Category Archives: Chin Na

Escape Techniques

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Brea Shaolin Kung Fu - Escape Techniques

Brea Shaolin Kung Fu – Escape Techniques

Along with the first few stances, kicks, single step movements and San Shou, new students begin to learn escape techniques as their introduction to Chin Na.  As a beginner, these movements are essential to be able to break away from someone who is trying to control you with a strong grab.  Escaping a bad situation is most often the right decision for someone who has not yet learned how to effectively defend him or herself.  The escape techniques are excellent for making that happen and students should not discount the importance of perfecting those movements.

What new students don’t realize is how these “beginner” escape techniques become the first piece of some advanced techniques they’ll learn in the future.  They usually see higher rank using sticky hands to attack their partner’s joints and hear the smack of their partner wincing in pain.  They think “Why escape, if I can simply use sticky hands to lock them in and inflict as much damage as necessary?”   They want to skip past learning escape techniques and onto things that make someone hurt immediately.  It’s understandable to think that, but there is a reason for everything in our training.

Kung fu training is cumulative.  Much like with learning math, kung fu skills build on each other.  It’s quite hard to do trigonometry without a solid base of geometry and hard to do geometry without basic arithmetic.  Without strong foundations, more complicated techniques simply won’t work.  By building a solid foundation of escape techniques, you will eventually learn how to successfully follow the escape with a technique that often reattaches to the opponent in a more advantageous position for you.  This reattachment is usually followed by a vicious joint attack.  Additionally, many escape techniques put the opponent in an ideal position for a pretty forceful strike.  Like the rest of our kung fu, Chin Na is supposed to flow from one technique to the next.  So learn the escape techniques well and their will be more to follow in time.

Training at Home

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“A day of missed training can never be recovered.”  This thought has been echoed by Kung Fu masters for generations.

There is no question that the more time you spend intently practicing your art the faster you will advance and the more skill you will acquire.  That said, when you can’t attend class for whatever reason try to spend some time training on your own.  Many have found solitary practice indispensable for overcoming weak areas, practicing new movements and conditioning their body.

There are three kinds of home practice.  The first is focused on creating a class-like workout at home, which would typically include kicking, single-step movements, forms, stances, exercises, etc.  Ideally, this workout is based on a self-examination of your kung fu skills and a focused effort on overcoming your imperfections (e.g. stances, kicks, saltongs, upper body strength, etc.) or further development of movements and techniques that you want to perfect.  If you are lucky enough to have a housemate or family member to train with you can even work on chin na, san shou and potentially sparring, although sparring must be done cautiously (just be careful not to get injured.)  This should be your primary training when not at the kung fu school.  At the very least, practice the latest forms you’ve learned or work on perfecting the eight stances and holding them until your legs begin to shake (and then a little more).

The second kind of training, some call it “cross-training”, can also be of value by way of physical conditioning.  This training seeks to develop speed, strength, and endurance.  Swimming is an excellent exercise that both strengthens and stretches your body while giving your joints a break from gravity.  Jogging, lifting weights, yoga, and playing various sports will all benefit your kung fu training as long as you are careful not to overdo it and avoid injury.  Another good idea is to combine some of the above exercises with traditional kung fu training.  For example, jog a lap around the block, do a few forms, followed by push ups and stances, and repeat.  An excellent work out.

The third kind of training involves resting your body and using your mind.  Simply put, there are times when you must rest like when you are sick, injured, or just plain exhausted to the point where you become irritable and achey.  Resting your body and brain allows it to recharge and regenerate, which is necessary for growth.   Many studies have supported the benefits of getting eight hours of sleep and how it significantly improves both physical and mental performance.  Daytime naps have also been shown to be healthy.

While your body is resting, kung fu training can continue in your mind through self-imagery.  Imagine yourself in various sparring scenarios successfully utilizing counters to your opponents attacks.  Go further and think of your opponents response to your counter and what you would do.  Or, you can think about chin na techniques you know and visualize exactly how they are to be performed.  The same can be said for san shou.  You can even think about your forms and what fighting techniques can be derived from various movements in the form.  This self-imagery training is very valuable and many professional athletes swear by it.  One of the all-time great golfers, Jack Nicklaus said, “I never hit a shot even in practice without having a sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie.  First, I “see” the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality and only at the end of this short private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball.”

At times life can get hectic and unfortunately take precedence over coming to the school for class.  However, you can and should find a way to practice on your own – if even for a short time – and you may very well find your skills move to the next level because of it.  Sample home workouts will come in future posts.  Keep training…

Sticky Hands

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qinna-old02One very important concept in kung fu, particularly chin na is something called, “sticky hands”.  The idea is that as soon as someone makes the mistake of grabbing onto you, they’re stuck to you like a fly on a spiderweb typically by your hand(s) pressing their hand to your body.  Even if they try to escape – it will be too late.  Applying a chin na technique quickly follows “sticky hands” and your aggressor at this point is probably wishing he could get away.  By the time the chin na movement is completed he is wincing in pain and likely begging you to let go.

The key to “sticky hands” is to smoothly press your opponent’s hand onto your body (wherever you’re being grabbed) and continue to “smoothly” execute your chin na technique.  Successfully applying a chin na technique requires a good deal of time and practice to learn the technique and master the joint locking, footwork, power, weight, etc. that goes along with it.  However, chin na is a very practical aspect of your martial art and the first step to making it work is understanding the concept of “sticky hands”.

Three Basic Powers of Chin-Na

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The three basic powers of chin-na, using sticky hand techniques are:

1.  Apply the movement in a sudden, quick way so as to surprise the attacker while also breaking both their balance and mental, physical concentration of their attack.

2.  If the attacker tries to counter or make an adjustment to the movement, then more power is to be applied.  Enough so that the attacker is not only physically disadvantaged, but shouldn’t even be able to fix their eyes on the defender.

3.  Executing the technique in an overpowering and complete way.  This would not only disable the attacker’s counter movement or resistance, but usually damage their body as well.  This includes tearing muscles and/or tendons, as well as severely damaging or breaking joints.

Chin-na techniques are excellent control movements that can be used to deal with any type of attacker.  The first two powers are designed not only to stop an attacker, but also to insure the defender isn’t harmed as well.  The third power can be applied anytime.  But it must be kept in mind that it will most likely result in severe and permanent damage to the attacker.

Chin Na – A Primer

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Chin Na is one of the core elements of our art (the others being striking and shuai jiao) that uses joint and muscle/tendon lock techniques to control your opponent.  “Chin” means to grab or seize and “Na” means to lock and break.  Virtually all Chinese Martial Arts styles employ chin na in some fashion – some more than others.  China, as the birthplace of Asian martial arts, was quite literally the mother of many famous chin na-like martial arts from other countries.  It is highly likely that chin na influenced the development of jiu jitsu, judo, and aikido in Japan and Hapkido in Korea.  Chin na is fun to learn and very efffective in self-defense against grabs or in the event you need to control an attacker.

There are many chin na techniques taught at our school.  In the beginning, escape movements are taught for the reason that you need to learn how to break free from a grab before you learn how to conquer it thru chin na.  After being taught the escape techniques and demonstrating some competency in them, students begin learning “attacking” chin na techniques used against adversaries who grab you.  People will typically grab to control through strength or possibly some form of wrestling.  Some grabs to the throat or neck can even be deadly.  Students must be able to react quickly and accurately with the correct technique to prevent harm to themselves and to gain control of your attacker.  In most cases, the attacker is devastated by painful attacks to nerves at various points on his body.

As students continue their training, other chin na techniques are taught to handle the same attack.  Grabs from training partners become stronger and more realistic, which demands a well-executed chin na technique.  Some techniques come naturally, while others may feel awkward or weak… just keep practicing.  Students are taught stunning, distracting strikes that provide an opening to apply chin na techniques.  As skill progresses, students will learn how to utilize chin na techniques from a punch, push or other strike.  Students will learn to apply one technique only to quickly move to a second or third chin na technique.  Proper reactions to missed or ineffective techniques will be trained.  Eventually,students begin to find opportunities to employ chin na techniques in sparring.  To be able to do this requires a good deal of skill, which, can only be gained through many hours of practice.

Chin na is a particularly useful skill to have for self-defense at it allows the defender the ability to show compassion in response to an attack.  Smaller practitioners who know chin na can utilize the techniques against larger and stronger opponents simply by using their body weight against weak areas of their aggressor.  Weak areas include joints, pressure points, or soft areas of the body.  This is why chin na can be particularly valuable for women.  Law enforcement and security workers can especially benefit from the control aspect of chin na techniques.  Chin na has a vast history and repertoire of techniques for those looking to gain control of attackers.

Spinning Movements

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As you progress and learn more kicks, hand techniques, chin na, and forms (even weapons), you will find there are a number of movements that require you to “spin”.  The key element (and the reason why these movements are done somewhat sparingly) is that at some point you expose your back.  Exposing your back has potential for disaster as you are unable to see what’s going on and a number of vital areas could be attacked and quickly end the fight to your opponent’s favor.  However, after developing the ability to execute spinning movements with proper timing and distance, these techniques can provide advantages in combat, such as the element of surprise, the combining of a defensive and offensive move at once, and the development of a powerful strike/movement through the torque of the spin.

An example of all three is the spinning side kick.  If an opponent launches a punch or a snap kick, quickly blocking and stepping away from the punch or kick while spinning will likely surprise the opponent as well as provide defense from the attack.  Follow it up with a powerful side kick to the midsection and you have one very effective movement.

Even a number of chin na movements utilize a spin.  Fortunately, for those techniques the back is mostly protected as you are leading your opponent to the eventual lock and he’s likely both wondering and worried about what was happening to him.  However, if you’re opponent understands what you’re doing, then he will likely react by spinning along with you to avoid being locked.  You’ve likely uncovered a skilled fighter if that’s the case.

So, as you learn spinning movements, make an effort to consistently practice them in san shou and sparring to develop proper distance and timing.  In sparring, using spinning movements as you’re learning them is a calculated risk, which may result in your opponent’s advantage more often than not.  That’s ok, however, as if you keep trying and persist in making the technique work, then it will be yours to draw on when needed.  If executed properly (at the right time and distance from your target), spinning movements are just one of the many different fighting skills available to students.