Red Rum

Very easily. Just because a few Americans like Mike etc 'know who you are'. Who gives a flying f**k? I have been training MT for a long time, admittedly boxing not so long. Yet I know boxers who have trained for two years being a whole lot more knowledgable than guys who have trained for twenty years.

But even in the limited time I have trained boxing, it is very apparent that boxing clinches make seeing what your opponent is doing difficult.

I am stunned that your so called vast experience in boxing makes you think that you can see everything your opponent is doing when you are in a clinch

I never said that boxers do not use their eyes - re-read my post you twat.
I have said repeatedly that reliance on your eyes all the way through a fight is foolish, especially when it comes to clinches

Of course boxers will use their eyes to start with, but watch any boxing clinch (even a newbie would understand this) and see which direction the boxers eyes are.

In grappling, I would ask you to do the same. If you are telling me that two fighters can see everything their opponent is doing, then you are not what you say you are.

Red Rum

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3D2%26hl%3Den

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3D2%26hl%3Den

Ghost

I cant really make it much clearer than that.

Ive not really seen many fights where the fighers didnt rely on their eyes.
Normally i would have let a post like this slide. But i didnt due to the fountain of nonsense that you have spouted in this thread. So im picking on the stupidest thing you said to make you look silly. But you seem to be doing it all by yourself.
Regarding clinch and muay thai look up peripheral vision. If you cant see your opponent most of the time in the clinch then you either have your eyes shut or your opponent is dominating you.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Mike Brewer

No one's arguing that sensitivity is important, Red Rum. The argument as I read it was that sensitivity only comes into play in the clinch and closer, and that it takes educated eyes to navigate your way there in the first place. If you'd like to prove the universalism of sensitivity and the needlessness of eyesight, then please put on a blindfold and try to get to your clinch against a good kickboxer who's allowed to use his eyes.

Also, the second problem with the way you've been harping is that any art that HAS a clinch range teaches the necessary sensitivity right along with it. Wrestlers and boxers learn sensitivity that's far more applicable to their clinch range than wing chun could offer them. A boxer trying to learn boxing style in-fighting would be hampered, not helped, by wing chun. Likewise with a kickboxer. Wing chun sensitivity training is not as utilitarian to a kickboxer as kickboxing-specific training.

Summing up, you do depend on your eyes in a fight. You need them. You need them to survive long enough to find a clinch. If you're someone like me, you also use your eyes extensively in a clinch because you're just not going to "feel" the other guy go for a weapon. I'd just as soon be able to see if he has a knife or something before I "feel" it. And try as you might to make anyone think Wing Chun has a good bead on sensitivity training, it isn't going to change the fact that everybody else has it too. Stuff like this:

Is shit. Yes, boxers "see punches coming." They are not feeling disturbances in the force and hoping the block they put up will be in the way. They see the indicators and they see the line of attack. That's why people can parry and block and slip. They SEE where they need to move. If you like, come over to my gym and I'll show you how it works. (couldn't resist)

Liberty

Mike, the guy has a point. I mean, there are dozens of youtube clips alone wherein, in those mock demos, the person being "attacked" (the lackey), shuts his eyes as he freaks out, in response to his "deadly" partners "attacks."

I will say, though, that in the dozen or two real life encounters I've been in, in my own past the only time I've had to rely on feeling, flow, or whatever has been in clinches. Those times wherein an attack was so fast I was not able to see a strike here and there; any "feeling" had to do with reacting to the feeling of a strike - ouch! - reacting to that, adjusting in response to it, and so on, when it was simply unavoidable.

What a wake up call it must've been for the late Bruce Lee, for example, that as amazing a martial artist as he truly was, that after all his sensitivity training, after all his Chi Sau, all his hours upon hours of training fanatically blindfolded, he in the end realized "it didn't feel right!," abandoning it altogether.

Seems to me way too many Wing Chun practitioners fall prey to believing the Chi Sau/Trapping hype. That, in too many ways the art is simply outdated. As if the art, for far too many of it's practitioners is some sort of safe chess game between two intellctuals at a park table on a Saturday afternoon. With the same egos, the same sense of false superiority resulting therefrom.

Sorry for the quote Mike, but...

"In memory of a once fluid man, crammed and distorted by the classical mess."

Red Rum

Now that everyone seems to have calmed down...

Ghost - my contention was that you can't always rely on your eyes in a fight. I did not say you do not use your eyes in a fight. Of course you do.
Peripheral vision is used, but try using it when your opponent gets you in a headlock guillotine, tight clinch, suplex etc. If you are adamant that you can see every part of your opponent (every limb) then I will concede.

How many full contact (including UFC) fights have you seen where a person loses sight of his opponent? Of course, when two opponents are squaring off and approaching each other you can see each other clearly. But would an average guy see a kick coming in? Or a fast punch coming in? No
The idea of wing chun sensitivity is what you can't see occur in a fight allows you to feel it instead.

Liberty - I stated quite clearly that the concept of sensitivity is not a new one and that BJJ guys, MT guys and even boxers use it in one way or the other. The point was that in wing chun we develop it through chi sao. And you are dead right - many people think that chi sao is the ultimate fighting tool. It is a device, yes, which comes in handy (any sensitivity training would), but I would rather have a hard punch!

Mike, you joke about clinchwork, but in Kamon we use more sensitivity than sight to nullify an opponents attacks. I am never going to keep up with a good boxer in a clinch and neither will a lot of wing chun guys, just by using sight alone and trying to block. Yet relaxing and sticking to an opponent in a clinch (including experienced boxers) does work.

Mike, I will tell you that you will not always see knives in fights. A guy got stabbed in a fight at my local KFC and didn't even know it til he got home
And before people kick off, I am not saying that you will never see a knife, only that Mike seems to think that he will always see a knife attack coming.

They SEE where they need to move. If you like, come over to my gym and I'll show you how it works. (couldn't resist) Oh so now you are throwing a challenge out? Brilliantly mature.

Mike Brewer

You especially won't see them coming if you train not to look for them. If you expect sensitivity to alert you to the presence of a blade, then who knows what could happen? Someone could get stabbed at a KFC and not even notice it until they got home!

Wait. When you say it, it's not a challenge but if I say it it is? It's called a joke, twat.

And I'm fully aware of what the purpose of sensitivity training is. I get it. But look back at how this got started. You said:

Do you think maybe you phrased that poorly? The answer to that quote is yes, absolutely. I see punches coming at me all the time, as do many other fighters. Did you mean to say that you can't see them in a clinch? In a guillotine? Because that's not what you said. What you originally argued was that no one could possibly see a fast boxer's punches coming. That's unvarnished horseshit, and when you got called on it, you got defensive. Rather than admit you fumbled your first argument or that you were unclear, you just got pissy and lost your cool. For instance:

No, you just insinuated that against a fast boxer, they'll do you absolutely no good at all, and they might as well be cocktail olives in your head because you'll never see a punch coming. You're not being attacked here because you're wrong about clinchwork. You're being attacked here because you made a big broad statement that wasn't true and you've since been narrowing that down to get back to "right."

Looking at the actual discussion, here are the major points we've all agreed upon.

• You use your eyes to see what's coming in every range outside the clinch. When no contact - no touch - is there to be had, sensitivity is a useless attribute by default since there's nothing to be sensitive to. So in weapons range, kicking, and punching, good, educated eyes are important.
  
• When you're in a clinch or grappling range, sensitivity is critical to have in addition to other senses like sight. I train to look for knives in every range, for example, and as a result, I'm still here after having faced six of them in my life. On the other hand, you could train to throw eyesight to the winds when you get to the clinch and maybe you can be RedRum's next "I got stabbed at KFC anfd didn't realize it until I got home" story. For me, however, I'd rather learn to see those than feel them. (Is there an echo in here?)
  
• Every art that has a clinch range works sensitivity in the clinch range. All of them, without fail or exception. This leads me to believe that Wing Chun is nothing special at all. This is especially true if they advocate "feeling" for weapons in closer ranges.

Beyond that, I think we can also agree that you've got no sense of humor at all, and no sense of when people are poking light hearted fun at silly statements you've made. I love that you got offended and uppity about me reciting almost word for word what you said to Michael, and I love that you'd refer to it as a challenge instead of "an invitation to a demonstration of proper technique" as you did when you said something similar. Maybe all that "sensitivity training" is making you a little "sensitive?"