YMS - Yang Mian System, BS?

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Trollshido
1

Hey All,
Has anyone came across this style before? I am currently studying it, but I would like someone else’s opinion - someone that has trained in it for a period of time. Not someone who has watched some videos off the internet because I have seen them and I can see how ridiculous it looks - except for the one where the master smashes the pebble in 2 with his 2 fingers, that was pretty cool.

I’ve little experience in other arts (mainly MT(good work out) and Kung Fu (uselesss)), when I first started it was interesting. A few more months into it, it was even more interesting as I developed more power. But now, I just don’t know if it can be used for self defense or not - there hasn’t been any aliveness training - which sux but lets put that aside for now.
However the training has definitely made my punches and elbows much sharper and stronger, but besides that, it hasn’t really done much else. No kicking is involved and no ground game that I can see. Anyone else has had much experience with this style? - apparently it is similar to mian quan, so if theres any mian quan players on here, I would love to hear from you.

My basic understanding of it is you try and build your fast twitch muscles and tendons/joints and also open up your veins/capilliaries(?) in your arms so when you do a punch, more blood follows into your fist which makes it like a ball. The larger your veins/capilliaries are, the more blood will flow into your fist, if they’re big enough then the fist will become incredibly strong as it is flooded with blood - or so I’m led to believe. Another aim of this sytem is to elongate your muscles rather than shorten them (as you would when you are doing weights), not sure about the purpose of this, something to do with making it more elastic?

I am open to opinions/scrutinisation/criticism of this type of practice - hopefully backed up with some form of logic or scientific prove and not just stupid comments like - omg that looks stupid etc etc

Whatever the comments are, I’ll still train in it as I enjoy the power aspect of the art - not so much for self defense as I train in sprinting and I generally stay away from precarious situations.

2

A thread that might actually work, bdang. Lurking more would have helped, but it has potential, so I won’t give you shit (yet).

Now, despite the fact that you only want practitioners opinion, it is still useful to see the video as there are high level martial artists here in various styles that can pick a decent art. Do you have a website of where you are training that we could look at?

There are indicators that say it is BS, ie no alive training, no kicks and no ground. However, without further info, either by video evidence, lineage, website, etc, you might have started a thread that goes nowhere. Please provide links so it does not go nowhere.

It sounds like a CMA, though I am not an expert on the language, but this thread might do better in the CMA section.

In YMAS, especially, you will undoubtedly be insulted, especially as you have not provided anything but your own opinion sans any evidence, with the proviso that we don’t look at any evidence that might be available and that only people who would be already biased reply to you. It is odd that you don’t want us to see the videos, by your own admission they are “ridiculous” which says to me and I’m sure others that it IS ridiculous. Which bodes ill for the art in general. Posting a link may or may not convince otherwise.

Once again, I’m only trying to help here. For yours and the arts sake I hope there are a few Yank Mywang (see, what I did there, you kept fucking up the spelling of my simple name, so I did it to your arts name, not funny in the slightest, is it?) that show up and help you out on this one.

3

yang mian looks a lot like the material in Attack Proof based on what I’ve seen.

4

[quote=battlefields;2219083]A thread that might actually work, bdang. Lurking more would have helped, but it has potential, so I won’t give you shit (yet).

Now, despite the fact that you only want practitioners opinion, it is still useful to see the video as there are high level martial artists here in various styles that can pick a decent art. Do you have a website of where you are training that we could look at?

There are indicators that say it is BS, ie no alive training, no kicks and no ground. However, without further info, either by video evidence, lineage, website, etc, you might have started a thread that goes nowhere. Please provide links so it does not go nowhere.

It sounds like a CMA, though I am not an expert on the language, but this thread might do better in the CMA section.

In YMAS, especially, you will undoubtedly be insulted, especially as you have not provided anything but your own opinion sans any evidence, with the proviso that we don’t look at any evidence that might be available and that only people who would be already biased reply to you. It is odd that you don’t want us to see the videos, by your own admission they are “ridiculous” which says to me and I’m sure others that it IS ridiculous. Which bodes ill for the art in general. Posting a link may or may not convince otherwise.

Once again, I’m only trying to help here. For yours and the arts sake I hope there are a few Yank Mywang (see, what I did there, you kept fucking up the spelling of my simple name, so I did it to your arts name, not funny in the slightest, is it?) that show up and help you out on this one.[/quote]

I’m actually pretty much never insulted, no matter what the abuse - mainly coz I used to work in help desk for microsoft products haha

Anyways, after posting it I realised I may have put this in the incorrect forum - any mods that can move it to the appropriate one, please do.

The reason why I asked practitioners opinions is not because they would have a biased opinion but because they would have first hand experience - rather than second or third etc etc, albeit it would also be biased because they are practicing it, but atleast I can judge for myself what they say and what I’ve been experiencing are the same. Rather than have a bunch of guys who do not have any experience in the particular art, watch some videos and say omg that MA really does belong in YMAS.

To me, the quality of the videos does not show the essence of the training, that is why I prefer people not to see it and judge it purely by that - its widely available if you did a search on google or you can go to www.yangmian.com or its probably on youtube.

Well I started smelling bullshit from YMS after going on this website, reading about aliveness training, ground game and such… hence this thread.

haha yank mywang, well its not really my MA - its just something I practice in so I don’t really mind what you call it, I mean I could be practicing boxing the week after or MT so I don’t really have any emotional connection to the MA besides the fact that I enjoy learning it. I can’t believe you held a grudge against me for mispelling your name continuously… haha

I just wanna know whether this is something worth pursuing as a self defense course, even though I enjoy doing it, I will continue to do it until I stop enjoying it - I’m thinking whether I should take up something thats abit more practical as well.

5

This sounds really dodgy mate. Added blood flow to an area does not increase muscle power. Even if it did, the hand is controlled by the muscles of the forearm, the forearm by the upper arm etc. Additionally, any power a punch posesses comes from whole body mechanics rather than just your arms.

Alternatively, perhaps it is an effective system that is simply explained by pseudoscience. Unfortunately, since there is no sparring, you have no way to test their claims.

Still, if you enjoy the class and the people in it, maybe you’re getting what you need out of it anyway. The only excuse you need for a hobby is that you enjoy it.

6

I really don’t know what to make of this system. It is definitely Chinese in origin and he lists the lineage on his website, he also lists his training history. Monkey Style at a young age then studied Shaolin until he was 18. At 18 he started learning Yang Mian from his father and uncles, it is their family’s style. This makes it difficult to verify its authenticity since it is something that is not main stream.

The lack of sparring is a problem but one that is very common in CMA schools. I did see some videos of pad work which is promising but to be honest I have not really seen anything like it in CMA before. It does have a very CMA flavor and I can see similarities to other CMA systems through it’s attacking philosophy.

7

[quote=Nicko1;2219131]This sounds really dodgy mate. Added blood flow to an area does not increase muscle power. Even if it did, the hand is controlled by the muscles of the forearm, the forearm by the upper arm etc. Additionally, any power a punch posesses comes from whole body mechanics rather than just your arms.

Alternatively, perhaps it is an effective system that is simply explained by pseudoscience. Unfortunately, since there is no sparring, you have no way to test their claims.

Still, if you enjoy the class and the people in it, maybe you’re getting what you need out of it anyway. The only excuse you need for a hobby is that you enjoy it.[/quote]

I think the added blood flow is mainly to make your hands heavier than usual… I think.

Yeh it kinda sux because of the lack of sparring, just alot of demonstrations of how it could work on students - conforming students. But when I try it out on resisting partners, its a big fat flop.

I definitely enjoy the classes because it really does change the way your move and I can feel my body changing the more I train. Only problem is theres no practical self defense involved =(

Ronin - thanks for that reply, it seems like alot of CMA have the same attacking philosophy. Too bad philosophy is one thing and execution is another. I mean communism is a good philosophy too haha have you seen any other types of CMA that does similar training? I have seen some on youtube but not many - its labelled under Mian Quan with master sheng something, I can’t access youtube at work so I can’t post the links.

8

I’ve seen that blood flow thing on Mind, Body and Kick Ass Moves, the one where the host meets the “Master” while at the Great Wall of China. However, I think there was that whole “putting your chi in your fists” idea entwined, so I was skeptical then as I am now. Is there any talk of chi cultivation?

9

omg - I remember that episode and thats what we do as well! I wouldn’t really call it Chi cultivation, Chi is a concept that is neither proven nor understood by the general population (myself included).

Furthermore, it has come to my understanding that alot of masters of CMA tends to throw around the concept of Chi alot. I mean they use it to describe just about everything that is not totally understood or maybe they use it to make the system seem more mystified than it really is.

But try this - rotate your arms in the same way as the guy in the episode for about 10 minutes - yes, 10 MINUTES. You need to rotate it as fast as you can for as long as possible until you can feel your whole hand fill up with blood and when you clench your fist, it feels hard to do because of all the blood in there. The trick to this is to rotate your arm using JUST your body, not your shoulder muscles. Its not easy to do this for 10 minutes but just do it until you can feel alot of blood in your hand then do it for another 5 minutes to make it stay there.

After this, start throwing loose punches i.e. don’t tense. Try and throw the punches by pushing from your feet, rotate your hips and whip the shoulder - then let the fist fly out. This will give you the feeling that I was trying to describe, kinda like having a metal ball at the end of a string - pretty much exactly how Bruce Lee describes a kung fu punch.

Although if you were to punch a heavy bag or something then you will need to clench your fist, just don’t tense your arms too much.

That’s probably about as much information as I can give, eventhough I’ve trained there for more than a year, its not something that is easily explained. I guess if you were really interested in it, you can always go check it out.

10

How do you do that?

[quote=bdang;2219056]
Another aim of this sytem is to elongate your muscles rather than shorten them (as you would when you are doing weights), not sure about the purpose of this, something to do with making it more elastic?[/quote]

Fail fail fail. The only way for that to happen would be for the insertion or anchor points to migrate. Or your muscles become loose, slack and ineffective. If there was a way to manipulate muscle physiology like that whoever did it would have athletes dominating every power sport in the world. It would allow you to be many times more powerful with no increase in muscle mass.

11

Not interested in it in the slightest. No alive training, an unsubstantiated (and limited) skillset and rotating your arms for 10 minutes, then a further 5, before hitting something does not appeal to me.

Fuck that would be stupid in a fight.
“Hey fuckface, you fucked my missus, you and me are throwing down, just wait 15 minutes!” Rotates arms
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Making my fists as hard as metal.”
gets punched several times
“Only 9 minutes to go, you are really in for it!”
guy laughs and walks away

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it wouldn’t make your hands harder, I’m saying that it would be pointless to practice something that requires that kind of time, expends that much energy and takes blood away from your other muscles, including your heart. I’m sure the instructor can do it in half the time, even in a couple of seconds, which is an argument that could be made (“advanced level is the business”), but learning it as self defence, not cool bro. Better off learning something that will work straight away.

So you are saying that your instructor does not involve chi in his teachings? Notch one for Yang Mian. Still a long way to go.

12

[quote=bitchslapper;2219787]How do you do that?
[/quote]

By twitching really really quickly jk

The exercises that are set out by the master/instructor aims to help develope these fast twitch muscles, alot of the exercises are based on quick explosive movements which then stops abruptly. The aim is to accelerate full speed and then immediately stop, obviously this is by tensing as quickly as possible. The faster you tense up the quicker you stop.

Whether these types of exercises help develope the fast twitch muscles, elongate mucles, strengthen tendons and joints etc etc or not, I can’t be sure. But its definitely had an effect on me, I can tense quicker haha

[quote=bitchslapper;2219787]
Fail fail fail. The only way for that to happen would be for the insertion or anchor points to migrate. Or your muscles become loose, slack and ineffective. If there was a way to manipulate muscle physiology like that whoever did it would have athletes dominating every power sport in the world. It would allow you to be many times more powerful with no increase in muscle mass.[/quote]

Hmm… check out this article:
http://moon.ouhsc.edu/dthompso/namics/actpass.htm
I’m not saying you are wrong that we can’t elongate our muscles permanently, but it might be possible to have muscles that can elongate and shorten quickly - like an elastic band.

I have no training in the human body so everything is based on guess work and what I’ve been told.

13

Interesting, but ive seen better.

14

[quote=battlefields;2219803]Not interested in it in the slightest. No alive training, an unsubstantiated (and limited) skillset and rotating your arms for 10 minutes, then a further 5, before hitting something does not appeal to me.

Fuck that would be stupid in a fight.
“Hey fuckface, you fucked my missus, you and me are throwing down, just wait 15 minutes!” Rotates arms
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Making my fists as hard as metal.”
gets punched several times
“Only 9 minutes to go, you are really in for it!”
guy laughs and walks away

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it wouldn’t make your hands harder, I’m saying that it would be pointless to practice something that requires that kind of time, expends that much energy and takes blood away from your other muscles, including your heart. I’m sure the instructor can do it in half the time, even in a couple of seconds, which is an argument that could be made (“advanced level is the business”), but learning it as self defence, not cool bro. Better off learning something that will work straight away.

So you are saying that your instructor does not involve chi in his teachings? Notch one for Yang Mian. Still a long way to go.[/quote]

haha I didn’t think you would be, it was more of a - if you were bored and had nothing better to do kinda thing.
Thats funny coz me and some of the guys had this exact conversation - but the point of the twirling your arms exercise is to open up the capilliaries and veins (amongst other things) so that blood is able to flow quicker into your fist. If you get into a confrontation and your heart starts pumping quicker, more blood will automatically flow to your fist. But supposedly advanced students can do it whenever they want - not sure how believable that is, unless you can consciously control your heart rate hehe
Actually he does talk about Chi but thats not his focus in training, he just talks about it. When he refers to Chi he just means Air - he doesn’t speak english that well.

15

Dude you tend to read and understand, but then repeat what has just been said. I predicted you would say something along the lines of “advanced students can do it”, countered by saying you should learn something effective and you told us about advanced students without acknowledging the key point.

Opening veins and capilleries will not give you any advantage over someone who hits a bag with his fists.

Hey, if you enjoy it, do it. I won’t judge your lifestyle choices.

16

As to elongating muscles: the length of your muscles is controlled by your stretch reflex. Physically the muscles can stretch pretty far, but the further they stretch the weaker the joint becomes, so at some point the muscles involuntarily contract to prevent a hyperextension.

Thing is the stretch reflex is a learned reflex, so by practising moving your joints through further and further ranges of motion you can teach the muscles to stay loose at further and further distances - provided you don’t actually do any damage to yourself. In addition if you’re doing exercises that don’t go through tour full range of motion, your muscles will learn to start contracting at shorter distances.

Long story short - if you’re doing weights and you do cheat reps you’ll get “short” muscles, do full ROM reps and you’ll have “long” muscles. Of course when I say “long” and “short”, the muscles stay the same overall length, it’s just that the stretch reflex kicks in at different points. Also, having strong muscles is good for getting a further stretch as they do a better job of holding your joints together when extended.

One question for you though: when the instructor said ok class, now we’re going to force blood into our fists so that they will be heavier and we can hit harder, how much restraint did it take not to laugh at him?

17

Battlefields - theres no counter because I agree, maybe I should take something more effective for self defense purposes. I guess I can do some reality based self defense classes for that purpose.

As for the advantage over someone who hits bags with his fist, we hit bags with our fists too. But the best part is we don’t get calluses or anything like that, our hands are silky smooth =)

Crackfox - good post. Thanks for the info. Actually, the instructor didn’t say anything, he just saids - ok, class, start swinging your arms. At this point I was kinda confused but it seems to have had a positive effect so I won’t question this method of training.

18

[quote=bdang;2219056]My basic understanding of it is you try and build your fast twitch muscles[/quote]Most of us call that “weight training.”

Seriously. Big muscles move faster. All those giant bulging things on the guys who lift weights? Those are made up of fast-twitch fiber. That’s what grows on the micro-tears on skeletal muscle when you lift heavy things a lot.

You can’t built these. You can either A: wear them down or B: preserve them. Guess which one exercise does?

From an anatomical standpoint, you’re talking dangerous nonsense.

Sure, you could put as much blood as possible into your hand, thus increasing its mass, but to do so significantly? You’re talking about bursting capillary walls on impact, leading to hemorrhage and edema a big fucking purple hand so swollen you couldn’t even MAKE a fist. Ever had a bee sting on your hand? Ever seen one? You can’t just dump excess fluid into a part of your body and not expect consequences. (I’m going to pay for that last sentence, but I stand by it.)

So, now that we’ve established that pumping your hand full of blood so that it becomes the equivalent of smacking your opponent with a water balloon instead of bones and tendons causes significant injury to you, I’ll go further and remind you that the crucial factor in the kinetic energy equation isn’t mass, it’s velocity. Because the velocity is squared. That’s why a thrown bowling ball hurts, and a tiny bullet kills. So, you’d be better off hitting a guy with your small bony hand moving really fast than you weigh it down and slow it down and make it full of soft, energy-dissipating fluid.

No. Whoever said this is a moron, and you’re stupid if you believed it. Muscles only work in one direction. CrackFox is being very generous in his interpretation of the dumb thing you said, particularly in light of the other dumb things you said.

Read a damn book on basic biology.

19

[quote=Kuma;2220579]Most of us call that “weight training.”

Seriously. Big muscles move faster. All those giant bulging things on the guys who lift weights? Those are made up of fast-twitch fiber. That’s what grows on the micro-tears on skeletal muscle when you lift heavy things a lot.You can’t built these. You can either A: wear them down or B: preserve them. Guess which one exercise does?From an anatomical standpoint, you’re talking dangerous nonsense.
[/quote]

Ok so, hopefully you realize that fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibers make up the muscle. So when you say “those are made up of fast-twitch fiber” - you are correct, but its also made up with slow-twitch fiber because its a muscle, muscles have fast and slow twitch fibers in them. So I’m not sure what you mean by “those are made up of fast-twitch fiber”…

In regards to building/strengthening tendons, I can’t be sure because I haven’t read any biology books or have as much understanding as you in regards to anatomy of a human being, but I have seen a video labelled “Join articulation and strengthening”, it features a wrestling guy, I’ll try and find his name when I get home. Anyways, according to him you definitely can strengthen your joints in the same way as building muscles, you apply some pressure and resistance to it. Maybe you can use that google website and do a search on joint strengthening/tendon strengthening or something like that, hopefully you can find some information from some reputable places and come back to me with it, something from www.bodybuilding.com or www.muscleblitz.com would probably be enough for me. Unless you feel that you know more about the people on there?

Hmmm I see what you are trying to say, I guess you can’t really increase its mass significantly - perhaps the idea is not JUST to increase its mass. You know when you clench your fist but it doesn’t feel very solid? But then if you are holding something in your hand, like a little ball or something in your palm, suddenly your fist feels much more solid. It kinda does that as well.
Also, I have been training for a little while and I haven’t got my hand swollen or seen anyone with a swollen hand … ever.

Bee sting - might have something to do with the toxins that the bee sting has, possibly. I dunno, I’m no bee stinging expert.

Why would having blood flood into your hands make it soft? It actually makes it extremely hard. And why would my bones and tendons disappear just because I have more blood pumped into my hands? Where did they go?
Yes I understand the mass and velocity and all that, why would I slow down because I have some more blood in my hand? As you said, the mass increase is not significant. But let me just say another thing in relation to this, if you throw a balloon would it go further than if you threw a water balloon? - obviously its a big difference, but you get the idea.

[quote=Kuma;2220579]
No. Whoever said this is a moron, and you’re stupid if you believed it. Muscles only work in one direction. CrackFox is being very generous in his interpretation of the dumb thing you said, particularly in light of the other dumb things you said.

Read a damn book on basic biology.[/quote]

Human tissues, including muscles behave like springs - they have elastic properties. Meaning, you can stretch muscles out and then it rebounds back.

So… I’ve pretty much disagreed with you on pretty much all the dumb points you’ve raised. Maybe you should put that basic biology book down and go to the advanced boilogy… hehehe

20

And your systems pseudoscience is more plausible I suppose?

In regards to building/strengthening tendons, I can’t be sure because I haven’t read any biology books or have as much understanding as you in regards to anatomy of a human being, but I have seen a video labelled “Join articulation and strengthening”, it features a wrestling guy, I’ll try and find his name when I get home. Anyways, according to him you definitely can strengthen your joints in the same way as building muscles, you apply some pressure and resistance to it. Maybe you can use that google website and do a search on joint strengthening/tendon strengthening or something like that, hopefully you can find some information from some reputable places and come back to me with it, something from www.bodybuilding.com or www.muscleblitz.com would probably be enough for me. Unless you feel that you know more about the people on there?

How about you do the search. You’re the only person here who seems to belive this style’s claims. The onus is on you to provide evidence.

Hmmm I see what you are trying to say, I guess you can’t really increase its mass significantly - perhaps the idea is not JUST to increase its mass. You know when you clench your fist but it doesn’t feel very solid? But then if you are holding something in your hand, like a little ball or something in your palm, suddenly your fist feels much more solid. It kinda does that as well.

If blood collecting in the hand does something other than increasing its mass by an irrelevant increment, the onus is again on you to provide evidence what this is. Blood functions (in Earth biology anyway) by circulating through the body. If it collects in a specific area, it is usually defined as an injury.

Also, I have been training for a little while and I haven’t got my hand swollen or seen anyone with a swollen hand … ever.

If there was more blood in your hand, it would appear swollen.

Bee sting - might have something to do with the toxins that the bee sting has, possibly. I dunno, I’m no bee stinging expert.

Obviously not.

Why would having blood flood into your hands make it soft? It actually makes it extremely hard. And why would my bones and tendons disappear just because I have more blood pumped into my hands? Where did they go?

You’re the one who thinks that you can increase blood flow to the area without increasing volume. You tell us.

Yes I understand the mass and velocity and all that, why would I slow down because I have some more blood in my hand? As you said, the mass increase is not significant. But let me just say another thing in relation to this, if you throw a balloon would it go further than if you threw a water balloon? - obviously its a big difference, but you get the idea.

First you acknowledge that there is no significant change in mass, then use an example where there is.

Human tissues, including muscles behave like springs - they have elastic properties. Meaning, you can stretch muscles out and then it rebounds back.

Muscles do not “rebound” they contract. They “stretch” when the opposing muscles contract.

So… I’ve pretty much ignored pretty much all the relevant, thoughtful and serious points you’ve raised. Maybe I should put that kiddie porn down and fuck off… hehehe

Fixed that for you mate.