I've always associated martial arts with characteristic movements. Someone trained in Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido or Boxing generally has easily recognizable patterns of movements. For example, you can watch a clip and think: that's a Wing Chun guy fighting a boxer, or a BJJ guy fighting someone trained in Aikido, and so on.
However, when I watch someone trained in I Liq Chuan, I don't see such clear-cut movements.
ILC has produced at least two practitioners who are successful in martial arts competitions, Dasha in Russia and Ashe in the United States.
I recently watched a couple of their clips on YouTube, and wondered where the I Liq Chuan was in their fighting style:
Dasha's win in Moscow Sanda tournament (Dasha in red):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KZIS...e=channel_page
Ashe competing in a tournament:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5H_fhQ6UEc
So even after studying ILC for about 1 1/2 years, I wasn't able to see anything in the above matches that told me "This is an ILC fighter."
This prompted me to ask Ashe about it, and with Ashe's approval, I'll quote his answer to my email below.
me:
"Where is the I Liq Chuan in the fight? To me, everything looked like a pure boxing & kicking match. I didn't see a single thing that reminded me of I Liq Chuan."
Ashe:
"this is something that comes up quite a lot. the first thing you have to realize is fighting looks like fighting, but beyond that you should go back and watch it again and look for the clues.
13 points - does she maintain her 13 points throughout the fight?
six physical principles - does she follow them?
does she make use of the mirroring to guard and bridge?
does she use upper hand?
does she harmonize with the conditions. this includes time and space (i.e. rhythm and distance)
another thing to keep in mind when watching again is that a fight happens so fast, that the whole upper hand process of flow, fend, control and jam and happen in a fraction of a second. for instance if you bridge and jam the opponents strike, they may not recognize that they're in danger and just jerk their hand away, in which case you have to strike in right away. the opportunity is so brief, it can just look like "slappy hands", but to the two people on the mat it feels different.
also, it's a sport fight, wearing boxing gloves and head gear, which is limiting in many ways. so it's dasha using ILC under those conditions."
So maybe "ILC not looking like anything" is a result of ILC not training specific techniques - i.e., each fighter does his/her own thing based on recognizing their own unique physical limits & strengths, rather than memorizing pre-ordained patterns of movement?
Peter