What are people's thoughts on the utility of sembrada, box pattern, and counter-for-counter drills in general? I'm clear on the textbook reasoning for it, but there are a lot of people who are good about testing training methods and revising them accordingly. I'm curious to see how sembrada held up to such testing. Cheers. Stuart
Yeah, shootodog, I've read that thread. Some exploration on what the word "sumbrada" means, a tangent about the evils of txt language, a couple of references to oracion and anting, and practically nothing about the applicability or pressure testing of sumbrada. Not terribly helpful really.
Here's my semi researched feelings and exprerience on Sumbrada. At the end of the day they represent a great beginner's training tool. Unfortunately some individuals look to them as a destination rather than a stop along the way. Much like other flow drills (like hubads and chi sau) I believe that they are an excellent stepping stone towards the introduction of live training into a system. They allow students to begin to work with each other, develop touch sensativity, movement, and basic reaction concepts. Do they simulate reality? No. They do introduce flow and help to move a stundent beyond thinking and into reacting. However, they are still a stepping stone. Once trust and those skills are developed, the next step is to move toward less structured, more open and "alive" training. I don't buy into the idea that practing sombrada does not help develop martial skills. I have, in pressure tested scenaros, without thinking used a high hand pass out of a sombrada into a strike. Granted this was in a school and not on the street. Still I didn't realize what I had done until it was already executed. So they have lots of benefit, in my opinion, for getting people started working together. That said, I don't see much advantage having advanced students practice them. - Matt
This is precisely the kind of thing I was wondering. I mean, the rationalization behind something like sumbrada (my rationalization anyway) is that you'll "recognize" an incoming attack as corresponding with some part of the sumbrada drill and will have some natural counter available to you. I was wondering whether that idea has been borne out in actual sparring. Cheers. Stuart
The problems I see are not the training concept i.e. counter for counter, but in the selection of skills used to block. For example blocking at medium range and using the left hand check to stop the weapon from following through the target. If anyone has sparred full contact with real intent they'll see the limitations of this - I've yet to see it happen on a committed full power strike unless bridging in to close range behind the block.
I know what you mean. Would you advocate C4C drills for transitioning from largo mano to corto then? Or do you think there's a stronger structure available in medio range? (In our Doce Pares class, we did double blocks more often than sweep and reinforce-type structures. But I'm not convinced they'd fare much better. Hard to tell from the WEKAF tournaments.) Stuart
Agreed that full contact changes things. However I see a basic sombrada (like the Inasanto beginner's 5 count) teaching the idea of: Move inside/outside, block, check, & counter Fundimentally that's a strong beginner system. Weapon weight and follow through does need to be taken into consideration. But I see that as the next tier of training. I see sombrada's on the same level as learning the ABC song. They teach fundimentals, rythem, and perhaps a little basic combination structure. However, if you still need to use the ABC song by the time you hit second grade, then there are problems. - Matt
It's the abc's for beginners to give them a point of referrence to learn basic moves, posture, stances, coordination at the basic level . It's like learning to stand up before you can walk, Once you can walk you don't practise to stand up anymore. Advanced students who train sumbrada might do so for the relaxing "clikity clacking" flow and can be fun and great for demos but no real advancement in fighting , it has to be unscripted and done in real time speed and power and intent to destroy the other guy...kinda desolves the drill , that's it. It becomes too mechanical and predicatable to teach real time fighting skills so you move on to trying to find ways to incorporate it in sparring. In terms of using it as blocks...well If you do it in real time and speed you'll find which ones you can make work and which one's turn into strikes instead of blocks the way it was shown. I say which ones you can make work everyone has a different skill level and different ways of training things to find their own colors and make it work for them. If there's a will there's always a way to make things work. I think the stregnths of FMA training is the formula it uses to try to be realistic about things and able to effectively use what they are learning...at least the systems that are able to pass these skills onto their practitioners. The problem with some who train sumbrada is that they focus on becoming fast and skilled at the pre set drill....it's a drill...and drills are created to teach you how to fight and fights are never scripted.
I agree with Yoda on this. In fact I'd go further and say that I've found it easier once closing, to grab the opponents stick than it is to check his hand. I've had a great deal of success with this method against guys swinging at 80 -85% power and speed. The hand simply isn't there but if you block close enough to the hand then you can pick the stick up as it passes through. But this can only be done froma setup. The big problem with Sumbrada / Sombrada / Sembrada (delete as required) and similar flow drills like hubud, pak gang, tapi tapi, sinawalli etc etc is that I think they move the student too far away from what their original intention was. Instead of teaching a student to react to line changes and simple counters, they're taught with so many variations - counters, counters to the counters, and on and on, that all they do is instill a mindset in the students to carry on flowing rather than look to end a confrontation as quickly as possible. I know that you can build the pressure up to a point where it gets difficult to deal with but if you're meant to be preparing a student to learn how to fight with and defend himself against a stick then he or she needs to be fed in a manner that is going to more realistically represent the environment they are going to be exposed to. There are those who will say that they've managed to do this and that etc, and thats great, but apart from having never sparred against anyone full contact who could pull of the simplest block and check, I've also never heard of anyone say that they were able to pull off this and that consistantly. In the past 2 years I've had far better results in training students to fight full contact by dropping these drills, isolating specific techniques, concepts and ideas and transplanting them into the arena they're meant to be used in and building up the pressure quickly and progressively. I realise that there may be some who will disagree with what I say but I'm talking from my experience only.
