Chinese Sanda/San Shou

if there’s one thing I REALLY don’t care about, it’s martial art lineages

Yeah I know. And on a different board I’d have laughed at the joke. The sad thing is, around here, there’s WAY too many people who truly believe that what you said was the god’s honest truth.

It’s a commonly held belief.

Cung Le does Muay Thai with a few throws.

The sad thing is, around here, there’s WAY too many people who truly believe that what you said was the god’s honest truth.

What’s really sad is that people think San Shou isn’t Chinese Muay Thai.

San Shou is a set of rules that in some places has become a style in it’s own right. People from where I train have succesfully competed in San Shou having trained in solely Tai Chi, (Tai Chi plus some prior TKD in a couple of cases). The old canard about live arts converging on simillar solutions applies here. Look at Liokault’s post about there only being so many ways to hit a bag effectively.

I expect you’re about to ask about why do all the ‘weird’ movements that aren’t seen in a San Shou bout when your doing a CMA but are into the ‘live’ stuff… and I can’t answer that all in one post (especially as a noob).

It’s been argued at length before, but as a noob, I just think of it as San Shou/standup wrestling + yoga-like exercise routines + a few extras for when you aren’t wearing boxing gloves (like drilling stuff where you hit with the palm instead of a fist).

Then hes the best side kicking muay thay guy I have seen.

BTW: The Lei Tai must be kept and boxing rings put aside. My only chance of winning at the moment is by putting my lard behing it and shoving people out of the area.

San Shou/San Da!

There are two types of San Shou!

Good San Shou

And Bad San Shou

The second one wasn’t bad it was ‘gentlemanly’. They were giving each other a fair turn at a punch or a throw, as it should be. None of this flailing at each others faces trying too hard to ‘win’ as is the fashion with sportsmen these days.

Arbiter. Did the Soviets train the chinese in the techniques of Sambo? Or did they just help them move to a sport model?

Is there any history on what styles were incorporated into San Shou? Like wing chung, choy li fut, ect. So far I have heard Shoui chao(i’m not good at spelllnig chinese names) mentioned for the grappling techniques. What about the striking?

It’s part of the disguise. San Shou is to Muay Thai what ID is to Creationism.

It’s a set of rules, not explicitly a style.

Part of me wants to crush your face with a rock, and part of me wishes I could +rep you.

American Kickboxing evolved from the sport Karate tournament circuit in the west.
Sanda was developed as a military training format. Not much was known about sanshou/sanda in the west until China opened up in the late 80’s -> early 90’s. Prior to that time, it was refered to as Eastern Block Kickboxing by the western world. China and the Soviets had their own international competition circuit, which also included other countries that were ‘blacklisted’ by the west, such as Iran, Egypt and Pakistan. These countries continue to have some of the best san shou teams. In '91, China hosted the first open international san shou world cup. That year, Jason Yee (from Boston SanShou gym, now called Boston SanDa) was the first American to compete and win a medal (bronze) in international san shou. He competed and won medals in both forms and san shou and to this day is the only athlete to have pulled that off.

The lei tei tradition of sanshou goes back centuries, to where a fighter who wanted to prove himself or make a name for himself and open a school would erect a platform and challenge all takers to full contact fighting. That is where the traditional lei tei platform with no ropeds that is still used in amature san shou matches come from. The sportive component directly evolved from the Chinese military using full-contact format to train their soldiers in CQC.

What did the soviets train in for the San Shou competition ? was it ‘San Shou’ as trained by the chinese military?, ‘combat sambo’?, plain old sambo ? or whatever came to hand locally ?

:jerkit2yf

I don’t understand the reference to creationism! We only teach things based on plausible theory or fact in our schools.

It is possible that the Soviet Union trained in a kickboxing art called Draka (spelling?). I have heard of this kickboxing system but have never seen any photos or video of it so I can’t say for sure if this system is real or not.

There was probably some cross training but for the most part the Chinese had their own highly developed art of Shuai Jiao to address the standup grappling and throws. My understanding of it is that they helped with organization and formatting mostly. I’m sure Coach Ross could answer this question much better but he rarely ever posts here. Again, quoting from his article above:

"Under the tutelage of Soviet advisors, the Chinese endeavored to create a similar method of training their military forces in CQC. In the case of the Chinese, who lacked an industrial base and access to most modern warfare technology, this program seemed perhaps even more important than in the Russian case. The Whampoa military instructors studied the existing Chinese martial arts traditions and created San Shou. The military San Shou curriculum, designed to prepare military personnel for CQC, addressed what the Chinese had long considered the four basic martial arts skills;

“Da” (Striking) use of fist, open hand, elbow, fingers, head

“Ti” (Kicking) kicking, sweeping, kneeing, stomping

“Shuai” (Throw) wrestling, throwing, takedowns

“Na” (Seizing) joint locks and chokes, i.e. submissions "

I have noticed stylistic differences between different san shou teams both here in the U.S. and from China, depending upon what base kung-fu style was draw most heavily upon. Remember (as noted by liokault) san shou is not a ‘style’ so much as a training format, and China is a very big place that had hundreds of regional styles. My first san shou sifu who i trained with in '96-'97 (and who i still train with occasionally when we visit one another) defected from China in about '93 i think it was. He teaches a stylistically different version san shou, which includes combat chin na and emphasizes fa-li (short explosive power) development, as well as similar but different punches, kicks and defense. He trained fighters who competed over there in sanda, and he also taught the curriculum for the provincial police force of his region. His san shou, is a bit different than Jason Yee’s san shou, is different from the NYKK gym’s san shou, which is different than Cung Le’s san shou, which is different than the Russian team’s san shou, etc, etc.

Even with the stylistic differences, there are only so many ways to throw an effective punch, and with modern training equiptment there is even smaller variation. They all tend to adapt to what works best in competition, but then again, diffenent schools favor ‘what works best for them’ , so the stylistic differences remain. Even within our school, different fighters favor different techniques based on personal attributes, and there is room for different types of fighters to be successful. This is one of the things that keeps san shou interesting imo.

To answer your question about Shuai Jiao (or Chiao), note that while it evolved into a ‘style’, it is also contained to different degrees within most traditional kung-fu systems, such as hung ga, choi lay fut, etc.

To this day, there are stylistic differences between the Russian fighters and the Chinese fighters. While they are all doing ‘san shou’ (in san shou competitions), the Chinese have more of a ‘kung-fu’ flavor while the Russians favor heavy hands and certain takedowns. This probably is due to the national arts which they were primarily drawing upon. There has been lots of cross-pollinization over the years not only in more modern competition, but going back for centuries throughout Asia.

I think I saw it in a poorly copied bootleg. The guy is from Sichuan practicing with the townfolk in the fields and then travels to town and gets into a scuffle at a restaurant, right? In the end, he combines his wushu with sanda and pwns the bad guy. Decent flick.

What I’m most interested in is the side kicks. That is my favorite kick. Which style (sambo, wing chun, shio chiao, choy li fut, ect) does the side kick come from.

Does the side kick come from more than 1 style? It seems to be one of the trade marks of san shou kicks. Maybe it doesn’t come from any style, but was developed independantly by sanShou pepeople??