Then another question that comes from your post is, even though people join and practice the WC they do for various reasons, is it true or false to say that if you have high quality skills in whatever WC you practice, are you an effective fighter or person with effective self defense abilities?
**Your reasoning is circular. How does one know if they have “high quality skills” other than by fighting? You see this is the problem – folks see some ability they or their sifu has outside of fighting, let’s say in chi sao or whatever, and conclude (assume) that those abilities will successfully transfer to fighting (and without any significant adjustment in how they are performed) and/or that that ability is all they will need to fight successfully (at a good level). So they beleive they have “good WCK skills” and that they will be able to fight well with them. Those assumptions are false. And genuine experience (fighting good people) will prove that to you. Good WCK skills are not some separate entity from good fighting skills – good WCK skills means good fighting skills using WCK’s tools and method. You can’t have good WCK without being a good fighter. And there is no way to know if one has good fighting skills (or to develop them) without fighitng.
**Also, self-defense abilities don’t rest significantly on WCK (or fighting) skills but are something else entirely and go well-beyond WCK. Moreoever, to develop skill in WCK is difficult and that investment isn’t necessary to simply learn to “defend oneself.” If someone wants to learn to “defend themselves” they would do much better than spend the time necessary to develop higher level empty-hand fighting skills – they should take an excellent self-defense course which will focus on the main aspects of self defense: situational awareness and response (what to do when someone pulls a gun on you and orders you into their car, for example), improvised weaponry, using surprise to their advantage, escapes, gradually becoming acclimated to dealing with high levels of physical stress, etc. [/B]
Like I’ve said before, sooner or later you have to test your skills in an environment that is as realistic as possible. That’s why we have tests, to find out if the ability is there. Also this has to be tested by someone competent enough to be able to judge. Is it your opinion Terence that you are the only one qualified? I certainly hope not, for your sake. If your faith in your instructor/Sifu is low then move on to someone else, mine isn’t as he has had plenty of fighting experience, so I trust his cirriculum as it was passed down to me and the way we passed it down to others junior to me. Again as per usual, your arguement is strickly your opinion.
And as for WC self defense skills and what it has to offer, WC is overkill if you ask me, and if this was the only thing I wanted out of it I could have stopped learning 13 yrs ago.
Originally posted by Phil Redmond There are many X-factors in real combat/self defense but if the skills a person aquired in WC were geared towards actual combat then my answer would be yes. I don’t want people to think that I don’t like WC or that it isn’t effective. I do advocate hard and realistic training though.
PR
Wing Chun is all about combat, firstly, so of course someone is there to learn that aspect. Later on other things take on more concern, and the combat aspect may become a by product of the training.
Originally posted by sihing
[B]Wing Chun is all about combat, firstly, so of course someone is there to learn that aspect. Later on other things take on more concern, and the combat aspect may become a by product of the training.
James [/B]
I agree with you. Like you said on another post…WC is quite overkill in a sense. If Wing Chun is being taught properly, then the byproduct is self-defense knowledge. Over things can come from this, depending on the kwoon: cardio, sparring, fighting…
But I think that what you really need to use your Wing Chun is heart. You need to want to win…to pummel an opponent into the ground, etc. Although a person may learn self-defense, if they are not commited to the defense on the street, they could get seriously hurt. I think this thought may be scary to some. You’re not lining up in a row and doing downward foot blocks in the air, or performing flying spinning back kicks. That stuff is fun and cool and all…Wing Chun is about fighting and fighting only.
“What do I expect? I expect to be treated civilly, not to be “labeled” and categorized unnecessarily, not to have my viewpoints belittled, and not to have someone laugh at me for expressing my very valid concerns about how things are often expressed here. I don’t think that is too much to ask for in polite conversation.”
I’d like that, but expecting or demanding it is probably unrealistic. I believe I’m on the receiving end at least as much as the giving, including from some who seem to complain the loudest about forum behaviour..
But getting called names doesn’t bother me one bit.
" And after all, that should be why we are all here…to engage in polite conversation."
Funny, I usually start feeling more irreverent when someone tries to tell me how they think I “should” behave on this forum, let alone how I “should” talk about MA, or be told I’m disloyal or pathetic or a troll if I don’t think WC or its practitioners are perfect.
Andrew wrote:
I’d like that, but expecting or demanding it is probably unrealistic.
—Maybe you need higher expectations.
I believe I’m on the receiving end at least as much as the giving, including from some who seem to complain the loudest about forum behaviour..
—Not from me, if that is the implication. But I agree that you are often on the receiving end. But doing unto others just because they have done unto you isn’t a very good philosophy to live by either.
Funny, I usually start feeling more irreverent when someone tries to tell me how they think I “should” behave on this forum, let alone how I “should” talk about MA,
—I was referring to what is generally recognized as acceptable behaviour in any given civil social circle. If forum members are not willing to abide by even basic guidelines as to how to act civilly in public then this forum will degenerate to something resembling the VTAA forum. I don’t think its too much to ask people to treat each other politely and respectfully…is it?
or be told I’m disloyal or pathetic or a troll if I don’t think WC or its practitioners are perfect.
—True. And if those people were also abiding by the simple guideline of treating each other politely and respectfully that wouldn’t happen.
Thank you Sifu Redmond for posting that thread for me.
I forgot to mention that if you want to test your wing chun skills you must prepared to get hurt. I got kick on my right ankle two years ago by a sweep kick and could not walk for 4 days!
Good quality martial artists are measured by whether they can apply what they have learned under pressure and not under tournament environment. I once sparred with a guy who did 7 years of karate, I think he had also attended some tournaments as well. He was much better than me. He was faster and stronger than me. He could kick me with easy and probably could defeat me easily in a tournament.
During the sparring match he blocked all my hand attacks, until I changed me style. I fought him like a mad man who wanted to beat the crap out of him. His defence disappeared within 2 seconds and he end up running away from me in order to escape my attacks.
The point I trying to make is unless you are mentally prepared for a fight, you can be beaten up by unskillful person.
“During the sparring match he blocked all my hand attacks, until I changed me style. I fought him like a mad man who wanted to beat the crap out of him. His defence disappeared within 2 seconds and he end up running away from me in order to escape my attacks.
The point I’m trying to make is unless you are mentally prepared for a fight, you can be beaten up by unskillful person.” (Hitman)
ALL THE MORE REASON why frequent hard contact sparring is a must - otherwise it all breaks down under the pressure of a real attack meant to hurt you.
The mental (psychological) aspects of martial art training is the single most important element in the whole process, imo - if your goal is to really learn how to defend yourself if need be in the real world.
Hard contact sparring session is not practical as you will soon lose all your training partners. You may even have a problem finding people to train with you in the future. Also the training session may become a contest of survival that both of you are no longer care about how to apply your techniques. This does not benefit anyone.
Wearing protective clothing and gloves do not save you from getting hurt. It only make you over confidence and forget about your own safety. No one wants to get hurt in their sparring matches! This including me! You do not have to hit your training partner hard. You just have to install enough fear into your training partner’s mind to make the training session realistic.
When I sparred with that karate guy, I did not even hit him once. I just created enough fear and installed the idea that he was going to get hurt if he continue to spar with me.
“Wearing protective clothing and gloves do not save you from getting hurt. It only make you over confidence and forget about your own safety. No one wants to get hurt in their sparring matches! This including me! You do not have to hit your training partner hard. You just have to install enough fear into your training partner’s mind to make the training session realistic.
When I sparred with that karate guy, I did not even hit him once.” (Hitman)
You use your facial expression and eyes to generate fear into your opponent. When I fight people for real, my eyes turned red in colour and my face have no expression. I also make a lot of noise like shouting.
Please watch Tyson’s boxing matches in the late 80s and early 90s and you will find that most of his opponents lost the fights before they even stepped into the ring. He won the fight by creating fear into his opponents. He was also a very skillful boxer at that time.
Bruce Lee’s second film “Chinese Connection or Fist of Fury” where he fought the Japanese karate guys. Please pay attention to the way he looked at his opponents.
Me and my training partners do strikes to the eyes, throat and groin at moderate speed in our training session. If we were to do hard sparring session, as you have suggested we will be death or disable a long time ago. We do not wear any protective clothing, except a pair of goggle to protect our eyes. We both got hit on the throats many times. We do not need to be hit hard to know that it hurt!
I once sparred wearing protective clothing and found bruises all over my chest, after the sparring session. I also got hit on my head and I was dazzle. I was relying on the protective clothing to protect me, instead of my skills!
I also sparred with a female kick boxer who was so used to wearing her protective clothing that it made her reckless. I was hitting the areas that was not protective by the protective clothing.
Many ancient Japanese’s swordmen were wearing armours in battles and they were still killed in battles. How? Their opponents were attacking the areas that were not protective by the armours.
I agreed that you should wear protective clothing, but do not become so depending on it that you cannot fight without it.
Please remember that on the street you will not be wearing any protective clothing!
Your goals and my goals are different. Therefore, you do not have to agree with me at all. What works for me may not work for you.
"Please remember that on the street you will not be wearing any protective clothing!
Your goals and my goals are different. Therefore, you do not have to agree with me at all. What works for me may not work for you." (Hitman)
MY MARTIAL ART goals have always been preparation for the street…everything else is secondary to me.
And fighting/sparring with hard contact (and therefore protective gear is necessary) is vitally important to preparation for reality fighting.
As far as eyes are concerned…I’m too busy watching my opponent’s body (specifically his elbows, knees, and targets)…and my mind has been trained through concentration drills and meditation…NOT to pay any attention to ugly looks, extraneous body language, or loud scary noises when I fight.
So you’re right - what works for me might not work for you.
Bruce Lee’s second film “Chinese Connection or Fist of Fury” where he fought the Japanese karate guys. Please pay attention to the way he looked at his opponents.
It was a movie.
Rouge,
The point I am trying to make is INTIMIDATION. If you can frighten your opponent to give up before the start of the fight, then you do not have to fight very hard to win. If intimidation does not work, then you can either run or you can fight. The choice is your. Even if you won and successfully defended yourself against an assult on the street. You may end up as a loser in the court and pay million of dollars in damages to your attacker(s). I would rather run and live, instead of being end up as many “have a go dead hero”.
Hey Hitman,
From what I’ve seen, intimidation doesn’t work on someone who’s willing to fight. So IMO, it’s wasted energy.
It usually doesn’t start as a standoff anyways so unless you want to go around yelling at the sky all the time it may not work.
If you’re going to intimidate someone it had better be scarier then Phil Elmores Eyebrow (Patent Pending).
If you can frighten your opponent to give up before the start of the fight, then you do not have to fight very hard to win. If intimidation does not work, then you can either run or you can fight.
If you’re going to try to intimidate someone you better not be thinking about running away. You’ve commited yourself to a bluff that you better be selling hard. And don’t count on fright making someone easier to defeat, fear is a great motivator for some.
Originally posted by Hitman
[B] When I fight people for real, my eyes turned red in colour and my face have no expression. I also make a lot of noise like shouting.
Bruce Lee’s second film “Chinese Connection or Fist of Fury” where he fought the Japanese karate guys. Please pay attention to the way he looked at his opponents. [/B]
I’m guessing you’re… what… about 14 years old?
Intimidation does work in real life and I have done it many time. If you just yelling at the sky all the time and do nothing else then it will definitely not work! Your oppoent will definitely beat you up. Whether it will work is totally depending on how you use it. Of couse you need some real fighting skills to back up your threat!
Of course nothing in life is certain, except death and tax.
Intimidation will fail you in many occasions. It is like you are carrying a loaded gun (intimidation) with you all the time and got beaten up by a determined unarmed attacker. Are you then telling me that a loaded gun (intimidation) is worthless and you will not carry it in the future! I hope that you are not suggesting to people that a loaded gun (intimidation) is worthless, just because you do not know how to use it yourself.
Hey again,
A loaded gun is useless if you’re not going to use it.
That’s why I don’t carry guns and only carry around my 10 foot luk dim boom kwan
You don’t need a loaded gun for intimidation, actually all you need is a toy replica for that but then deep inside you’ll know that it’s really a fake.
I still like the saying ’ A show-er never stabs and a stab-er never shows’
If you don’t want to fight someone just say, I don’t wanna fight and walk away, if you can’t walk away, well then… whatever happens , happens
Originally posted by Hitman Of couse you need some real fighting skills to back up your threat!
If you have “real fighting skills”, why bother with the theatrics? Just do what needs to be done.
