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About Trapping

There are a number of very good drills that can be used to develop the kind of effective trapping skills enjoyed by Bruce Lee in what I like to call his personal art. This simply means the way "he" did it. The principles and mechanics that he used and what made him so astoundingly effective.

To be sure, there are different kinds of trapping for different systems. For instance, Filipino martial arts make use of extremely effective trapping, designed around its structure, tools, and strategies. The same holds true for other martial arts like American Kenpo where trapping is a component of the system. Bruce's trapping was born from Wing Chun Gung Fu, an art that is very much different in nearly every respect to other arts, including its trapping methodology.

When Bruce trapped you there was a lot more going on than opening a line of attack and/or tying up your arms. He disrupted and broke down your structure, a key strategic point. He corrupted your balance, froze your timing, and sent shock into your body like electricity through copper wire. By virtual of his technique, he was able to automatically measure the correct distance for optimal striking power and accuracy, the kind needed for deep penetration to attack the body's nervous system. While he re-angled his attack to open new lines, he took away the distance that you needed to be effective in your counter attack. And to make all of this work, he depended on body structure, proper mechanics, a variety of carefully forged tools, and a high degree of tactile sensitivity and knowledge of energies. To put is simply, he trapped with the entirety of his body, not just his hands.

Bruce's inner body structure had been uniquely developed for the most part from his earlier Wing Chun training. Yet he still had some knowledge of other gung fu arts, including Tai Chi and, to a lesser degree, Preying Mantis. Although he later modified his fighting stance, you can be sure that his inner structure did not change. It still afforded him the kind of grounding needed for exerting and holding pressure while jamming and trapping, along with all of those special mechanical advantages that were so often mistaken by observers as sheer acts of strength. These mechanical advantages constituted many of the details that not only went into Bruce's trapping, but also into every phase of his personal art. In other words, the way he did it.

One of the things that made Bruce so different from other martial artists in the US was that he more directly faced his opponent. Rarely, if ever, was Bruce caught in a position where he would be forced to give away one side to his opponent. At the same time, he would always be in position to gain control of either the opponent's side or his center, both basic strategies of Wing Chun. This facing principle was a central part of Bruce's method fighting method and of core importance to his trapping and striking, in particular. So that I might narrow this discussion a bit, I'll limit myself to just a few of the mechanical advantages enjoyed by Bruce that made his trapping so incredibly effective. Of course, this requires a brief mention of his tools.

Bruce compared a tool like tan sao (palm up hand) to a car jack. "If you want to lift a Cadillac," said Bruce, "use a jack made to lift a Cadillac, not a Volkswagen". What Bruce was saying here is that your tools must be strong enough to do the biggest jobs. At less than 135 pounds, Bruce jacked up a professional wrestler holding him pinned to a wall with double tan saos.

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