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

[Thai Bri]

You miss my point. In the blue corner we have the Wing Chun were the forms are absolutely esssential tools in order to learn this devastating art..... Now? In the red corner? Well my oh my..... they're there for mediation, and not self defence. All these different schools..... and all these different, contradictory, interpretations.

It's a bit like the abstract art world. A few squiggles here and there have all kinds of underlying meanings.... Every so often someone sneaky bastage submits a picture created by a 6 year old, and all the experts tell us how inciteful the work is.

That Wing Chun Empereror is as naked as he ever was.

[Red Rum]

Yet more contradictions from the pro Wing Chun folks.

Not at all. Wing chun is known as a street fighting art (nicknamed the street fighting art of Hong Kong)
Yet, you wouldn't say that an art like say BJJ is only for sport use would you?
BJJ has realistic (street worthy) applications, just as wing chun has less realistic applications (ie meditation, non-combat techniques).
But every wing chun school is different.
Personally, I prefer to train in a realistic manner (ie forms and chi sao are useful, but you aren't going to wish you'd done more chi sao when you are facing an ugly brute in some dark alley)

[IPON]

We don't do forms in my school, primarily for the reasons stated - but then Sil Lim Tao is more like moving meditation that is practiced for a number of reasons, self defense not being one of them.

I am curious, how have you studied wing chun for 5 years and not practiced any of the three forms?

[Thai Bri]

Yet more contradictions from the pro Wing Chun folks.

[Laura]

I train in turning style and have been a student for more than five years nows. Every school of Wing Chun is different. My belief, is maybe you didn't have such a great Sifu. We don't do forms in my school, primarily for the reasons stated - but then Sil Lim Tao is more like moving meditation that is practiced for a number of reasons, self defense not being one of them. It's not Karate. If you really don't have a good school, drop out and try something else. Personally, I'd love to find a good teacher of Bak Mei where I live, but for now, I've got a good teacher of Wing Chun so I'm not killing myself looking....

Good luck.

[jubaji]

Say, didn't you make a dramatic 'leaving' speech?

[Hot_Wings]

“Both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have redone their form hand-to-hand combats to adopt more ground grappling techniques due - I believe - to BJJ's proven effectiveness.”

Proven effectiveness at what? The effectiveness that the military is looking for is not life threatening self defense, but instead preserving the life of the enemy in a submission hold.

The military has redone their ground fighting techniques because the role of the military has changed. Many people have thoroughly criticized the militaries new hand to hand combat manuals. In the days of yesteryear, the old military manuals included almost no ground fighting techniques. This is because taking fights to the ground is a fool’s game, militarily speaking.

Each soldier is given a combat knife in times of war. Stand up knife fighting techniques were the pinnacle of military hand to hand combat training in years gone past. If someone was dumb enough to want to tackle you and fight you on the ground then it was just plain old common sense that you would whip out your k-bar and shank the idiot who tackled you. But letting the enemy get close enough to tackle you without first drawing your knife was mistake number one.

But the military is now trying to fill the role of a police force and not a defense force. The needs have now foolishly changed from defending a soldier’s life at the expense of the enemy to, instead, preserving the life of the enemy perhaps over the life of the soldier. Political Correctness has once again foolishly pervaded military training.

Instead of killing the enemy, the mission has now changed to putting the enemy into submission. Many soldiers will needless get killed by this approach. Most of the militaries new hand to hand combat manual covers unarmed combat. But just like serious street crime, unarmed combat is a rarity in times of war. But our military planners know that most of our future engagements will be in third world crap whole like Afghanistan and Iraq. They know that the war itself will be quickly won over these technologically deficient armies in third world countries.

Military planners now understand that peacekeeping roles are more important for military soldiers than warfare roles. It took 4-5 years to win World War two. Training a soldier to kill the enemy was the priority. Now, it only takes a few weeks to overcome a third world country’s military forces. However, it still takes years of occupation to instill a functioning new government. During these years of occupation, military soldiers have to “play cop” to the civilian population. They can no longer simply kill anyone that comes at them. Instead, they have to play nice and attempt to preserve the life of their attacker. They are told to do this now so that the civilian population is not further alienated by the occupation forces.

Essentially, our soldiers have to risk their own lives in wrestling combatants on the ground instead of simply taking them out. That’s why the military has changed its hand to hand combat manual. It is not because it is what is best for the soldier. It is because it is what is best for the militaries new “police” role on the global stage.

The number one way that a police officer dies is either being shot or stabbed, not being wrestled to death, ring style. Don’t be a fool and think that taking a fight to the ground is the preferred way to defend yourself. It is not.

Is learning wrestling moves and BJJ a good thing to know? Sure. Any techniques of wrestling and hand to hand combat have their place and time. But what I see going on in America these days is the fool’s game of people thinking that Wrestling and Ground Grappling is the “preferred” method of self defense. It is not.

Going to the ground is what “can” happen, not what you want.

[Red Rum]

Good post.

I think however BJJ is street applicable as fights close very quickly

Every fight I have been in, someone has grabed me somewhere. This sets up opportuniy for grappling arts

What you have to remember is that if you take a fight to the floor there is a danger of another opponent to join in, or for submissions to not really be effective

Yet, despite this, BJJ is an extremely useful art to have even a basic knowledge of

[Knuckles&Knees]

Hot_Wings said:

To Thai Bri

I have never taken Wing Chun. I have only taken a few martial arts classes over my lifetime. I am no expert at martial arts. I’m barely a beginner really. But your post and the lack of in depth answers to it has surprised me and prompted me to investigate it. Here is what I found. I am buying a book on Wing Chun to further my investigations. The problem, as I see it, with many martial artists is that they do not evaluate their own system in the real world.

In my experience, anyone interested in any kind of martial arts should first learn about Bruce Lee and his personal frustration in his own personal experience with martial arts being used in the real world. His creation of Jeet Kun Do is a worthwhile read and study for any new martial arts beginner, no matter what method of martial arts they are taking, because it immediately gets you to focus on whether what you are studying is actually practical in a real fight for your life.

However, I feel that the Chinese martial arts are worth intensive study because they fully include in their system the use of many weapons. The problem is that many dojo’s do not teach weapons to beginning students. So, a first year BJJ bully looks for first year Karate students to wrestle on the ground with and beat up in high schools all across the country. However, the real world is not the controlled environment of high school. Ambush wrestling practices are a fool’s game against armed or multiple opponents. This is why the BJJ bullies most often go around in gangs because they know the weaknesses of the “sport” against armed opponents.

Not to revive acrimony that may already be dead, but in the possibility that you may browse through and read this, Hot_Wings, I'll just offer a friendly and respectful suggestion to you in case you decide to pursue a combat art.

BJJ is actually a very complex art in it's very subtle nuances. In fact it differs greatly from folkstyle wrestling (Roman-Greco based wrestling style found in U.S. high schools) in its lack of reliance on raw muscle power.

BJJ is an art that's also effective against a single opponent with an edged weapon. It's fair to say a skilled BJJ player will break the arm of his enemy that threatens him (the weapon arm/hand).

Your great military units that were involved often in close range combat like the Romans, Greeks, Samurai, and Mongols all specialized in grappling when it came to hand to hand and not stand up striking (though of course a mixture of both is often involved).

The military - and I was once in it - is good at what it specializes in. Turning out individual gladiators is not one of them (and no the spec ops are not individual gladiators over team players). Various cultures in the civilian world are *much* better at this e.g. boxing gyms, BJJ schools, prisons and so forth.

Both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have redone their form hand-to-hand combats to adopt more ground grappling techniques due - I believe - to BJJ's proven effectiveness.

Also, most people, in my opinion, don't grapple in civilian altercations for two major reasons: 1) They don't know how to. 2) Many cultures or subcultures like the U.S. inner cities emphasize stand up punching skills. I came up in a culture that emphasized and glorified the hands (needless to say my ability was naturally more there than wrestling)

Think of it like the cultural differences between U.S. inner cities and Brazilian favelas when it comes to basketball or soccer. The Brazilian came up in a culture of soccer, the U.S. stud a culture of basketball.

Just because the U.S. kid is raised in a cultural social history of Sugar Ray Robinson doesn't mean Sambo or Judo from the East are ineffective. And yeah... many of us in the U.S. were raised up on "Black Belt Theater" which glorified the Chinese styles, but let that not blind us to what BJJ has proven itself to in the octagon. (real gladiators)


Peace.

[bodhisattva]

there are many who have trained in muay thai or western boxing or wing chun for years but still are not good at fighting.
.

Seriously? There are many Thai Boxers and Western Boxers, with YEARS of experience who can't fight?

You're off your lid!

[bodhisattva]

I trained WC for approximately 1 year. I put my heart and soul into it and rarely missed a day. Even when there was no lesson I spent my time refining what I had been taught.

From WC I took some of the parrying movements and the bil jee (which I have now rejected in favour of other ways to throw the fingers). Not alot to show for all that work.

Yeah, I agree with all that you typed. The sad truth of Wing Chun is that the (few) things it DOES pass on can be obtained much faster (and more completely) in other systems.

[Thai Bri]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

But that's the beauty of the place!

Haw Haw Haw!

[jubaji]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

I have gone over many threads here looking for experienced advice and mostly, like most other waste of time forums, I have only found useless crap opinion with little to no supporting information. To those who told me to do shut my mouth until i learn more, go **** off. People like you contribute nothing. you only make these forums useless for the rest of us.

Way to go moderators! You let another forum go shit becuase of a few arrogant asses!

To anyone with half a brain, take my advice and don't waste you time here.

Ah, the dramatic 'leaving' speech! Just F-ing go then. You come in saying you've never actually trained in anything then proceed to make all manner of assumptions and hang your whole justification on 'experience'. Then the defensiveness comes, and the anger, and finally the soap-opera dramatics. Feh!

[lucidmist]

To Thai Bri

I have never taken Wing Chun. I have only taken a few martial arts classes over my lifetime. I am no expert at martial arts. I’m barely a beginner really. But your post and the lack of in depth answers to it has surprised me and prompted me to investigate it. Here is what I found. I am buying a book on Wing Chun to further my investigations. The problem, as I see it, with many martial artists is that they do not evaluate their own system in the real world.

In my experience, anyone interested in any kind of martial arts should first learn about Bruce Lee and his personal frustration in his own personal experience with martial arts being used in the real world. His creation of Jeet Kun Do is a worthwhile read and study for any new martial arts beginner, no matter what method of martial arts they are taking, because it immediately gets you to focus on whether what you are studying is actually practical in a real fight for your life.

However, I feel that the Chinese martial arts are worth intensive study because they fully include in their system the use of many weapons. The problem is that many dojo’s do not teach weapons to beginning students. So, a first year BJJ bully looks for first year Karate students to wrestle on the ground with and beat up in high schools all across the country. However, the real world is not the controlled environment of high school. Ambush wrestling practices are a fool’s game against armed or multiple opponents. This is why the BJJ bullies most often go around in gangs because they know the weaknesses of the “sport” against armed opponents.



http://www.moderncombatives.org/

Weapons are a real part of life, and wanting to bring a real world fight to the ground when weapons are involved is the worst thing that you can do. Imagine next time that you see an UFC bout that the opponents have kubotons or knives in their hands instead of padded gloves. Imagine watching that BJJ guy getting hit in the head repeatedly with spikes while he is attempting to wrestle his opponent in a choke hold. That’s the reason that outside of ring matches and controlled environments like high school you do not see to many people wanting to wrestle people on the ground. To me, BJJ is just a sport, not a martial art. I would probably get much the same “ground fighting” experience from learning wrestling then I would BJJ.

UFC fights do not include eye gouging, groin shots, biting, and many other valid real world tactics. When I saw my first UFC bout on TV and Gracie immediately dove at the opponent’s feet, I turned off the television. It’s just foolish in a real fight.

That being said, I do the value of the training in BJJ. I know, contradictory huh. The value in it is in the wrestling aspects and learning and practicing effective Brass Knuckle punches and kuboton strikes against BJJ. Foolish kids like to tackle people in ambush type fights. Being prepared and familiar with this style of fighting is only prudent for defense. As well, BJJ trains students largely against other students. So, like the military training it should be quick to learn and practice. I can imagine that with training partners outside of the Dojo to increase the actual one on one practice time, then six months of BJJ training should be adequate familiarization with the techniques and defenses against ambush tackling practices. As well, most police training and military training these days all ready teach Judo and ground fighting techniques.

But I can fully understand your frustration with Wing Chun. Bruce Lee had this same frustration after a lot more training in Wing Chun than you have done. SO, don’t feel alone there for sure. Punching air is a fools practice. However, you must remember the roots of Wing Chun. Wing Chun was training designed specifically to get a girl to defeat a male opponent in a ring style fight, with rules, in less than a year. A small young Chinese girl does not have, nor will develop, strong punches against larger opponents in less than a year’s time. So, naturally, the training involved speed, not power. Most bouts, as the girl “Wing Chun” had to fight involve point systems, not knock out blows. That means that if she wanted to beat the male that she was fighting then she needed to score many hits, more than have effective ones. These are where the roots of the Wing Chun system started, which is why it is called Wing Chun (the name of the girl who trained to fight a public bout).

To quote the U.S. Army’s new Combatives training manual on page145…



The words, “Recognize that stand up fighting skills are difficult to master” are the most important words in that entire quoted paragraph. I don’t have the answer for you on what to take, or even how to train best in a Chinese system for the real world. But, that is exactly what I am trying to find out myself. Hung Gar seems to be a system designed from the male standpoint and not the female and seems to focus more on power instead of pure speed. Obviously, both are important; however, I would start with a system that is designed around larger males, and not one that began with public bout fighting for females.

In my area, there are not too many Kung Fu places around, however, there is a place called TOAS Nabard Kung Fu that seems to be someone who has taken a Chinese type system or variant and modified it to be more effective in actual combat. I have yet to take classes there, but firm plans are once again on the board when my work schedule changes in January.

Basically I would stay away from a place that does not teach weapons to beginning students. Why? Because the idea that one needs years of hand and footwork before learning a weapon is flawed. There are countless stories in history of untrained farmers and hastily trained soldiers beating out well trained armies and gangs in hand to hand combat, not because of years of training, but because of a smarter choice of tactics. In essence a spear beats a short sword any day of the week, no matter which person is better trained because of the tactical advantage of the spears focused thrusting power and greater range over that of the short sword.

The best line I ever heard from a martial arts instructor about self defense was, “Get a gun and learn how to use it well before you do anything else.” However, I am going to take some Kung Fu type classes myself and see how it goes. I suggest that you have a private talk with the person sunning your classes and tell him the cold hard facts that you have presented here. Say, look man, I fight with people all the time in my real everyday job" "What I am learning here isn't helping me at all" "I need something that really works for me and starts working quickly." "What am I doing wrong, or how can you help me progess more quickly to be able to use this stuff in the real world now"

Why are we advocating weapons? And when I was in the army, many of my buddies couldn't fight for nuts even after having gone through years of training. It doesn't mean just cos someone was in the army, he can fight. It doesn't mean cos someone's born a Thai, he can do Muay Thai and fight well. Besides, most of the traditinal Chinese arts actually teach defense against opponents weilding weapons. If we can't even master our body, we shouldn't bother trying with the extensions in that much of a hurry. My senior in a Chinese art called Khung Chang was already trained in using the spear for years, but there was one incident where he almost took his own toe out cos he misgauged the retrieval distance after swinging the spear out. Imagine what would've happened to a beginning student who hasn't even mastered using his primary body. It's even possible to cut your own hands just using a small knife, if you haven't been mentally conditioned to sparring/fighting situations. Weapons for absolute beginners, I think it's a bad idea. Just an opinion.

[Ghost]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

I have gone over many threads here looking for experienced advice and mostly, like most other waste of time forums, I have only found useless crap opinion with little to no supporting information. To those who told me to do shut my mouth until i learn more, go **** off. People like you contribute nothing. you only make these forums useless for the rest of us.

Way to go moderators! You let another forum go shit becuase of a few arrogant asses!

To anyone with half a brain, take my advice and don't waste you time here.

you have contributed nothing but a pile of tripe of an opinion on several martial arts, none of which you have any experience of.
You then went on to back up your lunatic ideas with tales of woe and military service.

Let me ask you this, if i were to make sweeping statements about the military in iraq that made little to no sense on a military forum do you think it would be ripped apart? do you think that then it would be intelligent to back up my statements about the military by detailing my martial arts training and ring experience?
No because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

I pulled you up on the most obvious statements in your long winded post that made the least sense, there were others. You then had no reply for that but to go on some rant about dead bodies and nurses.
You then get told to shut up by jubaji, and probably quite rightly.
Your next comeback is to tell us that we lack and real life experience because you cant find any evidence of it on this forum.

Unlike you we dont give a detailed account of the depressing episodes of our lives. You think we havent lived, what do you know? For instance you have no idea who i am or what i have done and seen in my life, and your evidence for us having "not lived" is because we havent detailed our life experiences on this forum.
I have also dealt with dead bodies and people dieing in front of me, as part of a costal rescue service in the uk, ive attended autopsies and pulled dead people out of the water, so what?, deal with it, it doesnt give you a valid point on this thread or any other and it isnt, real world experience, its just one side of the world. thats all, get over it.

You cant stick to topic and you are mentally unstable. You also have wild notions and fantastical ideas about things you have no experience of and no knowledge of. These are the rantings of a mad man.