I’m glad to announce that my new instructional video Combat Sanshou: Tiger and Snake is now out. I’m very happy with this new release as I worked extremely hard to make this video. It’s also the one in which my demo partner took the most abuse so a big “Thank you!” to Brian for letting me beat him up.

Paladin Press and I talked about how we could promote this release and we came up with the following: for a limited time only, you can order all my other products at a 25% discount.  Just go to this page here, order one of my books or videos and use the promocode WIM25 during checkout.

This promotion is valid up to  and including 1/31.

 

I’ll give some more information now on both Combat Sanshou as a system and the new video in particular. First, here’s a short sample to help you get a feel for what I’m talking about:

 

Where does it come from?

I’ve been training in several traditional Chinese martial arts for well over two decades now, primarily Hung Chia Pai and Tai Chi Chuan but also Wing Chun, Shuai Jiao and several others. There’s just something in the Chinese styles that works well for me.

When I was 18, I started competing in the Chinese version of kickboxing called Sanda (sometimes also Sanshou; it can be confusing at times.) This competition format allows full-contact striking, kicking, stand-up wrestling and all sorts of throws and takedowns. It has the particularity of taking place on a raised platform called a “lei tai” (imagine a boxing ring without the ropes) and this environmental factor plays a huge part in the strategy and tactics involved. To this day, I still train in and teach Sanda.

Combat Sanshou grew out of the accumulated total of all my training and fighting experience, both on that stage and in the streets. I noticed that when I didn’t try to stick to a specific style, I would systematically use certain techniques and principles. Over the years, this turned into the structured system system it is today.

If I have to describe it, I usually say it is a bridge between traditional Chinese martial arts and modern full-contact competition fighting with self-defense as the only purpose. There are elements of both in the system and I like to think I took the best of both worlds. Traditionalists will most certainly recognize certain body mechanics and techniques. Competition fighters will recognize specific combinations and concepts, along with certain training drills. So it is a hybrid system that draws from multiple sources.

The name is just that, something to call it by. But it also describes the system well enough:

• “Sanshou” can be translated as “free fighting”. In a broader sense, it means “to apply the techniques from Chinese martial arts in a fight.”
• “Combat” is self-explanatory. It is the purpose of the system: to use the Sanshou techniques for self-defense instead of sports.

I make no claims of teaching anything new and revolutionary, nor do I believe the system is superior to anything else already available. It’s just what I’ve found that works well for me, my students and clients. My goal in teaching it is that you might find value in it too and can use it for your own safety. [Read more…]