If you've become proficient in the art of trapping how likely is it to work in a street fight?

Question

I'm speaking of the trapping in Jeet kune do and wing chun

Answer 1

While some people criticize the idea of trapping against a boxer like fighter who retract his attacks and re-position or immediately follow his previous attack to minimize the chance of time for trapping, who says you have to wait for the fight to start to trap?



There are many pre-emptive forms e.g. in Applegate's training manual, it states the best time to trap is before he moves his attack out. In fact it states clearly that once the attack begins, abandon the trapping and deal with the defense. Spotting the attack before or mid way is quite important in getting a good counter offense, trapping isn't the only alternative, you could attack during this stage or simply get out of the range if you have the time to do so.



While many criticize combat sport fighters for taking too many rounds and it's true to some extent that their techniques do not cripple each other, it's also because they've had too many experience. Skilled boxers could watch a punch like slow mo cinema in a way no untrained people could without getting punched. Thus they take so long to figure it all out.



You could read their shoulders, their hips, their distance in relative to yours, their angle of attack, before they make contact with you. Of course timing is only one response to making trapping work. There's lots of others. The trouble is sometimes schools use it wrongly. E.g. trapping meant for other wing chun practitioners used against boxers. That's recipe for epic fail.

Answer 2

If you've trained something well, it will work. That said, the window of opportunity for trapping to work as it's often drilled is very small. What I mean is that you're not going to see a lot of opportunities to use it, and when they appear, they'll be gone in an instant. Look at how people actually fight. Unless they walk at you like Frankenstein's monster, they're not really in a situation where classical trapping is the best option to use. I've spent time in both Wing Chun and JKD, but if I encountered someone who kept blocking my shots to the head, instead of trapping, I'd just blast 'em in the body or use a circular angle of attack. You know, basic boxing combinations. Confuse their defense by hitting them at different points and at different angles instead of getting into a fight with their forearms.

Answer 3

It does not work the same way it does in training. It is for "close quarters" fighting using the others energy against him. You can use what you learned but not exactly the same way or progression. If learned correctly, with sensitivity training, you would use the various techniques you know from "trapping" to fit in with whatever is happening which will not be the way you practice it. I see a lot, if not most, videos on trapping where the guys are just slapping hands and arms and lose all feeling of any energy from the opponent therefore completely losing the entire purpose of "trapping". It can and does work but you have to know how to incorporate the trapping with attacks.

Answer 4

There's the theory and then there's the applications, the actual technique. You have to have both.



If you know the theory, but aren't good at the applications, you'll see it not work. If you like using techniques to fight in sparring, but don't understand the theory, you won't be able to figure out the adjustments you'll need to make in training or fighting.