aelawrd asks
Then again, who are YOU to evaluate?
Why he is someone with 2 years of a wing chun study group
experience.
Arent you excired?
I am seriously pumped
at the thought of calling my school a study group instead. that would sound so much less pretensious and snooty. then i can laugh at people! i can say, “Look at the people on their way to SCHOOOOOOL! Whooohooo, aren’t they special?”
School days- great days. My school is better than your school-
or is it the other way around. But I am excited. I just remain excited. Any thoughts?
well.. i’ve looked over #1 and #5… and im not quite sure its wing chun
i definately couldnt find any in #5!?! wheres the wing chun stance? the guy on the left has all his weight on his front foot, then he steps back but his front foot is still the only one planted; i think i saw something which looked slightly like a tan sau but i cant be sure
the guy on the right just wasn’t rooted at all; and appeared to be demonstrating karate
however all that being said, i dont think you can really judge someones wing chun by a few application clips - clips of actual chi sau would show a great deal more about the quality of their wing chun
peace
travis
These vids are bad.
Sorry. Of course IMHO!
I’m not saying Lo Man Kam is bad. But I hope these people are 1/2 year students, except the scary hairy geezer (oh, sorry Yuanfen!: the scary hairy possible sifu, or scary hairy possible somebody else’s sihing!)
1: The fak sau to lap sau Aelward spotted (well done! Couldn’t recognise them myself!
) were not covering the upper gates. They were covering the possibility of someone dropping something on your head (something I never practice for: guess those falling pianos’ll get me every time!) Far too high and completely open.
2: Looked kinda like a high gaun for the full force of a kick. So the rest of the moves should have been done with the left hand only, cos his right would have been broken. The step in with the (Aelward says) fak + left inside lap, starts with the left going too far up again, and the right is completely drawn back to the waist = completely open. The takedown is completely sideways: there is no centreline connection, and they both start in the same position = the other guy could do exactly the same move.
3: First; honest mistakes: the intercepting leg comes too high (it goes higher than his waist, so why didn’t he convert it to a kick to the post/nuts rather than standing on one leg? Maybe because he’s doing a set drill, not free san sau: in which case he should still change, or he’ll be pracitising nonsense!), and tan sau going outward, not forwards (not important in this case, there’s nothing else coming in). Then his left hand comes right back before he turns the corner; and as he steps in he leans too far back, using his opponent as a balance to steady himself. At this point, his opponent’s leg is inside, and his opponent has a more stable posture (albeit sideways). Also, BTW, the opponent painfully obviously can’t kick that high!! Why bother!
4: Nice. But he still waits in the kwan sau for the full force of the kick to come in.
5: Possible kickboxing influence from ‘defender’? Too relaxed. His kicks are coming round, and going sideways. He finishes sideway each time… in fact dangerously close to being backwards on! The second kick, furthermore, makes a gift of the inside of his left knee: good job his ‘opponent’ isn’t actually doing anything.
6: Nice; but after the pak, he brings his hand right back to the shoulder again leaving himself completely open. The throw is more like number 2 should have been.
7: Seems OK but very tense (both of them - maybe the left-hand guy is a beginner: or should I say the left-hand somebody else’s possible future sihing/sifu/sigung?!)
8: The ‘opponent’ is doing nothing!!! Is that a punch?? Somebody fetch my grandmother to ***** slap this mofo (possible future old mofo) back from cloud cuckoo land! Left hand guy is AGAIN left hand up, right hand down = completely open.
Again. I’m not saying Lo Man Kam is bad (I would love a chance to train with him to see for myself). I’m not even saying these students are bad (I’ve never trained with them either!). But these vid clips suck.
And to say ‘ooh diddums, but aren’t the lickle wingchunners brave for putting themselves on the net, and why don’t you?’ is no excuse for putting BAD vids on the net. Who am I to evaluate? Another eternal student! If you don’t evaluate, you don’t learn. I’ve just been very critical of these vids, but I’m even more self-critical, and if I were to put footage of myself up on the net I would be the first to rip it to pieces. Doesn’t mean I’m bad. We all make mistakes, but some of these bloomers look like they’ve been drilled, not just messed up in the heat of the moment…
Please feel free to go mad and flame away, or surprise me, and take it with a pinch of salt, coming back with reasoned criticism .
RE: MAT
Mat writes:
> Please feel free to go mad and flame away, or surprise me, and
> take it with a pinch of salt, coming back with reasoned
> criticism .
Hmm, I never thought myself as a flamer; but then I guess incompetent people never realize it. I am sorry if I seem mad and flame; I am certainly not angry (maybe be a little exasperated at r5a).
That out of the way, let me try to surprise you with reasoned criticism.
Two points of this post:
- should these clips be up?
- who are we to evaluate, and how should we do it?
> And to say ‘ooh diddums, but aren’t the lickle wingchunners
> brave for putting themselves on the net, and why don’t you?’ is
> no excuse for putting BAD vids on the net.
We measure good and bad through our own understanding and interpretation. While there are some objective standards, evaluation is completely subjective. That said, I am sure there is at least one Wing Chun practitioner out there who will object to every single video clip on the web.
> Who am I to evaluate? Another eternal student! If you don’t
> evaluate, you don’t learn.
You can see these videos as a chance to evaluate and learn then. If anything, you can readily say, “I’m glad I don’t do Wing Chun like that,” and so the clip has served its purpose.
Now, like I have said before, I would not do what those guys were doing in the videos, even though I come from the same lineage. (In all honesty, I did not have time to even download and watch all of them). But just because I do not do these techniques, or even necessarily agree with them, does not give me the grounds to say they are BAD (I did this in my younger years, and really regret it because it kept me from making friends with and learning from certain instructors). I might say it does not mesh with the way I learned for xxxxx reasons; but I am not going to say it as if I were an all-knowing Wing Chun expert, but rather from a position of modesty and an undertsanding that things are interpreted differently. Maybe if I were a Tsui Shang Ting or a Lok Yiu or a Sum Nung then I would feel more confident in writing something off so quickly. But I am not, and neither are the majority of people who post here.
Now, your criticism, unlike that of say, r5a, breaks things down point by point, technique by technique; instead of just making a blanket statement about “elbows out, no rooting.” In some places, you even made your own suggestions. I don’t know who you are, or where or how long you have been learning, but I am willing to bet that you have more experience both in WC and with dealing with other WC families than some of the people here.
Re: RE: MAT
Originally posted by aelward
[B]Mat writes:
> Please feel free to go mad and flame away, or surprise me, and
> take it with a pinch of salt, coming back with reasoned
> criticism .
Hmm, I never thought myself as a flamer; but then I guess incompetent people never realize it. I am sorry if I seem mad and flame; I am certainly not angry (maybe be a little exasperated at r5a).
[/B]
Hi aelward. Wasn’t aiming that part at anyone, but most people are so prissy on this board…
Originally posted by aelward
[B]That out of the way, let me try to surprise you with reasoned criticism.
Two points of this post:
- should these clips be up?
- who are we to evaluate, and how should we do it?
> And to say ‘ooh diddums, but aren’t the lickle wingchunners
> brave for putting themselves on the net, and why don’t you?’ is
> no excuse for putting BAD vids on the net.
We measure good and bad through our own understanding and interpretation. While there are some objective standards, evaluation is completely subjective. That said, I am sure there is at least one Wing Chun practitioner out there who will object to every single video clip on the web.
[/B]
Yep, that’s me I’m afraid. Usually I don’t bother because there is no point in arguing things like this: as you say evaluation is subjective, and the proof is in practice. I hope that one day, I’ll have made my way round a lot more high class wingchun teachers, and I don’t mean to alienate myself… which is why I said that I don’t mean any disrespect to Lo Man Kam (who the hell am I??!).
I was just making the point that I would put vids of myself up if I thought it would do any good to the wingchun community. So, yes, bad vids do have a purpose (so mine certainly would have!!:D). Please see below!
Originally posted by aelward
[B]> Who am I to evaluate? Another eternal student! If you don’t
> evaluate, you don’t learn.
You can see these videos as a chance to evaluate and learn then. If anything, you can readily say, “I’m glad I don’t do Wing Chun like that,” and so the clip has served its purpose.[/B]
That’s what I was saying!
Originally posted by aelward
[B]
Now, like I have said before, I would not do what those guys were doing in the videos, even though I come from the same lineage. (In all honesty, I did not have time to even download and watch all of them). But just because I do not do these techniques, or even necessarily agree with them, does not give me the grounds to say they are BAD (I did this in my younger years, and really regret it because it kept me from making friends with and learning from certain instructors). I might say it does not mesh with the way I learned for xxxxx reasons; but I am not going to say it as if I were an all-knowing Wing Chun expert, but rather from a position of modesty and an undertsanding that things are interpreted differently. Maybe if I were a Tsui Shang Ting or a Lok Yiu or a Sum Nung then I would feel more confident in writing something off so quickly. But I am not, and neither are the majority of people who post here.
Now, your criticism, unlike that of say, r5a, breaks things down point by point, technique by technique; instead of just making a blanket statement about “elbows out, no rooting.” In some places, you even made your own suggestions. I don’t know who you are, or where or how long you have been learning, but I am willing to bet that you have more experience both in WC and with dealing with other WC families than some of the people here. [/B]
My apologies if I sounded high-handed, but too many people make excuses for their wingchun. I have been practising (not just) wingchun for long enough to know my (too many!) failings!
But no, this does not mesh with my wingchun. And some of these things look like serious problems, maybe engrained by some training method to me… (like leaving yourself wide open when you step in because you have deliberately moved one arm up and the other back) so I think they are BAD!
But that’s why I said at the top ‘Of course: all IMHO’! I usually don’t put that, because people use that as an excuse to spout crap, but I was hoping to provide some reasoned argument to the supposition that ‘it’s all just a bit different’… sorry if I failed. I did mean the H though, and this is why I usually refrain from such opinionated discussions. I am just another eternal student but sometimes, I don’t think ‘it’s a bit different’ should be taken without criticism.
I have noticed whenever someone posts a clip everyone jumps in with detail it picking, fair enough I guess, but what I would like to see either on a web site or if someone knows of a video of it, wing chun (any lineage) being used to win full contact, limited no rules competition fighting (real street fight would be best but lets be realistic). I say this because I have had it said by a previous wing chun instructor (who loves to fight and also does NHB) that a lot of the detail goes out the window in the few seconds when a fight starts. Me, I am nowhere near the level to prove or deny this and all the ‘masters’ seem to have retired and done all their fighting off camera. So can anyone step forward and show wing chun (VT, WT whatever) in non staged action ?
Thanks All
Respect
REDANGEL,
To answer your question about rooting, TST has a very high stance. It looks like he is basically standing up and they also feel the melting root.
Tai chi doesn’t sink too low either on their standing post and they can root. Hsing yi only bends their knees a little bit.
My sifu told me… " It’s not how high you are or how low. It’s your alignment that counts."