How many of you on this forum actually fight on a regular basis?
P.S. Not including that controlled game called ‘Chi Sao’.
Same troll, different day. 
fresh - typical response from a wing chun guy 
i think there is something wrong with a person that goes around and gets into fights everyday. I think those people tend to get removed from society though.
I think what he is refering to is a more open format for sparring. Chi Sau is a controlled form of sparring designed to help develop sensitivity and other wing chun attributes. It’s parameters are sometimes tight enough to barely resemble fighting.
Used to train in a sparring style daily (once upon a time). It did absolutely nothing to improve my WC. In fact, it was detrimental.
In fact, it was detrimental
How so?
The focus of the sparring was on making hits, not achieving control – of myself or of my opponent. If I “won,” it was because my opponent lacked skill; and when I lost, it was because I lacked skill. This went on for months. In the end, was my stance good? No. Did I understand the principles of Wing Chun better? No. I knew how to go for the head and how to duck. Practical, but not Wing Chun.
So sparring in my mind is just an animated expression of lack of talent.
So you don’t believe that sparring can help you to set the context of your wingchun to say a fight on the street? Or maybe fighting an opponent that does not know wing chun?
i think sparring can be useful for reflex training. but in a “fighting” context it gives you a false sense of security. i agree with alpha dog that it’s not as beneficial as some people think. mostly it’s a good way to practice and ingrain bad habits.
to spar or not to spar that is the ?
Grabula wrote:
So you don’t believe that sparring can help you to set the context of your wingchun to say a fight on the street? Or maybe fighting an opponent that does not know wing chun?
I agree that sparring is important to handle combative situations outside of a wc ‘gathering’. I think it keeps you on your toes as to handle your WC in ‘real life’ situations.
However, I also agree that focusing on sparring in your daily training of WC has the potential to take away from the focus of learning the ‘tools’ that will help you in those ‘real life’ situations.
I think there should be a balance to a degree…for example sparring 2-3 times a week. WC everyday to some degreee, and intensely 3-5 times a week.
Of course all of this (time spent training, focus of training, intensity of training, etc) depends on how, what, why you are training in WC.
Just my thoughts on the subject,
Vicky
Vicky, I basically agree with what you say. I only do an open type sparring once a week or so since the basic wing chun skills are still the most important. I do feel however that it has enhanced my performance a bit.
My humble opinion on sparring is that, as part of a broader training programme it is very important.
You can break a potential fight with an opponent into two phases,
- making first contact
- what happens after this
You can be the greatest exponent of chi-sao the world has ever seen but if your first contact with an opponent is his fist hitting your chin/throat then its not going to do you any good.
Sparring is very important for reading how people move and learning to pick up on visual cues that pre-empt an attack.
Monkey
When, then, would be an appropriate point in one’s training to begin sparring? First year? Third?
Again, only my humble opinion but I believe as soon as the student has mastered the basic mechanics of what the hands and feet should be doing in response to various attacks in the form of set drills they need to start practising these techniques in two contexts.
- Against someone attacking them with something approaching realistic force.
- Without knowing in advance what the attack will be.
Sparring can offer both of these things but obviously common sense needs to be applied. The intensity of the spar needs to be controlled and gradually increased in line with the students ability to cope.
The exact time though will depend on the student. Also I would add that my opinions on this are shaped by my own goals which are to use wing chun for realistic self defence/fighting.
I simply dont believe that I can be confident in dealing with an aggressive resisting opponent in reality if I havent trained against an aggressive resisting opponent.
Believe it or not, good sparring is NOT about scoring points, NOT about beating each other up, and NOT full intensity. Full intensity is alright but once in a blue moon.
That said, finding a partner willing to train in this manner is difficult. Despite our Sifu yelling at us, I and my junior always went at it way too hard, got emotional, etc.
My sifu put it nicely - you should be able to vary the intensity from one to 10.
The thing is, usually it’s someone who already has many years of experience, and has already made the mistakes of sparring the wrong way, who has competed already and doesn’t feel that they have something to prove, that is willing to spar in a constructive manner.
fa_jing makes a good point, “good” sparring is not about scoring points or hitting each other necessarily so much as learning how to hit each other.
Well that is what is good about good things – they are good.
I have no interest in sparring, good or bad.
AlphaDog:
do you feel that it is possible to learn to fight without sparring? If so, how does one develop the timing and distancing?
Yep.
One way is the dummy (please no Bruce Lee quotes about it not hitting back – I just ate and will literally hurl).
Another way is via drills which involve coordination of legs, hands, and body positioning. Your partner can react or not, depending on what you’re training. If this doesn’t make sense it’s because it’s hard to describe in words. Ask your Sifu to show you!