot of respect for systema. and i've actually emailed you in the distant past, and been grateful for what you shared. i'd agree that "fully resisting" is a matter of intent and skill, not tension. i suspect that is in full accord with systema, the little i've been able to learn about it.

best to all...

"while a lot of tcc teachers (unfortunately) don't go beyond cooperative work, there are those who do, to varying degrees. including sparring and full contact. the first real teacher i had was training people for full contact, and winning by knockout against all comers, back in the 70's."

Read Mo Ling's replies on that tai chi sparring thread on empty flower. Mo Ling is a chen tai chi teacher and says sparring is not needed in tai chi. And Bruce (Shooter) who does tai chi and sparring says Mo Ling is the only correct person on tha thread (makes you wonder doesn't it). Also I was recently reading a book called kung fu masters and it had a segment on Vincent Chu (people on empty flower say he has skill) and he is against sport styles, sport competition, etc. So this is leading me to believe this is tai chi attitude. Here are osme quotes from that thread:

Mo_Ling wrote:
"What exactly do you mean by sparring anyway?
When I train gongfu as in FIGHTING, I train hurting and incapacitating the opponent. So if I was to practice fighting I would practice it by hurting the opponent quickly to end the fight...fighting in my world is not about rounds in a ring. You cannot really spar in this way and expect to have a sparring partner later on.
For example...if I properly use my gongfu, in certain situations I will be forced to use an elbow or poke the throat or break the knee etc...this means injury.

If you cannot actually use your gongfu to injure your opponent, then it sounds a lot like cooperative drilling with rules....again, heading back to tuishou territory here....

If you are trying to imply that sparring is just practice involving a free for all...er but real strikes that injure are not allowed...no I dont do that...I dont think it is useful."


Bamboo_Leaf wrote:
"The adaptation of taiji ideas over the physical movement to conform to a sporting venue dosnt reinforce the body movements of the art.

I think you could say its taiji like but not taiji. Is this bad thing, I dont think so as long as one is up front about their practice or work.

I saw what happened to a certain White Crane school many yrs ago when it was adapted to fit in with the local kick boxing of the time.

No longer would anyone consider it white crane no matter how effective it was. The art had been changed to much and lost much of its original flavor.

even to this day many ask what CMA is supposed to look like. ever wonder why?"


Cat among the pigeons wrote:
"While I have the greatest respect for "sport" combat stylists, it has to be said that there's a vast difference between an art that was meant to kill or maim, and an art that's designed precisely to avoid killling and maiming. All the old, traditional Chinese styles, external and internal (just like the old, traditional European styles, I might add), were designed to kill and maim. "Sport" styles were always a separate thing.

An example Mike Sigman has often used: the skilled Eagle Claw exponent is capable of actually ripping chunks of flesh out of a human body - ripping bones out of their sockets, tearing tendons, etc. Similarly, in real Taiji, as a traditional fighting art, the point of "joint locks" isn't to "lock" the joint but to break it, beyond repair, irrevocably. Now, anybody who's done joint-locking knows how tough the body can be. When a MMA player taps out, how often is that because their opponent is really likely to actually snap their arm or break their neck? Well, Taiji (as many other traditional arts) is an art that's designed to go all the way - to break, rend, maim, destroy. And its "weapon" is its unusual way of generating power (i.e., transmitting the solidity of the ground through a relaxed body).

So nobody is going to say "no holds barred" really means that, are they? "Fights" would be pretty short, in that case!

This isn't something you can practice very easily in "sparring". Only the highly skilled can do so. Lesser mortals have to make do with drills.

The point of the above isn't "my dick's bigger than yours", or "I'm involved in a big, bad, fighting art, and you guys are all involved in namby-pamby stuff". The point of the above is, if you haven't got an inkling of it, then whatever you may be doing, however much fun it might be, however effective in a "sports" context, how can it possibly be a traditional art like Taiji? How can it possibly be a training (in a highly specific, unusual method of power delivery) designed to break, rend, maim, destroy?

The study of a traditional art like that can't be for "sport" (although it could be altered into a sport by somebody clever and skilled enough), nor even for "self-defence" (as in barroom brawling); surely it can only be either to a basic level, for health (yet even to this level, it's got to be authentic), or it's a sort of antiquarian interest, or something done for the skill's sake ... indeed, like an art?

If you were to use a skill like Taiji, to its full-blown, traditional extent, in a streetfight, you'd probably be breaking the law in most countries in the world today. Taiji is vicious, just like Xingyi, like Bagua. Utterly, totally vicious and ruthless, presenting the opponent with something as solid as a wall, as inexorable as a python. Yet at the same time, the Taiji exponent will seem relaxed, soft as a baby, and as slippery as a beach ball in water. And that's the scariest part!"

MacieJ,

Interesting post, seriously.

The problem for me is, where do people like Su Dong Chen, Luo De Xiu and Tim Cartmell fit into your theory? And that is the short list. Explicitly, I am asking how do you fit people with proven fighting abilities that have trained with "sparring" as part of their training regiment and who nonetheless possess the skills you describe? If you don't think that these people could inflict serious or even fatal damage, I'd have to disagree, yet they have all engaged in controlled fighting.
Perhaps I am misreading your point, but it seemed to be that you were dismissing the role of controlled fighting in the training of combat arts.

Internalenthusiast

Thanks for the kind words, but I fear you will make my head too big .

As someone said, this isn't about how legit your style is (well, not to me) just about what people consider to be realism etc. Even within systema, people have different takes on it and different solutions to the same problem.

To me, training should be an ideal balance between many factors - safety vs realism, intensity vs softness, for example.

There are many answers, for example, feel the answer to the first - safety vs realism - lies in restricting rules or wearing equipment. The down side to this is that people tend to rely on these things. Others feel the answer is to go slowly and open everything fully. Others feel that normal speed is okay, but to limit contact to certain areas - push rather than kick the groin, or hit just enough to hurt it. This requires some control, though.

In my club we tend to oscillate between limited rule drills (eg wrestling only etc) fast sparring with limited contact to sensitive areas, and slow sparring with 'full contact' (ie no restriction of penetration, although the strikes tend to be more pushing with the fist - part of how we learn to strike initially anyway). And of course we traverse the continuum between these extremes. People are allowed to wear whatever equipment they want, although it is a bareknuckle art, and the most I've seen people wear at my club are a cup and mouthpiece - more often than not, nothing, really. We do have methods of blow asorption that serve a protective function. OTOH this other club in Vegas suits up with gloves, shin gaurds, elbow pads, knee pads, face cage and helmet, and bang it out once a month. Some other dude in Canada uses Blauer suits.

Joint locks vs submissions - my instructor explained to me that in reality you are using ballistic snapping to break joints - we only apply steady force in class to avoid injury, or show mercy.

Good point about the difference between fighting and sparring being malice.

At the end of the day, I think controlled fighting is key, but that it is good to use different forms of control.

Getting the most out of taiji push-hands skills (I have only practised Yang-style in depth) depends on having good basic combative skills -- knowing how to close the distance between you and the other; being able to neutralize and yield as you counter-attack and having some idea of how to deal with a variety of styles of attack ( a puncher, a grabber, a thrower or any combination thereof). Most modern taiji students (mine included) don't have the martial foundation/experience/interest to be skillful fighters in a taiji-like manner.

For the few that have the interest, there are many training methods that can teach the basics of self-defence skills done with relaxation and the requisite whole-body mechanics but they require a willingness to sweat, suffer a few bruises, both to the body and the ego, as well as patience.

It is not possible to learn self-defence or combative skills that might work against a skilled or determined attacker without controlled contact and some form of spontaneous unrehearsed attackes, albeit in a "controlled" manner, with or without body armor.

Having this kind of training environment is difficult as it requires one-on-one coaching or very small groups and a willingness by both the attacker as well as the defender to escalate the "violence" only as much as each participant can manage at a given time in their development. In other words, there has to be a spirit of "cooperation" even though this kind of training is not done cooperatively!

thanks for interesting posts everyone.

thanks maciej, i enjoyed your post. i still wonder how someone could get good at doing damage for real, without engaging in more controlled sparring with resisting opponents. i'd agree with walter's point about the people he mentions--who are all capable of working a range of intensities. but i may not be understanding your point fully.

thanks jellyman, for sharing that description of the variety of approaches to control in training. great/clear descriptions; and your point about variety being necessary is really good, i think.

michael, i think your point about the "escalation of violence" during training being essentially a mutually cooperative thing is excellent. in the absence of malice, learning (and helping each other learn), rather than damaging, becomes the objective.

hey, have a great thanksgiving, to those who celebrate it. best...

QUOTE "When I train gongfu as in FIGHTING, I train hurting and incapacitating the opponent."

My question is how do you train this? You obviously can't hurt and incapacitate your partner while training, so how can you be sure your techniques will work "for real" if you've never really tried them.
I fully appreciate the value of cooperative training and drills. And if the individual feels these adequately prepare him for the violence of a real confrontation then that's all they need. Our philosophy is that by training against resistance, with contact we are more confident in what we can really do, having really done it.

QUOTE "When a MMA player taps out, how often is that because their opponent is really likely to actually snap their arm or break their neck?"

The answer is every time.
Submissions are not pins. A fighters taps out because his limb is at (or already passing) the limit of its range of motion. Failing to tap at that point will result in serious injury. This is what the whole concept of "tapping" is all about.

QUOTE "Well, Taiji (as many other traditional arts) is an art that's designed to go all the way - to break, rend, maim, destroy."

Which is exactly the same mentality as combat "sport" martial arts. In sparring and competition, competiors stop just short of breaking, rending, maiming and destroying when their opponent taps.
"Sport" fighters are sure they really can break a joint or otherwise incapacitate an opponent for real, because they practice against fully resisting (and trained) opponents on a regular basis, opponents that will not give up or tap until they are on the verge of serious injury.
A joint lock is a joint lock. A joint lock taught in any style has the potential to tear, dislocate or break the joint. The question is how do you develop the skills to apply the techniques to an opponent that is really fighting back.

It is interesting that there are such vastly different ideas about how to practice the same arts. The first Xingyiquan school I trained at in Taiwan introduced me to the hardest contact sparring I had ever done up to that point in time. And we competed in full contact tournaments. It never occured to my teachers that severe training and hard sparring would make them less deadly.

Quote from Chris McKinley from that TJQ sparring thread on EF; There's alot of miscommunication on this thread as a result of lack of definition of terms. As Socrates said, "The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms".

Hence my question, is there is a consensus on the definition of these concepts? It is a apparent to me that there is a general agreement, albeit a loose one, as with most of these types of definitions like internal and external.

The reasons for the differences in the main seem to lie with Tim's "The question is how do you develope the skills to apply the techniques to an opponent that is really fighting back" and "It is interesting that there are such vastly different ideas about to how to practise the same arts". I see that as a 'healthy' situation.

I think a lot of the dispute around this subject comes from this lack of clarity about terms. All the people who Maciej quotes probably practise uncooperative training, they just restrict the scope of it considerably, so as to only train one tiny piece at a time, like pushing hands.

Tim, Jellyman and others also take a similar approach, 'today we just train uncooperative...grappling', or uncooperative striking, within certain constraints. People who spar realise that they are putting constraints on what they do in training. Tim knows that sparring is not the same as a real fight, he just believes that it trains qualities that are useful in a real fight, when part of an intelligently put together syllabus.

On the other hand when drills become too formalised, too cooperative they risk developing a culture which prohibits giving good feedback. How do I know if my technique is on a good line if my partner automatically moves with it in a predictable way ( and they will learn to move in a predictable way after a number of repetitions, after watching and copying the teacher, after absorbing the'culture' of the system).

The extent to which people include non cooperative exercises varies from teacher to teacher, and the terms they give the exercies varies, as does the degree of formality/restriction. But I think you'll find similar exercises in pretty much all arts.

Finally I'd like to bring up a point I consider relevant. Someone described sparring and uncooperative training as being different from fighting mostly in the 'absence of malice'.

We humans are very social animals, and I believe malice makes a great difference tous. It's one thing to play, however hard the contact and strong the resistance, with a smiley classmate, or a skilled and amiable teacher like Tim. Subjectively there's a great difference with someone who doesn't just want to resist, but wants to hurt. We pick up on those feelings and that aggression and it's intimidating in a different way to just physical ability.

There is a social and psychological aspect to training that touches on the subject of the difference between malice and its absence which I think also belongs in this discussion.

'On the other hand when drills become too formalised, too cooperative they risk developing a culture which prohibits giving good feedback.'

This is why I feel all the good drills have an element of spontaneity as a requirement, so there is room for play.

'There is a social and psychological aspect to training that touches on the subject of the difference between malice and its absence which I think also belongs in this discussion'

Very true. Although it can get pretty deep. I'll pitch in some things I've noticed.

Everyone likes to think they are special. Whether this is part of our inherent need to further our own genome, or because we are raised with messages like 'the most important person in the world is you' is a tough call, although I suspect it's a bit of both. One of the most primal methods of establishing worth and importance has always been a physical struggle of some sort, be it war or ritualized aggresison. The upshot is, when new people start, they can't help but struggle, or get excited when they get hit - taking it personally. The ego gets in the way of learning, and also judgement.

Besdies just ego, I think there's also a factor of the sympathetic nervous system - adrenaline dump and whatnot. Malice brings this out in both parties, because the perception of malice an evoke malice or fear in turn. However, if you watch guys who fight with their egos, the adrenal dumb wears off after 30 - 60 seconds or so, and then the body has to pay on the Oxygen deficit it incurred when the heart rate accelerated.

The Jackson/Lidell fight is a good case in point to me. These guys are highly conditioned athletes, so their capacity for riding the adrenal boost is better than most, but soon the piper wanted payment, and they slowed right down. At the end, Jackson was working slowly and methodically, and he was hitting Liddel not because he was faster or stronger, but because he had position, because he was nullifying the defense and sneaking in his offence.

Some people feel it is better to be an adrenal fighter, but I feel that it is better to be a machine. But how then do you deal with adrenaline? I think working from contact, so you don't scare as easily, and also through breathing. With good breathing technique, your oxygen deficit is not as big. We also target anaerobic endurance, so that our limbs won't get so tired when the oxygen is sucked out of them when we panic (one reason people's legs weaken, I think). Crude body movements only as well, etc etc.

I am curious as to how chiqong might fit into this. I know from previous discussion that Tim also works from contact.

I would like to quote a famous CIMA teacher, Wang Xiang Zhai, founder of Yiquan:
"If you want to learn how to fight, then fight a lot".

A specific requiriment in his old-days school (before the comunist takeover) was DAILY sparring. Challenge fights with other arts were daily affair too.

The difference between nowadys contact sports and Yiquan, concerning this aspect of the thing, was that Wang brought his students to the free fight stage trough tweishou, teaching a 'soft' version of duel first (if you want to see it this way). People got accustomed to a fighting situation without too much pressure, having the time to develop balance, sense of touch and so on, before being introduced to MANDATORY full contact sparring.

Wang loudly stated that other CIMArts had lost the sense of reality abolishing freefight sparring. Not everybody who learnt from him listen though. Some students who were too lazy or too scared and who had never fought at the school, eventually became teachers themselves and created adepts who were UNABLE to fight for real.

Some people don't have the attitude of the warrior, this is just plain evidence. They just should be not fooling around too much.

Maciej,

What art do you study? and do you spar?

I'm curious- but don't have enough patience to sift through your previous posts to find out.

Bob#2

Actually I train in xingyiquan and I spar once a week. I also have some experience with judo and boxing.

Then why would you be so concerned about what Mo-Ling or any other too-deadly-to-practice chi-hugger posted on some other discussion board?

You went a little quote-happy for no apparent reason.

No one who knows better gives a crap about some dorkapuss Tai Ji teacher who thinks he's too deadly to 'do' the stuff he 'does'. If he can get students to pay his rent- good for him- bad for them- but those who know better won't give a squat about it.

Maciej,

it's hard to tell if it was you or Cat among Pidgeons who wrote- "If you were to use a skill like Taiji, to its full-blown, traditional extent...in a streetfight, you'd probably be breaking the law in most countries in the world today."

But the same idiotic logic could be applied in relation to driving. My car will go 120mph without straining- but I wouldn't travel at that speed unless I had a serious emergency and a long, desolate drive to the nearest hospital.
(and that speed would be illegal but necessary)

Now- if my previous driving experience was only sitting in my car in my driveway pretending to shift gears and turn the wheel (with the master instruction of an expert)- do you think I'd be a good driver when I have to rush you to that distant hospital?

"Taiji is vicious, just like Xingyi, like Bagua. Utterly, totally vicious and ruthless, presenting the opponent with something as solid as a wall, as inexorable as a python" -- true, but only a poorly endowed wannabe would put it like that.


Don't you girls get it?

Actually Cat among pigeons wrote it. And the reason is because no one on that forum refuted them and I see similar posts there all the time.

So... how did that make you feel?

maciej, I was in agreement with the leaf and mo_ling on the fact that mindset is what makes the sparring different.

However, the way the sparring is structured among the three of us is vastly different respectively. Speaking only for myself, I don't believe in techniques/applications, or drilling them. I don't think it's important for a person to be able to execute the form and 'show' the principles before they can begin their practical training. I believe a person only needs 6-9 months of dedicated practice to develop good TCC fighting method which can be tested in the ring and on the mat against entry-level, and sometimes, even well trained fighters of other styles.

I base those beliefs on results I've seen of the training. I don't give people a theoretical model to work from. They formulate their own theories based on how things relate to their present understanding. They become their own teacher and take responsibility for their own learning. All I can really 'teach' them is the understanding i have of how TCC works on a practical level and how it fits into different aspects of their lives.

Lots of folks, CMA and non-CMA, are very outspoken in their hope that the players from our school who do ring-fighting and sub-wrestling aren't really 'doing' TCC.

Who in their right mind would claim to be representing TCC when they fight MMA and do sub-wrestling competitions if they weren't actually practicing TCC...and especially if they weren't trying to sell anyone anything?

The competitive stuff is just one way to test basic skill-sets. The sparring we do for competition is never with the idea that, "I train to win". It's always the same mindset no matter the context. Sport doesn't define the art. It's a game that's there for those of us who are willing to play.

Bob's right about CatP, btw.