Shuai Chiao Wrestling

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THE COMBATIVE FORM OF SHUAI CHIAO

(CHINESE WRESTLING)

By

"Gonkafied"

Disclaimer: I am no Shuai Chiao expert. I am simply a Kung Fu man who has studied and trained with Shuai Chiao experts.

Shuai Jiao/ Chiao in my experience, is an advanced combative grappling form that lends itself very well to dealing with street fight scenarios. Throwing an adversary allows one to dislodge and disengage from a fight, by smashing the opponent against the ground and minimizing the opponent’s mobility. Shuai Chiao is not much different in theory and concept as other throwing arts but it tends to be executed with a much different application and mindset. Mainly focused aggression and targeted violence.

I believe that this is due to two main reasons…

1. China and the Silk Road were highly traveled, broad, geographical regions that saw countless forms of combat and nationality of warrior.

From Greeks to Mongolians, warriors and fighters from many cultures traveled throughout China. Where as in a country like Japan that was much more isolated culturally due to island geography; the throwing arts became limited to the island’s fight paradigm. Shuai Chiao (literally translated as horn throwing) or Chinese wrestling grew to be very versatile and thoroughly brutal, through an ancient to modern course of trial and error against a multicultural series of tests from skeptics, challengers and invaders. Shuai Chiao is the fore runner of Sumo, Jujitsu, Judo and other Asian grappling arts.

2. Shuai Chiao has existed since ancient times as an add-on art. Meaning that people (including myself) cross trained in Shuai Chiao in an effort to increase the effectiveness of their Kung Fu. Because of this cross training, Shuai Chiao became very effective at integrating and dealing with a multitude of body types, techniques and ranges of combat.

Effective grapplers from any art will have the same characteristics. Balance, strength, structure and angle awareness. Shuai Chiao like many Chinese Martial Arts, has a long history of devastating ways to tweak techniques in order to make them more destructive and easier for smaller statured people to perform. For instance, instead of using the clothing to set up a throw or a takedown, a Shuai Chiao fighter will use the contact and manipulation of the actual structure of the opponent’s body (limbs, head and torso) to conduct a throw. Only using the clothing to increase the power of a throw upon the opponent’s reentry and eventual planting into the dirt. This minimizes the chances of an adversary "disrobing" and escaping or reversing a maneuver.

The most easily recognizable movements of Shuai Chiao are its signature leg sweeps, trips, hooks and kicks that both initiate and finish throwing maneuvers. These movements generate added power to throws by giving just that extra little nudge required to increase a throws power into the realm of lethality.

Shuai Chiao fighters also look to isolate the limbs of the opponent in an effort to limit their ability to use them as breakfall implements. Planting and incapacitating are true goals of the Shuai Chiao fighter.

One tends to see broken limbs and unconscious throwees unless the individual has been trained in the balled up, shoulders rolled, head tucked, arms in, chin to chest, tongue on roof of mouth, breakfall of Shuai Chiao. This type of breakfall protects the centerline (see Wing Chun) and decreases the chance of appendage breakage and knockout on environmental obstacles. The typical slap breakfall can lead to unconsciousness and broken arms, elbows and hands in a hard ground, street fight scenario.

Shuai Chiao fighters throw not drop the opponent onto the ground. Shuai Chiao is about being cruel to your opponent. The effective Shuai Chiao fighter seizes the limbs, head and body in an effort to unbalance the hips and tilt the shoulders. The shoulders correspond with the hips, the hands with the feet and the elbows with the knees. In other words. When the shoulders move the hips move and so on. (See Six Harmonies Boxing)
Going to the ground with an opponent is not the goal of a Shuai Chiao fighter unless rolling out of a counter throw and using the momentum to stand back up. Shuai Chiao focuses on throwing the opponent to the ground while maintaining one’s own balance, mobility and standing position.

The Fa-Jing or explosive energy created by vigorous, horizontal hip/ shoulder rotation and vertical hip/ shoulder movement (Tsun Quan) are part and parcel to the secret of Chinese Martial Arts. Vicious head manipulations and strikes that flow into throws are a central aspect of Shuai Chiao.

This type of movement cultivates blinding speed and causes disorientation of action on the part of the opponent. This Circular Aggression and Vertical Momentum as we call the attributes in the C.O.M.B.A.T. G.O.N.K.A. System are things that stand out tremendously with all Chinese Martial Arts, especially Shuai Chiao.

Angle awareness is something that is cultivated through sparring, sensitivity drills and forms found in many martial arts (see Bagua, Tai Chi, Wing Chun, Kali, Silat). Due to Shuai Chiao’s violent, full contact form of practice, one quickly learns to feel the intention and structure of the opponent. Some schools of Shuai Chiao actually have solo and two man forms that describe the movements and angles involved in destructuring an opponent.

All throwing arts have these combative throwing essentials built in. Some of these arts are sports. One just has to break the rules to find the killer street fight secrets.

Gonkafied

Bryan M. Seaver