I think the question is can you use it when you have to, not when you want to.
I think we have to remember that we are not going to find Mike Tyson, Royce Gracie, Shamroock etc. on the street. Or for that matter probably anyone who has done M.A. They are going to be drunk, crack addicts, people in poverty or a gang (in which case your f**t anyway).
In my country there was an article in the news paper recently about a 5 foot blonde lady who had a black belt in Tai Kwon Do. On the way home she was attacked by two big men. She knocked one out and hurt the other. The other guy had to drag his mate away. Later that week low and behold she comes home and finds the same two guys are robbing her house. This time she knocked one out with a high kick and got the other in an arm lock and broke his arm. This time the cops came and arrested these men.
I think if she went around looking for trouble she would eventually find good fighters that could beat her, but she used her skills when she really needed them against people who are probably not very clever.
Ive heard Chu Shong Tin said: In a fight as soon as your arms make contact with the oponent, thats chi sao. I know most of you would disagree with that.
I love it when people say, “you’re just arguing semantics.” tell me, if you went to a restaurant and ordered a steak and the waiter brought you a pork chop, would you buy the “you’re just quibbling over the meaning of steak” argument? no i don’t suppose you would.
does good wing chun = good jiujitsu? even if you think both are good ways to combat or self defense, the answer cannot be “yes” because they are not the same thing.
“Good fighter” is used as a convenient way of saying “he seems to be able to take care of himself, how I am not sure.”
If you knew he was a jiujitsu practicioner, you would say, “well, it is because of his jiujutsu!”
If you don’t know his style, you will just say, “he took care of himself, must be a good fighter” (if the opponent didn’t look too bad either).
Playground bullies can become good fighters, simply because they learn by doing. without a fancy name or crest to sew into their jean jacket, they could still probably articulate something like a system to explain how it is they either mitigate the damage done to them or inflict more onto the opponent in a fight.
It isn’t something that pops in from the transcenent realm.
so, does good wing chun = good fighter? no. good wing chun = good wing chun.
I think that somebody can do the forms perfectly, have the fastest reflexes in chi sau, perform the wooden dummy flawlessly, and understand all the theoretical concepts in wing chun and not be able to fight one bit.
They are good in the respective system but not good in abpplying it. Then again, who kows who can or can’t unless they fight consistently? Martial arts is practically the only thing you can never really test onbe’s proficiency in for the most part.
But then again, that’s only if you count fighting prowess. There’s alot more to it than that…hence my view that someone could have “good wing chun” per se but not be a “good” fighter
One who cannot apply his Wing Chun is not proficient in it. That does not translate into the ability to fight, which requires the use of techniques, but the capacity to neutralize via application of principles.
I feel that this is a great topic. I have actually battled this in my head for many years. I was once told by a Wing Chun Sifu that there are great Wing Chun teachers who can’t fight, and there are great Wing Chun fighters who can’t teach. He told me that my goal should be both a great teacher and and great fighter. And at first I wasn’t really sure I understood what he was saying. Though, I have ran across teachers who fell into the catagory of the above mentioned statement. I have also watched videos where the guy seemed very knowledgable and then when he showed actual application it was absolutley terrible, meaning distance was off, stance wasn’t stable, too much force was added, etc. But again his teaching was very sound. I guess this follows the phrase “practice what you preach”. I now think of this this way, if you study medicine out of books from the privacy of your own home but never actually perform it you have all the knowledge needed but not enough real life experience to actually perform it flawlessly. It doesn’t matter if you can quote medical journals flawlessly or not, you still don’t have the hands on needed to be great at the actaul performance of medicine. So, with this in mind, would this person (if allowed) be a good teacher still? Possibly, but wouldn’t be very reputable because of lack of experience. Well, to get back on subject of Wing Chun, what about someone who has studied Wing Chun for 30 years but never had a street confrontation? Would you train under him? Is he still a great Wing Chun teacher?
I tell my students that while in class, no matter how hard we spar it is still somewhat of a controlled environment, due to the predictablity of the class, they know as well as I know, no one is actually trying to take thier life and at any time one of us can stop the training. And unless faced with a real street fight, they will never truely know what thier true skill, mental state or basic outcome will be. Does this make sense? I think due to this controlled environment, many teacher who don’t have true street skills but are very well trained in Wing Chun can almost seem God like. This is my opnion and may not be yours. Though think about how many martial arts teachers out there who don’t have any real street survival skills are making a killing teaching martial arts, not to mention they have brainwashed thier students into beliebving that they are the greatest. And again, they may not have these skills but does this mean that they can’t put out great students? I am not so sure I have the answer for this question. Think about it, which one of Ip Man’s sons said this? “I have never been in a fight, so I am undefeated.”
Originally posted by TjD the point of wing chun is to be a good fighter; if it is not accomplishing that goal, it is worthless and not good wing chun
Shift your priorities while you’re young and impressionable… You don’t want to comform to the rest of the Wing Chun world.
People can swim for health, physiotherapy and a whole host of other reasons, same with WC
But it does teach you a skill, which has to be practised hard and developed. Whether you use it for fighting or whatever is up to you as everyone is different and trains for different reasons
one of which being: