And still no new posts. Don't worry, I haven't given up on this. It's just that I'm getting ready to go to China (Beijing) soon. Once I get there you can expect more fresh content: interview, articles, photos, videos... You'll see !
I just noticed Art of War have posted their schedule for 2007.I'll let you know when there's more info about the upcoming events.
Sanshou/Sanda may not be as popular as other forms of kickboxing, but it also has its strong points. Although the rules may vary from one country to another, fights generally permit punches, kicks, knees, short clinch work, and throws, and prohibit elbows and ground work.
Sanda means something like "free fighting", while "sanshou" means "free hand" ("shou" meaning "hand"). In some places people have kept using older names, such as "Shoubo". And sometimes Sanshou and Sanda actually possess two separate sets of rules. I'm not going to explain the history of the sport this time, but I'll introduce you to a few examples of Sanda fighting.
One of the most famous Sanda fighters in China is Liu Hailong. He's taken part in a few "Sanda vs Muay Thai" tournaments. Since these tournaments usually end with the Thai boxer winning, he's famous for actually defeating his Thai oponents. As you can see in this video, Karo Parysian is not the only one who knows how to throw people around.
In the US, the big name in Sanshou is Cung Le. After you watch him destroy Shonie Carter, you can learn how to catch a leg and take someone down, Sanshou style.
With a little more emphasis on boxing, and some ground game, Sanda fighters could become pretty dangerous in MMA.
A very good Shuai Jiao instructional (about 1 hour) by Li Baoru is avaible on Google Videos. As far as I know there are very few Shuai Jiao video documents avaible apart from this one and the Wang Wenyong videos.
Speaking of Shuai Jiao, they also have it in Taiwan. On the mainland, two of the main styles are Beijing style and Tianjin style (Li Baoru and Wang Wenyong both represent Beijing style, although I think they went to train in Tianjin too). The style they do in Taiwan is Baoding style if I'm not mistaken, and its most famous master was Chang Dongsheng. Here's a demo, and another, with him throwing a student around like it was a rag doll. And without mats.
Not everybody thinks that Taiwan is part of China. Some people consider the two countries separate. And other people even say that it's actually China that is part of Taiwan. Anyway, without going deep in geopolitics, I think since Taiwan is close enough to China and has its own MMA activities going on, it's only fair enough to include it in this blog. So here's a short list of places where you can train MMA and BJJ in Taiwan.
Taiwan Brazilian Jiujitsu Club
Evolution Combat Taiwan
Hong Kong has a lot of places to train:
Hong Kong BJJ Association
The One Martial Gym
Gracie Barra Hong Kong
Kylin Martial Arts & Combat Club
HK MMA
HK Jujitsu
Since it's a slow news day, I tought I'd browse around Youtube and see what are the most interesting vids concerning the matter at hand (MMA and combat sports in China in case you've already forgotten).
First, to celebrate the Chinese new year, here's a great example of Chinese wrestlers using the "key stone" (although to me it looks more like a padlock than a key), which is a kind of square kettlebell. Remember this thing weighs 12 kg !!
You can check out more great shuai jiao videos on Ashwix's user profile page.
Second, Wohsai has assembled a compilation of training and seminar videos. Wohsai is one of the main Chinese MMA sites, kinda like the Chinese Sherdog (but on the average the forum members are much nicer).
Next, you can check out Art of War's video section to see some of their fights, for example He Peng vs Yang Jian Ping.
Here is the third and last part of the interview with Andy Pi. You can check out the first and second part if you haven't done so yet.
About ChinaChina Combat: You have hosted seminars by a lot of famous personalities, including Rickson Gracie. How did you get in touch with them ? Was it hard to convince people to come to China ?
Andy Pi: I was introduced to Rickson through a mutual friend. He was able to establish a connection for me, and the rest they say, is history! It is not very difficult to convince people to come to China. China is a very hot topic in world discussion right now. People understand the business and economic potential of China. There is also a certain amount of mystery regarding China, which I think rouses people's curiosity. Most people when they get here, find that it was not at all what they expected it to be. They are pleasantly surprised.
Chinese Martial Arts have a very long history, but MMA practicioner often have a negative view of traditional arts and label them as "innefective". What do you think of the value of traditional Chinese martial arts (such as Shaolin Quan, Xingyi Quan, etc) in MMA competitions ?
It has been proven in MMA competition that what you train is really not as important as how you train it. How you train will dictate how you fight. I think most MMA practitioners and coaches are critical of traditional Chinese martial arts because most traditional Chinese martial arts lack proper training methods FOR COMPETITION.
Most martial artists are not training for COMPETITION. Rather, they are training for the love of the martial arts or self-defense. So the training methods are very different. When you are training for professional competition, your goal is to defeat your opponent, and you leave nothing to chance. Therefore, all aspects of the fight game should be studied, including nutrition, strength, endurance, psychological and mental strength, skills training including standup fighting, wrestling and ground fighting. If you have a martial artist who is training to defend himself, fight against a 24-year old professional athlete, who runs, lifts weights, and spars everyday, it is not a very fair fight. Of course the professional athlete is going to win, because it is his profession. All he does is train, full-time, to kick people's asses. It's not even a fair fight. It's not even a fair comparison. But that doesn't mean the traditional martial arts are crap.
The value of traditional martial arts should not be overlooked, because if there is just one thing that you can learn from a particular style, that will give you just a little bit of an edge, it should be learned and incorporated into your own training. I do not like to use the term traditional martial art, because it labels the art as a "non-progressive" martial art. All martial artists should strive to reinvent and improve upon what they've been taught. If you believe that only the old man in the mountain is the inheritor of real kung fu, then you are perpetuating a dying martial art, and your particular lineage will progressively get weaker and weaker. The key is to forget about the traditional aspect, and work on improving it.... "modernizing" the martial art style for 2007. All this means is to find more efficient ways to improve upon your existing training methods, so that you will fight or defend yourself more effectively. What was the Chinese viewer's reaction when they were first exposed to MMA ? Was it positive ?
The Chinese viewers couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that they were watching one man sitting on another man's stomach, and beating the crap outta him. The overwhelming response... WHEN IS THE NEXT SHOW???
The Chinese love MMA and we feel that it will become the national sport, especially if we have anything to do with it!
Here is the second part of my interview with Andy Pi. In it, he answers question about China's young MMA scene.
link to first partAbout MMA
China Combat: Can you explain how you created the Art of War organization ?
Andy Pi: At the time, I had already been training BJJ for close to 10 years and I had seen the development and trends of martial arts in China. I knew that the Chinese would enjoy a tournament which was fair and open to all styles of martial arts. My brother has also been training BJJ for just as long. One day we were talking about how China should really have a homegrown MMA tournament, and how great it would be if we could see Chinese fighters competing against world-class fighters. There was a bit of Chinese nationalism speaking from inside our hearts, and rather than waiting for it to happen on its own, we decided to take the initiative and make sure that we were the ones to make that happen. We already had a training center established. It was a logical next step to move into promotion as well.Does China have any upcoming MMA or BJJ stars ?
China has many upcoming MMA and BJJ stars. We have been working very hard to prepare our stable of fighters, to train them and get them ready for international competition. Some of the outstanding fighters we have now are Zhang Tie Quan, Dai Shuang Hai, Ao Hai Lin, and He Peng.Have you been approached by bigger organizations (Pride, UFC...) to sendbthem some of your Art of War fighters ?
We have been approached by several international organizations to send Chinese fighters to their events. I feel that these organizations are curious about the MMA situation in China and the technical level of our fighters. From a business standpoint, the major organizations see the revenue potential of having a Chinese fighter appear in their promotion, especially if this Chinese fighter was very skilled and very talented, and could REALLY FIGHT!!! This will also help them carve out a niche in the very large Chinese market, which is currently a huge and untapped source of potential. We have seen almost every country represented inside the MMA ring, with the exception of China. It is our goal to produce a Chinese MMA champion capable of challenging guys like Wanderlei Silva, Emeliananko Fedor, etc...
Have Chinese fighters competed internationally ?
We have brought Chinese fighters to compete internationally. In Dec. 2005, we brought 4 MMA fighters to compete in the Philippines, and all 4 of our athletes won by either KO or TKO. 2 more of our fighters just returned from the USA last week, where they participated in a kickboxing event and defeated their American opponents by KO.How do you see Chinese MMA's future ? Do you think China will become an important market and talent pool for MMA ?China will be the largest market for MMA in the world in the next 4-6 years. You can believe that. There will be more fans in just 1 province of China, than all of the entire world MMA market combined. Chinese love martial arts. It is an inseparable part of our culture. China has produced so many great athletes. The fastest hurdler in the world is Chinese. One of the tallest basketball players in the world is Chinese. China holds multiple world records in Olympic power-lifting. China has over 1 billion citizens and I am sure that we will find a Chinese superstar athlete capable of becoming the next big thing! As for MMA, we still have a long way to go, but Chinese martial artists will take to MMA like fish to water. In the not so distant future, some of the best fighters in the world will come from China. You can bet on that!
third part
Andy Pi was nice enough to answer a few questions. He was the first person to open a BJJ class in mainland China, as well as the creator of China's main MMA venue, Art of War Fighting Championship. Here's what he had to say on topics ranging from MMA's future in China, to Rickson Gracie (ok, I admit that last bit was just a shameless attempt to draw people in).
About BJJ
China Combat: How were you introduced to BJJ ? Did you have any previous martial arts training before that ?
Andy Pi: I was introduced to BJJ by my younger brother. It was 1995. He showed me a tape of UFC4, where Royce Gracie fights Dan Severn. I saw the fight and thought to myself, it was the most incredible performance that I had ever seen from a martial artist. I had to learn it right away. As I child, I studied a variety of martial arts, from kung fu, to karate, to taekwondo. However, BJJ was the one martial art that I truly fell in love with and have been training since 1995.
How did you decide to open a BJJ school in Beijing ? What made you think it would work ?
I opened a BJJ academy simply as a way to continue my own training. I moved to China in 1997 and at the time, I couldn't find any other BJJ practitioners in China. So as a way to maintain my own training, I needed to have training partners. So I started teaching BJJ to my friends, just so that I would have some training partners. My friends would bring there friends to class, and the word started to spread around the Beijing community that BJJ was available in Beijing. I had not considered it to be a money making venture at the time, and I was doing it for the love of the martial arts, and also as a way to introduce BJJ to the Chinese martial arts community. Nobody in China had really seen BJJ in person, except for maybe some downloaded UFCs or some black belt magazines. But there weren't any Chinese martial artists who had gotten on the mat and rolled with any BJJ practitioners before or seen the art up close and personal. I wanted to change that.
Are there any Chinese BJJ championships ?
At the current moment, there are no BJJ tournaments in China. There have been some tournaments organized in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but none in mainland China. I am working closely with the Chinese sports administration to change that. We are currently forming the China Federation of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and this organization will be fully sanctioned by the Chinese government. Hopefully by the middle or end of 2007, we will see the 1st China Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Open Championship.
Do you have any plans to open BJJ schools in other cities ?
We have plans to open BJJ academies in all of China's major cities, and also in the more impoverished areas of China. Martial arts are a great way to discipline and challenge the human spirit and also educate the youth. There are so many martial artists in China and they are all potential practitioners of BJJ. We hope to give the masses a chance to learn this great martial art. Some will decide to get into professional competition. Others will decide to get into coaching. Regardless of their chosen path, we believe that martial arts has a lot to offer the Chinese public. The knowledge to defend oneself and the confidence gained from learning jiu-jitsu is very empowering. It should be available to everyone in China who wants to learn, and for free if need be. Again, we are closely working with the Chinese government to make sure that instructors are properly trained and that the spirit of both Chinese martial arts and the Brazilian martial arts are well-preserved and passed on to successive generations.
second part
Shuai Jiao* [摔跤] is the traditional art of Chinese wrestling. As with most forms of wrestling, it's been around for a pretty long time. Some even says it dates back to more than 4000 years ago.
People seeing Shuai Jiao for the first time often remark that it looks a lot like Judo. It does share a lot of elements with Judo, and some theories even state that Shuai Jiao is the ancestor of Japanese Jujitsu, from which Judo evolved.
The main similarity is the use of a jacket and belt, which offer all kind of ways to grab. This being said, the Shuai Jiao jacket (or "jiao yi" 跤衣) has short sleeves, and is worn much closer to the body than the traditional judogi, which makes it harder to get a good grip on.
Shuai Jiao rules also forbid all chokes and joint locks, and you loose a point if you put a knee or a hand on the ground. This means there are no submissions and very few sacrifice throws in Shuai Jiao (as the first one to touch the ground loses the point).
Those rules make Shuai Jiao a very dynamic sport, and like all forms of wrestling it demands a lot out of an athlete.
Which is why Shuai Jiao has its own conditioning drills and tools. These tools include sand bags, bricks, kettlebells, ropes, poles... Every teacher has his favorite tools and favorite exercises.
But all those strange toys shouldn't make you forget the basics (jibengong [基本功]), which are drills that emulate the movement required to throw or trip an oponent. If you link them together, it almost looks like a form. The difference being that in most martial arts you learn the form first, then the application. With Shuai Jiao you learn both the drill and the application at the same time.
Even though Shuai Jiao has lost a lot of popularity in China over the years (people are turning to foreign arts like Taekwondo, or softer ones like Taiji), you can still see some of its traditions in China's modern olympic Judo. A lot of Judo coaches actually have a Shuai Jiao background, and thus incorporate Shuai Jiao drills in their Judo practice.
Youtube has a few good ressources on Shuai Jiao, my favorite one being Ashwix's videos of his teacher in Beijing, Li Baoru, and his students.
If you want to know more, you can also check out this series by another Beijing teacher, Wang Wenyong. It's very comprehensive, and contains a lot of different drills and techniques.
In case you read French you can also check out the website of Wang Zhihong, my Shuai Jiao teacher in Paris.
Finally, if you are looking for a Shuai Jiao school, here are the 3 signs that you've found a good teacher:
- he has all kind of weird implements that don't look like much but make you feel like your arms are going to drop off after 1 minute of using them.
- his drills make you so tired you want to die after 30 secondes.
- he won't shut up about Shuai Jiao's history and how Master Chang defeated Master Wang in 1923 in a fight that lasted three days.
(The last one is only applicable is your teacher is Chinese, or else has spent too much time in China.)
* The term simply means "wrestling", and if you want to refer to the Chinese version while in China, you would say "Chinese wrestling" [中国式摔跤] to avoid confusion with other forms of wrestling.
Ever wonder how to say "take me to the nearest BJJ school" in Chinese ? Well, since your phrasebook won't help you on the "BJJ" part, I've decided to compile a little lexicon of useful Chinese words. 柔道 自由式摔跤 综合格斗技
English Pinyin Character Notes Judo roudao Jujitsu roushu 柔术 Brazilian Jujitsu baxiroushu 巴西柔术 Wrestling shuaijiao 摔跤 "Shuai jiao" is often used in the west to mean "Chinese wrestling", but
in Chinese it only means "wrestling", and can be used for freestyle, greco,
catch, etc. Freestyle Wrestling ziyou shi shuaijiao This means "free style wrestling" Greco-Roman Wrestling gudian shi shuaijiao 古典式摔跤 This means "classic style wrestling" Chinese Wrestling zhongguo shi shuaijiao 中国式摔跤 This means "Chinese style wrestling" Sanda sanda 散打 Sanda is a Chinese combat sport, it's like kickboxing with throws Muay Thai taiquan 泰拳 Boxing quanji 拳击 MMA zonghe gedou ji
zonghe boji
ziyou boji
综合搏击
自由搏击The first two terms mean something like "synthetized combat" and the
last one is "free fighting" Sambo sangbo 桑搏
A sure-fire sign that BJJ is getting more popular in China: it's started popping up in Hong Kong action movies. Whenever I'm watching old school kung fu movies, I'm always excited to see moves that look like they could be BJJ techniques' ancestors, like flying scissors takedowns or weird joint locks.
But this time it's the real deal. For example in Donnie Yen's Sha Po Lang, you can see Sammo Hung get side-choked and arm-barred (see for yourself). And on the director and actor's own website, you can learn how to do a flying triangle !
Still, you may call me naive, but I firmly believe Gordon Liu could take any current fighter and school him using his secret Shaolin techniques (well ok, I'll make an exception for Fedor. It would probably be a draw).
Well, maybe not, but this is still an entertaining video (I suspect it has a lot to do with the music, though):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zvbIDwdA7Y8
(watch out for the throw at 0:10 which is a trademark of Sanda/Sanshou)
Here is a short list of places where you can train in China (still a work in progress):
Beijing
Beijing Jiu-Jitsu Academy
Beijing Black Tiger Academy
MMA Beijing
Guangzhou
Yong Guang Judo Training Center (in chinese)
Shanghai and Hong Kong are coming soon (once I've done some more research). Meanwhile, let me know if you know of good places to train (Sanda, Muay Thai, or Chinese martial arts suggestions are welcome too).
As a general tip, whenever you're in a big enough city, you can go check out the training facilities for the members of the city or region teams in various sports (wrestling, judo, boxing...). They might be nice enough to let you train with them.
From Sherdog.com, an interesting interview with Ed Fishman, a possible buyer for Pride and current Pride USA president. Check out what he has to say about China:
Sherdog.com: As owner of PRIDE, if that happens, do you think it’ll run similarly to the way it is now, where it’s largely Japan-based, or will Japan not be as important a market for you?Throughout the interview, Ed Fishman explains how he wants to bring MMA to casinos. And the asian answer to Las Vegas is Macao, so I think you can expect new developments over there soon.
Fishman: I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but there are so many fans I never thought of stopping going to Japan. I think we’d get back television, get back a sponsorship and we are delving very heavy into China. The U.S. is so important to us. And besides China, we will be taking other Asian countries and move around the globe.
Welcome to the first post of this new blog. The aim of this blog is simply to keep you updated with everything (well, maybe not everything) related with combat sports in China, and specifically MMA. Why should you care ? Good question. Right now, Mixed Martial Arts are relatively unkown in China, but Martial Arts have always been very popular. Add to this the growing success of MMA everywhere else, and it logically follows that China could soon be one of the most important countries for MMA.
This means new fighters, new orgs, new sponsors... So how long before the first UFC or Pride show in China ? I don't know, but you can be sure that japanese and american businessmen are doing everything they can to be the first to answer that question.
