 Sticky hands is a prevalent training technique that we see in a lot of Chinese martial arts, especially Wing Chun, although it can be seen in various other arts around the world. Today we're going to ask the question, is sticky hands an effective method of training and does it work in real life? So today we're going to go basic level with this concept because the truth of the matter is, like most techniques, you can spend a lot of time and do deep dives on them. So we're kind of sticking to surface level here. So primarily we're going to look at very briefly what it is, the pros and cons of training with sticky hands, how we might see it exist in some other martial arts, and in the end, is it worth training in it at all? So sticky hands or sticking hands is the signature of Wing Chun, where they call it Chi Sao, and there's often a lot of emphasis placed on this training method. So what is it exactly? So we have sticky hands and we have pushing hands, which are very similar in concept, and basically pushing hands is the training technique of making contact with your opponent and it's a flow drill in which you try to push, pull, divert and disrupt your opponent's balance all without breaking contact. These drills are for learning flow and how to anticipate and defend by feeling the movement of the opponent's body. Sticky hands will implement these same ideas while also trying to strike your opponent. In many cases, it is used to get around your opponent's hands and into their center in order to deliver a sequence of chain punches like you would see in Wing Chun or other striking combinations. In Wing Chun, Chi Sao focuses on several key concepts, including rolling hands with strikes, riding your opponent's force, and also focusing on concepts such as wrist energy, downward elbow energy and passing through energy, and several more. Crucial to sticky hand training and practice is developing the sensitivity to the movements of your partner or opponent. Watching experienced Wing Chun practitioners move so fluently and effortlessly can be mesmerizing sometimes. There is also a lower body version of this using similar flow and redirection concepts, but with the legs and kicking instead called Chi Gurk. It gets far more detailed and complicated than this of course, and we're going to circle back around at a later date when we come back around to our Wing Chun series. And I would like to thank Samantha who's been helping us with the reference material. So what are the benefits to sticky hand training? Why do it? Let's take a look at some of the pros. The key aspect is it teaches us how to understand energy flow and relaxation techniques. If we're too rigid in our techniques and training, we can become counterproductive. And that goes with most martial arts out there, including boxing. And once you have this understanding, you begin to develop the sensitivity to be able to read your opponent on a tactile response. You can feel micro movements and you can read their intent, and that helps you anticipate and react quicker. It also teaches you how to develop simultaneous attacking and defensive tactics. And also it's great for learning redirection to set up opponent for trapping techniques and submissions. So right off the bat, that sounds pretty cool and it seems like a worthy skill to learn. So what would some of the caveats be to this? One of the biggest things working against sticky hand drill is I think that there's a lot of schools that have an imbalance on their focus. Some schools will focus far too much on it. Other schools will brush it off completely. There is a fine line. There is a fine balance in there between understanding the drill and the technique and where it applies appropriately. There's also a great big misunderstanding in application. A lot of people discount this technique because they say that in a real fight, a person's not just going to stand there and let you do all these slow drills on them. And a lot of people who only train in it might think that's how fight actually goes out. Chief Sound's sticky hands is a drill that teaches how to read and control an opponent. In a real fight, you're not going to catch a box just punch and just stand there and apply a complicated sequence of flow techniques. But a lot of fights get to the point of close in grabbing and close contact. By being able to read and feel and redirect, there is an opportunity there to control your opponent to some degree. If you're only practicing this drill with one person, you're doing yourself a great disservice. Everyone feels different. Everyone's body moves different and they have different energy. So if you're only confining yourself to one partner, then you're lacking some serious diversity in your training. To counter this, many good schools will do what's called touching hands with other schools. So they'll either go to other schools within the same art or even other arts internally just to kind of build up on that diversity, which gives you a lot more variety than just working with one partner won't. And one of the major cons, and I feel like we bring this up all the time, is a lot of schools will lack sparring. I don't care if you believe in Chief Sound 100% or if you discount it all together. If you don't spar, if you do not practice these concepts on a live resisting opponent, then don't expect it to be available and work for you in a real life confrontation. You will see sticky hand techniques and flow drills across several different martial arts, but quite often you'll find several arts to have their own distinct flavors of the training. American Kempo is one of them. In Kempo, our sticky hands follows a lot of the same concepts of flow drill, but as you can see, it definitely has its own distinct flavor that's pretty unique to Kempo. The late and great Grandmaster Frank Trejo advocated and taught a lot of Kempo sticky hands. I'd like to thank good friend Sean Kelly for providing me the footage of a seminar he produced with Mr. Trejo several years ago highlighting the different drills and applications of Kempo sticky hands. So the first thing right off the bat is it's very similar to Chief Sound in that you begin by learning how to read and ride your opponent's energy. There's actually very simple drills in which you touch hands with your opponent and your partner and you try to anticipate and you try to feel where they're going to move and you just relax and you try to follow that motion, building up that sensitivity of how they're going to move their body. And then the training begins to teach how to redirect, override, and counter their motions. In Wing Chung, you'll see a lot of the drills focus on getting to the inside of your opponent's centerline. And while this holds true to Kempo, we also have an emphasis placed on the outside of the body and working trappings. Kempo will regulate between relaxing motion and quick explosive striking. And more so than Wing Chung, Kempo sticky hands places a lot of emphasis on limit destruction. I personally love a lot of trapping techniques and I find them very useful and effective if of course applied in the right scenario. And in some of my favorites in Kempo being our inward-outward parry combinations in which you can convert them into a trap. And I even picked up a set of padded arms that I can attach to my WaveMaster just so I can practice these drills. So for those of you who feel that sticky hand training and flow drills are a waste of time and efficient, let me ask you this. Do we not see these concepts applied in grappling? I mean reading and writing your opponent's motions? BJJ isn't focused on overpowering your opponent but rather reading your opponent's movements, anticipating openings, and literally rolling with the flow. In fact, I feel that grappling takes us to such a level that it's some of the few arts that you can have an entire match start to finish with your eyes closed going by tactile response only. So in conclusion, I personally feel that sticky hand drills are absolutely worth learning. Just the invaluable skill of building that sensitivity and learning how to redirect and how to read your opponent on touch response is invaluable, especially today's popularity of grappling arts. However, it's very important to differentiate what is a drill and what actually works in a real-life confrontation. You're not likely to perform a lot of these flow drills on the swinging opponent but in many cases a lot of the redirection diversions can still apply. And I feel that personally speaking, I feel that trapping techniques can work. I have done them in real life, I've done them several times in training, and even as recent as last year, I was sparring Sensei Alex and we had a match going and I threw a punch at him and he trapped it and pulled me completely off balance. It was beautifully executed, I wasn't able to counter before he was able to act or redirect my motion and it worked flawlessly. So if done correctly and if you understand the proper applications, I feel that trapping techniques are very effective. So let me know what you guys think. How has sticky hands and chi-sao and flow drills worked for you? Or how does your art apply to them? You have your own version of it. I would love to hear about it, so please share your stories in the comments down below. And as always, thank you guys so much for watching. Please be sure to like, subscribe, and share this video, and we will see you next week.