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Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
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Troll Board DISCLAIMER:

“This intention of this thread is merely to benefit my own self-knowledge. It is not intended to provoke any negative reaction from any parties. I am not affiliated with any political section of any Wing Chun branch, nor do I claim to represent any persons other than myself. My position regarding the art of Wing Chun is one of somewhat limited knowledge. Therefore any errors in historical, political or traditional statements are unintentional. Any errors in terminology are also unintentional, and will be rectified if suitable noticed. Any comments made on this thread by myself should be considered as solely my own thoughts, unless otherwise stated, and therefore any feedback, positive or negative, should be directed solely at myself, unless otherwise applicable.”

Is there an overemphasis in WC on internal training over external?

It [Wing Chun] does not train you to be big and strong…

Wing Chun relies on sensitivity not strength…

Sometimes I find that those who are physically strong have more difficulty learning…

[All Yip Man]

Now I feel that strength plays a huge part in being a good fighter. You see good MMA fighters and they are wery well developed in muscular size and toning. They place a HUGE importance on external fitness and strength training. WC may be “soft”, but if you have power, why not use it? From what I have seen I do feel that WC really does place a LOT of importance on Qi cultivation. I’m not sure if I even believe in Qi :smiley:

Should Wing Chun placemore emphasis on external strength. It’s easy to say how internal “fajing” is superior, using Chinese terminology to somewhat “elevate” it above external strength. [External is “gangjing” by the way… :)]

Wong Shun Leung and Bruce Lee were two of Wing Chun’s most acclaimed fighters, both of superior external development. Is there a lack of good strong WC fighters? Would WC benefit from fighters like BL and WSL in todays MMA environment?

Can you have both internal and external power? Is there always a drop in sensitivity?On a personal note I will keep weight training through my WC.

What do you guys think?

Just a thought. :slight_smile:

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Not again. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. A delicate snorezzzzz
whatdya mean by internal and external?zzzzz
Clarification may help.

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Hilarious.

Clarification? I wrote 1/2 a side, what are you unsure about?

Although thanks for reminding me, I forgot the Disclaimer. I’ll add it in a sec.

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Done! Cheers Yuanfen :slight_smile:

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internal rumblings

i thought it was the chili. yip man said it was chi trying to move through a li of intestine. that little guy cracks me up.

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a kuit

“a weak body must begin with strength training”

however sheer, brute, muscular force (“le” as my sifu calls it) can be contradictory to the relaxed, nonmuscular force (“ging”) and the OVER TRAINING of strength may be harmful.

Also musscle (as well as gung fu) must be maintained, but where “gung” may increase with time, training and awareness, “le” will degrade with time (decades here, not months)

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Re: External…

Originally posted by DelicateSound

Is there an overemphasis in WC on internal training over external?

No. Wrong question.

[All Yip Man]

Now I feel that strength plays a huge part in being a good fighter. You see good MMA fighters and they are wery well developed in muscular size and toning. They place a HUGE importance on external fitness and strength training. WC may be “soft”, but if you have power, why not use it? From what I have seen I do feel that WC really does place a LOT of importance on Qi cultivation. I’m not sure if I even believe in Qi :smiley:

Should Wing Chun placemore emphasis on external strength. It’s easy to say how internal “fajing” is superior, using Chinese terminology to somewhat “elevate” it above external strength.
[/B]

Wing Chun STUDENTS should place more emphasis on being in good physical condition AND having cardiovascular endurance.

Train for relaxed whole body strength.
Train for endurance.
Develop root, position, timing and sensitivity.
Touch as many different kinds of hands as you can.

Kick @ss and take names. :smiley:

What are you training to do? Enter an elimation style NHB tournament? Enter a chi sao tournament? Streetfight? Submission Grappling?

By the way, don’t your shoulders burn like h$ll from hours of rolling in poon sau?

Don’t your legs get sore from the amount of pressure getting them to hold the postures properly in chum kiu? Aren’t they tired from all the huge amounts of stepping you are doing?

From the hundreds of punches you are throwing daily?

Yeah. Thought so. :cool:

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Internal all the way!!!

Theres this guy that comes to train with us sometimes who is really good. He is incredibly cut and over a head taller than me. He spends a lot of time in the gym.

Anyway he used to live in H.K and came across Chu Shong Tin. As he had some training in W.C he did Chi Sao with Chu Shong Tin. He told us that he almost had his arm pulled out of his socket by him and the muscles in his arm were sore as.

I met this man first hand, he is huge and this was done to him by a skinny old man.

So why do you think you need muscular strenght?

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Delicate Sound asks

Is there an overemphasis in WC on internal training over external?

At its best its synergistic and also a delicate balance!

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Re: External…

[QUOTE][i]Wong Shun Leung and Bruce Lee were two of Wing Chun’s most acclaimed fighters, both of superior external development.“”

Why do you say wsl was of superior external development. I never met him but I have read that he shunned weight training because he felt it inhibited his wing chun.

Personally I am not against weight training - this is just what I have read.

Pops

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A tentative agreement

I’m not sure if there’s an over-emphasis on internal, but maybe people ought to work on the external a little more.

From my own experience with Wing Chunners I’ve spoken to and trained with, those that oppose a high level of fitness are usually those that are slightly over weight and find tough exercises really hard going.

On the main Kung Fu forum someone from Tai Chi said internal power was no greater in force than external power - just something that could be done at an old age but took a long time to learn when wishing to issue it in a street confrontation.

Even the internal guys and girls can’t determine what they mean by ‘internal’ - but all the confusion aside, most ‘do’ agree their power generation is at least in part from good body mechanics.

This is present in Wing Chun too (IMHO) - good body mechanics - but muscles drive all our physical actions. Clap push-ups and centre-line push-ups are great for building up explosive short-range power. Your arm may be relaxed with tension in the fist(quickly released) at the point of impact - the elbow may be central to a strike’s dynamics - but it’s muscles that move the arm in the first place (primarily the tricep).

Fitness is also important when dealing with adrenaline dumps in a real fight. If you can end a fight in approx. three moves (as it is claimed WSL was able to)… GREAT.

If it takes you more, you’d be surprised at how much energy you use, how your accuracy weakens, etc, in a relatively short period.

An odd example :slight_smile: would be Will Smith when he was training for his role in Ali. He said that the fitness blew him away. He said he’d never been that fit in his entire life - and as a result he felt quicker, stronger, more alert, more relaxed.

None of these things can be bad for a Wing Chunner. IMO people practising WC are often (though not always) practising for self defense. A good level of fitness (ie. having trained externally), will mean you have stamina, speed, some strength, good reactions etc.

Heck… you’ll even be quicker on your feet!!! Sensitivity is great - but not so great when there are five guys with baseball bats running after you. When they come running you’d have wished those leg muscles weren’t so flabby! :wink:

You don’t hear the armed forces saying: “Listen up! You boys are gonna be given guns, grenades and a whole bevy of goodies for taking people out at long range. We’ll even give you knives for close range… so to H*ll with fitness… just aim and shoot… here, have another burger!”

Combat and a good level of fitness/external training - The two go hand in hand. Marines aren’t fat :slight_smile: Gladiators weren’t fat :slight_smile: Robin Hood wasn’t fat :slight_smile: Spiderman wasn’t fat :slight_smile: … errr… okay… I’ll shut up now.

:frowning:

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If you could do all the internal in one day, you could spend the rest of your time on fighting. But as you know it takes years to get a good understanding, and ability to consistantly put the theory into practice.

I do weights, but i stoped at one stage becasue i was having problems relaxing to attain a cohesive mass. Now i feel i can still do them and use the WC method of power, as opposed to pushing with my muscles.

So in short, i think a healthy body (ie strength, endruance) is a bonus…ontop of using the Wc power. Im just trying to increase my muscles mass so i can get more power using structure and focusing. But it will come down to your personal preference of if you think you can follow the WC path; while also increasing the strength of your body using a contradictory method of power generation.

pushing - taking the force head on. (weights etc)
movement - allowing the force to pass through you (WC structure)

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s teebas

i agree with you wholeheartedly

once you learn how to properly move your body WC style i feel weight training is of benefit

theres that “relaxed feeling” i get that lets me know im doing it right :slight_smile:

personally, i think the most important muscles to train for improvement in WC are the legs, they power almost everything

it seems the stronger my legs get, the quicker my body is, and the more powerful i become

stronger legs = quicker body movement
quicker body movement = more powerful strikes; and the ability to get in close faster

these are all extremely important to WC, in my humble opinion :slight_smile:

peace
travis

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Cheers guys - good responces.

Most of you seem to think the same way as me.

I feel that although internal is obviously great, so it external power. To a certain extent you can have the best of both worlds. A balancing act like.

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black and blue

“Heck… you’ll even be quicker on your feet!!! Sensitivity is great - but not so great when there are five guys with baseball bats running after you. When they come running you’d have wished those leg muscles weren’t so flabby!”

Good point! Didn’t think of that.

S. Teebas
The guy I was talking about is also very powerful, with incredibly heavey arms, so I guess weight training must be applicable.

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We practice a somewhat externalized version of Wing Chun. It works quite well, I might add. Perhaps we could be beaten using the internal aspect by a fellow WC man - but this is of very little concern to me.

-FJ

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fajing

Each to his own. The irony is that fajing is an internal concept<g>

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Hey, now. I know how to fa-jing a little. Not as much as my name implies…LOL

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Originally posted by fa_jing
[B]We practice a somewhat externalized version of Wing Chun. It works quite well, I might add. Perhaps we could be beaten using the internal aspect by a fellow WC man - but this is of very little concern to me.

-FJ [/B]

Externalized in what fashion?
Dynamic tension?
Extensive use of upper body strength?

If we looked at what you were doing, would we think we found a karate class mimicing Wing Chun?

How extreme or different are you in your approach?:smiley:

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Well, I’m so glad you asked. :slight_smile: You would recognize that we are doing Wing Chun - we aren’t using hard blocking, making sound effects, etc. We certainly practice completely traditional wing chun drills, it’s a big part of our class time. I can name them. But, we also have those times when we pull out the air shield, the heavy bag, the thai pads, the focus mitts, the 16 oz boxing gloves. We do stomach taps, body conditioning, jump rope.
We do a little grappling. The main difference is, when we spar, we are proactive generally, not reactive, not waiting for the opponent to move while standing in YGKYM. We focus on the Bai Jong as a starting postion. We don’t focus much on Chi Sao. My Sifu is experienced in ring fighting, he has studied June Fan JKD, but I do not like much the June Fan style, nor do I know the 5 ways of attack, etc. I like Wing Chun.

We still focus on relaxing, rather than tension. Yes, we like to get off our opponent’s line of attack, we use triangle stepping, bracing step, etc. We haven’t made Karate out of Wing Chun, but we do have a relatively big emphasis on striking power, for a Wing Chun school. And our body development is good backup for when that punch doesn’t exactly link up. We still work on most of the same things you guys work on - it is a nice goal to be able to defeat your opponent effortlessly. I would say that we are realist, to know that you can’t always do this, that you will get hit sometimes. Still, I plan on kicking butt into my 90’s. :wink: