Tyler posted on February 13, 2011 22:43
When people say that trapping doesnt work it's similiar to saying push ups don't work. Well, if someone threw a simple punch at my face and I drop down to do push ups, it wouldn't work in a fight right? lol but just because push ups don't work as a fighting application does not mean they are useless right? Push ups are great for muscular endurance and explosiveness , they weren meant to be an exercises NOT combat techniques. L ikewise when people observe a trapping sequence , say a common reference point type of stuff, they often say they try it in a sparring match and it doesnt work - well thats because they confuse an exercise for an combat technique! Well of course it doesnt work if you are gonna try to use exercises as combative technique, what did u expect?
Things like Chi sau, free hands, push hands, hubuds, rolling hands , reference point trapping are all exercises meant to develop sensitivity and flow , they are exercises , not techniques to be use in real fights - u dont ask a mugger to do chi sau or reference point trapping with u in a real fight lol ! So thats the first thing - before u say something doesnt work first try your best to use some degree of common sense and make sure you are not confusing exercises for combat techniques.
Once this confusion is clear up , we can talk about "trapping" combative techniques itself. There are way too many so to simplify for this post , I will use the famous pak da from a basic crossing reference point to illustrate my points. When ppl do pac sau from a refence point against a training partner, they often complain that it doesnt really work against a non-cooperative partner, why is that? Here is 2 major reasons:
1 They are telegraphing their intention ,- rather u pac sau then punch, pac and punch in the sametime or , punch then pac sau , you are still telegraphing your intention if the guy you are going against have some sensing abilities. So this approach will only work if : a) you are much faster than the guy u are up against or b) your enemy have absolutely no sensing abilities. But how can anyone garantee that they will always be alot faster than everyone or who can guarantee that their enemy will always lack tactile sensitivity? If the guy have any sensing abilities at all, he will be able to attack with his free hand all day long...
2 The second major reason why a simple pac sau from crossing reference point commonly fail against a resisting opponent is because you are trying to over power your enemy. When people see/feel an attack towards their face during real conflicts, it is an inborn reflex to raise the arms UPWARD to protect themselves ( this inborn action cannot be change without significant training). If you are trying to pac sau someone's arm downwards when they are raising upwards, you are directly opposing their force. This approach will fail unless you are only going to fight people weaker than yourself. Even if you are physially stronger than someone, you will still fail to forcefully pin the arm of someone who have learn to adjust their aligment and redirect energy to the ground on impact ( rooting skill) ......if this happens the trapper will be the one who will lose his own balance..
so in order to modify your approach so that your `trapping`will work you need to `
1 practice trapping removal techniques that does not rely on speed
2 practice removal techniques that does not rely on superior brute strength
3 if u do 1 and 2 right , the guy will lose his balance because u are using his mind, weight, force against him.
Both of the above solution require one very important attribute : tactile sensitvity aka sticking. This i why chi sau , push hands etc are so important if you need to use removals . Learning trapping or removal techniques without sticking or sensitivity training is the same as learning punchng techniques without cultivating power- there`s no point coz it wont work.
This is why in wing chun for example reference point happens naturally during disengagments when praticing chi sau , it was usually not taught as an separate exercise....reason why it is so popular is because Bruce taught it in his JKD ... and the reason for that as he stated was because he didnt want to teach the good stuff - sticking
I hope this post would help people understand a bit better why trapping works or doesnt work... in the end I dont really care if people trap or not .The important lesson for me is to keep an open mind and that is why I wrote this post. I mean it is very easy for me to slip and start bragging , trash talking but what would I learn wth that attitude - nothing. Yet I see that alot on foums and u tube.. i wish people would look at thngs deeper before they criticize. Whats the point for training if it would only make me more insecure, judgmental, egotistical and narrow minded as a person. One trick that have really help me is very simple`- take 10 seconds before each training session and remind myself that I am going to try to stay open minded for the next 2-6 hours that I am training . And it has proven to work, the things I talk about were hinted to me by my teachers but I had to go away to figure alot of it out. The only reason that I was able to do that was not because I am smart but it is because of the 10 second trick that I told u about lol