cma sensitivity drills

Discussion in 'Kung Fu' started by southern jester, Jul 17, 2007.

  1. southern jester

    southern jester New Member

    hey everyone,

    just recently purchased a book about chinese martial arts. the primary reason was the book had some information about praying mantis. based on several posts before this one many of you are probably well aware of my success at finding a cma school which teaches praying mantis. the plan is to begin taking classes next month.

    anyway got way of subject at hand. the forementioned book talked about sensitivity drills in different cma styles. most everyone knows that wing chun has trapping/sticking training and sensitivty drills. to my suprise it appears that many other cma styles do as well. and was curious how different styles practice as much.

    have breifly learned a little tai-chi and saw push hand practice. later took wing chun and practiced the sensitivity drills there. noticed a clear difference between how they were done in each stlye. was curious about the kind of similarities and differences between other cma styles.

    this list may or not be accurate or complete about which styles have the sensitivity drills as part of thier regular training. this information did come from a book. anyway the list of cma styles included praying mantis,tai chi, wing chun,bak mei,choy mok,dragon style and southern praying mantis.

    any information on subject would be appreciated. btw.does praying mantis and wing chun share a lot of common training principles? the sticking and trapping material seems to exist in both.
     
  2. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    Wing Chun and SPM supposedly share many elements. Both have high, tight stances, use the wrist as a point of contact, have similar approaches to structure.q
     
  3. Ciar2001

    Ciar2001 New Member Supporter

    what he said.
     
  4. beknar

    beknar Valued Member

    the external arts have them too

    At my school, we have some drills that are explicitly sensitivity drills.

    Take a long staff, have two people hold on end each at waist height and both people facing each other. The hand holding the end of the staff has to be right on the hip. One person is designated as the pusher, the other one responds. The pusher shuffles towards the other person. As soon as the one not pushing feels the other person pushing, he shuffles away.

    Have two people standing on a line facing each other. Have both bridge at the ankles. One person pulls, the other goes forward. The puller shuffles backwards and the other as soon as he feels the pull shuffles forward.

    During conditioning drills, we modify it so that we're not just whacking arms. When the clash happens, we push on each other to try to force our limbs past the center line, then suddenly one of us pulls away to go to the next position. If the other one doesn't respond fast enough or isn't paying attention, he can get whacked in the face or body.

    During the variation of a drill we call Six Horse and we're using staffs instead of our limbs, we clash with the staffs. So in this variation, we also don't just clash and then go to the next position. The two people clash with the staffs and try to get past the center line. Then one of them pulls away and swings the staff in the new direction/position. Once again, if the other guy's not paying attention, he can get whacked. This is a little more serious. Those sticks really hurt!

    None of these drills are really as random as tui shou or chi sau, though, so they're not the same. They do teach you to pay attention, though. If you don't, the pain comes, and quickly.

    Other CLF schools may have different things, so your mileage may vary.
     
  5. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    southern jester, enable private messages.
     
  6. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    What's Tui Shou?
     
  7. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    Sounds interesting Beknar, may have to try that one tonight!
     
  8. beknar

    beknar Valued Member

    Sorry, I sometimes use the chinese words. Tui Shou == pushing hands. There's a pun somewhere with another word that means 'vomiting hands', but I have no idea what it is.
     
  9. Guizzy

    Guizzy with Arnaud and Eustache

    White Crane here; we do push hands as well an exercise we call push body.

    Our push hands is close to Wing Chun' Chi Sao, our push body is closer to Tai Chi's push hands. Unfortunately, I don't have any videos of them.
     
  10. southern jester

    southern jester New Member

    hey yohan,

    have enabled private messages. because of my being not computer literate what does private messages do exactly? hope that doesnt sound like a really stupid question. how do i read private messages when sent? or send private messages? just want to be capable of using tool properly.
     
  11. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    Click on private messages on the top right hand corner of the screen. I forgot what I was going to send you originally.
     
  12. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away


    When you get a message you will get a pop up notification ,on which you can click "read" ,of course you wont get this if you have a pop-up blocker on your pc. It will also say in the top right hand of your page Private Messages 1 unread :)
     
  13. Mr. O

    Mr. O Valued Member

    we do pushing hands. one drill that we do is to get up on a chair and try and unbalance the other person so they fall of theirs, its not full pushing hands. Forearm to forearm and just push keeping forearms together! After that is good, turn the lights out so it takes away vision!
     
  14. cheesypeas

    cheesypeas Moved on

    Occasionally, I practice Sensing Hands blindfolded. It heightens instinctual perception, and if done frequently, can be almost freaky that I know where someone is even with broken contact.

    Doing dynamic push hands this way is more challenging...(and can be surprising...as a woman practicing with only men!!) :eek: :D
     
  15. Banditshaw

    Banditshaw El Bandido

    getting punched in the face does a whole lot for sensitivity
     
  16. SteelyPhil

    SteelyPhil Messiah of Lovelamb

    Only drills i've done so far are:

    Movement reponse one: Stand in basic stance with arms forming an arrow forwards. The other person then pushs your hands left or right. Its just about getting comfortable in transitioning between the twists etc.

    Ankle/Shin/Knee: Stand in advancing form with the legs touching at the various points mentioned. Do kicks/knees with either leg, gets used to the other person's body shifts i suppose.
     
  17. southern jester

    southern jester New Member

    does the lenght of time vary between styles about when a student begins learning sensitivty drills?
     
  18. David

    David Mostly AFK, these days

    In SPM, we learn hard sensitivity drills straight away, so raw power is developed with a little muscle intelligence. Later, sensitivity drills branch off into specialisms, so you'll do soft sensitivity drills where speed of interpretation is worked on. There are others where you're not actually touching the partner, leading and following movements and the eyes are sometimes closed for this.

    There's one I love which is a circular drill with 3 strikes and 3 defenses.
    A strikes with #1 low, B blocks with #2 low
    B strikes with #3 high, A blocks with #4 high
    A strikes with #5 low, B blocks with #6 low

    At this point, it's B's turn to "strike with technique #1 low": the positions are reversed. In that exercise, it's all about sticking and fluidity. Once you have the hang of one hand and you've got some good speed, you add in the second hand. The cool thing with that is you can do it 'easy' with your left and right hands mirroring the right and left of the partner, or you can move the second hand's sequence ahead or backwards of exactly opposite. It's good for the brain, or something.

    Some other drills have repetitive back and forth movements as the baseline and the partners take turns choosing a moment to throw in extra moves.

    Maybe they don't take turns, and one is just pursuing the other aggressively. The defender is the one being tested in this type. Chasing can be just with footwork so the defender has to retreat on an appropriate vector from whatever the attacker does.

    Rgds,
    David
     
  19. Tiger_ARVN

    Tiger_ARVN Valued Member


    Getting stabbed in the back or shot in the head or chest does a whole lot for punching....

    I guess we should all stop training how to punch then right :rolleyes:
     

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