He's asking for a beating!

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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There is a guy who trains with me at a Wing Chun kwoon. I’ve known him since I started there last year; he has been a student there for 3 years and he also trains in Hung Kuen. I wouldn’t say that he’s a friend but certainly an associate of mine and a Kung Fu brother. Last week, he asked Sifu about sparring with someone outside of our kwoon. I guess what he actually wanted was to bring in someone from another style to spar with him at the kwoon. Keep in mind that he wanted to do this either before or after the regular training class, and he was going to have some kind of liability waiver drawn up for both he and the other person to sign, releasing Sifu of any responsibility.

Well, of course Sifu said no. Now I was present when Sifu told him this, but when Sifu told him no, he took the guy over to his (Sifu’s) office. I couldn’t hear what was being said nor did I try to eavesdrop. After class, the guy was very upset and I asked what was wrong. He said that Sifu told him that he didn’t want any of his students sparring with someone of another style, and if the guy asked again then he would have to leave the kwoon.

Ok so that was last week. Now this guy came to class last night, and said he needed to talk to me. I spoke with him after class, and he said that he’s going to spar anyway outside of the kwoon. I told him that’s his business and between his concious and Sifu. But then he said something kind of disturbing. He said that he is tired of not testing his Kung Fu, so he is planning to go to different kwoons or martial art studios and openly challenge anyone there to fight him. I thought he was joking but he is dead serious!

In his opinion, he says that’s the problem with a lot of martial arts these days. Students follow the Sifu but don’t know if we are being taught anything useful, and if he’s not learning the fighting skill that our Wing Chun promised, then he wants to find out now so that he can stop training and switch to a different style.

Now I can understand his point on that to a certain degree, but I think it’s very disrespectful for him to go and challenge another school no matter what style. Even if the instructor shouldn’t be teaching at all, it’s dishonorable to the name of Wing Chun and the Martial Arts in general to go around making challenges like that. At least that’s my opinion and I told him so. He said I was entitled to my opinion just like he’s entitled to his, but he is still going to follow through with it.

I asked him when he planned to do this, and he said that he’s thinking of starting this Friday evening, going to a different school each week until he either beats someone of every style here (and I’m in LA so of course there’s a school in just about every style) or until he gets beaten. In which case he said he will stop training in Wing Chun completely and switch to a different style. He said that’s the way they did things back in the day.

Is there anything I can say to him to talk sense into him, and make him stop this nonsense? I’m going to class in a little while so I hope he’s there and maybe calmed down enough to listen to reason. :frowning:

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Let him do it, he will learn far more from it than you will from fretting over it.

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It isn’t your problem. Let your sifu deal with the situation.

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Sit him down, read him the kuen kuit and explain to him that the art of Wing Chun is a martial gift and shouldn’t be soiled on challenge matches. It’s like having a beautiful wife and pimping her out on some street corner. What’s he gain by fighting inferior people? Nothing. Try to get that through to him.

I’m The Real Original Lucky Louie.

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dude, jsut tell him to make sure to break the sign over his knee.

seriously. let him do it. its his choice. between him and sifu.

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Your freind will get dusted in an MMA gym, and be gone in 30 days to persue BJJ/Muy Tai no matter what you do, or say.

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Make sure you send him to Tim Cartmell’s place - check out www.shenwu.com for details.

I believe they have open mat sessions on Saturdays (3pm - 6pm) - anyone can come in and spar etc.

Ask for Meynard :smiley:

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I agree with your friend. If you haven’t tested it, how do you know if you can fight with it? Maybe your Sifu is afraid he can’t fight non-WC people and that’s why he got mad. I dunno.

But if I was learning something that didn’t work I’d leave ASAP.

In my class (MMA), our teacher encouraged us to always test anything we wanted against anything we wanted. We were active against resisting opponents for 80-90% of the class. We knew exactly what we could and couldn’t do, and what would work and what wouldn’t.

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Yes.

456789

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btw, first post is like this? I’ve got 3:2 odds this is a troll or another user name for a regular user.

If not, welcome to the forums.

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Oh No! Please stop the guy from sparring!!! He might learn something!!!

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After three years, training two styles, and your sifu won’t let him spar anyone from other styles? I would have to say I think your sifu is wrong.

However, that’s beside the point. Your mate should have kept his mouth shut and done it elsewhere, or quit the school. Unless he wants to become a champion for other like-minded people in your school, in which case with a sifu like that he’s ****ed anyway.

And your friend’s going to go and challenge other schools instead of having a friendly sample lesson or something? He’s either an idiot or twelve years old, or you’re a troll! :smiley:

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Or it could be that that isn’t what the Sifu said at all. Could be that the Sifu said, “Do it if that’s what you want, but you aren’t using my kwoon…” If said associate was trying to save face for what ever reason, he might have changed the story this way. While my school doesn’t do the whole turnemant thing, neither sifu prohibits us from competing. But we don’t get to use the kwoon to prepare other than the regular classes, either.

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LOL…Like MMA is the be all end all..One of our part time WC students mixed it up with the local MMA champ with no problems, so NO it is not “no matter what you do or say, you will join a MMA gym anyways”

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:confused: Isn’t that why Many sifu don’t want thier students to go out and spar other styles?

:wink: :smiley:

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Well first let me say thanks for the replies, and second I am no troll (if I came here and started attacking other styles or posts then you could call me a troll, but I have done neither). As someone speculated earlier, I do post here under a different name but since I am known by some and have previously posted who my Sifu is, I am not going to use my regular name.

I did see the guy in class this evening and had a talk with him, and he said that he had reached this crossroad a while ago, of wanting to test himself and Wing Chun. I guess his little talk with Sifu only added fuel to the fire. I was planning to try and talk him out of it, not only to save him from embarrassing himself but also potentially giving a bad name to Sifu and/or the kwoon.

He said that when he goes to challenge another school, he won’t say which kwoon he’s from but he will claim to be a Wing Chun fighter. Although I’m not sure how he can claim to be a “fighter” when he’s only sparred (as far as I know) people in our kwoon. Unless he’s done so at his Hung Ga kwoon. So at least there is no way of Sifu being humiliated by this guy’s actions, unless of course the guy tells him afterwards.

I’m not going to say anything to Sifu because I don’t want to be known as a rat, and I guess I’ll just let the chips fall where they may. I still say that’s it’s disrespectful to do this, but I guess we sometimes have to stand aside and let others learn their own lesson. :frowning:

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My Sihing had a situation similar to this years and years ago, only the difference was it was a friend of his that was doubting his abilities, so my Sihing asked Sifu what to do. My Sifu said to bring the friend into the kwoon and they should go at it there. Well this is exactly what happened, and although the fight lasted 20 minutes or so, more or less due to my Sihing’s unwillingness to really damage his friend with strong punches and kicks(he was only a year and half student at this stage of his training), the friend eventually learned to respect my Sihing and his Martial Arts training. He learned a great lesson that day.

IMO if a student of mine wanted to test his abilities he would be free to do in my kwoon, with people watching or in private but someone like myself still there to make sure things don’t get to out of hand. It’s okay to of course want to test one’s abilities and that should be done somewhere, sometime in the training process, but to go out and challenge another to prove something is not right IMO.

James

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Fair enough SLT.

I still think he’s being a tit if he’s gonna go in all hardcore and ‘challenge’ anyone. It must be better for him to go and ask for a friendly spar or a sample lesson.

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I understand his reasoning in wanting to try his skills. Our ideas along those lines are if you want to fight. fight. We have and do spar against other styles. We have an open floor policy on certain nights. All the people that come to these are people we know and are there for the fun and extra training.

Other schools (some not all) will let us come in and spar with them. Makes for a good change of pace. I really couldn’t stop a student from doing a challenge if they were set on it but we found a way that it almost never comes up.

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LOL…Like MMA is the be all end all..One of our part time WC students mixed it up with the local MMA champ with no problems, so NO it is not “no matter what you do or say, you will join a MMA gym anyways”

Reply]
If he’s not sparring enough in his Wing Chun, and he goes into an MMA gym where they normally spar alot, he’s going to get dusted. Even if he starts against guys with his level of experiance, they will just keep feeding him more guys untill he loses. He will then decide his style sucks, or his teacher sucks, and join the MMA gym and turn into yet another “Anti” Fu and aspound the almighty greatness of MMA.