On the ground thing,I wasn't implying that defending in a chair was conducive to ground fighting as Andy has said also. But does show that it can be used where you seem very vulnerable. To me Gracie style is Taiji on the ground with ideas of not opposing force ,feeling your opponent and feeling when your tactics fail and be able to blend into another is pretty much what we do standing. From a guard position by wrapping your legs around them you can easily ground through your back or shoulder and roll them off somehow to get a mount or on your feet. Watch Rickson Gracie highlights and see his spiral like body-force he uses. Since Chen style my ground game has gotten better than I ever thought..For 2 years I didn't do any ground fighting then a young , big, strong, flexible 4 year ground fighter came in. I talked about it in an earlier post. I pinned him to a wall and choked him initially. After, i really impressed him with that , he wanted to see what i could do if he got me down to the ground. So I let him, admittedly I was a lil nervous, I have seen him in action and he is really good natural ground-fighter and on top of this his teacher trained directly under Royce Gracie so he knew the ins and outs of the style. I let him get me down and we rolled he tried everything Kimoras, arm-bar, triangle choke, leg and ankle locks and then I waited till he was frustrated as hell and slipped his control and choked him out. He was perplexed in that he thought he had the locks but as he went to commit, every-time he could feel he would end up in a bad position with me and I in a much favorable one. His exact words were "Every move I make you are 5 beyond me and I find myself trying to catch up than fight", That really got him, he said it seemed I almost knew what he was going to do well before hand, from all the quality corrections in body-method and Push-hands training my whole body reflexively responds to force whether its me on my back and getting my ankle locked or me getting arm-barred ...
I have a story for you guys, when Master Ren was doing a seminar in Puerto Rico a few years ago a guy who thought taiji was fake martial arts paid for a MMA fighter to do the workshop. After a day the fighter started to blab his non-belief in what was being taught. So Ren along with my gongfu brother Jose started to do some real push-hands and applications. Now Jose is no slouch and a decent size guy but the fighter still wasn't impressed( he was alil over 6 ' and strong)So after some talking Ren offers to play with him.The guy is surprised and ask if he was sure, Ren says yeah. Now Ren gets into a Push-hands type stance position the other guy is about 4 feet from him, Ren not knowing who he is thinks he is going to step up and touch arms, the fighter instantaly shoots, Jose even admitted he thought Ren was going down. He said he never saw a guy shoot that fast and strong. well the guy hooks Rens leg and instantly Ren spiraled his knee, shot the guy off and gripped his neck from the back and slammed him on his chest and face and pinned him there, while ,telling Jose to tell the guy in Spanish to calm down or next time he was going to hurt him. The guy picks himself up and proceeds to get into the silk-reel position and said so was the exercise like this?..This isn't saying that Ren or Chen style can beat all comers but to just show that these guys have had to deal with this type of stuff. hell thats what intrigued me, I didn't learn this to fight I was already confident in what I was taught prior, what got me was how Ren and these other Chen guys could shut me down and others with out even fighting if they felt like it. Now matter what I try.
I remember sparring with Ren at his house, It was the first time I sparred him. We were a half hour into it, he was joint-locking the shit out of my fingers everytime we got into a number 3 Tui Shou pattern, I got sick of it and determined next time I was going to change and not let him do it. We get to the point he goes for my hand, I slip it out and circle to his outside floating rib area I see I have a shot to his ribs and decide to nail him, I figured for $110 an hour I shouldn't be able to nail him and if I do I am not paying and am out. I go for the shot, I feel his ribs start to buckle under my fist then all of a sudden his stomach gets soft and my fist slides across his belly I lurch forward he grasps my wrist of my punch and hooks his other arm around my throat and splits me to the ground. I lay there and think in my head so thats what dantian rotation is about....Just put this in for some humor.
IMA und Anti-Grappling/Anti-Takedown Techniken
