Wing Chun and Aikido trade full speed, full contact attacks

Interested in comments on this video clip we made at our dojo the other day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn6IDDbC3-Y

Looks like you guys were having a bit of fun.....not seeing a lot of intensity.....not seeing much connection or forward extension on the aikidoka's part. When it was your turn to defend I would suggest you move more directly to your partner's center and not worry so much about dealing with each punch he is throwing.

As an aside, it shows that attacking shomen uchi is not effective (barehand anyway)......Can't wait to read comments from others.

Cheers,

Russ

Mr Richards,

Our definition of "full-contact" and "full speed", are not the same.

Train well,

Mickey

Ditto.

It is a fine exercise, done as one-step, limited sparring. But you can up the intensity to dramatically increase adrenaline response.

I'd like to see more of what's good about both arts: Wing Chun- sticking, trapping, controlling the center line, coordinated high and low attacks. Aikido: using maai to get Uke to overcommit, kuzushi, control of Uke's center, using Uke's power against them, dynamic movement/tai sabaki.

Maybe just work on one technique for a while, try different levels of aggression, maybe even use protective gear, and build up success on that method, THEN go to another and another, and so on. As it is, it seems like a slowed down free play and technique exchange, without any actual effectiveness.

Just 2 cents that fell outta my pocket.

A Wing Chun and Aikido practitioner, both with over 20 years of martial arts experience, trade full contact, full speed attacks. We're really trying to hit each other!

I don't see it, sorry.

Pretty much what I'd expect to see from two arts that are so heavily focused on dominance of the centreline and with such long mai-ai.

The timing of this video is interesting for me as just the other day I was pondering the similarities between Lau Gar Kung Fu and Aikido in that both deploy their guards along the centreline and quite far out from the body. The same is apparently true of Wing Chun and seems to be a characteristic of all arts not based on competition.

This is an area of study that I'm quite fascinated with at the moment, especially in relation to the bokken. A while back I was doing bokken exercises with my instructor and I attacked before he'd created an opening, with the result that I walked onto his bokken with the effect that my attack was seriously disrupted leaving me open to counter attack.

This led me to ponder if the guard could be used the same way in a sparring situation. What I found was that if my opponent wished to punch me he had to close to punching range with the result that he had to almost walk onto my hand, seriously disrupting his attack. Then with a small irimi movement I found that unbalancing and defeating him was easy. Any straight-line punches thrown had to pass through my hands to reach me and were thus easily deflected, forcing my opponent into a predictable pattern of attack. In addition the attacks had to be thrown from a distance greater than arms length.

As this video demonstrates, attempting to enter before achieving dominance of the centreline is suicidal. Perhaps in another video you could demonstrate the difficulties of closing to and remaining in punching range against a long guard.

I don't really get the whole "two martial artists attacking at full speed" thing, from an aikidoka. Our attacks are not strong attacks, no matter how hard or fast you throw them! They do a good job of simulating real world attacks for the purpose of the dojo, but they're not good attacks for the sake of attacking.

While it might be one sided, I'd be much more interested in simply seeing you respond to his attacks and his attempts to avoid your technique. Also, maybe rather than squaring off and throwing one attack at a time, circle each other, a litlte more randomness, feints and dynamic movement on his part.

This is great for training though. A friend of mine, who trained in Kyokushinkai and several other striking styles, and I used to do stuff like this all the time and it was great practice and certainly helps build good strong technique.