Good notes Terrence and Ernie.
Most of the Wing Chun training methods used today came from the old timers some of which went out and battled it out. Some teachers we respect such as Tsui Shan Ting were not known as fighters at all yet they have generated some very good fighters. The same in my opinion might be said of Yip Chun and Moy Yat I respect these people and think they have something of use to say that a modern fighter can use as part of his knowledge base as he goes out to the real world to test himself.
All learning combines theory with practice. The teacher points the way, gives the theory and provides some training ideas. That teacher need not be a great fighter himself but needs a good understanding and good eye. He needs to be a good teacher. Not all coaches can play their sport or slug it out in the ring with the people they are training. In professional boxing I doubt any coach can handle his world-class professional fighter. I don’t really know actually what kind of background the top boxing coaches really have. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Certainly their names are not known as are the fighter’s names.
So Tsui Shan Ting let’s say didn’t fight but Wong Shun Leung did. Other names can be substituted so don’t get hung up on the names. Yet I think both can turn out good fighters because most of the work is that of the student and not that of the teacher. The teacher is a guide. A good fighter does not necessarily make a good teacher. A world class Chess player doesn’t make the best Chess analyst. A good analyst can come up with lines of play that will turn out the next world champion. The same may be true of a good boxing coach. Of course both in boxing and Chess you have to have done something in the arts to know something of substance.
I think there are attributes in Wing Chun that cannot always be developed by rushing through the system and then slugging it out in the gym. I have met some people like that. Their attributes where that they were stiff and tense, edgy and jumpy and really weren’t any harder to handle than anyone else. One person was even a SanDa champ with ten years experience (a good fighter mind you but had a lot of trouble against bigger opponents). I think it’s a matter of degree. There are other attributes for real fighting that are developed in the ring by slugging it out with larger opponents.
Anyone who has seen Chen style master Chen XiaoWang move will know that his kind of body coordination, his sensitivity, his depth of understanding doesn’t come from quickly rushing through the Tai Chi system and then training day in and day our with professional boxers. Perhaps at some point that’s useful but to develop his Tai Chi attributes first would take a considerable amount of time. Hitting the ring early is another way to learn but maybe the school of hard knocks way to learn. That method is not for everyone. Some martial arts are just very difficult to master. It takes years and years to get somewhere in Aikido and a top guy like Tohei had trouble to throw an out of shape fat newspaper guy. But there is no doubt he was a master of Aikido that could turn out people better than himself.
Regarding Kenneth Chung, I don’t know his ring ability nor do I care. He has trained Wing Chun intensively for the equivalent time of ten years times 7 hours a day so he has developed something of depth that goes way beyond what I have achieved or what I have seen many others have achieved. When people who know him experience his skills they see some quality there. Whether he can beat up Emin the reality fighter or not is not relevant to me. Both men have put in the time and developed along different lines. Something can be learned from both but they are on different tracks. I would say either is effective on the street. I would say Emin’s might be better in the ring. All of this is speculation. Those who talk about reality should also meet people like Chen XiaoWang and give them a try to see something about the depth of classical Chinese Kung Fu. It also has it’s merits. I think you could be good in the ring but then still miss a lot that martial arts have to offer. It’s not easy to be good against all the kinds of fighters.
From our experience we have had people who work as bouncers and fought a lot and their training was just the usual Wing Chun stuff consisting of forms, Chi sau and light sparring, punching the bag, and wooden dummy work. Some also trained with some boxers and kickboxers (there is a world class kickboxer here) and they did all right. I have seen one case where a so called “dry land swimmer” totally demolished a very experienced ring type by picking him apart. Both of these guys were big boys with similar attitudes so already the chance is 50/50 of who will prevail. Maybe the ring guy got sucked into fighting the other guys fight. But the dry land swimmer later became a bouncer and then a correctional officer and has been in many fights. That realistic experience of course has made him an even better fighter than before but he already had something from his “useless” training. Just not everyone is interested to go the distance nor does everyone feel like killing their fellow human being or beating them to a pulp.
We have students now who I think will take a few years before they can start to be a fighter. They don’t have that mentality. To teach them I challenge them just enough but not so much that they get freaked out and quit. That experience has also happened to me. Once a lady with a year’s worth of experience thought she was getting pretty good. But I told her that reality fighting is still very different than having success in Chi sau. So I demonstrated by applying some slightly more vigorous pushing and pulling forces on her. I didn’t hurt her at all but she was very shocked, turned a pale white and never came back. This was a very good student so it was sad to see that happen. I think with a more gradual approach she would have stayed. In another case a lady Wing Chun teacher asked me to take over one of her classes because she had to be away. So I decided to work on some basic techniques like Pak sau. I asked one lady to throw a punch so I could demonstrate a Pak sau drill. I didn’t hit hard but she shrieked, jumped 10 feet away and said in a loud voice “keep you hands off me!” I was quite surprised. After the class the other ladies told me to not worry about it because that lady was always like that. I think she had gone though some sexual abuse experiences and so any physical contact was highly traumatic for her. If I had known that, then I could have taught her in a completely different more gradual way.
So for these people it doesn’t do them any good to send them off to the local kickboxing gym to get their head handed to them on a silver plate. They can get beat up enough by their fellow student if that is what they want to feel. A teacher must tailor the program to the student. I don’t agree with sending everyone out to get hurt. That’s up to the student. Everyone is training for different reasons. Slow or fast depends on the student’s mentality. You can’t teach everyone Wing Chun in 3 months and then send him or her out to fight.
We have had people who spend several years to train and still they are not fighters but they really love the art. We have had one person with 7 months of Wing Chun who entered the Karate Black belt competitions and won against 5 opponents before getting knocked down with a good hook punch.
On this forum there are many kinds of people I think. A small percentage is like professional ring fighters who dominate the discussion and make anyone’s training and discussion seem irrelevant. I think everyone’s journey is useful. Even a beginner can have something useful to say and shouldn’t be afraid to say something that is dumb or to ask a stupid question. There are no stupid questions. I think this forum would be most useful if say 10% of the talk was reality talk and the rest is concerned with other aspects of this art.
Everything is relative. If some professional fighters were on this forum then no one would have anything to say because who has anyone fought? What can you tell Mike Tyson that would be of use to him? Nothing! What can you tell Jon Bluming, Doleman Dekker about fighting that they haven’t hear before? Nothing! The real fighters don’t waste time on these kinds of forums because they are too busy training. I think there are two camps. One camp is the professionals and the other camp is the amateur hobbyists. The two can’t really see eye to eye but the amateur can learn something from the professional.
You know what, dry land swimming is a lot harder than regular swimming. Try doing the Butterfly stroke or crawl for 100 meters across the sand. That’s a real workout. (joke)
Hopefully we are just giving each other’s perspectives in the light of learning from each other. I learn stuff from people much stupider than me too.
Goju Ryu…Go= hard,Ju=soft. Ryu=school…Hard soft school of Karate.