'Things I should have learned about WC in a year but didnt.'

[Troll Virus]

Punches don't have to be perfect, they just have to be hard enough and accurate enough to hurt your opponent.

There's always room for improvement.
The closer you get to perfect, the more often you KO.
Ever KO someone with the first hit?

You just admited that it doesn't take years to learn how to generate enough power with a basic strike to hurt someone. Thank you. Why couldn't you have just said "You know what Lu, you're right" and skipped all the bullshit?

I won't presume to speak for TJ, but this threads about Wing Chun within a one year time frame.
TJ's put a lot of effort into his replies.
Maybe he just isn't saying what you want to hear though eh?

There are no quick fixes in boxing, just a whole lot of hard work.

Interesting statement.
Why not expand on that on an appropriate thread?

@ Thai Bri I'm starting to understand why these guys piss you off.

I'm starting to think Thai Bride and you are thinking of getting engaged?

[Juicefree]

In my humble response.

TJ, I apologise if I caused offence. The intentions of my post were not to offend. Twonk is a common and affectionately used term to describe confusing dialogue.

The point of my post was to gain a genuine understanding of why certain (most traditional styles included here) schools teach and instruct 'basic's' as opposed to 'effective' strikes and stances.

Boxers (as one example) from the outset learn a stance that they will use in the ring. From day one their motor engrams are trained in techniques they will use. However many 'classical' styles teach stance and techniques from the outset that have little practical application.

As you appear knowledgeable on the subject I was hoping you could actually explain why (briefly) rather than use analogies.

Troll. You are correct, I am the dog's testicles (again, a light hearted point) so don't forget it. Next time, solely for your benfit I will supply sub-titles for the hard of understanding.

[tjwingchun]

In reply to tjwingchun.

What a load of TWONK !!

Algebra, a,b,c ..l,m,n !! What are you talking about ! I can guess that this is the 'classical mumbo jumbo' Bruce Lee criticised !

From what starts as a perceptive and enlightened view of many 'Classical' martial arts you seem to lose the plot. If you can't explain striking without resorting to very tenuous analogies then it could be because you don't understand yourself ?

WHAT would happen if a year-old baby fell from a fourth-floor window onto the head of a burly truck driver, standing on the sidewalk?
It's practically certain that the truckman would be knocked unconscious. He might die of brain concussion or a broken neck.
Even an innocent little baby can become a dangerous missile WHEN ITS BODY-WEIGHT IS SET INTO FAST MOTION.

You may feel as helpless as a year-old infant-as far as fighting is concerned; but please remember: (1) YOU WEIGH MORE THAN A BABY, and (2) YOU NEED NOT FALL FROM A WINDOW TO PUT YOUR BODY-WEIGHT INTO MOTION.

You have weight, and you have the means of launching that weight into fast motion. Furthermore, you have explosive ingredients. You may not appear explosive. You may appear as harmless as a stick of dynamite, which children have been known to mistake for an oversized stick of taffy.

You can launch your body-weight into fast motion; and, like dynamite, you can explode that hurtling weight against an opponent with a stunning, blasting effect known as follow-through.
Remember this: You don't have to be an athlete to learn how to use your fists. And it doesn't matter whether you're tall or short, fat or skinny, timid or brave. Regardless of your size, shape, or courage, you already have the weapons with which to protect yourself. I repeat: All you have to do is learn to use them correctly.

It's true that nearly every guy can fight a little bit naturally, without having anyone show him the right way. It's true also that the average boy or man might sit down at a piano and be able to pick out some sort of tune with one finger; or he might use the "hunt and peck" system on a typewriter until he had written a couple of lines; or he might jump into a pool and swim a bit with the dog-paddle or with his version of the breast stroke.

But he never could become a good pianist without being taught to play correctly. He never could become a fast, accurate typist without being drilled in the touch system. And he never could become a speed swimmer without being shown the crawl stroke.
It was yanked straight toward the earth by gravity. It encountered nothing to change the direction of its moving body-weight until it struck the truckman's head. However, the direction of a falling object can be changed. Let's take the example of a boy sitting on a sled and sliding down a snowy hill.
In a sense, the boy and his sled are falling objects, like the baby. But the slope of the hill prevents them from falling straight down.

Their fall is deflected to the angle of the hill. The direction of their weight-in-motion is on a slant. And when they reach the level plain at the bottom of the hill, they will continue to slide for a while. However, the direction of their slide on the plain-the direction of their weight-in-motion-will be straight out, at a right angle to the straight-down pull of gravity.

Those examples of the falling baby and the sledding boy illustrate two basic principles of the stepping jolt: (1) that gravity can give motion to weight by causing a fall, and (2) the direction of that weight-in-motion can be deflected away from the perpendicular-on a slant, or straight forward.

"But," you ask, "what's the connection between all that falling stuff and the straight jolt?" I'll answer that question by letting you take your first step as a puncher, and I do mean s-t-e-p.

Equally if you (or the other poster) believe you can strike (punch) effectively after 2-3 weeks then you show even more lack of understanding !

I can't think of much that's simpler or more basic than throwing a good hard punch. Once I was shown how to throw a punch it took me about 10 minutes of hitting a bag to realize that I could hit harder by using my legs and hips. After a couple of weeks the motion felt comfortable and natural to me, and it was obvious from the way the bag moved when I hit it that I was hitting A LOT harder than I used to. It didn't take 2-3 years, it was more like 2-3 weeks.

TO PROTECT yourself with your fists, you must become a knockout puncher. And you may do that within three months, if you're a normal chap-anywhere between twelve and forty. By "normal" I mean healthy and sound-neither ailing nor crippled.

You should be able to knock out a fellow of approximately your own weight, with either fist, if you follow my instructions exactly and practice them diligently. And in six months or a year, you may be able to knock out fellows a lot bigger and heavier than you are.

Take my post the right way. I get the impression you may very well know exactly what you are talking about. However drop the analogies and please tell us all why you do do all those 'seemingly' meaningless stances and strikes if they have no practical application in either the street, or even (dare I suggest it) the ring !

Analogies are ways to get across a point that someone has missed by putting the view in another more obvious general knowledge context, I put the above analogies in as they are the words of Jack Dempsey, but then again I suppose you will say he did not understand either.

The stances are only meaningless if you have no knowledge as to their purpose, Siu Lim Tao stance is for strengthening the legs and is preparation for Chum Kiu, where there is more strengthening and understanding the falling and driving phases of a step, Biu Gee is more the fighting stance, as well as teaching the circling step and lifting energy.

Not sure which strikes you think are meaningless, punch, palm, finger/thumb, elbow or kick?

Give me a more precise question and I will endeavour to answer it without analogy.

[tjwingchun]

You just admited that it doesn't take years to learn how to generate enough power with a basic strike to hurt someone. Thank you. Why couldn't you have just said "You know what Lu, you're right" and skipped all the bullshit?

There are no quick fixes in boxing, just a whole lot of hard work. @ Thai Bri I'm starting to understand why these guys piss you off.

If I was just teaching people only to punch and then I could concentrate just on the dynamics of punching power, and as part of the syllabus that Wing Chun forms make up the punch is taught from the first lesson, I refer to what I call 'LESSON' ONE' all the time when I do seminars, and that means if you are in a fight remeber 'LESSON ONE' punch them!

You said it yourself Sagacious Lu that the more you do the better you get. When I made my comments relating to time scale I was referring to my observations about how students develop their knowledge and how well they understand the punch, so that they could maintain good technique and practice.

Why did Tyson loose his punching power? My view is that after the death of Cus D'Amata and leaving Kevin Rooney he had nobody around him with a good knowledge of punching to keep him on track, watch the early fights and you can see the punch coming up from the floor, later he was relying more on the power of his arms and shoulders, you need to keep practicing the right way to maintain the things you have learned.

To me the forms are abstract, exaggerated movements that isolate the different parts of the body so you can develop knowledge of the muscle groups and the directions that they are effective, chi sau and dummy give you ways of understanding how to apply those energies together to be effective in a conflict situation.

Co-ordination and timing only develop over years and can only be maintained by practice, which is why any professional sports is a 7 days a week job.

You get big increases in skill and ability over the first couple of years, then comes fine tuning and consistancy.

The 'quick fix types' I was referring to were people who join and want everything then and there and are not prepared to put the time in to get it.

Kung Fu = hard work + skill, that is the translation.

I will repeat that I can only give direct answers to direct questions, how long is a piece of string? leads to "How High is a Chinaman? How Low is his brother!"

[tjwingchun]

In my humble response.

TJ, I apologise if I caused offence. The intentions of my post were not to offend. Twonk is a common and affectionately used term to describe confusing dialogue.

No offence taken you TWONKER!

The point of my post was to gain a genuine understanding of why certain (most traditional styles included here) schools teach and instruct 'basic's' as opposed to 'effective' strikes and stances.

The basics should be taught as effective strikes and stances, their practice within the forms as I have said are abstract and exaggerated, outside the form in applications, their usage should be demonstrated in real scenarios, increasing in intensity with experience and understanding.

Boxers (as one example) from the outset learn a stance that they will use in the ring. From day one their motor engrams are trained in techniques they will use. However many 'classical' styles teach stance and techniques from the outset that have little practical application.

The Wing Chun basic stance just has to relax up slightly so that it is a normal standing position and from 'LESSON ONE' you are taught to punch down the centreline to your opponents nose, or stop a strike by protecting your innergate area while covering the centreline.

How more practical can it get! to learn to stop from getting hit and hit when threatened.

As you appear knowledgeable on the subject I was hoping you could actually explain why (briefly) rather than use analogies.

Repeat at the end of this post to reinforce point, the more precise the question the more relevant the answer.

[Sagacious Lu]

If I was just teaching people only to punch and then I could concentrate just on the dynamics of punching power, and as part of the syllabus that Wing Chun forms make up the punch is taught from the first lesson, I refer to what I call 'LESSON' ONE' all the time when I do seminars, and that means if you are in a fight remeber 'LESSON ONE' punch them!

Fair enough, to each his own, Wing Chun isn't my thing but I have no interest in belittling it as an art. I will say that once you understand how the mechanics of a punch work it's not so much a matter of being taught as it is just putting in the time throwing punches. It took my teacher less than a full class to show me the mechanics, after that it was up to me to spend the time hitting the bag. Do you guys use heavy bags or do you hit something else? I ask because although I box now I have a background in kung fu and my shr fu stressed hitting the heavy bag- not as much as my boxing coaches do but he made it clear that that was the way to develop power.

Why did Tyson loose his punching power? My view is that after the death of Cus D'Amata and leaving Kevin Rooney he had nobody around him with a good knowledge of punching to keep him on track, watch the early fights and you can see the punch coming up from the floor, later he was relying more on the power of his arms and shoulders, you need to keep practicing the right way to maintain the things you have learned.

I agree completely that no matter how good you are you have to practice regularly, but I'm willing to bet that Tyson still hits like a freight train compared to the rest of the world. I think he fell off because he lost his heart (and discipline) after his trainer died.



@ Troll Virus: Just STFU and GTFO

[quietobserver]

There are tae kwon do stylists (Yilmaz) who have entered K-1 and knocked out some so-so kickboxers and demonstrated heart against a world champ like Masato.

And Chinese stylists (Gibson) who have blended there styles with muay thai and have knocked out some decent fighters in thailand.

There are kenpo stylists (Hackney) who have knocked out fighters and other athletes and demonstrated heart against world class grapplers (Gracie) and MMA artists.

Can the traditional wingchun community produce a successfull full-contact fighter using wingchun alone?

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would definitely catch the attention of the martial arts world.

I don't think so. Why? because the element of surprise is the main component in Wing Chun. The whole purpose of Wing Chun is attack is the best defence. If you look at Mixed Martial Arts, both fighters are prepared. They hover around each other, try to test each other's boundaries. Wait for the other guy to move and then launch their counter attack. Professional fighters scout each other out. They know each other's styles. The weaknesses and the strengths. A Wing Chun person would lose their biggest advantage: the element of surprise. Martial Arts competitions and Mixed Martial arts are not very realistic in terms of real life fights in the street. What are the chances that a well muscled martial artist is going to pick a fight with you in the middle of the street for no reason? And how often will someone of the same size will come to you and challenge you to a fight? Most times, the other guy is bigger than you, intoxicated, or feels like he can physically take you on. As the smaller guy, you need to act fast, get your sucker punch in, get the guy on the ground and run away.

[quietobserver]

WHAT would happen if a year-old baby fell from a fourth-floor window onto the head of a burly truck driver, standing on the sidewalk?
It's practically certain that the truckman would be knocked unconscious. He might die of brain concussion or a broken neck.
Even an innocent little baby can become a dangerous missile WHEN ITS BODY-WEIGHT IS SET INTO FAST MOTION.

You may feel as helpless as a year-old infant-as far as fighting is concerned; but please remember: (1) YOU WEIGH MORE THAN A BABY, and (2) YOU NEED NOT FALL FROM A WINDOW TO PUT YOUR BODY-WEIGHT INTO MOTION.

You have weight, and you have the means of launching that weight into fast motion. Furthermore, you have explosive ingredients. You may not appear explosive. You may appear as harmless as a stick of dynamite, which children have been known to mistake for an oversized stick of taffy.

You can launch your body-weight into fast motion; and, like dynamite, you can explode that hurtling weight against an opponent with a stunning, blasting effect known as follow-through.
Remember this: You don't have to be an athlete to learn how to use your fists. And it doesn't matter whether you're tall or short, fat or skinny, timid or brave. Regardless of your size, shape, or courage, you already have the weapons with which to protect yourself. I repeat: All you have to do is learn to use them correctly.

It's true that nearly every guy can fight a little bit naturally, without having anyone show him the right way. It's true also that the average boy or man might sit down at a piano and be able to pick out some sort of tune with one finger; or he might use the "hunt and peck" system on a typewriter until he had written a couple of lines; or he might jump into a pool and swim a bit with the dog-paddle or with his version of the breast stroke.

But he never could become a good pianist without being taught to play correctly. He never could become a fast, accurate typist without being drilled in the touch system. And he never could become a speed swimmer without being shown the crawl stroke.
It was yanked straight toward the earth by gravity. It encountered nothing to change the direction of its moving body-weight until it struck the truckman's head. However, the direction of a falling object can be changed. Let's take the example of a boy sitting on a sled and sliding down a snowy hill.
In a sense, the boy and his sled are falling objects, like the baby. But the slope of the hill prevents them from falling straight down.

Their fall is deflected to the angle of the hill. The direction of their weight-in-motion is on a slant. And when they reach the level plain at the bottom of the hill, they will continue to slide for a while. However, the direction of their slide on the plain-the direction of their weight-in-motion-will be straight out, at a right angle to the straight-down pull of gravity.

Those examples of the falling baby and the sledding boy illustrate two basic principles of the stepping jolt: (1) that gravity can give motion to weight by causing a fall, and (2) the direction of that weight-in-motion can be deflected away from the perpendicular-on a slant, or straight forward.

"But," you ask, "what's the connection between all that falling stuff and the straight jolt?" I'll answer that question by letting you take your first step as a puncher, and I do mean s-t-e-p.





TO PROTECT yourself with your fists, you must become a knockout puncher. And you may do that within three months, if you're a normal chap-anywhere between twelve and forty. By "normal" I mean healthy and sound-neither ailing nor crippled.

You should be able to knock out a fellow of approximately your own weight, with either fist, if you follow my instructions exactly and practice them diligently. And in six months or a year, you may be able to knock out fellows a lot bigger and heavier than you are.



Analogies are ways to get across a point that someone has missed by putting the view in another more obvious general knowledge context, I put the above analogies in as they are the words of Jack Dempsey, but then again I suppose you will say he did not understand either.

The stances are only meaningless if you have no knowledge as to their purpose, Siu Lim Tao stance is for strengthening the legs and is preparation for Chum Kiu, where there is more strengthening and understanding the falling and driving phases of a step, Biu Gee is more the fighting stance, as well as teaching the circling step and lifting energy.

Not sure which strikes you think are meaningless, punch, palm, finger/thumb, elbow or kick?

Give me a more precise question and I will endeavour to answer it without analogy.

I think your comments on the stances is subject to your own opinion. Different styles incorporate the stances in different ways. You say that the stances are exaggerated and maybe to a certain extent they are, but in times of extreme high stress situations you have to go with what you know. That's the whole purpose of learning how to balance yourself with the stances. Something must have gone very wrong if you've entered the fighting stage. It means there was a serious failure in communication and all avenues have been exhausted. When this happens, it's pretty much a crap shoot in who will win and who will not. You do not know how determined the other guy is. Maybe the other guy is drunk and doesn't care that you broke his nose and his teeth and he keeps swinging. You don't know if his friends are going to jump in behind you and take you down. All you can really know in a fight is lower the odds of you getting your butt kicked.

[quietobserver]

Fair enough, to each his own, Wing Chun isn't my thing but I have no interest in belittling it as an art. I will say that once you understand how the mechanics of a punch work it's not so much a matter of being taught as it is just putting in the time throwing punches. It took my teacher less than a full class to show me the mechanics, after that it was up to me to spend the time hitting the bag. Do you guys use heavy bags or do you hit something else? I ask because although I box now I have a background in kung fu and my shr fu stressed hitting the heavy bag- not as much as my boxing coaches do but he made it clear that that was the way to develop power.



I agree completely that no matter how good you are you have to practice regularly, but I'm willing to bet that Tyson still hits like a freight train compared to the rest of the world. I think he fell off because he lost his heart (and discipline) after his trainer died.



@ Troll Virus: Just STFU and GTFO

any trained fighter can be effective at his art. Mike Tyson is not an average person. Mike Tyson is a phenomenal athlete and if he were to punch you it's going to hurt. Maybe you can punch mike tyson too, but Tyson is used to getting punched in the face. Probably more so than you are. That's why it's silly to criticize other martial arts or styles because a phenomenal athlete will be exeptional in the art he or she chooses.

[tjwingchun]

I think your comments on the stances is subject to your own opinion. Different styles incorporate the stances in different ways. You say that the stances are exaggerated and maybe to a certain extent they are, but in times of extreme high stress situations you have to go with what you know. That's the whole purpose of learning how to balance yourself with the stances. Something must have gone very wrong if you've entered the fighting stage. It means there was a serious failure in communication and all avenues have been exhausted. When this happens, it's pretty much a crap shoot in who will win and who will not. You do not know how determined the other guy is. Maybe the other guy is drunk and doesn't care that you broke his nose and his teeth and he keeps swinging. You don't know if his friends are going to jump in behind you and take you down. All you can really know in a fight is lower the odds of you getting your butt kicked.

Welcome to the forum, cannot really argue against anything you say as it is much the same as my opinion, I teach TJ Wing Chun, TJ=ME, it is how I understand MY Wing Chun, it is MY personal understanding of MY body mechanics when used in violent confrontations. Then I try to get students to understand themselves the way I understand myself. That is when it gets messy.

Understand where you are coming from with the "Wing Chun suprise" theory, but although I agree with much of what you say, my feelings are that Wing Chun has a few more edges, even in a MMA competition, though admittedly as you intimate elsewhere, it is a case of percentages and in the professional arena because of the personal abilities of the fighters making up most of the factors for success, it might only be a slight but I believe would be a positive infuence.

[Wai Yeung]

'Skippy' hop stance is to tell your legs to face the middle center line

so your arms and legs makes a triangle towards your front or (enemy)

[tjwingchun]

'Skippy' hop stance is to tell your legs to face the middle center line

so your arms and legs makes a triangle towards your front or (enemy)

Not sure how far back the 'skippy' stance reference is but in my view it is an incorrect understanding of how to use the legs, you use the legs to drive down your centreline with the heel of the back leg being in contact with the floor at the point of delivery of a technique, if you do not have a structure to resist the reactant energies you will simply bounce off your opponent with the same energy that you are putting into them, ask Newton "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".

I also have an aversion to triangles in Wing Chun, I prefer to use the straight line as my abstract concept, even when I am standing with my weight equally distributed in a basic stance when I actively use my stance I focus on just one leg and how the energies are operating through the body from the heel to the point of contact, even if I am not actually moving my feet and little movement being apparent in my body the co-ordination of muscles is down one line from or the other.

The more the joints are aligned in the plane of movement and the closer that alignment is to a straight line then the more efficient I will be in delivering maximum energy into the target.

[Phil Elnore]

I have made an extensive study of Wing Chun at the Syracuse Wing Chun Academy. Unfortunately my Sifu ruined things by opening up training to other arts, some of which even made you sweat, so I left.

But I do know enough about the structure of this fine art to confirm that a good Wibng Chun Master, like myself, cannot be beaten or taken down by anybody.

It is in the structures and theory after theory proves me to be correct.

[Troll Virus]

I have made an extensive study of Wing Chun at the Syracuse Wing Chun Academy. Unfortunately my Sifu ruined things by opening up training to other arts, some of which even made you sweat, so I left.

But I do know enough about the structure of this fine art to confirm that a good Wibng Chun Master, like myself, cannot be beaten or taken down by anybody.

It is in the structures and theory after theory proves me to be correct.

To members;
ignore this poster.
This is not Phil.
While I personally don't agree with the 'twaddle' Phil frequently espouses, this garbage is beneath him.

It's not even constructed to provoke much of a reaction, rather, it pre-disposes a negative opinion of someone the imp has never met, yet feels safe to deride anonymously on the internet.

Bullshydo low-life.

[tjwingchun]

I have made an extensive study of Wing Chun at the Syracuse Wing Chun Academy. Unfortunately my Sifu ruined things by opening up training to other arts, some of which even made you sweat, so I left.

I stopped sweating years ago, found it unnecessary and unflattering, it has been nearly 20 years since I have done a press-up or sit-up and I have found the the best exercise I get is to watch the opening sequence of Barb Wire, tremendous forearm training, just expensive in tissues.

But I do know enough about the structure of this fine art to confirm that a good Wibng Chun Master, like myself, cannot be beaten or taken down by anybody.

I fully endorse the statement and I personally ratify it and have never even been touched in a fight on the street, problem is I keep waking up.

It is in the structures and theory after theory proves me to be correct.

And theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory after theory, it must be correct otherwise I am using the wrong orifice for conversation.