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

[lucidmist]

i think every style has its use, just that when it boils down to a fight, we really react with the way our minds and our limbs have been conditioned (like punches and kicks we've practised over the years, and if we haven't been taught to use our knees, unless we're a natural, some would not instinctively react with that. just an example, i know plenty who would). there are many who have trained in muay thai or western boxing or wing chun for years but still are not good at fighting. if our instincts suck, then it'd be tough. style is not really the biggest factor in a real fight.

when it comes down to an actual fight, whatever style you're in, if your training involved lots of hard sparring, possibly you'll react better but it still doesn't mean you can fight extremely well cos there's plenty of uncertainty involved in a real fight. if you've only been trained to hit against the air, then honestly, whichever style you're in, you can forget about fighting.

[Thai Bri]

"The trouble with you Thai Bri is that you think everything you see in wing chun clips is non-wing chun."

Not at all. Only the effective bits, like the right crosses, the grappling, the round kicks. They're are quite clearly not Wing Chun. Yet they are the only things having any effect.

It's really so simple. I've heard of a guy called Kevin Chan who trains extensively in other arts to supplement his Wing Chun...... I wonder why.

[Red Rum]

"The trouble with you Thai Bri is that you think everything you see in wing chun clips is non-wing chun.".

Not at all. Only the effective bits, like the right crosses, the grappling, the round kicks. They're are quite clearly not Wing Chun. Yet they are the only things having any effect..

I completely agree. Grappling on the floor is not wing chun, crosses and round kicks are definately not wing chun.
This distinction is made in class when we train. If we box, we are boxing. If we grapple, we are doing BJJ. When I have got into fights, I rarely box or grapple. Clinches do happen (almost every time) but instead of using BJJ we will use wing chun in those situations

It's really so simple. I've heard of a guy called Kevin Chan who trains extensively in other arts to supplement his Wing Chun...... I wonder why.

We train in other arts mainly for fitness or just so we know how to engage boxers if we are fighting boxers etc.

When it comes to streetfighting, you want to use wing chun, because at close quarters, you don't want to start trading punches with someone bigger than you, stronger than you etc. You might win if you are a good fighter, but it will be hard. If you train in Kamon, a big guy should be no different to fight than a smaller guy etc

If you ever come to a demo, Sifu (Kevin Chan) explains fully the differences in his training and why we do wing chun. They are worth attending

[Thai Bri]

I think the whole concept of choosing one art for one scenario, and then changing to another art for another is flawed. Especially during the sudden ferocity of a real fight.

You need to either devise a system that covers it all anyway or, like most do, take this or that from each system and try to blend it together as one - not as a choice of 3 or 4.

[Red Rum]

I think the whole concept of choosing one art for one scenario, and then changing to another art for another is flawed. Especially during the sudden ferocity of a real fight.

You need to either devise a system that covers it all anyway or, like most do, take this or that from each system and try to blend it together as one - not as a choice of 3 or 4.

That is a fair opinion
For me, I compare it to a battle. You would start with a bow and arrow when your opponent was far away, then as he moved closer you would use a spear, then a sword, then a dagger, then bare hands.
You wouldn't use one weapon to fit all those ranges

A lot of Kamon fighting blends together, so most students can switch to other arts if needbe.

To be honest, I am not a high rank in BJJ or Muay Thai so I stick with what I'm good at and what has worked previously

[Gurokevin]

Thai Bri, I am sorry that you had a bad experience in Wing Chun. I hope you can find a 'real' WC teacher. I have done Wing Chun for 26 years now, and i can honestly say that MOST of the WC 'Sifu's' & 'Masters' are f***ing crap. They couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag let alone a real fight. How can they teach anyone to fight if they have never been in one? Answer - They can't!

This does not put down the effectiveness of Wing Chun itself. I have used it many times in 'real' sparring sessions and real fights with extreme effectiveness. But you have to find those few teachers out their that no how to apply it. Most wing chun people out there never get away from doing chi sao. This is a mistake. You HAVE to spar very hard (in all ranges) to make anything out of it. Unfortunately, 99% of Wing Chunners will never go there. I am curious, who did you learn from? Actually, never mind. If they could not teach you how to fight (not chi sao) in a full year, I don't want to know their name.

If you ever make it down to the Alabama USA area come look me up. I will teach you how effective WC can be.

[dimmak786]

Thanks fascinating thread

[Hot_Wings]

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.

As Rex Applegate said in his book Kill or get Killed “Unarmed combat is just what the name implies- a system of fighting intended for use when weapons are not available or when their use is not advisable”

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…

Any training plan that does not serve to build this fundamental aggressiveness is actually counter productive. Confidence comes from competence. It is not enough to simply tell soldiers to be aggressive; they must have a faith in their abilities built through hard and arduous training and know that they are going to win; so that when that weapon does malfunction three feet from the bad guy, they will instinctively attack.

Recognizing that standup fighting skills are difficult to master in a short amount of time, compare takedowns to the basic tackle. The following techniques are essentially a more
sophisticated way to tackle the enemy.

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"

[jubaji]

Holy crap, what an idiot! You could make a contest out of listing all the stupid statements found within that post.

[Ghost]

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 which you admit you dont have any of, 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.i dont see any requirement to do this at all, many people have different ideas on what works and what doesnt

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. you would know that with your vast experience, most do teach weapons to beginnersSo, 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 bullieswho are the BJJ bullies, is this some gang we dont know about? most people i know that do BJJ are nice people most often go around in gangs because they know the weaknesses of the “sport” against armed opponents. bullshit, BJJ guys dont go around in gangs ffs, what a load of crap, when was the last time any police unit was tracking down the latest BJJ gang.



http://www.moderncombatives.org/

Weapons are a real part of lifeno they arent, my mother is a university lecturer and has never need to shoot or stab anyone and nor have i, 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 guyBJJ again whats going on, now imagine the BJJ guy also has a weapon, who might with then on the ground? 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 most people arent in high school so stop referring to ityou 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.load of crap, what happens when the weapons are taken away, a good BJJ guy will do very well against most other good martial artists

UFC fights do not include eye gouging, groin shots, biting, and many other valid real world tacticsWhich BJJ guys are aware of, its not like theyve never heard of it, whos going to be better at doing that on the ground, the guy that hasnt trained on the ground or the BJJ guy that has?. 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.even if the fight is 1 on1?

That being said, I do the value of the training in BJJ. I know, contradictory huh.yes it is a bit The value in it is in the wrestling aspects and learning and practicing effective Brass Knuckle punches and kuboton strikes against BJJhoping the bjj guy hasnt got a knife. 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 studentsshow me a system that doesnt. 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 practicesyou say this yet so few people are able to stop their takedowns. 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 practiceyou must do alot of this. 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 worldso after all that crap you dont actually have a solution, great. 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.” if you shoot someone that isnt shooting at you its murderHowever, 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 hereof which you have absolutely no understanding whatsoever. 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"

Tbh, your lack of any experience at all shows through glaringly, it always amazes me how much rubbish people talk specifically about BJJ and muay thai as well, seeing them as simple ineffective systems. The reality is that they are very complex and detailed and all this, but they dont teach eye gouges crap, i mean really, the chance of you pulling off an eye gouge on a BJJ guy that is a split second away from snapping or chocking you is so limited.
The whole point of BJJ is that they have you totally under control, spar with a good BJJ guy and see what happens, youll soon learn the hard way, as many do, that you wont stand a chance unless you have some really really good ground techniques to match.

[Hot_Wings]

More children getting bent out of shape, Boo Hoo

Lack of any experience at all…

I love how you kids get all defensive about your “Sport” and jump all over people like me who mentioned the facts of life about weapons, crime, and the real world. I’ve done Navy Military security in the reserves, 4 years active duty in the Navy (two of that four with a Marine Corps infantry platoon) and six years as a security guard for emergency rooms, hotels, Private residence, factories, and even city ports. I’m 34 yeas old, and I have seen my share of regular off duty fights and skirmishes as well.

I’ve had guns pointed at me 3 times and a baseball bat once (no knives yet thank God). I’ve had to wrestle and tackle Baker Act patients on a routine bases for over a year. I’ve had to sit down unarmed for hrs at a time against schizophrenic patients who routines bite and attack nurses, some of them with communicable diseases. I’ve had to guard the ER for hrs at a time against angry mobs of gang bangers who had a fellow member knifed or shot and stuck in the ICU not able to have visitors, not even their own parents, wives, or kids.

I’ve had to escort nurses to their car days on end because some drunken jerk threatened the nurse after getting treated from his Saturday bar brawl. I’ve had to heal with a truckload of vandals breaking down street signs with baseball bats on private property that the cops were ordered not to go to unless we called them because of the clientele who lived there. I’ve had to deal with another truck load of thieves who decided to take their oversized truck to the hotels during a hurricane so that they could break into car after car in parking lots that the police vehicles couldn’t get too.

I’ve seen people die who looked like they would live and I’ve seen people live who I thought for sure would die. I’ve seen one of the biggest guys I ever met cry his eyes out because the poodle of a girl he was hitting on mangled his nose. There were three of us guards on that guy and one highway patrol officer.

So no, my experience with fighting and dealing with other people doesn’t come from a dojo or a ring. I have never taken martial arts classes for more than a session or two. But to say that I have no experience at all is an arrogant move that only childish people make. I haven’t seen it all that’s for sure and I certainly don’t want too. But I’ve seen enough to know very quickly what really works and what I worth learning and what won’t work and is worth forgetting.

I realize after many years of dealing with people that Martial arts is worth investigation and that is what I have finally decided to do with my spare time. But will only bother with BJJ enough to know the basics and not enough to foolishly think that tackling people is the best thing to do for self defense.

[Ghost]

None of that has anyting to do with the subject. we are talking about fighting and martial arts, of which you point out and clearly have no experience of. I couldnt give a crap about what military experience you have as its utterly irrelevant and means nothing unless guns are involved.

And im not a kid unless 30 years old is a child, most of the people on this forum are also not kids.

Try, if you can, to stick to the topic and make a relevant rebuttal rather than list some nondescript military career that has no relevance to the topic.

It amuses me that people think that stating they have served in the armed services suddenly validates their claims on a subject.

[Hot_Wings]

No fighting experience?

"I have no experience fighting?"

My post (not to you by the way) was to a person who felt that what he was learning in Wing Chun he felt would not help him in the real world. I agreed with him and stated some reasons why and some ideas on what to do about it. But you took offense to my post because I bad mouthed BJJ. Yet, you don’t even have enough self control to admit that my comments about BJJ are what upset you. So, you took over this guys thread with personal attacks at me and made nothing but childish “you don’t know what you’re talking about” comments directed at me.

You don’t know me. You don’t have a clue what I know or what I don’t know. And like most people with no self control you just made pointless attacks at me to bring me down and claim that nothing that I have mentioned is relevant.

You will just claim that I am off topic when nothing that you have said towards me was even close to topic or coherent arguments conflicting my personal point of view or advice to the poster.

I advised the poster that he might want to look into Hung Gar because it was designed for power

I advised the poster to have a sincere honest talk with his teacher about his concerns

I advised the poster that he study Bruce Lee’s own frustrations with Wing Chun to better understand his.

Yet you spout off absolutes like, “nothing I said” and “No experience at all”. Do you think that no one can see your pointless attacks? You are the one taking this thread off topic with your personal attacks against me. But because of your defensive position against my comments about BJJ you only see your side of the story and speak to me in absolutes. And you’re the so called martial arts expert? You can’t even listen to a ew comments about BJJ without totally coming unglued and making attacks against me and absolute comments like, “nothing” and “no experience at all”.

Am I supposed to look up to that? Wow, another martial arts guy with no self control and a bad attitude! Why am I not surprised. And here I thought that Martial Arts was to teach self control, patience, and reason. But I’ve been around the block enough to know that most martial artists are just arrogant punks who are just looking for a fight and take martial arts only to reinforce to inner desire to bully others. You sound like just the kind of Martial Arts guy that I have met a thousand times over, the one who hasn’t learned a thing about the bigger things in life.

Here is another story that you will find “off topic”. That is, only because you haven’t done it yourself. It’s about dealing with dead bodies and why I want to learn a real martial art, not some ring sport that will get me killed. I am going to have to make another post about it because, like most, real stories, it isn’t short and sweet.

[Hot_Wings]

Dead Bodies

The first time that you roll a dead body to the morgue from the ER you’re no thinking about it much. You’re too busy taking mental notes from the nurse next to you who is barking procedures to you like there is no tomorrow.

“And always lock the wheels down good after you put them in the freezer” she barks.

I remember that one because it was a visual order, not the one about what I was supposed to write down in the log book about so in so. You wheel the body down there, unlock the door, log in the body and then properly place it in the freezer. There is a little more too it than that, but that’s the basics. You would think that it was an easy job really, but after a while, no one wanted to do it. I didn’t understand why at first.

By the third body the nurse is getting tired of escorting you down to the morgue because it is, after all, your job and not hers and she is still thinking about the other patients that in her charge back in the ER, not the one that is all ready gone. Now, instead of trying to overcomplicate the job to you with orders she is trying to keep it simple so that it is quick and she can get back to her other work. You get it over with pretty fast. All the I’s are dotted and get out of there. You still haven’t really had time to think about things yet, and even if you did you think it might be something simple like, “Poor bastard” “You shouldn’t have let yourself get so fat” or something simple like that. You still don’t know why none of the ER nurses or guards wants to take dead bodies to the morgue. But you think it’s because they are just squeamish or overly religious.

By the fifth body there is no one escorting you to make sure that you do it right. You take your time making the trip because you don’t want to go back to guarding the psycho baker act patient in room one again who not too soon before just tried to bite you. It’s the first time that you sit there for a second and think about the “Poor Bastard” on the “Slab” as they call it. After you die your name is always “Poor Bastard” or “Fat Guy” or something like that. No one calls them Judy or Tom anymore after they die except the family and friends. I sat there for a second and thought about “Poor Bastard”. I never saw his face. I think he came in on the shift before me so I never actually met the guy. It was also the first time that I felt like saying some kind of prayer, but I didn’t. I just closed the freezer door, signed the log book and went back to the psycho in room one.

As a side note, all the psycho’s were put in room one because it was the ER only had one room set up with a camera in it and a restraint system. It used to be that they could close the door to the psycho room as long as there was an ER guard there with the patient because it was all on camera. But that changed when a Baker Act patient snuck in a scalpel in the room and killed a guard by cutting his throat. Damn near cut his hear off I hear. I was surprised that a scalpel could do that. So then they made a policy never to shut the door to the psycho room.

By the tenth time that you wheel someone down to the ER is when things start to go wrong. It takes about ten times before something breaks the routine of just shutting the door and signing the log. My tenth time happened entirely on my shift, which I was to find out is always a bad thing. What I mean is that I was the one who helped the EMT’s bring her in and stood guard outside her door while they tried to save her life before she died. She was 19 years old. A popular girl from a local high school they said. Decent grades, nice family, well liked, that sort of thing. She was apparently the unwitting victim of some guys GHB laced Mountain Dew drink. It happened in a bar somewhere downtown. Some guy gave her his mountain dew to drink on the dance floor. He made it seem like he had just bought it from the cooler girl in the bar and apparently had just gave it away carelessly to any girl who wanted it. He of course knew exactly who he wanted to have it and orchestrated the affair to go that way. The drink was still cold and with the loud music I am sure that the girl didn’t realize that the drink had all ready been opened or pierced with a needle and drugged.

Her friends say that she danced and drank just a little of the drink and then collapsed on the floor of the club. They at least were smart enough to bring the drink with them to the ER for testing and analysis. Sure enough, it was loaded with GHB. The careless person who laced the drink didn’t calculate at all the proper dosage. The drink would have killed anyone who drank more than a quarter of it.

But I was there outside the door to her room keeping out her family and friends. Her parents were allowed in, but not her brothers and sisters. There just wasn’t enough room for them. She was shaking violently in the bed. A GHB overdose is not a quiet way to die at all. It was hard to get the IVs in her to attempt to flush her system of the chemicals that were killing her. Eventually, I got the call to take her to the Morgue. It seemed like the entire hospital was crying that night. All kinds of people showed up in the few hrs it took for the GHB to take her away and of course all got the bad news at the same time. She put up a good fight I guess, better than others I saw from drug overdoses.

There was the same old nurse with me this time. Not because it was procedure, but just because this time the nurse wanted to say goodbye. Every nurse has their soft spot. You hardly ever see it, but if they didn’t really care about something very deeply then they wouldn’t be nurses for very long. This nurse was a charge nurse, a career ER nurse. She had seen it all and then some. It was valiant the way that this nurse tried to save this young girls life. She moved as fast as she could, she seemed to do everything right. But nothing it seems was going to save this girl.

When the outside morgue door closed she broke down. Sometimes it seems that ER personnel can only talk to people who don’t work in the ER directly. It’s like they can’t break down in front of other staff, especially ones that they are supervising. But I was a guard; I dealt with crying people a lot. My post was with usually in the ER waiting room with people crying about loved ones being treated in the trauma room. It was OK for a Charge Nurse to cry in front of me because everyone seemed to cry in front of me because I always had to be where things were happening around people who cared. She said a tearful goodbye, a very nice prayer, and a sort of I’m sorry this happened to you and quietly left the room.

I stood there for a minuet, just outside the freezer door and just looked at the dark bag lying on the slab. I tried to distance myself from all the crying family and friends, the charge nurse’s tearful goodbye, the dead 19 year old victim in front of me, but I couldn’t. This time it was different. This person in front me was a victim, not “Fat Guy” or “Poor Bastard”. This was a 19 year old girl who was either murdered on purpose or by accident. This was someone who by all accounts of her trusted people and was kind and cheerful all the time. This was someone who did not deserve to die.

I came to my senses, shut the door, made the log entry and went back to the ER. I went to the cafeteria to sit for a while. Guards always know the best places in a joint for peace and quiet. Most often times, it’s places that you wouldn’t think of. At night, the cafeteria is closed and only the security lights are on. NO one goes down there at night, so I could just get a drink out the machine and sit there for a while and think about things for a bit. If they needed me they would call me on the radio for sure.

I told myself that I would never take a drink from some person in a bar, no matter what. Such a simple rule really, but I had just got done wheeling the body a person who lost their life because of not following a simple rule like that. That was when I realized why people don’t like the duty of taking bodies to the morgue. It’s because sometimes you will get attached to the person that died. You can’t help it. You’re not a human being if you don’t.

But the danger is when you start making all kinds of rules for every victim of a crime that you wheel into the freezer. Over just a few months the list had grown from “Never take drinks from strangers” into always carry a “window breaker in the car” and “wear gloves as best you can even if it’s hot.” Eventually, you come to the realization that life is simply dangerous at all times. You realize that no where is really safe and you can’t protect against everything, not matter how strong or smart you are, or how much you train or prepare.

But seeing all the people who die at the hands of other people in your section of the city you start to get bitter and extremely defensive about your life. You constantly tell yourself that you refuse to let yourself become a victim like the people that you wheel into the morgue. I think that anyone who in charge of other peoples lives should be forced to wheel bodies into the morgue for at least a year. I think that everyone who teaches martial arts should have to do this for a year as well and see the people who end up there who supposedly had training.

When I guy dies because he was stabbed to death you tell yourself that you might want to wear a chain mail undershirt on occasion. Each and every violent death isn’t a name in the paper or a headline on TV. Instead, it the “Poor Bastard” that you have to touch the bag of in order to make sure his body doesn’t fall off the slab and onto the floor of the freezer in the morgue. You become an extreme realist of life and not a bystander. You see things, perhaps for the first time, as they really are. You realize that your life, and everyone else’s, is just a few mistakes away from the “slab”. You fully understand that people die all the time. Everyone, young, old, big, small, everyone.


Most people think they understand this but they really don’t at all. They haven’t had it drilled into time and time again by wheeling dead bodies around that only moments ago sometimes you were talking too.

But in the time that I was there, the people who died who were martial artists were surprisingly very few. They didn’t have diabetes, and they usually at least survived violent encounters. They weren’t overweight and dying of heart attacks every day like the “Poor Bastards”. Strangely enough, they didn’t even seem to get shot up like “Gang Banger” or “Dumb Thug” did all the time. For about a thousand different reasons, Martial Artists just seemed to “Survive.”

I don’t want to take martial arts because I am young and I might think that it’s cool. I don’t want to take martial arts because I think that I will be able to take on 10 guys at a time like they do in the movies. I want to take martial arts because I know from real truths in life that they have better chance of living a long and happy life than most others.

[jubaji]

I have never taken martial arts classes for more than a session or two.

Then why don't you STFU until you do? Then you will be in a position to compare all your other experiences with what you are being taught and see what accords with what you 'know' and what doesn't. Until then, you're just going to be telling us your life story over and over and trying to impress with dramatics and anecdotes. I'm bored already.