Why wait 4 to 6 months to start sparring? Heck why wait at all?
My opinion on why not to wait.
I’ve found it refreshing to work with untrained people, shows where I’ve grown too accustomed to my fellow students. I’ve also found that instead of building bad habits it actually helps the learning of proper movement and technique, (sooner or later you get sick and tired of getting hit). I believe it’s also good to learn that in the martial arts nothing is free, if I want to hit you I’ll more than likely get hit at least some myself.
So what are your reasons for not crossing hands (dynamic sparring not drills which have their place) from the start.
Isn’t there an issue of fitness and/or conditioning with sparring as well? I most certainly wouldn’t want to spar if I wasn’t in good enough shape, just like I wouldn’t want to go out and play a full game of soccer without first building up my endurance. I also think that technique should be ingrained first before sparring, but once the basics are down, I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t spar.
how do you get good at sparring?
by sparring
once you have a few basic techniques in your arsenal you should start sparring its the only way to learn wing chun for real
doing the forms slowly will not help you defeat the guy on the street if it ever happens
I think you need to wait until your body has internalized the basic moves first, otherwise you won’t be using them when you try to spar. You will probably just be flopping around with bad form. I think in a real fight when you lose some of your fine motor ability you need to rely on heavily trained perfectly formed basics from which the situational stress will strip away perfection, leaving you with hopefully at least half decent moves. Of course, the more relaxed you can be the closer you will be to the ideal.
I think that it is a particularity of Wing Chun! I made the experience with students and I can say that:The more (free type!) sparring there is = the less Wing Chun I see!..So I think it should be kept minimal compared to regular Wing Chun drills.
I believe that Wing Chun goes a lot better with fighting without mercy than sparring.The close distance used in Wing Chun is not very propice to “exchanges of techniques” like other styles do.This is where our training in chi sau and various drills pay us back! We learn and train to :Stick to what comes and attack idealy at the same time.This is very difficult to do in friendly sparring so this is why we mostly spar in predetermined roles; attacker/defender.I know it sound strange in an era when everybody wants to test/prove themselves in a “dynamic environment” and with “actively resisting opponents” MMA style but our way works for us!..Why reinventing the wheel?..
Originally posted by old jong IThe more (free type!) sparring there is = the less Wing Chun I see!..So I think it should be kept minimal compared to regular Wing Chun drills.
We spend almost a year perfecting the basics, building more and more complexity and control into the movements before we begin sparring. The difference between this method and simply sparring from the outset is quite clear. Those that spar before having fully internalized the basics look and move like every other thug out there - sloppy, flailing arms and legs, wasted movement, dissipated energy, lack of accuracy, leaving themselves wide open for strikes. Those that take the time to learn the basics correctly first move and succeed quite easily as wingchunners.
The sparring in my kwoon is not an ‘exchange of techniques’. It is is fast, furious, and dirty. It is wingchun.
To the fella who said “once you have a few basic techniques in your arsenal you should start sparring its the only way to learn wing chun for real doing the forms slowly will not help you defeat the guy on the street if it ever happens”, I urge you to please take up another style of martial arts.
“To the fella who said “once you have a few basic techniques in your arsenal you should start sparring its the only way to learn wing chun for real doing the forms slowly will not help you defeat the guy on the street if it ever happens”, I urge you to please take up another style of martial arts.”… Now,That’s my good old Jas!..
First day wrestling–sparred.
First day BJJ–sparred.
First day boxing–sparred.
First day Thai Boxing–sparred.
You’re telling me that you can’t pair a newbie up with an advanced student for 5 or 10 minutes, based on fitness level, for a light/medium sparring match to show him “what it’s all about?” The newbie won’t get hurt because the advanced student/instructor has good control, and the advanced student probably won’t get hurt because they’re good enough to defuse untrained attacks
I got thrashed by a purple belt 2 weeks into BJJ (I’d BEEN sparring for two weeks, thanks) who I outweigh by 50 lbs. Most fun I ever had losing. It was like riding a wave, I powerless and laughed myself silly about it.
I don’t buy it. I certainly don’t buy the various comments about “It’s clear you haven’t reached any understanding of WC or you need to do some other art.” Horse Pocky. He just has a different opinion.
No one is asking you to buy it merryprankster. You keep operating froma different paradigm.If a real wc master
“attacked” a newbie–it would be needlessly showing off-
and the newbie and most spectators wouldnt know what happened. No wing chun learning would take place.
The examples form sports that you mention dont apply to
good wing chun.
Rogue asked why not spar right away, then said, he sees nothing wrong with that way of doing things.
He was then told that he obviously hadn’t gotten very far in WC.
I’m asking “Why does a difference of opinion on training methods translate directly into 'you don’t know jack?”
If a school feels that several months or even a year are necessary to grind in the basics, that’s fine. I’m trying to ascertain why a couple of responses were “Thanks, but you don’t know what you are talking about.” Rather than “Here’s why.”
yuan–if an advanced student can’t “take it easy,” on a newbie and/or deflect incoming attacks then he’s not much good. As long as its understood that this is a learning experience for everybody, then there shouldn’t be a problem. If the newbie gets mad and starts becoming overaggressive, it should be no problem for the advanced student to tone things down a notch, by physically controlling the situation (accidents do happen, I understand). If the person persists, you don’t want them back anyway that kind of ego ridden drivel has no place in the school.
Now, first day might be a little much, that, I’ll grant.
Merryprankster, since this is the Wing Chun forum, the natural assumption is that we are discussing wing chun, not all styles in a generalized manner. In wing chun (not all styles), precision and accuracy are paramount, not optional. The basics are drilled over a period of time in order to achieve the degree of accuracy required for mastery.
If a style does not require this, then throwing someone into sparring right away is not an issue. In wing chun, it is. Throwing someone into sparring before they have achieved a good degree of control will simply foster very bad wingchun and inhibit the growth of the practicioner, rather than improve their skill.
Example: you learn to run by skipping. Will you cover ground quickly? Yes. Will you win races? Doubtful. As yuanfen said, you are operating on a different paradigm, that’s all. There are many styles where sparring right away is a superb way of progressing. Wing Chun is not one of those styles.
What I don’t understand is why, when rogue suggested that sparring should happen right away, and gave his reasons why, he was told he didn’t know anything, basically.
Hardly answers the question.
As unclear as I personally was, I was just trying to say “hey, these OTHER arts spar pretty quickly, so rogue has a legit question.” Just because it might be an apples to oranges comparison in somebody’s mind doesn’t mean that the question itself is invalid or a bad one to ask.
Jas–you DID answer the question he asked. I think that’s pretty cool–yet, you disagreed with Old Jong’s opinion and in doing so you told him to find another art–with the implication that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Two people, same art, different opinions on training. You’ll have different camps in each–no big deal. Different, certainly, but absolutely wrong? Sure there are extremes at either end that are obviously not right, but there is a lot of room in the middle for variation without somebody being completely wrong.
If only one way is “right,” that smacks of pseudo-religious dogma, vice a living art.
you disagreed with Old Jong’s opinion and in doing so you told him to find another art
No no, I mostly agree with old jong all the time - I was disagreeing with ummm I think the name was “chi sau”. His statement “doing the forms slowly will not help you defeat the guy on the street if it ever happens” is contrary to ALL winchun precepts, which state quite clearly that doing the forms slowly is the A#1 way to get good enough to defeat the guy on the street. My personal opinion is if he truly believes his statement, he really should find another style, because he will always find WC too, shall we say, perplexing.
There is only one right way to train WC? No variations exist in either training or execution?
I find that difficult to believe seeing as instructors of arts in the same SCHOOL have variations on exactly how they do something.
Jas–WHY do you feel that way about Old Jong’s approach? Do you feel it’s rushing things? Or that it doesn’t ever get you to a better understanding of “Wing Chun?”
