Le vs. Shamrock (sanshou vs. MMA)

good fight

This is a great display of sanshou skill. Anyone studying wushu and interested in application should get something out of this. Sanshou is the wushu adaptation for sport fighting often critcized for just looking like kickboxing with throws. In a ring, with gloves on, with rules specific to the sport, this is just how fighting looks period. If people can't see the wushu behind Le's method, then they are just ignorant of wushu's application and techniques. The style of fighting will not resemble any one style of wushu because it is an amalgam and does borrow training methods from many styles and does have some western boxing influence among other things. Watching this fight though I can point out and demonstrate where probably a good 90% of what Le does is within the curriculum of northern longfist styles. Particularly, the way he throws, traps kicks, defends attacks (especially kicks), and throws rooted kicks mostly to low and mid range with occasional timely high kicks. He won the fight by breaking Shamrock's arm with a kick to the head that was blocked with said arm. Anyway, I would love to talk more about this video to anyone that watches and has questions/comments and even go over much of what is applicable in class. Wushu will look different outside of a ring, but this is a top class fight between two masters of their art where sanshou bests MMA. Sanshou is not better, it is always the individual, but if the training and understanding are there, it is very effective.

Side notes: Le was a very good wrestler when he was younger so he uses that to keep from being controlled on the ground, but it is his wushu derived stand up skills that make him an elite fighter. Knowledge of escaping the ground game is very necessary in this arena to make stand up fighting effective. I've been told he did actually study wushu too and not just sanshou.

Very well put, and yes Cung Le did actually study Longfist as part of his training growing up and it really shows in his fitness, flexibility and subtleties of his body method.

Some of the combinations Le throws look like they could be straight out of the Longfist forms -
Just watching this I think will help solidify learning forms when you can understand what they
mean as you go along.

That sweep was great.

Yeah, it does help to see it used in true application so you can put it in to perspective of what you personally are learning. Its also intersting to note that Shamrock throws such few kicks in comparison to Le, and instead chooses to box and play a sort of Muai Thai game vs a Sanshou game. Both of these guys, as Blake stated are masters at their respective arts and alot can be learned from analyzing this fight. Shamrock seems to have a little more oomph to his punches (he is also a little larger I think), and as you see almost gets the best of Le while he's dazed; But Le's great kicking skill was enough to keep Shamrock at bay and bide him enough time to wear him down eventually. I was actually surprised at the outcome of this fight, I was sure Shamrock would win due to his size and MMA experience but Le's kicking skill is so good I don't think Shamrock was prepared for that since pretty much all of his fights have been against people who fight a more conventional fight. I think Le will be a breath of fresh air to Mixed Martial Arts and might actually popularize Wushu techniques a bit so that more athletes in the sport will adopt the training into their regimen's. Muai Thai, wrestling, sanshou, boxing, etc, its all very applicable and practical stuff.

Dave wrote:Some of the combinations Le throws look like they could be straight out of the Longfist forms -
Just watching this I think will help solidify learning forms when you can understand what they
mean as you go along.

That sweep was great.

Indeed, I think it is key to realize, see, and practice these things live even if it's just form and health that a person wants to focus on. Your form will gain intent and with that your health will improve. The way wushu generates the proper power for fighting is intrinsically liked to the way qigong moves "qi". I put quotes as sort of a disclaimer because qi is such an illusive concept to most, but for those who've felt it between their palms or pulsing in dan tien, it is easy to see that there is a palpable sensation involved with what is called qi. I'm really glad you can already see the Longfist connections there Dave. We'll examine it more in practice when I'm there. I'm sure Eryn has plenty to illuminate on this too, but I'm there little and really like to focus on this stuff.

Eryn wrote:Yeah, it does help to see it used in true application so you can put it in to perspective of what you personally are learning. Its also intersting to note that Shamrock throws such few kicks in comparison to Le, and instead chooses to box and play a sort of Muai Thai game vs a Sanshou game. Both of these guys, as Blake stated are masters at their respective arts and alot can be learned from analyzing this fight. Shamrock seems to have a little more oomph to his punches (he is also a little larger I think), and as you see almost gets the best of Le while he's dazed; But Le's great kicking skill was enough to keep Shamrock at bay and bide him enough time to wear him down eventually. I was actually surprised at the outcome of this fight, I was sure Shamrock would win due to his size and MMA experience but Le's kicking skill is so good I don't think Shamrock was prepared for that since pretty much all of his fights have been against people who fight a more conventional fight. I think Le will be a breath of fresh air to Mixed Martial Arts and might actually popularize Wushu techniques a bit so that more athletes in the sport will adopt the training into their regimen's. Muai Thai, wrestling, sanshou, boxing, etc, its all very applicable and practical stuff.

I just want to add that I think overall Le is a superior striker. Shamrock is a good striker, but he probably should have just tried to take the fight to the ground. He made a point to stand up with Le through the 1st round. Another superior aspect of Le's IMO, and a big part of sanshou, is the shuai or throwing techniques which you can clearly see him do very effectively in this fight. Variations of these techniques are in every style taught in our classes. Shuai jiao is a very old Chinese art that is predominantly focused on throwing and pretty much all wushu uses these types of throws to varying degrees. In sanshou, this scores alot of points and they don't follow the fight onto the ground. Different sports, different rules, but for practical defense this throwing ability is very effective when on a hard surface. It is much easier to take on a ring mat than on a street.