Omar, he didn't THROW his lead hand, he threw his back hand.

**** man do you even look at the pictures you're discussing?

You mean the cop video? Go back and read what I just told you. Rear hand, lead hand. It's 100% irrelevant to piquan. You can pi with the rear or with the lead and they are both equally valid. Not part of the definition.



The form demonstrated above does NOT contain the elements of that maneauver. It's a striking form.
I haven't seen the form demonstrated above. That wasn't my post. I don't really have any idea how relevant it is yet. I mean like, I don't even know what form it is. I mean like, I haven't even clicked on it to see what it is. That was someone elses train of thought.



Also, you just admitted that essentially NONE of the pictures you posted to illustrate pi-quan ARE pi-quan. Since they've provided the basis for much of this discussion, I can't help but feel mystified by why you posted them.


None of them ARE because piquan is an entire motion. You can't just take a still and say "That's piquan". You need a video BUT even though I only posted 2 of those I'll break it down for you:

1. That is the opening AND closing of piquan.
2. That is a random youtube vid where some cop did a move that coincidentally fits really well with what we call piquan.
3. That is another Xingyi technique containing piquan energy but technically not piquan. Very close though and helps explain what defines the thing.
4. A wrestler takedown that bears a superficial resemblence to one particular potential application of an actual piquan.
5. A comedy pic playing on the MISunderstanding that piquan has something to do with throat grabs.





Is the video in keeping with your idea of pi-quan?


I'll comment after I've watched it.



The fighter in the photo won't, at least not in one continious motion. If what you and rudy mean by "Well it's not a still frame he can move" is "he can abandon the pose I posted as an example of what I am talking about and move into another stance entirely at some point" then I concede that the picture could, in fact, lead to motion in the video - but by that logic, it could also lead to a rude slam dunk or a cartwheel, and you're basically saying, "Well he isn't in the picture, BUT HE COULD"

Now that's not a real critique. That's just being obstinant and I am sensing an end to my participation in this thread. I'm not interested in arguing this with the heathens. I only started this thread because earlier on another thread someone asked what the hell it was and posted that pic of the old guy. Yesterday I stumbled onto the vid of the cop and figured that was about as good a demo as you are going to find on the web. It was "live" unrehearsed, contains all the main things that make a piquan a piquan. I think I'm pretty much done here.

....contains all the main things that make a piquan a piquan. I think I'm pretty much done here.

so "a piquan" is a cop throat slamming a dude ?

Awesome . I have a hard time getting "a piquan" on someone who is expecting a fight , but know this , one day , I will piquan some poor ************ in the middle of a TD . Wait piquan is a noun right ? If it is a noun can it be used as a verb ?

Actually wait a damn minute ... I still don't know what the **** makes " a piquan" or even what one is .

So yeah ... you fail in the helping people out department .

lol.

Oh well. I tried.

This:

so "a piquan" is a cop throat slamming a dude ?

Made me laugh really fucking hard.

btw, I wathed that video just now and no, what bornsceptic posted is not really piquan. It's relevant but not it. He is definately "pi-ing" down and "zuan-ing" up and if there wasn't a good set up for some dumb jokes I don't know what is. Their all about as old a "grappling is ghey" though.

In case you haven't realized it already, "pi" is pronounced "pee". :)

Perhaps there is misunderstanding arising between what the cop did and how that corresponds to piquan, and what the cop intended and how that corresponds to our conception of what can be achieved with the piquan motion (which I'm not exactly clear on).

Aka -- maybe it should have been more stressed in the OP that the cop's action coincidentally has a lot of piquaness, and not that it was a demo of it.

the kung fu pics look sort of like wgat's onthe vid. however, the wrestling pics look even more so. just look at the weight distribution.


ps, i learned this takedown in a few, non-chinese arts.

This move can be also found in Aikido and in a lot of other arts/sports & SD schools (i've seen it in sbg isr program) i don't see it as an exclusive chinese thing.
http://www.shodokan.ch/videos/17hon_02.gif

Hey ! DCS ! This little fellow right herehttp://www.shodokan.ch/videos/17hon_02.giflooks familiar to me ... I think I saw a cop in a yellow shirt do that once . Except he was more extended over his base all the way through out the movement .

I had no clue Shodokan knew Kung Fu .

My main problem with this is that most of the "correspondences" between the cop's movement and the supposed pi-quan movement exist only in the freeze-frame posted, and not the entry of a fraction of a second before.
7287


1. Feet - Lead foot toed in slightly. Rear foot angled out about 45 degrees.
2. Weght - Back weighted. Depending on the specific school anywhere from 60-40 to 100-0 but the weight is definately back.
3. Lead hand over the lead foot. That's from those "6 harmonies" I talked about on the "internal martial arts" thread. "Foot harmonizes with hand".
4. Lead elbow sunken. Otherwise it is not "harmonizing with the knee" again from the same post.
5. "lumbars pressed back and the chest hollowed out". Refer to the curve of the back in pics 1 and 2.
6. Rear hand near the lower abdomen.
7. Chin tucked in and the head "lifted".
8. Both hands, the toes of the front foot and the heel of the rear are all pretty much on the centerline.

1) We can't really see the feet.
2) Weight's all the way forward. Our cop buddy would fall forward with nothing there to stop him.
3) I'll give you this - the foot and hand are extending on the same side. This is a difference from the wrestling and judo manoeuvre where the foot's trapped first, and then the hips rotate to take the opponent back over the tripping leg.
4) The arm's totally straight until it's bent by making contact.
5) Eh. Could be.
6) No more or less than in the German wrestling pic.
7) His head looks pretty upright on the approach to me. It droops a little once his front foot hits the ground again.
8) On the centreline? Maybe.

At least three of the prerequisites fail - 2, 4 and 7. 1 is guesswork. 6 is the same as the German wrestling pic. 8's been acknowledged as problematic.

This leaves us with just 3 and 5. Now, to be fair, these do make for a fairly clear distinction between the wrestling variants and the video/piquan definition - the lead hand remaining extended out in front of the body throughout arguably makes it a different mechanic altogether.


HEY THAT DUDE IS ACTUALLY DOING FENCING BECAUSE THAT LOOKS WAY MORE LIKE A LUNGING THRUST WITHOUT THE SWORD TO ME

http://www.tcnj.edu/~fencing/pictures/thrust.jpg

However, the fencing thrust in the picture above more closely resembles what the cop did. The arm is straight in both the fencing pic and the video, the weight forward, and the chest hollow. The footing and head position of the fencer agrees with the piquan definition you gave above better than the video does. The fencer's rear hand's too far back, perhaps, but the fencing lunge seems the best analogue so far to me.

Yes, i'm biased too (well, only a bit; where the resident shodothugs are gone?), so i cant help to see more aiki than kungfu in what the cop does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k12CdLuH9mM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1T3ZG_JqqY

And i also agree with the fencing lunge posted by AT has a lot of resemblance with the takedown performed by the cop.

Ed. I forgot Darth Shioda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIowy89IXco

Hmmm I don't see the characteristic rise and fall of a throw there, or anything that simulates the push/pull that occurs as you throw over your own leg

the cop's attack looked more like this osoto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S3gc9gIaFAShit dude, you took the words out of my mouth. But he would need to step forward on his left leg past his right leg (or pivot to his left) a bit more in order to reap the **** out of the dude's right leg.

This may or not work but what the hell.

I tried earlier just ot post a clip of how a piquan worked and was totally overwhelmed by the staggering inability to even comprehend what a piquan was. I thought the cop in the vid would clear a lot of things up and instead all I got was a lot of people going, "Oh, so like, uh, a piquan is a throat grab and take down...."

:icon_conf:icon_conf:icon_conf

I photoshoped pictures. I used video-caps. I made elaborate posts of 8 point breakdowns and I drew analogies from other fields but it looks like I somehow STILL managed to overestimate the ability of most bullies to think outside their little box and absorb a more principle based way of viewing motion. I'm a little buzzed from my first of many Chinese New Years dinners to come over the next week, 100 proof Chinese moonshine and stewed lambsfeet and so on but hey, I wasn't expecting to get this done in a single post or a single day anyways. I realize now that there isn't even enough basic jargon in the common understanding on this board to have posted that video in that context so I am going to go with a previous request which is to try and spell out some basic CMA principles and jargon and so on as per the subforum admin's request and a few others. I am going to start with Xingyiquan NOT because it is my central area of expertese because it's NOT but because it's the easiest to explain in print and with pictures. I might make an attempt at Taiji later but I'll have to think about it. Bagua seems like a completely unmanageable subject for Bullies and I can't talk about Baji in much depth because.....*drum roll*....it's a secret. Yes, most of what I could really theoretically offer on Baji I am actuall forbidden to share publically.

So Xingyi.....starting with piquan.

Xingyi, as I see it, has 2 main things you need to understand.

1. Santishi.
2. 5 element theory

Santishi is the basic stance. It's the "neutral" position that everything else flows in and out of. It's the "put yer dukes up" of Xingyi. A pretty standard example is this:

http://grove.ufl.edu/%7Efacss/activities/WuShu/pi_chen.gif

You can NOT learn piquan without first getting REALLY intimate with this stance just like you can't learn to box without first learning at least how to bring your hands up, set your feet in the right place and have a basic understanding of the whys and wherefores behind all that.

5 Element theory.

It's just a convenient way of organizing all the movement in the style into a kind of "scissors-papper-rock" system except that of course a large enough, badass enough scissors can STIL cut throught the rock. The basic idea is there though. Take the great mad mass of martial motion and make it maneageable by sorting it into 5 basic categories each of which is particularly well suited to counter one of the other catergories of motion. The "elements" are like memory tricks to make them easier to remember and also just a habit of Chinese folks to arrange stuff along the lines of already existing philisophical systems. In a nutshell:

metal>wood>earth>water>fire>metal....etc.

In motions that means (and this is SEVERELY simplifying):

forward verticle circles with emphasis on chopping downward on the far side of the circle>blasting straight out in a line>horizontal shearing energy>"drilling" movementu>upwards and outwards movement>
forward verticle circles with emphasis on chopping downward on the far side of the circle...etc.

In terms of jargon we shorten all that verbiosity to:

pi>beng>heng>zuan>bao>pi....etc.

So piquan is NOT defined by any particular part of the anatomy or by the target area or by what shape fist or by ANY specific technique at all. It IS defined by it's verticle circlular path of attach with an emphasis on the downward part of the circle away from you.

That being said, peopel can not train in pure abstraction so there IS a "piquan" as a specific movement pattern. The USE is left open ended. You can modify and apply as you see fit. The main thing is to recognize a certain quality and path of movement. Here are a few examples of different people demonstrating different variations on piquan:


51 seconds:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hf2r5c_iNnY

at 2 seconds and again at 9 seconds:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tasjXH-yoNc

Santishi at 13 seconds. Piquan at 1:03
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pddfqUx0v80

That's enough for a first post on the subject.

edit:
Another vid:
Piquan at 1:47 and a quick little one leading into the kick at 2:04 followed by a piquan with a twist step immediately after. Again at 2:16 where you can only see his legs.

Basically almost all the palm down strikes in this little form.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vlkIys9GHYQ

The thing that jumps out at me about #4 is how his shoulders are torqued way out of alignment with his hips -- unlike the cop.

Yes. A crappy osoto otoshi but a pretty good piquan.

confused ...

a good piquan is = to crappy osoto otoshi ?

Because if it is that simple I follow you now . I can't believe I missed this post earlier in the evening .

So , to make sure we are on the same page , a piquan is a technique from CMA that is a takedown which looks a lot like a osoto otoshi done on the fly or against resistance ?

the kung fu pics look sort of like wgat's onthe vid. however, the wrestling pics look even more so. just look at the weight distribution.


ps, i learned this takedown in a few, non-chinese arts.

Steven Segal uses this take down in a few of his movies.

confused ...

a good piquan is = to crappy osoto otoshi ?

Because if it is that simple I follow you now . I can't believe I missed this post earlier in the evening .

So , to make sure we are on the same page , a piquan is a technique from CMA that is a takedown which looks a lot like a osoto otoshi done on the fly or against resistance ?

Since this sounds like a legitimate question I'll give it a shot.

No.

A Piquan is a technique that may look like an osoto otoshi done on the fly or against resistance. I just posted a new thread trying to start defining it. A piquan could also be a simply palm to the face. Put on 12 oz. gloves and to the layman it could look just like a jab. The throughline is all in that pic of the old guy, pic 1. Surprisingly Thaiboxeren is actually posting for realz here instead of just trolling the CMA people like usual. Maybe it's because he can identify with the FMA thing of identifying strikes according to their angles instead of their targets or specific uses. Most FMA tend to break things up into 4, 8 or 12 angles of attack and really not emphasise the specific weapon be it fist, foot or knive. They are similar in their tendency to try to break things down into geometric patterns instead of "techniques". Of course the specific techniques also exist but that is missing the forest for the trees.

I like the cop vid because it shows BOTH. It demos both the abstract AND the concrete aspects of piquan.

What you described is something the RBSD types call a Palm Jab.


Since this sounds like a legitimate question I'll give it a shot.

No.

A Piquan is a technique that may look like an osoto otoshi done on the fly or against resistance. I just posted a new thread trying to start defining it. A piquan could also be a simply palm to the face. Put on 12 oz. gloves and to the layman it could look just like a jab. The throughline is all in that pic of the old guy, pic 1. Surprisingly Thaiboxeren is actually posting for realz here instead of just trolling the CMA people like usual. Maybe it's because he can identify with the FMA thing of identifying strikes according to their angles instead of their targets or specific uses. Most FMA tend to break things up into 4, 8 or 12 angles of attack and really not emphasise the specific weapon be it fist, foot or knive. They are similar in their tendency to try to break things down into geometric patterns instead of "techniques". Of course the specific techniques also exist but that is missing the forest for the trees.

I like the cop vid because it shows BOTH. It demos both the abstract AND the concrete aspects of piquan.