wing chun wins NHB contest

[aaron baum]

Hello guys

Myself and Neil Broadbent both competed in the Open National Finals NHB contest in the UK last month. Neil became Lightweight champion and i was runnerup in the Middleweight category.

It was a great day for the school (Ying Hung Wing Chun Kuen, Alan Orr Sifu). Are standup skills gave a good show and help go towards dismissing the idea that wing chun cannot flourish in that environment, which we are both proud of.

The whole journey of the training and competition has taught me a great deal and shown to me that the true skill is slowly forged through application and putting yourself in pressure sitautions.

Neil is fighting in Cage Warriors in february and more Iron Wolves will follow. Wing Chun is a deadly system when fighting for real, so why not show it can work in the cage as well?

Aaron

[lawrenceofidaho]

That's great, Aaron!!

Congratulations to both you and Neil on your excellent showing.......

(Can you give us an idea of what your fight prep training schedule looks like?)

[anerlich]

Congratulations to you both.

[Matrix]

Great news.
Congrats to Aaron and Neil. Thanks for representing the art so well.

[Ultimatewingchun]

Aaron:

Congratulations!


Can you give us any details (or perhaps post some video) as to how the fights went...ie.- how much standup was used, the extent of the close quarter wing chun moves that were used, use of or defense against takedowns, any groundfighting that might have occurred,etc. ???

I know that Alan has been studying some of Tony Cecchine's Catch wrestling vids (and that he met Tony for the first time earlier this year). Btw, Tony is my Catch instructor as well.

Give us some play-by-play as to how the fights developed...and give my regards/congrats to Alan!

[stricker]

well done guys and good luck with the move to pro rules with headshots.

and yeah how do you balance different areas of training? drills, forms, chi sao, pad work, wrestling/rolling, sparring, conditioning, do you do any pumelling? can you give us like a %age breakdown??

have you changed the drills or chi sao at all compared to trad wing chun in terms of what you are aiming for?

cheers.

[Kaitain(UK)]

http://www.alanorr.co.uk/index.html this is their website. Wing Chun, Escrima and Catch Wrestling.

It should be noted that the amateur competitions they entered allowed no strikes to the head - IMPORTANT - they declare this themselves, so it's not bullshido. However, it does limit things when discussing something like this as proof of effectiveness, and certainly takes it out of the "NHB" category declared in the title.
http://www.alanorr.co.uk/htdocs/nhb/teamironorr.html

Props for stepping up and competing in a non-coop format. Congrats on the win/s

Look forward to seeing how you do in Cage Warriors

[ghostofwingchun]

Congratulations Mr Baum surely this is a wonderful achievement! You mention that your wc worked in the cage . . . so did you and your collegue win your nhb fights standing with wc? I ask because my wc friend fight in a nhb event too but win by armbar not wc.

Thanks,

Ghost

[sihing]

Originally Posted by ghostofwingchun

Congratulations Mr Baum surely this is a wonderful achievement! You mention that your wc worked in the cage . . . so did you and your collegue win your nhb fights standing with wc? I ask because my wc friend fight in a nhb event too but win by armbar not wc.

Thanks,

Ghost

Wing Chun has armbars...

[Ultimatewingchun]

Aaron:

No headshots allowed? Is that true?

[stricker]

win by armbar not wing chun? well how did he get to the armbar?

also i am 99% sure it was a no headshots contest, so like kaitan says that does take away from the claims a bit, but still theyre getting in there and theyre winning.

you gotta remember most people entering mma usually come from a background like boxing, muay thai, wrestling, judo, whatever. this means they have competition experience already, and maybe after theyve worked on rounding their game a little (eg a judo dude does some boxing training or a muay thai dude trains on the ground for a bit) theyre ready to step straight into full mma rules.

If youre going straight into mma, or coming from a nonsport background (like wing chun) its hard. your novice fight you may end up with someone else also a novice at mma, but with a load of thai fights under their belt or a black belt in judo or bjj, and that aint really too fair. so thats the idea of these amateur comps, build up some experience before entering full rules.

still wish them the best of luck in pro rules eg cagewarriors. also from what ive heard the amateur comps attract a lot more wrestlers adding punching in, where going pro your more likely to end up fighting a boxer or thai boxer whos done a little groundwork. in the amateur mma comps ground and pound isnt much of an issue either more just body shots, so the ground game is v.different too.

[lawrenceofidaho]

Let's wait to hear from Aaron about match rules........

Amateur division's rule structure will change the fights somewhat, but it's still a tough game and challenging test of skills any way you slice it.

It's no picnic to have another skilled & conditioned athelete giving it everything he's got to bust up your ribs, kick your legs out from under you, and take you down and slap a submission on you. (A punch to the face is only one one thing to worry about in a fight, -there's a number of others.)

Props to Aaron and Neil, no matter if it's amateur or pro rules.

-Lawrence

[anerlich]

Wing Chun has armbars...

And BJJ has kicks and punches.

[aaron baum]

cheers for your response guys...much appreciated and sorry for any confusion over the rules....we as a school just want to spread the word of wing chun as a system and cant wait to hear someone announce one of us as a Wing Chun fighter in say the UFC etc or King of the Cage...neil is fighting in cage warriors in feb and the plan is to compete in LA next year on one of Eddy Millis' shows, so i will let you know how we do.....

you are correct in that the comp was amateur rules...full contact striking below the head....one of the main reasons for starting here was to gain as much experience as possible in this environment (most of the guys we have fought have been bjj guys who grapple and punch a bit) whilst learning how to deal with the pressure of competing etc...it was good experience for us to compete in an environment not ideal for our system and the lessons learned on how to deal with the takedown etc were invaluable.....to take away our main weapons of striking the head etc which our system thrives on and still go so far was a good marker of how robust our system is....we cant wait to take some people out, in 11 amateur fights i have never been hurt once through striking etc whereas at training i am regularly in pain and seeing stars....weve both felt held back from the real fun during this comp as our system loves to be close in, leather flying etc...this comp was about getting experience before the fun really begins...even though this is the case neil has won all his 7 fights (one with a submission from body shots alone) and i have lost 1 in 11...we have both won with a variety of techiniques such as armbars, double wrist locks, rear naked chokes, guillotines and arm across chokes...

we have learned many things but one of the major ones is how robust and fit you need to be...you may go full out in training to the point of collapse but in a comp environment it really is amplified due to nerves, audience etc...my training schedule consisted of 5 weeks of:

5 morning runs (sprint laps and plyometrics included) followed by an hour of kettlebells, qiqong and form

4 strength/fitness training sessions a week..2 hours of bag work, plyometrics, body weight exercises, circuits etc...

4 school training sessions a week...2 hours grappling, sparring, chi sau etc...

plus stretching etc every day....

and we still both blew at points, i was armbarred in the final round of the final with 4 seconds to go and winning on points by a bjj guy who took a pounding all fight....a lesson well learned eh? he waited all fight for my one mistake and took it...

there are some pics, reviews and movies of the fights this year on our site...www.alanorr.com/htdocs/nhb/fightreview.html with more to come....we as a team intend to fight in many arenas such as kickboxing, grappling and stick comps to continually gain more experience and to have some fun....if anyone else has competed in any arena please let me know your experiences as we all can learn from each other and move our system that we all love forward....

best

aaron

[aaron baum]

cheers for your response guys...much appreciated and sorry for any confusion over the rules....we as a school just want to spread the word of wing chun as a system and cant wait to hear someone announce one of us as a Wing Chun fighter in say the UFC etc or King of the Cage...neil is fighting in cage warriors in feb and the plan is to compete in LA next year on one of Eddy Millis' shows, so i will let you know how we do.....

you are correct in that the comp was amateur rules...full contact striking below the head....one of the main reasons for starting here was to gain as much experience as possible in this environment (most of the guys we have fought have been bjj guys who grapple and punch a bit) whilst learning how to deal with the pressure of competing etc...it was good experience for us to compete in an environment not ideal for our system and the lessons learned on how to deal with the takedown etc were invaluable.....to take away our main weapons of striking the head etc which our system thrives on and still go so far was a good marker of how robust our system is....we cant wait to take some people out, in 11 amateur fights i have never been hurt once through striking etc whereas at training i am regularly in pain and seeing stars....weve both felt held back from the real fun during this comp as our system loves to be close in, leather flying etc...this comp was about getting experience before the fun really begins...even though this is the case neil has won all his 7 fights (one with a submission from body shots alone) and i have lost 1 in 11...we have both won with a variety of techiniques such as armbars, double wrist locks, rear naked chokes, guillotines and arm across chokes...

we have learned many things but one of the major ones is how robust and fit you need to be...you may go full out in training to the point of collapse but in a comp environment it really is amplified due to nerves, audience etc...my training schedule consisted of 5 weeks of:

5 morning runs (sprint laps and plyometrics included) followed by an hour of kettlebells, qiqong and form

4 strength/fitness training sessions a week..2 hours of bag work, plyometrics, body weight exercises, circuits etc...

4 school training sessions a week...2 hours grappling, sparring, chi sau etc...

plus stretching etc every day....

and we still both blew at points, i was armbarred in the final round of the final with 4 seconds to go and winning on points by a bjj guy who took a pounding all fight....a lesson well learned eh? he waited all fight for my one mistake and took it...though to be fair we did have three fights on the day, the prelims were 2 x 3 min rounds and the final was 2 x 4 mins with 2 mins overtime! just learning to get up and down mentally on the day was a lesson learned.....

there are some pics, reviews and movies of the fights this year on our site...www.alanorr.com/htdocs/nhb/fightreview.html with more to come....we as a team intend to fight in many arenas such as kickboxing, grappling and stick comps to continually gain more experience and to have some fun....if anyone else has competed in any arena please let me know your experiences as we all can learn from each other and move our system that we all love forward....

best

aaron