A thread for the more liberal wing chunners

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
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[QUOTE=Pacman;1010253]the problem with purely bobbing and weaving is that it is pure defense. there is no offense. as a result, that is a wasted move/opportunity. WC seeks to always always attack and defend simultaneously.

however, if your WC has no way to move your body and only relies on the arms to deflect attacks, i can see why learning to bob and weave is necessary[/QUOTE]

***THINK CAREFULLY about this.

Good boxers often use bobbs and weaves as part of a one move the ending of which is a strike; the same thing with a duck. He throws a punch, you duck and return the fire on a different line from a different angle in one motion. Not wasted motion or energy at all; but rather, it becomes something that can easily be labelled (near) simultaneous attack & defense.

Does this strategy sound familiar?

And even in wing chun reality fighting, exactly simultaneous attack and defense is very rare. “Simultaneous” attack and defense is almost always hitting back on the half beat - and not on the exact first beat.

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[QUOTE=SavvySavage;1010095]I know you’re all going to read this thread but this is for the people that believe wing chun can be anything. I read a comment in another thread where someone said a move in bui jee is an incidental gillutine. Many believe that wck is principal based and made to mold over many different situations…but then practice the same basic static drills as every other wck school. If wck is so liberal and can be mma or street fighting…is it still wck?

Or is it mma? I don’t mean the sport. Why practice all the stylyzed hand motions in the first place if it is supposed to be principle based? Why call it wck at all? Might as well call it kick-a$$. Will this new liberal way of thinking of wck cause us to lose our identity?[/QUOTE]

VT has varying levels of efficiency…find the most efficient and then train hard at it…the best way to judge isnt chi-sao. its sparring other VT. takes a few seconds.

23

Originally Posted by Pacman
the problem with purely bobbing and weaving is that it is pure defense. there is no offense. as a result, that is a wasted move/opportunity. WC seeks to always always attack and defend simultaneously.

however, if your WC has no way to move your body and only relies on the arms to deflect attacks, i can see why learning to bob and weave is necessary

i am sorry but this is just wrong, the whole point of bobbing and weaving is to be able to counter almost immediatly, bobbing and weaving and hooking to the body or head govery well together , as does rhrowing the over hand as you move your head

oh and not getting hit and seeking a better attacking angle is not a wasted move

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randy williams has his “wing chun bob and weaving” and ive seen other wc styles do like a head slip as well

25

[QUOTE=punchdrunk;1010244]I like Vankuen’s response, it’s a good way to view or approach most of the movements in the forms.
Styles are not really fighting methods.. they are training methods.
[/QUOTE]

That doesn’t make sense. You train to do something. What is that something?

WCK is an approach to fighting and a means of learning/training that approach.

It’s the same with BJJ or boxing.

How you fight is dependant more on who your opponent is, what he’s doing and what the environment is.

It is also dependent on your approach to fighting (the skills you have), and whether or not you can impose it on your opponent.

Fighting methods come down more to strategy and tactics, that is why 2 people trained in the same style can fight so differently.

You need physical skills (movement, techniques, actions, etc.) to implement strategy and tactics, and your ability to use your strategy and tactics depends on how good your physical skills are.

As for Wing Chun’s training methods.. obviously I like them, but there is definately lots of room for improvement, innovation and outright theft of other methods.

Very true.

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[QUOTE=Ultimatewingchun;1010328]***THINK CAREFULLY about this.

Good boxers often use bobbs and weaves as part of a one move the ending of which is a strike; the same thing with a duck. He throws a punch, you duck and return the fire on a different line from a different angle in one motion. Not wasted motion or energy at all; but rather, it becomes something that can easily be labelled (near) simultaneous attack & defense.

Does this strategy sound familiar?

And even in wing chun reality fighting, exactly simultaneous attack and defense is very rare. “Simultaneous” attack and defense is almost always hitting back on the half beat - and not on the exact first beat.[/QUOTE]

Please, don’t try to tell us what GOOD boxers do when you’ve never trained with ANY good boxers or under any boxing trainers in your life.

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I beleive that wing chun people should spend more time on skill development and less time doing form, interpreting forms for techniques, and static close drilling.

If the move in bil gee is an incidental gillutine than practicing the form 100 times thinkng about the gillutine won’t make one able to do it. Just because a form has the built in mechanics for endless technique variation doesn’t mean that doing the form or that move will make you better at executing moves under pressure. The same goes with the overpractice of body structure drills. How can one be spontaneous in execution of techniques against live opponents if he just practices a form for years?

When sparring I almost have never seen bong sao pulled off as anything more than it’s basic parry when someone was about to get clobbered or as an elbow strike(my interpretation). But isn’t a bong sao an incidental arm lock? Can’t bong be used to side step a double leg take down and strike the guy in the neck? Those are two liberal applicatjoke I just came up with all by myself. Mom is going to be so proud! I haven’t tried them so I don’t know if I could do them. Somewhere along the way wing chun(and other traditional chinese martial arts) became all about the ART of form interpretation and less about develoing real MARTIAL skills.

I’ve practced this drill for many of my wing chun years. A guy throws a round house sat me and I execute kwun sao(bong and tan) to deflect and then attack. In sparring In sparring I’ve seen people get attacked by a round house and not do anything resembling kwun sao. It looked more like he just put his hands down(sort of like gan sao) at the last second. A full powered kick would have clobbers his arm. While doing two person drill work the classc kwun sao against the round house works wondefully. It’s almost orgasmic hoe good a newb can feel when pulling off that move in statc drilling(maybe I’m exhaggerating). But then he looks all frazzled during actual sparring and pulls off the putting the hands down knee-jerk reaction. “He” represents us all. So what’s the point of drilling this stylized drill statically only to have it fall apart in 3D world? I thnk it’s to hold onto the wing chun identity. “Look how different we are from the other guys! The nun did this against the monks and now i’m continuing that tradition.”.

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[QUOTE=SavvySavage;1010095]I know you’re all going to read this thread but this is for the people that believe wing chun can be anything. I read a comment in another thread where someone said a move in bui jee is an incidental gillutine. Many believe that wck is principal based and made to mold over many different situations…but then practice the same basic static drills as every other wck school. If wck is so liberal and can be mma or street fighting…is it still wck?
[/QUOTE]

WTF does “principal based” mean? Tell me. Because I think the term itself is meaningless. It’s one of those terms that sounds good, impresses the gullible, etc. but really means nothing when you examine it.

In my view, WCK - like all martial arts – is skill-based. Skill-based. No matter what your idea, your concept, your strategy, your tactic, etc. you need to execute it, to PHYSICALLY DO some movement, action, technique, etc. It’s not good enough to simply have some idea or principle in mind – you need movement, technique, etc. to “express” it, right? Your ability to successfully physically do some task is a skill. Your ability to execute your idea or concept or principle is limited to the extent of your physical skill.

We get better at physical skills by practicing those physical skills. In other words, you start with a task, and a way of doing it (technique, movement, etc.) and practice it over and over.

WCK movement (the movement we learn and practice in the forms, drills, etc.) are the WCK concepts and principles IN ACTION. The movement and the principles/concepts are two sides of the same coin – you can’t have one without the other. So when you don’t see WCK movement, you aren’t seeing WCK principles.

Or is it mma? I don’t mean the sport. Why practice all the stylyzed hand motions in the first place if it is supposed to be principle based? Why call it wck at all? Might as well call it kick-a$$. Will this new liberal way of thinking of wck cause us to lose our identity?

The WCK actions, movement, etc. aren’t “stylized hand motions” but actions that perform specific tasks. To perform that task, you NEED that action. It’s like throwing a ball. If you want to throw a ball, you need to move your arm/body in a certain specific way to perform that task.

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[QUOTE=Knifefighter;1010159]Here’s a more important question to be asking yourself: Why do you have such a need to have an identity with WC?[/QUOTE]

Because everyone wants to be Bruce Lee.

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On attacking a fortress. . .

Yeah. It’s kind of stupid.

But OTOH, so is being on the defensive.

You want to take the initiative. I’m not sure what good western strategy books are out there (I’m sure there’s plenty) but the best one I’ve ever come across was NOT Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” or Musashi’s “Book of 5 Rings”. The one that’s given me the most food for thought, practical down to earth ideas, is “The 36 Strategies” which is sort of a companion book to “Art of War”.

Sun Tzu says that of the 3 types of battles, attacking a fortification is the most costly and the dumbest. The key is to bring him out of his fortification. From the 36 that’s called “diao hu li shan”/enticing a tiger to descend from the mountain. You need to bait the person to open up. Usually that means baiting them to attack in some predictable way.

My own Shifu actually teaches specifically not to keep your defense too closed up. Leave openings. Just be aware of them. The real openings are in your mind, ie. the places where you are not aware of the vulnerability. He says that if your defense is too tight (from an outside view anyways) then opponents get smart. They launch fakes and try to trick you into “descending from the mountain”. When your stance seems open, people tend to attack in more predictable ways.

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[QUOTE=YungChun;1010319]If I’m not mistaken.. No fortification has ever worked…long term.. Because fortifications are inherently limited and fixed.. It’s just a matter of time before the pounding takes it’s toll..

VT has already lost its identity and I cite this forum as proof..

Wrong proof. This forum realistically is just a net xxxx chat place.

joy chaudhuri

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[QUOTE=Frost;1010346]i am sorry but this is just wrong, the whole point of bobbing and weaving is to be able to counter almost immediatly, bobbing and weaving and hooking to the body or head govery well together , as does rhrowing the over hand as you move your head

oh and not getting hit and seeking a better attacking angle is not a wasted move[/QUOTE]

yes you can bob and weave and move and hit together, not saying it cant be done with bobbing and weaving, but how many times do you see people training (lets say the double ended bag) by only moving and no hitting. they throw a punch, bob an weave a few times and then throw some more punches.

or when they see an attack happen, they bob and weave a few times without hitting, and then maybe later they throw a punch

happens in fights too.

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[QUOTE=Pacman;1010388]yes you can bob and weave and move and hit together, not saying it cant be done with bobbing and weaving, but how many times do you see people training (lets say the double ended bag) by only moving and no hitting. they throw a punch, bob an weave a few times and then throw some more punches.

or when they see an attack happen, they bob and weave a few times without hitting, and then maybe later they throw a punch

happens in fights too.[/QUOTE]

Sure does… it’s all part of the set up. Bob and weave and hit every time and the opponent is going to know what you are doing and will start using this to set you up.

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[QUOTE=t_niehoff;1010358]That doesn’t make sense. You train to do something. What is that something?

+that actually varies from person to person, some just socialise, some compete, some self defense, some to make money etc.

WCK is an approach to fighting and a means of learning/training that approach.

It’s the same with BJJ or boxing.

+most martial artists are not fighters.. and sparring and comps are NOT the same thing as fighting although they are valuable for training and testing. To learn to fight you have to fight at some point, because their is a myriad of variables in the real world that no training method can even get you to consider until you get hard earned experience.

It is also dependent on your approach to fighting (the skills you have), and whether or not you can impose it on your opponent.

You need physical skills (movement, techniques, actions, etc.) to implement strategy and tactics, and your ability to use your strategy and tactics depends on how good your physical skills are.

+physical skills are extremely important however there is a mental or psychological side as well… you can be a great physical specimen of a fighter and still walk into the stupidest ambush if you don’t know enough to watch for it.

Very true.[/QUOTE]

  • I hate arguing definitions and semantics, seriously my point was that there is a lot more to “fighting” than is recognized in any curriculum. So to identify with a label such as Wing Chun or MMA or whatever becomes a trap if you worry about fitting the mould. Although it is annoying as hell when a search engine brings up tae kwan do when you search for kung fu!
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[QUOTE=punchdrunk;1010393]+ I hate arguing definitions and semantics,
[/QUOTE]

Since we are trying to communicate our ideas to others in writing, and that isn’t easy when the words mean different things to different people.

seriously my point was that there is a lot more to “fighting” than is recognized in any curriculum.

That’s very true.

Another way to look at it is to say that the curriculum isn’t the subject matter.

So to identify with a label such as Wing Chun or MMA or whatever becomes a trap if you worry about fitting the mould. Although it is annoying as hell when a search engine brings up tae kwan do when you search for kung fu!

The problem is that the various martial arts DO fit certain molds – or, to be more precise, involve specific approaches with corresponding skill sets.

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[QUOTE=Vajramusti;1010374]
Wrong proof. This forum realistically is just a net xxxx chat place.
[/QUOTE]

Just a chat place, where there is a good representation of various VT people…

Beyond that, the NET has tons of evidence that corroborates the above..

How in the world can something have a clear identity when there is nothing but consistent disagreement about what it is, how to train it and how it is supposed to be used?

And this is exactly what the old man wanted IMO as is evidenced by his “teaching style”…

It’s where a fighting style meets the “telephone game”… The best anyone can do is train it research it and work on applying the core…and find your own answers..which will not always be someone else’s answers..

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[QUOTE=Pacman;1010388]yes you can bob and weave and move and hit together, not saying it cant be done with bobbing and weaving, but how many times do you see people training (lets say the double ended bag) by only moving and no hitting. they throw a punch, bob an weave a few times and then throw some more punches.

or when they see an attack happen, they bob and weave a few times without hitting, and then maybe later they throw a punch

happens in fights too.[/QUOTE]

The reason you see people evading without countering is that attacking and defending simultaneously is **** hard to do against a good opponent
, it sounds great in theory and can be pulled off on occasion but honestly outside of classroom training and theoretical talk how many times do you see this pulled off in a fight?

Another reason you don’t see it very often and you see boxers training bobbing and weaving both with and without simultaneous hitting is that they try not to set a rhythm or pattern the opponent can work off if you hit every time you bob and weave your opponent reads this and opens up on you, you have to keep him guessing
Oh and as I said not getting hit and creating a better angle on your opponent is not a wasted movement

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[QUOTE=YungChun;1010439]The best anyone can do is train it research it and work on applying the core…and find your own answers..which will not always be someone else’s answers..[/QUOTE]

You have hit the nail on the head with this. Part of what I get reading this forum is a lot of people expect a single interpretation of Wing Chun and then get their knickers in a twist when what they see and what they read doesn’t match their view of the art.

In boxing there are many different styles that are still boxing. Ali, Forman and Tyson look so different that using a strict interpretation that could be doing different arts. But you will never hear “that’s not boxing” on a boxing forum.

The same goes for BJJ. Gi, no-gi, defensive, aggressive, bottom or top, even a rubber guard game. Lots of different interpretations on how to use BJJ and all are accepted. There may be arguments about which is best but not does it belong.

For some WC as an attached art work best for them. For some a very aggressive straight in style is the answer. To trap or not to trap? Counter punching (Jeet) as your prime method. All are Wing Chun and all can be good if trained in a resistive manner.

To a large degree your style will be based on how you were taught, how much your sifu allowed for innovation and experimentation and perhaps something deeper. Some people are drawn to a specifec interpretaion because is answers a deep seated instinct on the correct way to fight. When I boxed I was a counter puncher. I didn’t start boxing with the intent of becoming a counter puncher but it just felt right at the time. The same with my BJJ. I have moved to no-gi because it feels right to me, I play very defensive because that is what works for my age and temperament, not because I was taught this is the only way to do BJJ.

I think the WC community has to open its eyes and start taking a big tent approach to what is WC.

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The basic consensus is that it’s all personal style: one guy adds boxing, another guy like round punches, another guy focuses on being rooted and likes being attached, etc.

Do we even need to keep calling it wing chun? Why not just disband the name and just train? Most schools wouldn’t have students if they didn’t call themselves wing chun. People hear wing chun and then hear stories about the old man fightng, all these other guys fighting, then they watch mma on tv and never see the “wing chun guy.”.

Is the form wing chun? Some say that form is just a source of knowledge and how you apple it’s principles to different situations is the most important
thing. The modern translation of that seems to be: “Train wing chunish drills but train MOSTLY in other styles, and then call it all wing chun. And just to
prove it is wing chun link techniques to form movements.”. Do we need to practice the old forms of wing chun? Why practice rooting in the form when I can do the same and better with a kettlebell and without having to memorize forms?

It seems like the only link we have to this so called wing chun identity is a bunch of forms that we practice but then do other stuff. Robert Downy Jr did tan da in a fight in the recent Sherlock Holmes movie. Does that mean he was fighting with wing chun throughout the whole movie or just in that sequence?

Enough questions. Here’s my opinion. The move in bil gee is not an incidental gillutine. The move in bil gee is just a move you did in the air. I think people push teaching forms and these “special” wing chun drills just o have a different identity than everyone else. It’s detrimental to teach hand motions that don’t come naturally. Some are ok like fook sau or pak. Bong sau as a deflection? Nah. Probably better to use it as elbow strikes and just train those on a bag. I don’t believe in analyzing forms for techniques. Just punch me and if I get hit I’ll adjust what I did. Teaching these forms might improve concentration and or root but you never learn how to pull of a gillutine for real by drilling this mish mash of random moves.

If we want to compete in this new world of fighting that ACTUALLY works(ufc prves it every pay per view) we need to stop training just for the sake of trying to keep a wing chun identity.

What should we remove from training? I’ll throw the first rock. We need to get rid of dan chi sao and long amounts of time in forms training.

What’s next to be gotten rid of? Remember, I said gotten rid off, not added.

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I figure eventually some folks are going to end up actually applying VT in a serious way and very successfully in some open/NHB events…

If VT is worth its weight in salt as a fighting art then it has to eventually catch on.. All you need is some dedicated folks–dedicated to VT and dedicated to applying it in sport fighting…

As information continues to flow and training continues to improve I think we’ll see more and more VT tactics and even VT proper taking its place in more top sport fighting venues..

I have already seen bits and parts here and there in NHB/MMA. You can’t help see parts of VT because IMO VT’s core is about what simply works and key universal fighting attributes; good fighters naturally express some of these things naturally.

The form VT will take as it settles into these venues IMO will reflect the most basic tenets of the art: ‘outside the box’ simplicity, directness, efficiency, economy use of the line, basic VT structure, etc..

Folks are going to keep getting smarter and reality has a way of setting in, even if it takes a while..

Time will tell..

You’ll know VT when you see it, but if your not sure, then it isn’t VT. :stuck_out_tongue: