Uncooperative Partners

When you're training a specific exercise or drill, do you ever think about how this same drill would be executed against an uncooperative partner? When I say "uncooperative" I mean, not that he's not sticking to the drill, but that acts in a way to avoid your attacks, either pushing, pulling, covering up, attacking back, resisting, etc etc.

A big problem with WT is that it's training is generally done against an uncooperative partner, OR, against someone who may be uncooperative but vulnerable either because both partners are participating in chi-sao OR one is in the lat-sao/advancing stance position. For most people, both stances are very vulnerable to many attacks, while a kickboxing/MMA stance would at least allow for some kind of cover-up defense position.

What this does is it could give the WT instructor or student the false sense that his techniques may work since he's able to execute multiple hits. But what he's forgotten is that the person receiving the hits is in the vulnerable lat-sao or chi-sao stance. When fighting someone else, how often would you face someone who would take that kind of default position? if anything, nature would call for the person to cover up or to push away...so why don't we train against someone who does exactly this?

It's easIER, in my opinion, to pull off program three lat-sao off another person learning WT because they've been taught to 1) cooperate 2) maintain the square shoulders (easier to trap hands) and 3) not pull back (first principle says go forwards, second says stick with what comes) - the end result, you can pull off the cool back fists and "trapping".

But what if you tried program three against a karateka? He would pull his punches back instantly. Maybe after he gets whacked w/ the first backfist, he may reverse punch you in the ribs. Maybe you can't easily trap both hands because his shoulders are turned. And the list goes on.

Until then.