[QUOTE=KPM;816475]When people teach things they cannot do themselves in fighting, when they teach from “theory” or “concepts” instead of experience, etc., they are teaching fantasy.
—I see your point, but I think you take it too far. By your standard, anyone that teaches Wing Chun would have to test every single technique they teach in a “real fighting” situation. So what about those techniques that are perhaps “low percentage” but still important? If one teacher never has the opportunity to use them in a fight, and so refuses to teach them to his students, then his students may never know that they exist and not have them at their disposal should that situation every come up. It reminds me of the JKD motto…“absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.” But the people that really understand this will tell you that this philosophy only applies after you have a solid background. I have heard Ron Balicki say that there are things he was taught that he personally does not use. But he still includes them in his curriculum because they may be of value to someone else. He has also said that there are things that he was taught that he THOUGHT he would never use, but as time went on he found them more and more valuable.
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The fundamentals of any particular MA will apply to everyone in that method. And my point is that those fundamentals should be taught/trained in a way that actually works (in fighting). Otherwise, you are not really learning/training how to use them. And the only way to know that is through experience, actually making them work. Let’s say, for example, that I teach you guard passing not from experience (that tells me these things actually work) but from theory or how I believe it should work, and teach you a way of passing the guard that really won’t work under realistic conditions. What are you getting then? Fantasy. If you are taught WCK san sao like in that clip I referenced, what are you getting? Fantasy. You are not learning/training to use the tools of your method as you will really need to use them.
Look at teaching/training from a BJJ or boxing or judo perspective – because the same things apply to WCK or any method of fighting. Certainly there are many things a particular BJJ fighter or boxer or judoka may not use as part of their individual game. But regardless of what is taught, trained, etc. they know will work because THEY OR SOMEONE ARE DOING THEM IN FIGHITNG. They will see for themselves if they work or not. They will see it fought.
How can we “absorb what is useful” if we don’t know what is useful? The only way to tell what is useful is through fighting and seeing for ourselves.
This is why the Dog Brothers motto “if you see it taught, you see it fought” is nothing more than a clever way of saying “what we do is a reality-based martial art and not a fantasy-based martial art.” That motto is true of all reality-based, and hence functional, martial arts. In contrast, when you see it trained and don’t see it come out in fighting, “when you see it taught and don’t see it fought”, you know you have a fantasy-based martial art. And fantasy-based martial art isn’t just a waste of training time, it is actually counter-productive, because you are training your body to move, act, behave, etc. in ways that will fail.
—But I have heard Marc Denny say that he still feels that a background in a “traditional” FMA is valuable. He has said that he values the “traditional” flow drills of Kali, even though you don’t see them come out in fighting in exactly the same way as the drill. Just like Chi Sao, they help to build reflexes and responses that often come out in fighting in unexpected ways. Guro Denny is not an advocate of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” and rejecting all traditional training. What he does is draw upon the traditional training to isolate and develop that things that work the best. He “functionalizes” the techniques, which is something we need to do with Wing Chun. But I get the impression that he would not agree with tossing out all the traditional training. Dog Brother Martial Arts is like the JKD of stickfighting. They have started from a “traditional” base and still draw upon “traditional” teachings in developing their own functional system.
Why is it useful to learn movements, actions, techniques, etc. in a way that we won’t really use them? Do you see that when this happens you are not really learning or developing a skill? Because a skill is our ability to perform a task (what you will do in fighting), to do a certain thing. And you are not learning or developing that. You are learning and "developing"something else, a way to not really do it. If you practice one way and then do it another when fighting, how is that good, effective training?
Doesn’t it make more sense to learn the skill, practice the skill, and then use the skill (in fighting) so that you get a 1-to-1-to-1 correspondence, that it is performed consistently throughout your learning/training?