Shaolin Splashing Hands vids (sorry 'bout the delay :D)

Yes, at last I have vids of my style!
These vids were filmed within the last 2 months (exactly when I don't know 'cos I've only just come back from me toesy op ), the man doing the moves is my Sifu (Chris Lomas) and of course the other guy in the browns applications vid is one of the senior members of the class.

These don't fully show the style I have to say, the Sifu has slowed them down a good 3-4 times the intended speed so people can actually see them. And there's some 'tears' missing, but again this is to show people the moves clearer. Though I must have a word with him about lowering the text..

Rather than post the 20 or so mini-clips, I thought I'd just give the link to the page with them on. Just click on any of the blue writing et voila! The move is performed!

Oh, and quick explanation of what the heck is going on, the moves at the top of the page (up until 'Reverse Shuffle, Stiff-Kick, Jab-Punch') constitute most of the 'drilling' we do every lesson. Every one of the moves has applications, though the Browns (short, quick combos) and Sections (I think of them as shorter Browns ) are designed exclusively for combat.

So, erm...enjoy!

Splashing Hands

 

I'm not a great judge as I've never experienced the style.

He didn't slow it down at all. I couldn't tell what was going on except in one or two clips.

I don't like the kicks - they are all straight legged and have no intent.

Always drops his hands back to his waist. Why?

He is slapping something every time he throws a blow, but it's going to fast for me to tell. Why does he always slap?

Seems to have a very western-boxing ish feel. High, light stances. However, the footwork is greatly over-exaggerated. The hips rotate about half as much as the feet. Why?

Seems to be some extraneous footwork thrown in there that I don't quite understand. Seems that he should slow down his flurry of hands and work on coordinating the movement of his feet with the movement of his hands.

It does seem very adaptable and simple though. Could be very applicable. Like I said, I can't comment too much as I've never crossed hands with anyone from the style.

 

Now I haven't had the time to watch all of the clips, but from what I've seen (brown belt basic applications)...

Please explain to me throughout the whole clip this foot slapping I see on the ground. The power generation seems alien to me.. i.e. not rooted. I mean I understand the transition part of it needed to evade and get in, but the whole slapping of the feet on the ground.. I thought I was watching a dyslexic baji quan fighter with vertigo for a few there. Had to watch it a few times and it still doesn't make sense. Please clarify?

 

???
I'm not understanding...what am I looking at here?

 

I have to say, I'm baffled as well. I checked the same video as DJ, and I can't understand the power-generation used here.

Contrarly to most ineffective weird CMA, this here makes a clear attempt at power generation, only I can't understand how it's supposed to work.

Could you enlighten us on this, Jon?

The Section 4 video is... Ehhhhh... "Peculiar"

Is the moonwalk part of your curriculum?

 

Yeah - you'll see him rotating both front and back feet as he punches. When he brings the front foot up and picks up the heels, he is rotating his hips over to develop power in his strikes.

 

Oh it's slowed down trust me. It's still not slow enough though I agree, Sifu's doing DVD's of the animal forms of the style at the mo, I've seen previews of them that contains super slow-mo sections, I'll see if I can nab a bit of them.

There's only two types of kicks in the style, mule/donkey and stiff lead. There's also only two areas that are ever hit with kicks, the kneecap and groin, the theory behind it is the leg being straight is quicker and stronger at hitting the opponent's leg.

Principally I believe one arm/hand goes down (as you'll see hopefully on the shuffling clips especially) to block the groin (this can also be turned into an upwards 'thrusting' punch, like 'Shuffle Down Block, Jab Punch').
It also has the element of surprise, you try to get used to starting fights with arms by the sides, 'dirty kung fu'.

Sorry, I should have explained a bit more about the style. There used to be a good pic on his site refering to this...damn, it's gone! Well basically as one hand goes out to punch, the other cuts across the body to a degree and hits the punching hand's shoulder.

I think this is mostly to do with keeping a constant eye on your opponent. The Sifu always stresses to keep ooking ahead. Uppercuts have the 'curve' from the hips, but the body itself moves very little, I think it keeps you centered more too.

Strange thing is an important aspect of the system is getting the 'scissor effect', the feet and hands actually move in time with each other.

Yohan's last post answers this one I think, so thanks for that! And my Sifu also teaches Tai Chi and Hsing I and he says Splashing Hands is a much stronger short-term (ie. for the next 2 years a Splahing Hands fighter would win in a fight, after that the internal arts will catch up ) combat system than both of them.

The 'stomping' generates the power, I'm not the best at explaining it though sorry as I'm never 100% sure myself, I keep meaning to ask the Sifu to explain it in the basic terms I can understand.

But I it seems to basically be the timing of the feet and arms together, it follows the 'power from the ground/feet' philosophy of kung fu (and the Browns almost follow the 'open-close' style of Hsing I).

The 'mini-stomp' you may notice in Section 4 helps gain momentum to throw the alternate leg up in the air. You do have to be careful when doing the various 'stomps' though not to bend the back and lose balance.

Closing the gap thrusts you forwards with power, though I found the best exercise for demonstrating the power is a move we did last week. You grab an opponent's arm and jerk them forwards so they fall to your side. Then we did the same move in time with a 'Change' and the throw becomes alot more forceful.

I can give examples all day probably but I'll leave it there. I'll ask my Sifu for a technical description next week.

The style is rooted though, some of what we do is more for sensitivity and/or conditioning (Section 4 could be used in a fight, though it'd be alot quicker ), the Browns are the real combat moves.

It's a shame he doesn't show the shuffle drills in applications as they explain it better than my words can alas. Basically the majority of defence moves (ie. opponent throwing punches at you) are executed standing on the spot and pretty rooted, the feet go into a shuffle as you block then the feet 'unshuffle' as you attack, which generates the power.

The closest example to it is the 'Basic Applications for Brown 1' vid. For those not sure what's happening in that by the way, I'll go through it:

1. Defender steps slightly to one side and goes into a shuffle position (so block doesn't force attack into your own face and you are more rooted, shuffle also stops kicks to your groin ), then right hand 'slaps' attack away. This hand then carries on to hit the left side of the body (the trademark 'slapping' of the style can be a deterant/fake, a block, for more speed and as conditioning to name a few examples).
2. Left arm 'cut through/across' attacker's punch and hits attack in the face
3. Left hand now comes across and hits right shoulder, while right hand comes out and punches attacker's left side (with 'closing the gap' power-generating footwork)
4. Opponent doubles over because of this, so left hand shoots out again and gets another head shot
5. Finally footwork into backfist (a move that most people seem to get confused by, including my own mother! ), the hips rotate with the footwork, producing a nice fist to opponent's groin.
6. Ends with a 'roll over', which in practice would more likely be two more punches.

It's fully variable though, you can do the Browns to any attacks (the example in the vid is a straight right punch) - uppercuts, low and high punches and hooks on either side.

 

.....................................ok..........
From what I have just seen...
Let me first say that my eyes are bleeding.

Maybe it is a really strange style that actually works, but things are wrong on so many levels...

Tai Chi and Hsing I???
If that is true, it would probably show in his splashing hands. Both of these
style are powerful and rooted, unlike those clips.

A little sweep and he would probably fall down.
Kicking straight legged... A bad thing for the knees I'd say.
Stances are BAD.... I'd really kick him in the legs.

As I do hung gar, may I say it again?
Stances are BAD. :bang:

You got any clip of his taichi or hsing i?
They could prove me wrong, in wich case, splashing hands would be a really unique style...

 

even with your very detailed commentry of that vid its hard to actually see the effectivness of this art , is it possible to be shown a vid with a "attacker" present.

drill work is what i think shows how effective it can all be.

 

This seems more appliable as a systemated dance routine rather than effective combative principles adaptable to real world situations.

You can move around as slow, sloppy and 'unalive' as you want against a partner throwing equally useless and 'blockable' punches.

But unless a person trains their body and their tools properly - as I can see from the man in the videos he doesn't look in fighting fit shape and his moves are, well, a means to no worthwhile end - then do not expect the dance that works in class to work anywhere else.

Martial arts need to be taken with the utmost seriousness. Nothing less. And to me this seems like another way of 'cheating' yourself.

 

Man after my own heart.
I agree COMPLETELY!

I do hope that a serious confrontation with a competent fighter never arises against players like this. Not for nuthin', but these are just the prime examples of what I mean about CMA players further spoiling the bunch more rapidly.

 

No it's not. It's going so fast that he's not doing anything with his hands but throwing them out there with his fingers out. His hand position is sloppy. He's flailing his hands so fast that his feet can't keep up. If THAT's slowed down, I'd hate to see how sloppy it is when he does it at normal speed. It needs to be slowed down so that the footwork can be coordinated with the strikes. In that video, it's not.

I can see straight legging it for a groin shot, but a knee shot? WHy would you straight leg it on a knee shot? It's pointless. If you want to damage the knee, you do it with lateral or straight in force.

How can you damage someone's knee with a straight legged kick?

You didn't answer my question. Why do you do it?

But why? Why do you rotate your foot all the way around so that your heel is pointing towards your opponent, when your hip only rotate 90 degrees? Your foot rotates 180 degrees, AND you lift your hee up, and your hip only rotates 90 degrees? It makes no sense. If you are only going to rotate your hip 90 degrees, you only need to rotate your foot 90 degrees, and if you are going to twist your foot, your don't really need to lift your heel. It seems like he is sacrificing his root needlessly.

He's not blocking his groin, just dropping his hands. It's not "dirty kung fu" it's "dumb kung fu." There is no reason to drop your hands during a fight like that. I sometimes try to lead my opponents by dropping my guard slightly, but he is just dropping his hands.

His don't. He should work on that.

Stomping - used in many kung fu's. Try it with, then try it without, and you will have your answer.

It really isn't rooted. I guess it might be, but I'm not really seeing it. Small footprint, relatively straight legged, up on your toes when punching.

I think that what you guys are doing has merit.

It's simple.
Its fast.
It has valid power generation.

It has some serious drawbacks though.

It's not rooted.
Dropping the hands.
Pointlessly slapping the shoulder.
Straight legged kicks.

And the way this guy is practicing (and probably teaching you) is sub-par. Look at jabpunchuppercut.wmv. That's the best clip posted. It's actually coordinated. Tell your teacher to start practicing at that speed or slower so he can coordinate his hands.

 

He might be doing the straight kicks merely for practice; I'm not sure if these are "combat demonstrations" or "practicing techniques."

For example, in my CLF Kwoon we do straight front kicks to get them more stretched. However when sparring/bag/pads/dummies, they are always nice and normal. Snap front kicks, or a shove kick to the kneecaps (my Sifu's favorite).

Is he just doing the high straight kicks for stretching purposes? (ie, learning to kick higher) That's the only reason I can see doing them. . . . .

 

History of The System

Out of curiousity...

You had mentioned your teacher doing Xingyi and Taiji in the above posts. I'm curious though of the lineage of this system? Teacher's teachers, locations, roots of the system, when it was founded, if there's a more traditional title for the system?

Since no of us seem to have seen something like this before, maybe some historical references could help in the translation for us all?

 

Another made up supposed CMA system. It doesn't get much more rediculous than this.

 

oooohhhhhhhhhhh yes it does. It gets a helluva lot worse than this.

 

Honestly, yah have the guts to show your style (which not many other people have done oddly enough) and ya get trolled to high heaven.

It's to be expected I suppose being such a unqiue style. I know it works, I've been fellow Hsing I practictioners in sparring using the Browns alone (and Hsing I is a darn good style if you have the time and patience for it) so I don't need to justify the style any more. I answer legitimate questions (of which there has been some in this thread), but I've never been one for entertaining obviously bored style-bashers.

I could bash every MA going, none of them are perfect, but I prefer to concentrate on my own training than others'. Personally I only believe 3 styles that I've seen would be effective in a real fight situation anyway. But since no one can truly train for a real fight (to do that would require real fight situations daily), I no longer let it worry me.

Certainly, it's nice to see someone who doesn't seem to think 'this doesn't look internal, it must suck!'.

You can find history of Splashing Hands here: http://www.manchesterkungfu.com/history/history.html

And Master McNeil's (my Sifu's Sifu in effect) site (for info on all 3 styles and more) is www.littlenineheaven.com

Lol! 1. You don't have a registered style on your profile, which worries me so.
2. If yer gonna troll, at least spell 'ridiculous' correctly.

 

Hello people ok i personally know the gentleman performing the techniques within the video clip and the gentleman who initially posted this thread (who is a good friend of mine) Even thou i dont train within the splashing hands system i have in the past and i can honestly say that the gentleman in the clip (Chris Lomas) is an expectional martial artist. I have witnessed the quality of his techniques and his dedication to the arts first hand (and of his students) he has an outstanding reputation and respect within the north-west of England concerning practitioners of various chinese martial arts. Yohan you claim in your profile to have not grown up with any previous martial arts training sorry buddy but i have (since the age of 7) and your opinions quite clearly reflect your inexperience to be an subjective martial artist now thats "sub-par".

 

Actually, I believe that Yohan (by the nature of his attitude, ethics, and training methodology, etc) to be doing something VERY workable.

But I actually don't see much in this "Splashing Hands;" just some very strange stuff I can't really describe.

I'll be conservative and not bash, but I'd have to experience more of it myself to make a conclusive conclusion.

 

It doesn't take years upon years to realize someones waist/hips/whatever turn less than the foot. Less momentum = lesser strike.

I don't doubt the history or effectiveness of the art. I just look at the footwork and I see Dirty Dancing meets wing chun. I halfway expected him to dip his partner halfway thru the brown belt apps.