I am disillusioned with my northern shaolin kung fu, high kicks that loose their power due to the lifting and can be taken down in a real situation. Spinning kicks that require extreme flexibility and perisstence to perform and are dangerous to use in a fight. Punches that have to be twisted and delivered from awkward stances. Don’t even get me started on those forms(hundreds of them).
I have realised Wing Chun is what I have been needing to do. Short range powerful punches, no kicks above waist height, Bruce Lee’s original art( I am an enormous fan since I was 4 years old). Wooden dummy allowing you to condition yourself and rpactice techiniques with someone or something when you are alone, the one inch punch and only three forms by the looks of things before weapons, wicked!
Please answer me a few questions now, will be most appreciated:
How is Wing Chun generally taught ie is there sparring is there a lot of contact is there bag work pad work and dummy work, is it group tuition or what I have seen where the teacher teaches students individually?
How long till you are taught wooden dummy techniques? How long does chi sau take to learn, are the blocks easy to execute if someone whips out a punch at you. Is there a good bookd etailing Wing Chun for beginners(not a learn by pictures one I don’t beleive in them but explaining the theory and techniques etc.
Finally how long is the first form and is there internal strenght development in Wing Chun.
Sorry if this is long, your replies are appreciated.
Why don’t you just go to a class and ask the instructor your questions? You have plenty to choose from in London!
Various schools teach in different ways but basically it’s usually like this: You don’t learn the Wooden Dummy until at least 2nd or 3rd empty hand form level (Tsum Kiu or Biu Tze). It’s not to condition your arms, but to perfect your angles, footwork and sticking (at least that’s what i understand of it).
Chi Sau, you never stop learning! That’s how you can tell how well you understand the principles of Wing Chun. Chi Sau=good, then your understanding of wing chun=good.
The first form isn’t all that long movements wise, but has to be done correctly! You’ll see what i mena if you find a good traditional school!
for all those reasons in the first paragraph of my post above. I think wooden dummy apart from honing stance and blocking and striking is supposed to condition your forearms and your feet for kicking at the same time.
It’s point less to learn the dummy form before you’re ready. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start using the dummy to condition your limbs, spend some time each day smacking your forarms and legs into it.
Everyone at my school gets to try out the dummy from very early on, although ‘traditionally’ it is taught sometime around between the second and third forms. It can be useful for all kinds of things. I am sure that when I have learned a lot more and I am at the stage where the dummy is ‘traditionally’ taught, I will get something out of it that is completely different to what I get out of it now.
There are many peopel now some highly trained martial artists, in particular geoff thompson who some of you may have heard of, who dismiss forms like bruce lee as being a waste of time as you can never apply them in a fight, he also says that these kung fu blocks don’t really work and western boxing prepares you well for a fight.
What I want to know is does Wing Chun produce the goods when confronted with crisis point?
The vertical fist in Wing Chun is famed for its power ie one inch punch, but when a wing chun punch is delivered from distance at speed is it more powerful than a straightforward right cross in boxing, when you are fighting a street fighter they mostly fly in with a streetfighting hook a wild swing, does Wing Chun help you to dispatch these people easily, are the punches one hit and knock out if you train hard.
I am willing to train **** hard in the art but I want to know that when I come up against someone in the street I will dispatch them with ease and not be left wandering why didnt that block work, or why did I need 6 punches to take him down.
Any comments appreciated, basically how strong is Wing Chun, also I am a great beliver in internal to compliment external is there internal in sil lum tao and other wing chun practise?
"What I want to know is does Wing Chun produce the goods when confronted with crisis point? "
Um, sorry, do you really think that a wing chun forum is the best place to ask this question?
Is everyone gonna go “actually, no my style is pants, but i study it anyway”.
:rolleyes:
What you will find in most schools is that they do not spar. They will probably try to compensate with chi sau. Austin goh in covent garden spar but they are not yip man lineage.
Some schools start you on dummy straight away, some make you wait till you’ve learnt all 3 hand forms (this is the most common).
“basically how strong is Wing Chun”
:rolleyes:
“I am a great beliver in internal to compliment external is there internal in sil lum tao and other wing chun practise?”
Read up on the art a little eh?
Regarding geoff thompson, i agree with him. Block hardly ever work in a fight. But i think you should be able to do them. I study boxing now after leaving wing chun - although this is because there is no longer any wing chun in my area - however i feel boxing has made me a MUCH better fighter.
If you want to learn to fight, and quick, boxing is your best option, imo.
I’d be a bit wary of listening overmuch to Geoff Thompson talk about Kung Fu. I have read a few of his articles and I have found that they are like panning for gold…sometimes you may find something that seems alright but you have to sift through a lot of sh!t to get to it. Even then all that glitters is not gold!
I would be inclined to agree that boxing does prepare you for a fight for the simple reason that you get hit boxing. However this training strategy can be applied to any martial art once the ante is upped during sparring. Coming from a Muay Thai background before starting Wing Chun I am well aware of the importance of conditioning and sparring when it comes to being able to apply what you have learned.
That said, the laughable ease with which my Wing Chun instructor (who is considerably smaller than me by the way) can just pick me apart when sparring certainly casts it in a favourable light for me.
The vertical fist in Wing Chun is famed for its power ie one inch punch, but when a wing chun punch is delivered from distance at speed is it more powerful than a straightforward right cross in boxing,
The vertical fist is not delivered from a distance overmuch. But it does have a sh!tload of power when delivered properly i.e. using the correct body mechanics. I don’t know if I’d say it’s more powerful than a full bodied right cross, but it sure as hell is a lot faster and the power difference isn’t that great. I find I land a lot more WC straight punches sparring than I do right crosses.
Regarding chisao and sparring, there are many ways to chisao.
Some schools see it as training exercise only, to train for sensitivity, positioning, structure, balance and coordination.
Others schools take it further, increasing the pace so that eventually the rolling arms are discarded, bridging, kicks and distance work is included, and it becomes fairly indistinguishable from sparring.
The amount of contact also varies, some schools are taught to pull punches, some never strike to the face. Others go full power, resulting in occaisonal injuries.
In my opinion, the best balance is to find a school that teaches all levels of chisao, so that you can eventually rise to full-on sparring, and is not afraid to teach with a degree of power in the strikes.
To be honest, if you dont get a cut lip or bruised chest every now and then, your training may lack realism.
I started Wing Chun at a school that practiced full-contact sparring, every day (5 days a week). After 6 months, many split lips, a broken nose, and unbelievable bruises, guess what? My stance sucked; my forms sucked (I had only managed to learn SLT in 6 months); my techniques (what techniques?) sucked; and my footwork really sucked. All I learned was how to get a quick shot in, and to this day I am counter-training/relearning.
So for what it’s worth – if you are a beginner and you want to learn Wing Chun (spelling optional), start at a school that focuses on principle and technique, not brawling.
imo once you have learned the correct posture, use of energy and understood the principles through chi sau THEN you can apply it to fighting. If not, then you maybe can fight, but you will not be using your structure etc. properly.
“geoff thompson who some of you may have heard of, who dismiss forms like bruce lee as being a waste of time as you can never apply them in a fight”
Forms are a way of learning, like drilling, which are applied in many things like learning to play a guitar or driving a car, you’re teacher takes you through steps to master it. Boxing may not have forms but they have other ways of drilling the techniques, and planting them into your mind. Who says you use forms in a fight anyway, you apply what you learn in a form into a fight or situation. This is especially the case in Wing chun because unlike alot of forms you are not fighting imaginary opponents, you are learning the techniques which are later applied, mixed and matched, during sparring and chi sau.
You can’t learn without a learning process.
What I was originally trying to convey was that in Wing Chun the forms contain simple effective techniques used at short range, however many fo you will knwo in northern shaolin the forms are based on wide long stances with large twisting movements and extremely complicated movements in the forms that even the teacher sometimes eaches differently twice.
In for exaple Sil Lum Tao I think I am right in thinking the form teaches you the three main blocks and how to strike when applying the blocks, excellent the stance is ralistic and good guards th centre line and groin. My thought is, who in a fight can get into horse stance and then shift to forward stance and don’t even get me started on the cat stance, out of interest noone of these wide stances are in Wing Chun are they as the stance is anrrow and allows the practitioner to be extremely quick on their feet and agile.
I am definetly going to start Wing Chun though, I would describe it as the intellectual of the martial arts and what I have seen has greatly impressed me.
Are there any video clips anywhere on the internet of chi sau or wooden dummy or general wing chun practice one inch punch etc.
Just as you don’t use the pigeon toed stance in battle, you wouldn’t use a horse stance like that in battle. Not so low. I believe they are training devices.
To the previous arrogant poster, no they are not trianing devices yes they develop strong quadriceps but in tam tui the techniques used rely on you having a strong low horse stance many of the punches are twists from horse stance to forward stance so yes to correct you, you are expected to use these stances in fihgting they sparate sparring from combat and expect the forms to be applied in combat.
