The Main Problem with Wing Chun is beyond chi sau there is no fighting!
Old chinese gung fu would have roof tops fight and organize fights for competiting schools to prove there gung fu was the best.
it is not so today!!!
Wing Chun is reduced to:
Chi Sau Conventions
Chi Sau workshops
Public Demostrations
Chi Sau Seminars and Expos
Classes on theory
Do MMA, Muay Thai and Boxing gyms have these five things
Dont get me wrong…The following five things are definitely thought provoking and brain tingling…But what does it have to do with fighting!
How do MMA and MT and Boxing people show case their skills. Not by shadow boxing, Doing Muay Thai dance aka form. Not by demostrating take down techniques in the air. Are speaking to people at workshop about the correct way to throw a MT elbow or BJJ arm bar…No they showcase thier skill by fighting right?
It is not just Wing Chun. It is most all martial arts except the ones that are oriented toward compitition. The Rooftop fights occured in back yards and in alleys and such all the time 50 years ago, but they were not sanctioned events at all. You need to set up a lot of background in order to do that sort of thing today. Rule sets, all sorts of things must be adhered to in order to put on such an event. That is why certain systems exist today. They were developed from other forms of fighting just so that they could meet the criteria. Most all the stuff you mentioned that actually fought to prove their stuff are actually in existance for that purpose. It is actually not fighting since you have rules of engagement. And getting into a ring certainly does not imply skill.
If you feel the need to prove your stuff, get together with some like minded friends in a back yard and have at it. Now bare in mind that if you put on gloves and start banning certain techniques and such you are going to end up with MMA, plain and simple. In order to test your skills at our chosen martial art, you will have to simply lock horns and do it. I would also suggest that after one good night of this none of you will ever want to do it again. And you will likely lose some long friendships.
When I was a young fellow my dad loved to gamble. Down the street from us was a large night club that had a gambling hall in back. They also had a fight ring out back with a tall wooden fence around it. Dirt floor and all. This ring was a ring indeed as it was round and 30 feet across the widest point. The owner would pay anyone 25 bucks to fight. For you young guys, 25 bucks was a weeks wages for any man those days. The winner got a 10 dollar bonus and the chance to fight again. I met some of the hardest people in my life in that back yard.
My older brother next to me and I would accompany dad to this club as he was at that time without legs and in a wheelchair. He would always try to get us to get into the ring, and eventually we did. This is not where you learn to fight. It is a place where you test what you have learned. Nothing works all the time, and nothing works every time, but some things work most of the time. You do whatever you can do to defeat the aggressor.
[QUOTE=Yoshiyahu;1140386]The Main Problem with Wing Chun is beyond chi sau there is no fighting!
Old chinese gung fu would have roof tops fight and organize fights for competiting schools to prove there gung fu was the best.
it is not so today!!!
[/QUOTE]
Not true of all WC. Some WC people do compete. You have Sifu Alan Orr’s fighters and in NYC there is the newly formed Manup Standup amateur full contact fights. At least 3 different WC organizations have entered contestants.
[QUOTE=Yoshiyahu;1140386]The Main Problem with Wing Chun is beyond chi sau there is no fighting!
Old chinese gung fu would have roof tops fight and organize fights for competiting schools to prove there gung fu was the best.
it is not so today!!!
Why dont we do this?[/QUOTE]
As always, depends on the school and lineage. There are some WC/WT that do and others that don’t. You can’t make a blanket statement about a whole style with different lineages and roots.
The PROBLEM with Wing Chun is that most people teaching it have no clue to the dimension and scope of this art. Hence they end up teaching a two dimensional “face slapping” method.
Actually, most kung fu systems suffer from more or less the same problem, in that the people teaching them are not genuine instructors, but half baked wannabes out to make a living for themselves!
A valid point though, you go to any other MA seminar or workshop and you will be fighting or rolling ( not full contact but there will be contact, that’s for sure).
What does that say of the MA that only have forms or demos or “complaint drills”?
[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;1140466]A valid point though, you go to any other MA seminar or workshop and you will be fighting or rolling ( not full contact but there will be contact, that’s for sure).
What does that say of the MA that only have forms or demos or “complaint drills”?[/QUOTE]
It says that they are not practiced properly, as intended.
[QUOTE=Phil Redmond;1140421]Not true of all WC. Some WC people do compete. You have Sifu Alan Orr’s fighters and in NYC there is the newly formed Manup Standup amateur full contact fights. At least 3 different WC organizations have entered contestants.[/QUOTE]
I agree i have heard of Alan orr!!!
But what im say is those few WC schools who do compete are spit in a bucket compared to WC kwoons who do not!!!
You would have to agree most WC out there aint about fighting right?
And, on the flipside, I think we need to recognize that some folks go to a boxing class, MT class and BJJ class and they don’t want to compete or have any contact whatsoever. So they just do the boxfit classes (or regular classes without the sparring or competition).
The issue lies in the fact that a person can’t call what they do ‘effective’ if there is no contact. I don’t think it would be an issue whatsoever if I asked a boxfit participant if they thought they could use what they learned in class in a fight.
[QUOTE=Hardwork108;1140465]The PROBLEM with Wing Chun is that most people teaching it have no clue to the dimension and scope of this art. Hence they end up teaching a two dimensional “face slapping” method.[/QUOTE]
Couldn’t agree more. My pet hate, seeing those “self defence” techniques focusing on scoring points, striking without proper balance and not backed by the rest of the body ***** slapping the imaginary attacker, is in fact dangerous for the students. Imagine someone getting into a real fight thinking he/she can fight, just to realise his/her cannot fight! Crazy!
