Philosophy of systems / styles
Each martial art style or system no matter how completeis always limiting in certain areas when comparing to another system. For example, Wing Chun is excellent at close quarter hand to hand but almost useless at boxing range,boxing on the other hand is great at medium punching range but fails badly if kept at kicking distance. While each system do have own methods of finding the suitable distance during a fight, but there is always the possibilityof not able to stay in desired distance.
Therefore here in TriEssence, we believe that it’s essential to master a selection of different systems each excel in their own department, and one should use the most effective tool for each givensituation.
Northern Shaolin is our system of choice in the long distance department, it offers various powerful kick and hand combinations aimed at keeping the person at a safe distance while injuring key places such as knees, shin, hip, head and groin,it also offers very effective block and counters to all kind of kicks and long distance punches.
Taichi Plum Flower Mantis excels at medium punching range, with extremely fast and complex hand work, step work and body work, Mantis moves in and out of combat evading, countering and controlling the opponent’s strikes, then retaliateusing a constant mixture of strike, joint lock and throws that is designed to create confusion, one can never anticipate where and how Mantis style will strike next, and each move is always a bait to setup a trap for the next move, it’sa system that value strategy and cunning over brute force.
Wing Chun is one of the best systems at close quarter, it offers extremely fast and efficient hand work designed to trap and control the opponent’s hands thus keeping one’s self safe, while opening opportunity to strike weak areas such as neck, eyes, chin and ribs. The advantage of close quarter combat is that majority of the people have no clue what to do at such distance, most conventional strikes require some distance which is why most people will end up hugging when it get too close.
However Wing Chun is designed to exploit such weakness with its unique hand works which allow strikes to land even at extremely close distance, it also teach people to develop an unique ability called “listening of force”,which allows the practitioner to sense the opponent’s force through the light contact of forearm, and thus anticipate when and how the opponent will move next, this allows the person to fight almost without the use of eye sight, which is veryimportant as the closer you move the less effective your eye sights are.
Chen Style Taichi while preaching a similar approach to Wing Chun in the range of close quarter combat, it also offers something very unique called unified power or internal power. Such power is created through the aligning of body structure, so that the force from the ground get generated from the feet and passes through knees and hips, amplified by the waist and transferred all the way through the hand into the opponent’s body.
Due to the nature of this unique method of power generation, one can create power without relying on distance and momentum, a strike could happen at no distance at all yet have the potential to cause serious damage because the entire body weight is behind each strike.
Taichi also teaches people an unique way to receive incoming force and redirect it to the floor, this together with cleaver use of leverage and fulcrum allowing the practitioner with overcome forces that are much greater than themselves.Taichi represent the defensive side of internal power.
Yi Quan is also an expert system at close quarter combat using unified power. If Taichi can be said to represent the softness of internal power, Yi Quan will undoubtedly represent its hardness like two halves of the circle. Whileit may sound similar to Taichi in principle, it creates a very different type of unified power. Unlike Taichi which focuses on sensing the weakness in the opponent’s balance, then seek to destabilize it, Yi Quan often generate enoughpower to crumble the opponent’s structure altogether.
Even when the person is prepared and standing firmly, Yi Quan’s power can take that person head on and send him falling back four or five meters on to the ground. The same power canalso be applied to a much smaller surface such as a punch, which allows the power to penetrate the muscles and shock the inside, causing internal and sometimes organ damage. Yi Quan represents the offensive side of internal power.
Philosophy of self defense
Often people misunderstand the difference between contact sport and self-defense, while contact sport can also be used to defend one’s self, its primary goal is to be used in a ring with rules and regulation, it’s a contest to see who the most superior athlete is. While self-defense is purely about self-preservation, there is no weight division, judge or rules to keep you safe, the opponent will almost always try to kill you, so instead of trying to see who is superior in terms of physics and skill, self-defense is all about destroying the opponent in the fastest way possible so that you can go back to your families in one piece.
Chinese martial art was invented for this precise reason, unlike many other civilizations in history, most of the dynasties in China banned common people from owning weapon, so hand and feet became their only way to defend and kill. Sincethere is no weight division in real life, many styles and technique are designed to take on a bigger opponent by smart use of techniques and striking vital areas. While the physically superior person will always have an edge in combat,
Chinese martial art is one of the best at mitigating such differences through hard training, giving the smaller person a better chance at surviving the confrontation through the principle of TriEssence.