Wing Chun - an overview of its training methods and effectiveness.

[Balor]

Usually I and many others I know have written off Thai Bri as a closed minded wanker. However, in his summary here, he's brought up some interesting things which I believe some people can take away and think about. I myself, and some of my friends who study WC have appreciated some of his criticisms. I was also pleased to note that he had stuck with WC for a year and so had some (even if limited) first hand experience. I also believe that some of his criticism has an element to it that attempts to be constructive.

In short, my background is 3 years TKD followed by boxing, freestyle karate and then kickboxing. I have since moved from kickboxing to WC. I have only done 111 formal lessons of WC (I mention lessons as opposed to the length of time training due to the fact that some people in my academy have performed 111 lessons in less than 20 weeks, whereas it takes others a year or more). What does 111 lessons mean? Very little other than the fact that I am a complete novice in this particular art.

Forms

I have only undertaken training in the first 2 forms. The forms are, amongst other things, about energy direction and sensitivity as well as a thorough understanding of the basic movements. For those who don't understand that, well then - they should consider something a little more primal.

The second form has been useful in tying together many of the WC movements - some of which can seem damn foreign to a person of my MA background. It’s also been helpful in learning how to bridge the gap and close with an opponent.

As for Mike Tyson not needing forms: true, but he fights to rules. I remember when I boxed and took a challenge against a Kyokushin karate practitioner. With the extension of rules that allowed kicking, he hacked up my legs good and proper. I bowed out once I couldn't stand (let alone fight). Months later I watched him practise by smashing baseball bats with his shins. Interesting stuff. No, I am not trying to liken myself to Mike, nor am I insulting boxing – I am merely pointing out that he is not the ultimate fighter (if there is such a thing) and the obvious fact that no one style has all the answers.

Basic Techniques

The WC basic punch is fast. It relies on speed, and it lacks power. You are correct.

When I first encountered a WC practitioner he hit me repeatedly with straight line punches. I admit I was shocked at the speed at which they were delivered. Alas for the WC’er we were playing by my rules (kickboxing) and thus was wearing gloves: so I took the hits and pounded them back, winning the bout. Later I found out that they only had 1 years experience in WC – ie a novice. Not a good example.

The second time I encountered a WC practitioner (17 years experience) he hit me repeatedly with these straight line punches. Now, this guy was about 120kg (260lbs) and he packed a good punch regardless. Had he been using 'western style' punching ala boxing, he would have been hitting harder, and perhaps only fractionally slower. However the point was that he was hitting me repeatedly and he was moving with devastating forward motion - and all his strikes were targeted at the throat and eyes. More power was almost superfluous. Thanks to his accurate targeting and grounded forward motion, speed and accuracy was the major weapon.

You are correct when you say that the style is structurally fast. Economy of movement is maximised. As is economy of energy. Could I kickbox at age 50+. Probably not without difficulty. Could I do TKD? - um, NO, not without further pain to my joints. Could I utilise WC at age 50+? Yes I certainly could, and with less difficulty.

WC stances are fairly grounded; weight is often 80/20 – and it takes practise to move quickly within their stances. I disagree with the good shove theory. I've found exactly the opposite. I've had to spend a lot of time moving my energies and weight downwards to appreciate and use the WC stability.

'Blocking'(or redirecting) and parrying in WC is exceptional in my opinion. Simple as that. Far superior to what I used in boxing / kickboxing where I absorbed impacts with my body and or gloves - Or the karate I did in conjunction with the kickboxing where the blocks were slow and over committed. Add to the fact that WC teaches simultaneous movements of parrying and striking, that when delivered properly can be surprisingly effective.

Chi Sao (or "sticky hands")

Sticky hands can be civilised, or it can be brutal. It depends on who you train with and how you train. In my academy, where required there is no polite keeping of distance. I can assure you of that  Having said that, advanced chi sao is an amazing thing to see - don't fall into the trap of confusing it with sparring. There are links, but they are not comparable.

Chi Sao is a good way of reinforcing the use of the centre line. Deviate and a good training partner will punish you ruthlessly. I've received many a blood lip or bruised eye from lax technique here.

Chi sau also links striking to non-shoot grappling - ie the 'grey area' transition phase between the two but see my comments below.

Trapping

This is admittedly damn hard to do at speed and with any degree of competence, especially against a 'trained' opponent. I can't comment much on it, as I don't believe I'm at a level to. However in its most basic form I have used it in sparring to smother opponent's jabs, with limited relevance / success, thus keeping my opponent where I want them - ie very close hand striking distance. I have only seen it used once ‘outside the classroom’ with effectiveness – by a WC’er against a boxer. The result was a mess with no clear outcome; however the boxer certainly got tangled. If nothing else it showed me what *could* be done.

WC Dummy

The dummy is an excellent tool for conditioning the arms. For various reasons, the WC that I practise does not lend a focus to conditioning the torso to take hits like some styles I know and have done - however there is a lot of emphasis on hard contact to the arms and legs. Aside from conditioning, the wooden man is useful for learning correct position & angles of both the arms and legs. I can't comment much more as I have very little experience on the dummy.

Grappling.

I tire of the arrogance of many of my fellow WC'ers who maintain that they cannot be taken to the ground. I have had friends king hit and taken to the ground, and know more than a few people who have fallen as a result of fighting on uneven terrain. It can happen to the best of us. I have also seen how quickly a competent shoot can be delivered, and the way in which some adrenaline hyped people can sustain (hard) hits to the head, neck and torso as they shoot you, still managing to take you to the pavement. WC has a serious deficiency here. Thus I know many people who practise BJJ in conjunction with WC (with excellent results). The first time I fought a BJJ'er I gouged their eyes during the shoot and then low kicked their knee as they backed off clutching their face. However it was only last night that I found myself in the ground with a BJJ'er and was completely at their mercy. Frightening stuff - once the fight moved into their turf, I was at a serious disadvantage. WC does not have all the answers - but then again, what style does? Let's just say that the BJJ’ers I have trained with have a healthy respect for WC, and vice versa.

Wall Bags

Wall bags are fantastic for conditioning the hands. Our academy uses both them and hanging bags. They serve different purposes and are not comparable as you have implied.

Kicks

As a preference WC practitioners don’t kick above the knees and the kicks are linear with no telegraphing (the complete opposite of what I learnt at TKD many years back). We practise these low kicks ad-nauseum. Your school would have done well to do likewise. Initially I doubted that these kicks had much power behind them, but I have since learnt otherwise - the hard way. Whilst some WC’ers in my academy state that they would NEVER kick in a fight, I maintain that they are one of the most essential weapons of the WC arsenal. Don't get me wrong, I love high kicks and spinning movements, but only for when I feel like being a wanker. I'd never use them in a real situation unless I felt like I could win lottery or my opponent was clearly highly incompetent.

General training.

Your training against thin air must be something pertaining more to your WC school than WC at large.

Mind you, the obvious was pointed out to me by my Sifu last night when he said that the most financially successful schools in my country (Australia) are those who practise little or no contact. Some of that slant applies to some WC schools. And when you have a style that pits most of its strikes at the eyes, throat, knees and hips: well you have to be careful with beginners (such as you were with only 1 year's experience) getting overly carried away with applying testosterone to people's vital organs  The other styles I did had rules, rules and rules. WC has comparatively few rules. For example - BJJ frustrates the crap out of some of my friends due to the sporting focus of their school. “No you can’t gouge the eyes… no you can’t rip the inner thigh… elbow to the head etc etc”

There is none of this '3 minute rounds' of contact fighting in weight categories that I did in ring karate or kickboxing. WC sparring typically lasts 3-10 seconds and then it’s over. More akin to what I've seen on the street. You disable your opponent as fast as possible. You don’t bounce around trading hits for 3 minutes.

As for the 'we are the best mentality' - I've seen that in many styles, WC included (actually, WC especially). It’s a bit of a tedious common trend I'm afraid.


Relevance to Self Protection

Issues like awareness, avoidance, posturing, threat assessment etc etc etc. were not addressed one iota in your class. They are in mine. Not to the extent of some class that I've attended esp Krav Maga. However these issues ARE addressed. Not as much as I'd like, but they are. I agree that this can be a serious deficiency in training, as your mood on the day, your animal instinct and your level of aggression are more important often than the style you train in.

For me the hardest thing about self protection + WC is the fact that WC relies on excellent structure to work. It’s amazing what it can do when the structure is perfect, but try doing that when you're angry or scared. With other styles I practised I could lash out in anger and still perform very well - with WC I need to remain a lot more focused. I am hoping that this focus will come more naturally to me in the years to come.

Having said that, not all people learn 'martial' arts for the 'martial' aspects of training. Learn to respect that. There's a lot more to it than kicking arse and self defence.

You said that "I bet there are people who can make WC work. But they will be near the top of the WC tree, AND they will be in the minority." I will agree with you there. In many ways WC is a complex art despite its simplicities (sorry if that sounded like Yoda). I am keen to learn as much as I can from it, but at the end of the day I will focus the most intense parts of my training on only a few key techniques that I make my own personal primary arsenal. Many of these I am surprised to say, are from WC - and they include the low knee kick, the bon sau (a tech that I thought was laughable when I first saw it), and the simultaneous parry + strikes.

Again, thanks for your summary Thai Bri, I did find it interesting, and I agree some of what you've said. WC obviously wasn’t for you, and it’s not for a lot of people. If you’re happy with whatever styles you’ve subsequently tried, then that’s great – but please stop hacking on WC as a whole.

[Capt Insaino]

Good points

I'd have to agree with Thai Bri for the most part.
I wish we could have a sensible forum without people getting all huffy and puffy over someone elses opinion. If we practiced respect as much as we did our different arts we wouldn't have that issue. I can say the same for myself many times so I'll try to practice what I preach.
Back to the subject at hand, I think one can get a mastery of WC's first form in a year. I trained WC for quite some time and always found myself going back to sil lum tao (spelling? it's been a while) and rechecking myself. Since all other of WC's forms are built upon the first I think it's best to have your foundation secured before you start to build upon it. If a WC instructor rushes someone past the first form it's probably due to the lack of knowledge. I've seen WC practioners in a fight drop into their horse and stand there thinking that all they'sll need to do is turn to avoid the atack. I've also seen a few shuffle across a parking lot on their back leg(now that was funny).
I like the point on the muscle memory and hiting the bag. I can tell you that it's true. If you hit a bag or anything that drvelopes your follow through power your punches will be more effective PERIOD. There's no "Picture your target a few inches behind you initial taget" snooore
Hitting a bag will also condition your wrists and carpals from getting broked when you do finally throw that knock-out punch.

WC does work in it's own respect, but when someone truely mean and dangerous takes you to the ground, the only thing that will go through you mind is getting back up unless your comfortable with ground fighting.

[Thai Bri]

Thats the issue Tameo. Real fioghting is ugly! Those beautiful and graceful moves do not stand up to the ferocity and chaos of a real go. Even MMA isn't as real as it gets of course. Throw in uneven and slippery floors, crowds, multiple attackers, weapons etc. etc. and it all ends up in one chaotic messy desperate fight for survival.

All the beauty is reserved for classes where everyone is following both written and unwritten rules, and people learn how to attack in methods that suit thei training partners.

[jubaji]

Its pathetic watchin ufc or some of the mma matches were the fighters turn into brawlers as soon as they enter the ring, everything they learned, goes out the window and they just turn into sloppy brawlers who can only hit hard but have little technique.

You mean that they actually fight? Shocking!

[Tameo]

It seems to me that no one knows the right place for Wing Chun. They certainly haven't got much of a reputation in full contact or MMA type matches. Except, of course, the mysterious roof top challenges that are never verified.

Its pathetic watchin ufc or some of the mma matches were the fighters turn into brawlers as soon as they enter the ring, everything they learned, goes out the window and they just turn into sloppy brawlers who can only hit hard but have little technique.

[Thai Bri]

It seems to me that no one knows the right place for Wing Chun. They certainly haven't got much of a reputation in full contact or MMA type matches. Except, of course, the mysterious roof top challenges that are never verified.

[phenom]

its obvious you didnt go to the right place for wc there is a majority of schools who believe wing chun takes years to master thats crap you can learn the while system in three to fours years dedicated training applying what you have learned to a real life situaton is up to your ability.the advanced tehniques i believe would fail on the streets but the basics yeah great alot of the techniques are drills to sharpen reflexes and stimulate muscle memory hope this has shed some light peace

[Thai Bri]

You can deal with an "intermediate" level of grappler because of Wing Chun? I seriously doubt it my friend. , and certainly not under pure BJJ type rules. You'd get creamed, just like any other beginner in grappling.

Stealth, a very quick run down of the other arts would be this:-

Shukokai Karate - taught me to hit hard, but 95% of it was cack for real fighting. Silly blocks, pointless Katas and air punching.

Jiu Jitsu - this particular class was appalling. We "defended" against totally unrealistic "attacks" and, as we supposedly progressed, we merely did fancier defences. The attacker would step forwards, stick his arm out, and then hold still whilst we fannied about. Pure cack.

Combatives - much better. Some easy to perform moves that have potentially fatal effects. Not rocket science or mystical mumbo jumbo. Simple things like striking open handed under the jaw whilst stopping the guy from bending back, or chopping into the wind pipe etc. Not a complete system in my view, but some great stuff in there.

Hope that helps.

[phenom]

im sorry to see all that training was providing very little result i have been doin wc for nearly four years and have aquired level ten its the traditional version although this could be argued but this system is great if you have an open mind to everything out there in the martial art world i have just started bjj and believe i can deal with a intermediate level of ground opposistion you have to have an fair understanding of the system before doors will open for ya

[StealthMode]

Wing chun works, you just have to kno how to apply the techniques that you learned in your own way to make it effective. You gotta
hit the opponent with the techniques you know, where it hurts. The vertical punches will hurt if you throw it repeatly at a certain area of the body such as the chin or the face. and the parrying are very effective like you mentioned, and also they kick low and quick to certain areas of the legs, Wing Chun is good at wut it does which is striking ,though yea what is bad about wing chun is that they have no grappling.

Wing Chun is one of the kungfu styles that I kno that i find very effective. Are there other's out there though that are good?

by the way, how was shukokai karate,combatives and jujitsu? i haven't done those styles yet, tell me some stuff about it, especially combatives

[Thai Bri]

Hmmmm. Just re-read this. Please spot the incredible claims that Tameo has for Wing Chun. He made these claims ages ago but, in the last few weeks, now denounces the version of WC that he used to practice.

Dos that mean Tameo is a bull shitter?

Yes. It does......

[sherwinc]

The techniques I took from WC was the Pakso and Bongso which I think are great for close range fighting.However WC falls over when it comes to grappling and ground fighting.

Why??? cause you only know one style/system of KungFu

Note:
when an opponent attempts to close the gap USE WINGCHUN
when the opponent attempts to grappling or ground fighting USE ALSO WINGCHUN

why????
you dont know how to use your wingchun

CONVINCED?????

[guy incognito]

The techniques I took from WC was the Pakso and Bongso which I think are great for close range fighting.However WC falls over when it comes to grappling and ground fighting.

No pun intended eh!
Graplling will also fall down against a good long range fighter
Cross train
Do long,short and graplling styles
If you dont like WC dont do it
Unfortunatly i took nothing from WC but i gave it a go.
Boxing is good because they do it exactly the same for the ring or real fight

[IronFist]

The techniques I took from WC was the Pakso and Bongso which I think are great for close range fighting.However WC falls over when it comes to grappling and ground fighting.

[KungfuJeremy]

thanks for the insites on wing chun but every person has there own interests, qualities, tastes. Wing Chun might be an excellent art for some, while not for others, so don't bad mouth it just becuase you didnt understand it or didnt like it, the art won't work for everybody.



thanks for sharing your experiences and advices though.