Realistic Uses of Kung Fu Techniques in Boxing and MMA 

The way Seth just appears and Mike is already like "not this guy again"

From the Sergio and Metrolina collabs, Mike might actually know more about Kung Fu and it’s practical application than most “Kung-Fu masters”

I swear in about 13 minutes you guys practically explained and experimented with Wing Chun concepts better than most Wing Chun instructors and teachers, especially on RU-vid. Thank you all for a very useful and informative video 👍

10:32 I like Mike's big brain "Deja Vu, I've been to this place before" realization about some kung fu moves sharing the same basics as wrestling. Until somebody can actually throw ki blasts, we're all using similar empty hand stuff to fight the same people.

As a Kung fu practitioner I’m glad to see someone openly trying to troubleshoot from a practical perspective. It means maybe we are going to see it used more properly. Too many non fighters trying to use it and making it look useless

“The bong sao” is already taught in boxing it’s a forearm deflection Archie Moore and George foreman used it very well

So many knowledge bombs!! 💣💥🤩

wingchun has some incredibly clever theory and moves. elbows, framing, dirty boxing etc. I believe the trapping and hand fighting can easily be adapted to BJJ handfighting or handfighting on the wall or in the clinch. the trapping overall is BS (and there's alot of fantasy garbage mixed in), but if they can't move away,...ie the clinch or wall fighting or handfighting on the ground...it works pretty well. In terms of a video game, wingchun is a *great* support class. It will make your other skills stronger and add utility if you can apply it properly and understand it, but WC by itself isn't a very effective dps class.

Ramzey Dewey have some nice clarifications about the use of traditional forms of kung Fu and taichi in combat sports especially grappling. Nice collab between kung Fu masters btw!

Loving these calabs! Awesome for you to share your platform Mike.

It's actually nice to incorporate moves from different arts to develop your own base style and add more, like using kung-fu style techniques to improve your boxing (be it punching or footwork). Same with adding some karate kicks along to your base Muay Thai. Works wonders. Nicely done, everyone here

Wing chun is the BJJ of the hands that most will never understand and always Criticize. These Kung fu style Weren’t designed for no reason. I have done Wing chun and BJJ over 20 years I incorporate them together along with boxing

Robs comment at end summed everything up perfectly. The motion of extending your arm "can" be anything, what you choose to do with it is whats important. This is what B. Lee was getting at with the quote "I don't fear the man who trained 1000 techniques, I fear the man who trained 1 technique 1000 times." In our school we used the term commitment. You can have knowledge of how to do dozens of cool tricks, but in a real situation you will default to what you have actually trained and worked on. If the underlying principles and mechanics are strong, you will be that much better off when you go outside the box.

When I started martial arts, "Sticky Hands" was a training method that I thought was only taught to children as a "basic" introduction to sparring. I thought of it like that for years and years It wasn't until later that an instructor trained me almost exclusively in sticky hands sparring for about a year as an adult that I realized it's value and potential. Over the course of the year we went from static one handed sparring (the most basic), to static one handed with strikes, to static two hand, to two handed with strikes, to moving one handed with strikes, moving two handed, moving two hand with strikes, moving two handed with strikes and takedowns. After a year of this progression we finally "split apart" the sticky hands by about an inch. Then began sparring. What the training had done after about a year of training was, once we split apart, I had gained an almost subconscious ability to have that "feeling the opponents movements" that you get with sticky hands but without actually having my hands on the opponent. My sparring took a frankly, exponential leap and It was fucking wild that I felt almost superhuman in being able to react to opponents before they even really knew what they were doing with their own bodies. TL:DR - Sticky hands is vastly underrated as a training tool and was one of the most valuable trainings I ever had.

6:40 benny urquidez has a similar technique for a double uppercut, he would punch to the body maintain the hand almost in the same position and just load the hips to throw again to the head, for a faster and less telegraphed second shot, pretty cool.

Mike is best Kung Fu Master of all time 😄. Also I love how Sensei Seth appeared out of nowhere to do the 1 inch kick 😂. Thank you for sharing ☺️.

That lift towards the end look like a great move for grappling guys

WC's Hand-trapping is an awesome way to get that inside position wrestlers love.

as someone who did Wing Chun for a while before switching to boxing and Muay Thai. Wing Chun is hard to use, really hard. one of the main reasons I stopped doing Wing Chun is because I sparred with it for about 6 months against amateur boxers and couldn't really use like 90% of the techniques. Bong Sao usually ends up being used to knock the straight punch off to the side with your shoulder because committing to an actual Bong Sao when the punch has intent will get you smacked in the face hard. however, it can be different in a southpaw vs orthodox stance as the lead hand fight gives you more trapping Opportunities to use things like Pak Sao to knock the lead hand off to the side and come through with a punch but would things like Tan Sao work in a real fight where the punches have power and intent? probably not. Wing Chun can be fun to play with when you're doing very very light sparring and not in real danger but the minute you take a hard punch to the face while trying to use Wing Chun, you'll throw 90% of your Wing Chun in the trash and go back to keeping a strong guard and boxing with the opponent. or maybe I just got fed up of Wing Chun getting me smacked so developed a more mike tyson style approach to fighting. also, I beat my wing Chun instructor in less than 10 seconds with a wrestling move I had practiced once. also, I'm not a wrestler, that one move is the only move I know. so when you beat your instructor that easy it might leave a bad taste in your mouth about the instructor's teachings

I actually used the first one for years in boxing. I had NO idea it was kung fu. I thought of a way to use a shoulder roll more aggressively, and decided to step in and turn it into a bit of a frame. Cool to know theres an actual name for it.

I want to see how to use kung fu techniques in boxing, to be specific, the kind of Kung Fu and wing Chun that is useful on the in-side boxing, just like Roberto "hands of stone" Duran used to "manipulate" his opponents arms to have a better angle to punch and don't get punched

I've been doing Kung fu for like 10 years and boxing is one of my favorite fighting styles. There Is a lot of techniques in Kung fu in boxing. It's just Kung fu practitioners don't actually use anything they learn to fight.

Whoever combos that overhand-right-to-body trick into a liver shot Hadouken will be a legend forever

One thing to keep in mind kung fu blocks and attack are combined and often your trying to preoccupy the opponents weapons and attack when they are open.

The talk about practicing just small parts of actuall fightimg reminded me of how I learned a lot of hand fighting while learning kung fu but zero clinching or groundwork. The whole system was built on closing distance and getting to your opponemts back but I never had even one clinching lesson. And then I went to another school that sparred focus and my instincts were to close the distance which I constantly did but then had no ability to do anything once I got into a clinch.

loving all of these conversations

All fighting actually looks the same, the techniques are added to refine it

Thank you for this video guys 🙏

Didn't Bruce Lee once say that because most humans have two arms and two legs, fighting styles aren't going to be that different from each other. A punch is a punch, a kick is a kick, a takedown is a takedown and a grapple is a grapple. We would only have truly unique fighting styles if there are people with six arms and eight legs

You know what's cool about it you can probably find all of those techniques in a little gym in a secluded area of Thailand being taught by an 80 something year old

Thanks for the insight. I'm glad combat sports and Kung Fu, specifically, are finding common ground this year.

Rob's use of huen sau at 3:45 is really cool - the same sort of movement in the first attack I learned in chi sau when training wing chun. Really cool to see these things applied in a boxing frame. Also what Mike says at 12:20 is exactly how wing chun practitioners should view chi sau training. The long flowing, cool-looking exchanges aren't what a fight looks like; instead each individual interaction is like a separate moment in a separate fight. In actual fighting, chi sau is a brief moment where you are in contact with your opponent that then leads to something else, hopefully hitting your opponent in the face. The goal isn't to look like a Shaw Brothers movie despite what a lot of wing chunners seem to think. I do think lots of the trash kung fu out there is due to practitioners/"masters" misunderstanding the art itself. Like in wing chun, the goal is not actually to do flashy looking trapping, but to punch your opponent in the face. Some practitioners forget that goal in favor of trying to do flashy looking stuff that gets them punched instead. Really cool video

This is so good! Martial Arts all works together

Mike have you heard of 52 blocks. It's a prison style boxing mixing kung fu blocks

Love to see you share your platform with smaller creators like Seth 👍

One of the best videos on King fu and application I have seen. I agree 100%

Loved this video!

This video is why I've watched Mike for so long. He's willing to learn and already knew a lot of Kung fu in its useful aspect. Kung fu guys get too stuck on what moves "look like" and think movie scenes too much. But Mike is here doing shit how it works and comes to the same conclusion. Love it

Does that mean we have to call you Sifu Mike now!?

Awesome video! I learned wing for 10 years along with other styles and I found it effective when incorporated into other styles. But the key is pressure testing...

When you said, "I never pull out", there was a silent giggle..

love this video btw awesome!!!!!

This video also reminds me of a point I've heard other martial artists make. I'm not sure who said it first, but the quote is "there is no Canadian geometry." Math is math. It doesn't have styles. Likewise, there are certain things about human biomechanics that are just fact. If you study martial arts from different places, you're inevitably going to find major similarities because of the commonality that we're all humans fighting other humans.

Very interesting, could you please do more of that💪🔥

Fun Fact: Ye Old Kung-Fu books calls the different martial arts boxing. So Tai-Ji is supreme fist boxing, Hsing-ye is five elements boxing, Bagua Zang is eight trigram boxing, etcetera...

Glad you guys mentioned chi sao. It’s to build contact reflexes, it’s not sparring but definitely helps with sparring. Just a training tool that’s important and enjoyable with the right training partners.

That lift and upper cut that Mike does at 6:17 is also present in multiple kung fu forms. I think you guys have it spot on. Good video. BTW: I am developing a theory that all martial arts RU-vidrs live in the same condo building or something. You guys are like a sitcom.

Awesome Video

Great video! I am a kung fu practitioner that studies Wing Chun and the way you guys are applying the techniques makes a lot of sense to me because it all about the concept. I like to see various techniques based on their concepts such as Jut Sau (which is like a pulling hand but with the heel of your hand), Kwan Sau (tight- made up up two shapes- tan sau and bong sau), and other ones. I like the bong sau idea. I would use it similarly as well. I am not super good a sparring but by being both a practitioner and teacher of Kung Fu, I am able to figure out how to effectively apply them. Because I have teach them and be able to explain it. Having to explain in it detail helps me understand the technique better. Keep up the great videos Mike!

If nothing else videos like this make me really focus on the mechanics of martial arts.

I used to do sensitivity drills in Filipino martial arts and I think it works for learning movement patterns. It also makes you pay attention to changes in force/weight. Which I think is very useful in grappling to help you feel your opponents intentions and find an opening where you will be met with less resistance.

As a kung fu guy, you guys really hit the nail on the head and I appreciate this video immensely. Whether you call it boxing or kung fu, the body only moves so many different ways, and what really matters is how you train and what you emphasize

I agree with the end point, it's all martial arts. We can all learn something from each other.

Good stuff. Plus very entertaining👍😂

I use Sensei Seth's method all the time, it's great when someone catches your kick down by the foot. You get the foot in between you and your opponent, then use the base leg to hop forward as you drive start giving little teeps with the caught leg. Keep driving forward until they drop your leg

You should review different stances and the uses

I love to see other zna productions fans. Great explanations btw

I'd like to see 52 Lyte Burly in a collab with hard2hurt and/or affiliates

This is great

Chi Sao is like when my track coach would have play hot hands so we get better and reacting so that when the gun goes off we get a few millisecs better. We would do hot hands every practice for a couple weeks for just a couple minutes. It's a good partner activity just like working the speed bag is a good solo activity.

Yeah, kungfu, wing Chung, tai chi really helps 'hand fighting'.. Something my Judo and Jiujitsu partners come up against. Hard to get past my hands or take me down! But I still suck at jiujitsu lol!

To keep a running commentary, Mikes first bong Sao was exactly how we use it against pak/slap parry and jab.

Love the ZNA merch

This kung fu twists are pretty cool : )

I always found fighting close range against good wing chun guys tough as they tie up the centerline so well. Better to step back and get more distance and pound their arms down first for me. Or shoot and get them off their feet if you can.

@hard2hurt I'm kinda hoping you would do a video on how to call out feints. How to correctly punish or how to be able to react or read common feints or something. Just a video idea for you that I would like to hear your perspective on

1. Huon Sao is a weapon defence technique from a grappling situation 2. "1 inch punch" is a display of generating power without needing to retract the fist 3. Jut Sao is used to compromise the opponents structure and makes their body mechanics more predictable You guys have the ranges muddled up. The other reason people fail at it is because they don't use it enough in weapon training, so they don't know how to modify it enough to use it in empty hand properly. You can use it with gloves on but you need to spar a lot with it or you won't develop a solid level of talking hands. Good luck guys

Most of the kicks from Wing Chun are pretty decent. They also intercept other kicks.

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." - Bruce Lee

“Keep your bong tight.” Great advice.

you got a good vibe dude

What I feel people don't understand is that through extensive research Bruce found that all martial arts sport or "traditional" essentially have same techniques. Awesome video guys!

“Keep that bong tight”💀💀 welcome to RKM, home of the cheekiest dirty boxing and bong tightening seminars

I could watch this for hours. I used to teach for a children's martial arts program and after company meetings the instructors would glove up and spar and trade ideas. The company wasnt picky about who they hired so we got kung fu and Kenpo people occasionally and a lot of tae kwon do instructors too (mainly because they were competitive and plentiful)

I am a Cantonese and would say you guys' pronunciations are quite good.

It's sometimes amazing to see the similarly between styles. Philipino martial arts practice something similar to this. Another thing many people don't realize is that a lot of these concepts have been around since long before Bruce Lee.

Another great video. I coach Wing Chun and Escrima....and this video is gonna be required viewing for my group. IMO, Mike's really got it right. He may not study WC, but he understands the concept of bong sau/wing block, "inch punch" (short power), and chi-sau (hand fighting) ...and how that stuff would actually be applied in fighting (not staged demos). Yeah Mike, you ARE a "kung-fu master" in the only way that matters --fighting application!

Is that a ZNA hoodie!? I love that guy!

ZNA Productions hoody!!! Well played!

Great video, Wing Chun gets laughed out of town but it's got great potential to be integrated into striking or grappling. It's a go between art, and you're right on the money with the explanation of inch power. You can use the idea of Gum Sao/Pinning hand e.g trapping the elbow with a pinning hand but applying the inch energy downwards at an angle into your opponents stance, creating a brief trap. The most important thing about Wing Chun is, if you understand the punch mechanics you understand the whole system. Because the punch is driven by the elbow force forwards, other techniques like Bong Sao, Tan Sao, Pak Sao etc are released from the elbow with a relaxed/dropped shoulder like the punch. Good Wing Chun has a springy ness to it, so Mike's demo of his uppercut is straight out of Biu Jee, which is the form that develops the body spring (via knee force) that develops the compression and expansion behind most of the hand techniques. So upwards techniques like Tok Sao is more powerful with the expansion of the body spring via the knee joint. But your Jut Sao/jerking hand or anything going downwards you can compress the body spring by sinking your body weight

Aye that Zna hoodie tho that’s what I like to see

Lovely.

"Bong sound"? I got you, Mike 🤣🤣

Good video, as a WC guy I definitely appreciate this. Huen sao are pretty much like a boxing parry with a scoop behind it. Larry Holmes, George Foreman used this effectively. I think Bruce Lee showing the 3” punch ( 1” is actually just the knuckle of your index finger) anyway, Lee was trying to shock the crowd, show off his skills and gain students. It worked! Nowadays people want the practical breakdown now!

Mike, regarding your 1-inch punch uppercut... try cocking your hand back down then driving up in one motion, it will bring your opponents head down and create some downward momentum from the target as you drive your fist up.

Icy Mike definitely had the principal of the bong sao right first time. Its a failed/parried punch (everything in wing chun is either a punch, a failed punch or a can-opener to set up a punch) - you've lost your wrist position - ie been parried or blocked and so you continue the line of your punch with the elbow to put something in the way and keep the pressure on. If you were to then lose your elbow position, you could collapse to your shoulder (put the shoulder onto the line) It buys you a second to recover but is also potentially a vulnerable position if you pose it out. It does its job and returns to striking. The refinements are to make it more of a jamming action. The pressure continues to be aimed at the opponents center of mass instead of just into his arm and potentially create opportunities to redouble with that hand or create an opening for the other hand. Its come out instinctively for me in sparring when Ive gotten lazy pulling my jab back, so a nice seat belt but generally means you've fucked up somewhere. We used to practice the tok sau going up and forward, into the opponents body in an upward motion. Ive seen it used to off balance folks and set up kicks in chi sao. In sparring I saw it used on someone who was covered up to off balance them and set up an attack - tok sauing the elbows from underneath up and into the body. Its a risky move though as you might well eat a hook if the opponent is watching.Might be more applications of this in muay thai when hand fighting for the clinch

Great vid. Exactly what i have been saying in my own vids. Your "huen sau" pronunciation was good :)

Nice ZNA productions merch!

Hyun sau is also great for finding underhooks and clinch opportunity.

nice ZNA hoodie!

as a pressure testing WC student, theres a LOT of traditional WC that is too showy or minute to use reliably in a (real) fight (sticky hands, rolling, etc). the centerline theory, bridging to close distance and several blocks works well. Also we train boxing, kickboxing, and bjj for improved working techniques and situations WC doesn't cover. this was a really good workup of the parts of WC that work well, as opposed to just razzing on chunners. thanks.

The one inch punch is biomechanically similar to a boxer’s stiff jab or a Muay Thai practitioner’s short skipping teep. The power comes from the very fast twitch shift of your body weight behind the strike. The best thing about combat sports is that it’s ultimately an incredibly fast display of transferring the mass of an object (fist, lower leg like snappy kicks, full leg swing like Muay Thai roundhouse, elbow, knee, whatever) quickly and violently into another object. When people discuss the “sweet science of boxing,” they’re quite literally talking about the physics and biomechanics behind quickly moving one’s fists in a certain trajectory, be it a straight trajectory like a jab or cross or a circular trajectory like an uppercut. It’s what I love so much about combat sports and martial arts, and breaking it down that way is how I’ve been teaching myself certain techniques

When I was doing karate, my instructor was someone who had studied wing Chun and so we did a lot a chi sao and learned all those saos. Most what I learned was bunk, but I still use a lot of the wing Chun in BJJ. When I got into wrestling after following you and Ryan and others, I already had a lot of the sensitivity I needed. I was showing some of the things I like to use in sparring to my BJJ classmates and immediately started to get mocked by everyone.

I really like that you are expanding your horizons. For me, the "one-inch punch" is a way of generating power that is applied to all of my attacks in some way. I think that your examples are headed in the right direction, but are only the tip of the iceberg. I love how Seth kind of blew your mind with his "one-inch kick". The beauty of it is that this type of power generation can be applied using most of your body and at any angle and from any distance. Calling it a "one-inch punch" is doing it a bit of a disservice, but in southern Chinese arts it tends to be an afterthought. Some arts like Xingyiquan focus a great deal on the very specific exercises that develop that kind of power. We call it "shocking power". Applying it in sparring doesn't necessarily require a set-up, especially if you pop them with your lead hand. What if your jab could be as powerful as your cross, with virtually no telegraphing? That being said, with a little help from the other hand, a devastating blow can be set up. Miss with your punch, strike with your forearm or elbow, or even shoulder. Be creative! I was going to see if I could come down there and work with you guys, but last year I injured both of my wrists and the road to recovery is long... =S

For the end of the Mook jong forms as Ed was talking about, that goes double jom, double tak; my Sifu showed me you can use the double jom to pull someones boxing shell down, and people will usually pull their hands back up, or push their head down to hands, or meet in the middle, and then you can use the double tak to stuff the guard into their face while they are trying to return to shell. I used the double jom in Muay Thai class to pull a guard down and sneak a head hook in while he tried to recover his hands and he complemented me on how well it worked (he is in the advanced class and I'm a humble beginner). However it did not work when I tried it on a guy literally twice my size lol. I just could not move his arms Love videos like this, and I 100% agree with Mike: lots of Kung Fu guys seem to spend so much time on detail and form while sports guys spend more time on gross motor movements. The result seems to me like sport martial arts are more immediately applicable in a shorter training time than traditional martial arts, but both have things of value. Thanks for the great video!

That's cool

Wing Chun was my first martial art, but I didn't find it useful until I learned Sayoc Kali then all of a sudden it just started expressing itself. The Inosanto Kali I learned before Sayoc Kali primarily drills slashes to the forearm, so the techniques didn't seem applicable to those drills, but when I did Sayoc and it focused on the core it overlap with what Wing Chun teaches to protect. The double lifting palms I use against a double collar tie then sweep the legs or stomp the knee.

food for thought, kung fu is originally a weaponed based system that developed into a open hand based system. lost of the trapping, wierd grappling, makes much more sense when adding knives, hatchets, and other weapons to the scenario. In a previous video, Metrolina asked everyone about a JKD drill. where he starts by jabbing the lead leg and was perplexed no one blocked it, due to this he couldn't use the rest of the drill. If his jab was with a knife, it makes a lot of sense someone might block the way the drill was set up.

Little more info on "sao". It doesn't mean "hand". It means the forarm part from finger down to elbow. If you look at the wing chun form and all the "sao"s then it will make more sense to the term tan sao, bong sao etc.

My combo is a mix of kung fu boxing muay thai and judo