yes I know the whole system 
ā¦the weapons are done differently by every sifu but WC weapons are not for fighting anyways but for training the hands
However harsh Whippinghands answer is, I have to agree with him on this one Emptycupā¦sorry!
Wing Chun is a Martial Artā¦perfect depends on the individuals and the Sifu that teaches them. But the system itself has everything like Hunt1 and yuanfan says. itās a matter of finding itā¦Iāve always professed this. Complete martial arts include grappling and chin na in them, and wing chun does just that.
Roy and Whipping Hand
Not wanting to argue (:)), but where in the forms does it teach you to escape the mount if some fat SoD is sitting on your chest, squeezing the air out of your lungs and pounding your face?
Iāve just taken part in a seminar on ground fighting (given by my Wing Chun instructor). Where in the forms do you learn how to deal with a bear-hug from a 320lbs guy as strong as an ox?
Donāt talk about double low palm from the rear in SNT! When there is no gap between you and your opponent and your arms are pinned by the attacker behind youā¦ well, you are in trouble. You need to learnā¦ waitā¦ before I explain what I was learning, tell me about what the forms recommend.
This post isntā an attack on WC (I study it and love it). I donāt agree with everything EC says, but I would very much like to hear what Roy and WH (or anyone else) has to say regarding this issue.
Pleaseā¦ no talk of āyou must look to the formsā. Someone offer real explanations.
Many thanks,
Duncan
black and blue
You mention your wc instructorās seminar without telling us what
specifically you/he did or are talking about. That is some name dropping - without a name or without specifics. The wing chun forms are NOT a collection of techniques but represent gates to mastery of the widest repertoire of motions in the martial arts.
Much depends on who you are and how much good wing chun you were taught and you learned & how much of the forms have you really mastered- as opposed to mechanical applications where the motions have mastered you.
Shuai Chao, grappling etc were the original Chinese martial arts-
the foundations in developing TCMA. A good TCMA like wing chun
prepared folks for turning, rolling, bending, throwing, reversals,
breaking holds and chokes and deflecting blows from horizontal or vertical positions. Good practitioners of wc didnt plan on playing
66 and 69 with other males on the floor for half and hour etc on padded floors.
Because of the selling job that bjj/ufc etc have done folks are extra curious these days. So I take time out to show my students-
do it myself and have them get the feel- of dislodging people on
their chest or defending and pounding on them when they are supine or dealing with rear or frontal grabs and chokes.
If you have mastered slt and chum kiu- not just knowing sequences and are well into understanding biu jee, you master both vertical and horixontal platforms and turning the body ina wide variety of ways- disturbing the other fellows center while maintaining yours leaving your hands and legs relatively fre(you learn) to control the other fella when you are disturbing their structure. The fella on top of you has to have a structure in order to
control you. Disturb it and control yours. Without fingerpointing, I for one would be very happy if people who want to learn bjj if they would go to bjj and exit wing chun. Advantage- good wing chun.Too many half ass cases of understanding wing chun any ways- present company and the moderators of course duly excepted per pc and netiquette.. Learn the ways of good reptiles including crocodiles, alligators- they do some neat biu jee on the ground and in water..They play games of relaxed balance and
manipulating centers and leverage while remaining dangerous- biu jee lives. Ye of little faith----(make the other fella black and blue- me? Lily white- oops golden brown.(sorry no proofreading of fonger/typo MISTAKS
Golden brown yuanfen
EC
First off I dont study wc so i guess i can be unbiased in that respect.
You start off well, you obviously see the flaws in your own structure and movement and are prepared to work them out.
āOur system is far from perfect. We DO NEED to look elswhere if we are to be better fighters.ā
- This is true for any system and is requried to open the eyes of a student to the possibilitys. WC Chin Na may be excerelent, but is it as good as Eagle Claw? Is Eagle Claw as strong as Wing Chun up front in close?
āThen you get into trouble when you say this.
Anybody who thinks WC alone is enough has yet to open his eyesā - Of course its enough, if it wasnt it wouldnt still be around!
This doesnt mean it will be flawless or totaly unbeatable, it just means that you need to as a fighter work out what parts your missing and learn to build them up.
The point is thisā¦
You DO need to work out your weak spots and flaws but you dont need to study other arts to fix them. You need to realise what your weak areas are and then work to fix them. There is everything within your system to have excerlent Chin Na skills the trick is to just learn to apply the principles.
If you dont work them often enough in class then try to get some training buddies aside and work them together.
As a side noteā¦
Ive seen the chin na in several systems and i can draw one conclusion.
Its all the same stuff with a different feel.
Same basic locks but the method for getting the opponent into them will vary according to the principals of the style.
It all basicaly comes from Shao Chao at some point anyway. That stuff has been around since the dawn of time.
P.S
Nice post Yuanfen
Yuenfen
Sigh!
Every encounter is different, but, as posted (please feel free to post a response to this in the Whipping Hand and Roy thread)ā¦ I have no idea if youāre an aligator!!!
I gave two hypothetical questions. The need to escape the mount and the need to deal with a bear hug from behind. The latter is best examined more from the perspective of a choke, where you will be grabbed from behind choked and, invariably, pulled backwards or hit in the back/ribs.
If I asked how youād deal with a straight punch, youād give a bevy of possible alternatives. So, please give a few for the above situations.
But please keep in mind, the guy that sits on you or takes you from behind (this isnāt meant to sound rude :)) will almost always be stronger and heavier than you. Heāll never stand there and hug you - his aim will be to tear your head off at the neck or pulled you backwards.
Also, i donāt know how I can be name dropping if I donāt mention my instructors name 
Mechanics and body leverage are vital. But you are in trouble whether you know these or not. How much time in class do you spend dealing with the above attacks, Yuenfen?
Perhaps, if youāre teaching this on a regular basis, my complaints are ill-founded.
What irks me is talk of āall the answers are in the formsā, yet those beginning their journey in Wing Chun should be well versed in this low and nasty fighting (ground work). How often do WC classes teach this?
My Sifu CAN fight on the ground, but he makes it clear to all his studentsā¦ this is the last place he wants to fight someone in the street. It is simply too dangerous/easy to lose control.
I donāt know how big WH, Roy, Yuenfen are 
Maybe you guys are huge. I train with a couple of guys who are 17 stone and build like a brick wall. When one of these guys is intent on choking you, smashing your head against the floorā¦ well, Iād love to see a technique, concept from a WC form (all of which are practised standing up) used to counter it.
That isnāt sarcasm by the bye, Iād āreallyā like to see it.
The seminar I spoke of used wc motions and concepts, and also made a point of utilising leverage and body mechanics. Some of those concepts are pure ground work. WC doesnāt have as many ground fighting skills as BJJ. There canāt be anyone on this forum who would argue with this. WC is not lacking (I believe its concepts can be applied to most situations), but some martial arts clearly specialise in areas where WC is weak.
So, in short, (sorry for the long post), what WC application will reverse the mount, deal with said chokes, strangles etc, when someone twice your weight has managed to take you to the floor?
In many ways, I know Iāll not get a real answer to these questions.
technique?
black and blue,
Thatās the problem with most so called martial artists, always looking for the āperfectā techniques.
But to satisfy your request on some levelā¦Bear hug from behindā¦ Chum Kiu principles and motions.
(I think yuanfen had your ground one covered.)
My 2 centsā¦
Just to clarify, Kum Na (Chin/Qin Na) involves āseizing and controllingā, which is usually inclusive of joint attacks (locks), muscle attacks, airway attacks (chokes), and blood attacks (strangles). Some would include Hei (Qi/Chi) attacks and Dim Mak/Sut (Dian Xue), though these require knowledge of some aspects of TCM.
Sut Gao (Shuai Jiao) involves āwrestlingā, typically throws (similar to what would be seen in Judo nage-waza), though they tend not to be āsportifiedā and instead of going for a nice, clean āipponā, they try to drop on the head or shoulder or somewhere else likely to cause great injury on impact.
In my experience, and historically speaking, WCK contains both of the above, though the repetoire is not as extensive (overtly, some will find more through implication) as in a system exclusively devoted to one or both of them (only so many hours in the day).
While there are some Chinese systems with groundfighting (ne-waze in Judo), such as elements of Joy Kuen (Zuiquan, Drunken Boxing) and Dai Dong (Great Earth), it is not typically practiced to the degree that it is in an art like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (which is probably 60-70% ne-waza).
Historically, this does not seem to have been part of WCK, or many Southern systems in general (nor would you find many claiming it was, much less practicing it, before the early UFCs). WCK is not limited, nor is it limitless (and itās not a [prostitute], available for all situations - Iām sure someone can claim the butterfly kick is in there, or the hippy dance number, but theyād be wrong ;). Itās a specific art, from a specific time and place, which developed to suit the needs of the people using it at the time (who spent most of their lives in cramped boats and were involved in the Red Turban Rebellion).
This, however, doesnāt mean WCK canāt be used effectively on the ground. It is a highly conceptual system, based on sound reasoning, and employable by humans with roughly the same types of limbs and articulations). But it means someone wanting to do so would have to be bright enough to translate the concepts from standing to prone, and committed enough to work their @$$ off cultivating them.
The one draw back would be, while many WCK sifu have extensive (even generations of) experience in standing (even standing grappling), can share their wisdom, point out common misconceptions, little details, important tactical considerations, etc. (in other words, coach as well as teach), few have ground experience yet, and so that means even more work for someone wishing to excell in that manner.
To give an example, think of a BJJ person (which does include strikes) saying they could extrapolate WCKās expertise in the stand-up arena all on their own (maybe they could, but it would be a hecklacious ( 
) task, and involve some amount of re-inventing the wheel).
The kuen kuit said to improve you must fight great generals. Many WCK people have a false impression of ground fighting because they train it with other WCK people, or with novice grapplers, as a way of assuaging themselves. IMHO, Hunterās (Hunt1) method would be the best - workout with experts. Train with someone of roughly the same size and build as yourself, and with roughly the same experience ground fighting as you have WCK (not just years but hours in those years). Relax, get used to how things look from the ground, how they feel. If you find yourself reverting back to brute strength, slow down, remind yourself of your alignments, re-familiarize yourself with your power generation and rooting and figure it out from a prone position. Get used to having someoneās weight on you, to being smothered, and then try to understand what the ground strategy is all about, and see if your ability to attain position, transition, control, and either escape back to your feet (some WCK peopleās preference) or try and finish from the ground (& pound). Probably also worthwhile to do the same defending the shoot from a like wrestler and the throw from a like Judoka. Maybe some hybrid MMA as well. Then you can honestly see what your WCK can do for you in those situations (its artist as much as art), and work through any problems in training so they donāt prove disasterous in real life.
(And B&B - some may tell you things like the bridge/upa can be found in the last section of Biu Jee, but again, this is out of context and not technical match and it would take specific training to be able to apply it properly to reverse the mount 8) )
Rgds,
RR
WH and gangā¦
You crazy whippers!
You guys are no doubt high level in your skill, but some of the answers you give are LOW LEVEL! :rolleyes:
I wonder if you guys have ever had someone twice your size sitting on top of you. ****ā¦ wish you could have flown over to the UK, joined our organisation and then participated in the seminar.
For any who claim I name dropā¦ you are right. Hereās the name of my sifu. Kevin Chan. Our website is www.kamonwingchun.com.
So there!
The best fighter in the world can be taken down, and the best fighter, once on the floor, can find himself in an arm-bar. Youāve got to be aquainted with the techniques and know how to deal with them.
If people DO teach this in their clubsā¦ great. If you donāt youād better hope you never get someone skilled in ground fighting in front of you.
Kevin Chan is the first to say his chi sau skills, WC strikes and angling are the basis of his success on the floorā¦ but he still trains to deal with everything a skilled ground fighter can use.
But hey, Iām bound to support him, heās my sifu and one of the quickest, toughest, most effective fighters Iāve seen. My moneyās on Mr Chan. (not that Iām a betting man you understand)
As a note, Kevin has even found WC guys will rush in rugby-tackle style during Chi Sau out of frustration. You gotta know how to deal with these monkeys (monkeys being my word - not his). Even through sheer luck they may manage to take you down, and the ground is a HARD place to be
Duncan
Oppsā¦ Just seen Reneās post before my own (adding on this bit). This is validation - I win - Duncās the best!!
RR knows far more than I do, and so on the points Iād previously disagreed withā¦ I conceed. Training the ground is what really concerns me. And I kinda like Empty Cup for having the balls to say out loud the majority of us here would get our bottoms kicked if the fight went horizontal.
If WCās arsenal has fewer ground fighting weapons, this is an area we should spend considerable time working on if self defense is the reason for us training.
In truth, Iām just *****d I couldnāt answer the Staff threads. Iām a million miles away from learning the weapon sets. I spent 2.5 months in Ottawa 12 months ago. Where the heck where all you Wing Chunners hiding???
Black and Blue sez/asks:I wonder if you guys have ever had someone twice your size sitting on top of you. ****ā¦ wish you could have flown over to the UK, joined our organisation and then participated in the seminar.
Answer- yes- a 300+ pound state hgh school wrestling champion and others
and if you only depended on āgrapplingā skills- you would be done. You dont grapple a grappler- learn first class wing chun from a first class wing chun instructor! Dont paint by numbers and dont borrow someone elseās road map and dont think in linear fashion.
Yuanfen
So you too know what itās like to be squashed!
Soā¦ what WC Chun motions/concepts from the forms did you use to get this monster off. This is the purpose of the thread after all
Duncan
Thanks for the nod Renee.
Black and Blue.Dont know what you were taught at your seminar.Here are a couple of places to start learning WC from your back.
First do Chi Sao from your back with someone mounted.You will start seeing the possibilities from here.
Work from 4 positions regular mount,side mount,mount where the knees are up at your armpits and no mount but rather leg submissions are attempted(this is the hardest thing to deal with btw).
Remember always move to cover your center line,always attack towards your opponants center line.You cant reach his face but can his groin.Fine its all on the center.
My pet peeve and you mentioned this in another line.Its hard to learn to fight when a teacher holds back or you havent learned all the forms so dont have all the techniques at your disposal.
You do need some Bil Jee understanding.How to recover your center.Often after a take down you have lost the center and you must regain it.
I dont know how to resolve the information problem.A student may not be ready for chum kiu but they need to know some of its concepts for self defence.Some teachers teach them and some dont.
Cheers Hunt1
Ta for the heads-up! Will play with some of these ideas.
Iām training quite regularly and Iām lucky in that our organisation isnāt one where knowledge is held back. If your WC is improving and your putting in the effort - youāre taught what you need.
The seminar I was speaking of was on a hard wood floor. No mats. Iām black and blue to the power of 10
This is a great way to train - no false sense of security when the ground is heading towards you. The seminar was excellent. Four hours of work involving the clinch, bear hugs, chokes, strangles, pinning, tackles. Lots of good tips for breaking structure to gain enough distance to go to work with elbows, fingers, nasty attacks to the throat.
Suffice to say it was a sweaty day full of laughs, bumps and, of course, a little pain here and there. I ached like you wouldnāt believe the next day. I can tap-out quicker than anyone else in England. 8)
Practising SNT in the evening felt like I had iron weights on my arms and neck:)
Hunter - No worries 8)
B&B - WCK and BJJ are not as dissimilar as many may think (weāre all humans, after all ). BJJās core strategy (if I understand it right) is to close, attain superior positioning, control, and finish. They work on leverage, balance disruption, interception (positions that cut off the opponentās ability to continue attacking), work on developing contact reflexes, etc. The main difference, IMHO, is emphasis of tools. They also have a lot of experience on the ground, and a very full database of what can happen there, what can go wrong, etc. which would take someone less familiar some time to work out. That being said, many of their strategies can also show how to apply WCK on the ground (which isnāt that dissimilar to how itās applied standing once youāve gotten comfortable). The key, IMHO, is to practice several different escapes, and to practice them against good people. Getting āJoe Nobodyā off the mount will be a lot easier than a BJJ purple belt who can ārideā you and attack any little mistakes you make (and working against wrestlers, even good ones, is not always the same thing since they typically go for a pin rather than a submission, so you donāt have the additional pressure of incoming chokes or joint attacks - though you may have neck cranks or cradles or other nasty stuff to worry about). One thing to your advantage is, unless the person has done vale tude/nhb/mma theyāre probably not familiar with defending against strikes when their mounted, and even fewer are probably familiar with defending against WCK type short power (so even if they know not to give you enough space for other types of punches, you may have enough for WCK), so you should use every opportunity to smash away with those (in training this may prove less effective since some people wonāt believe you could really hurt them and you may not be able to prove it given the confines of training).
If a person is skilled in the mount, you may have to go from one escape attempt to another until one works (they get disrupted enough or confused enough and you get out). Then, again as Hunter mentioned, you should play with different types of mounts (high with knees under your armpits, low with legs grape-vining yours and arm(s) around your neck, half-mount with one of your arms crossed over your own neck, etc.)
(Then, of course, you have to make sure you donāt end up in the half-guard, knee-on-stomach, in a single or double leg takedown attempt again, etc. so its more experience, experience, experience!)
(Thereās also the whole realm of biting, eye-gouging, groin attacks, etc. which can be effective but you have to keep in mind the mounter can use those too and are in a superior position to do so (the guy who came in second in the Australian UFC won two fights by sticking his chin into the eyes of the people he mounted and getting the submission), so work on defense for these as well ).
The important thing is not to kid yourself. If it concerns you, you have to try it and work at it and keep working at it. Just because someone says WCK can do something, doesnāt make it true (it may be, but like the saying says, you may be tricked!), or true for you (maybe WCK is fantastic for something but you donāt have the skill yet to do it - canāt blame WCK!)
Rgds,
RR
Rene Ritchie
Many thanks for the comments. This is what I was after - some honest comment regarding WC and some advice for training ground work.
Too many people on this forum claim to know - and fail to give any evidence Iām a beginner in this art and would never claim overwise, but I give a question my best shot.
āAustralian UFC won two fights by sticking his chin into the eyes of the people he mounted and getting the submissionā - Ha Ha Haā¦ nasty!
On a seperate note, thereās a WSL club opening close to me. I was chatting to the guy in charge of the org here in the UK, and he said it would be cool for me to turn up every now and again and train (despite the fact Iām not of WSL lineage).
WC politics are not so bad here in the UK! That said, maybe they just wanna thump me!!! :eek:
Whatās it like in the land of the leaf? Do you guys ever meet up to train? There must be hundreds of you living in a 10 mile radius.
B&B,
No worries. Maybe itās okay info, maybe not. Like anything, youāll have to work on it and find it.
One quick note on the mount: Itās not always a great position. You have to understand the ratio of torso vs. thigh. If youāve got a really big chest or gut, and the other person doesnāt have really long thighs (enough that they can touch their knees to the ground and base on both sides while mounting you) its going to be much (much!) easier for you to get them off. Knowing this, a skilled grappler might prefer getting you in some type of gatame (side control family including scarf holds, etc.) because it will be more stable for them. So you should work on overcoming these as well.
Leaf country (otherwise known as the great frozen north today <shiver>) is pretty good. Back in the early 90s I was more involved with the Chinese MA community but soured on it due to the petty politics. Since then, Iāve actually met up with more US based WCK people. I did have a chance to meet up with Roy, Patrick, and few others at a recent tournament, but family obligations meant I couldnāt hang very much 8(
Rgds,
RR
black and blue
you asked me a question. Answer yes. I was not squashed.
Reneās āMy 2 centsā post is what Iāve been trying to say 
WC people are so super confident in our āgroundfightingā abilities but what if a Ju Jitsu guy came out and said they had better hands than us? That they were better stand-up fighters? We all know what your reaction would beā¦b/c we specialize in that area our whole system has evolved around that
There are systems out there that are hihgly specialized in their respective areas tooā¦such as grappling
A lawyer might have quite a bit of medical knowledge but they donāt teach much of that in law schoolā¦the average doctor would know more b/c thatās HIS specialty. He has been doing that for his whole life based on the knowledge and work of many other DOCTORS before him. Unless the lawyer studies medicine, he cannot hope to have the same level of expertise in that field in his own profession
WC might have some grappling techniques that can be used but weāre kidding ourselves if we think it is on the same level as some other specialzed systems out there who have been in this game for hundreds of years
WC has too many armchair artistsā¦look at the repertoire of Gracie Ju Jitsuā¦chokes, holds, countersā¦if we were back a hundred years or two, NO WC person had ever been exposed to some of these movesā¦we wouldnāt be able to use them or counter them
so how can we suddenly have this knowledge in our system??? our grappling is grade-school level. Unless we cross-train with specialized grappling styles we are not as āsuperstarā on the ground as standing upā¦
give me a breakā¦