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Hope you understood my english (I’m from Italy).
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Hello Sergio, I’m from Italy too and I’m an instructor of Randy William’s CRCA Wing Chun.
I know you from the italian martial arts forum, where you posted a similar message.
That topic was stopped by the moderator after only 2 posts..
in reality I studied a little bit of WT 8WingTsu Leung Ting) some years ago
Since, as you said, you are a beginner, it is not kind to judge Wing Chun masters. You simply are not able to do that.
However I’ll try to explain CRCA point of view. I’ll let the other masters you mentioned, to explain their.
I had the opportunity to watch a couple of Randy Williams tape, about combat drills and some application (combat drills part 1 and 2).
First of all, you must unserstand that every sifu has his personal interpretation of the art.
The training method of CRCA is very different from Leung Ting WT method. I can say that because I’ve been an instructor in the Leung Ting lineage too.
Also, the interpretation of some Wing Chun principles are different. So you can see the same “technique” done in different ways: for example, the boang sau and body turn (choh ma) in the two systems are very different.
You must understand that every sifu, ever lineage, respects the principle and the theory of the Wing Chun system, but with his own interpretation.
So, no system is better than another. It is only different in interpretation.
in training you should try to get as close as you can to realyty as everybody of you knows
This is not completely true. It depends on the kind of training you are doing.
If you are training your techniques, angle structure and flowing from one motion to another, you don’t need to close the distance. Instead you need to have a cycle to train.
There are other drills to learn how to close the distance.
instead he counts by voice ritmically to 10 repeating his drill in a stupid manner. Stupid because the focus is about the drill in a way it is considere not a fight teqnique but merely an execise.
Thinking and judging “stupid” something you don’t understand is quite arrogant. You may say that you don’t like it, but since you don’t have the key to understand that interpretation of the system, you don’t have the instruments to estimate it.
You say that the drill is considered not a fight, but an exercise. That is true!
There are a lot of exercises that seems to be far away from real fight, and a lot of exercises that bring you close to a freefight session. It depends on what you are training.
If it is strange for you to hear that you might study something that seems far from the goal you are trying to reach, try to think at this example:
Imagine you are a NASA engineer. Your work could be to calculate the shuttle speed and route to get close to a satellite. But to achieve this skill, you need to know a lot of math, from equations to simple operations.
Well when you study equations, you are far from your goal of sending the shuttle in space, but it is propaedeutical to that goal.
In Wing Chun is the same. You study forms and drills propaedeutical to real fight.
The drills are designed to teach you:
- body structure
- angle structure
- self and applied timing
- flowing from one technique to another
- sensitiveness
- and more…
Some drills are designed to perfect one of the above skills, without thinking to the others, and other drills put together all the skills.
In a similar way the Siu Lim Tau doesn’t have steps. This is not because in Wing Chun there is not footwork, but because you must learn and concentrate on hand techniques and their principles at first.
You say that you hear Randy counting to ten. That is true.
In fact he uses a “descending” count. This is useful to train some skills.
First of all, in the descending count, both of trainers use all the arms and so they train, in one drill, left and right side of the body.
Second, the count is performed at 108 beats/minute. This is useful for 2 reasons:
- 108 beats/minute are fast but not too much fast. This is fast enough to give you the ability to make instinctive the techniques and the flowing from one technique to another, and at the same time is not so fast to perform the techniques incorrectly.
- Performing a drill with a count, improves your timing, following a rhythm. This is very important, because if you are able to follow a rhythm, you can learn how to break that rhythm. Imagine a piano player. He spends year of training following the rhythm of the metronome, but when he becomes good, he can begin to play in the half counts. The same idea is in CRCA Wing Chun: you start learning how to follow a rhythm and then how to break it in a smart way and move in the half count.
Of course every drill can be performed without count and with a free timing. It depends on what kind of skill you are training.
I noticed he uses the bong sau as a block
I think you saw the yang version of boang sau, and I know that is different from the one you studied in the Leung Ting system. We have two versions of boang sau: the yin version (similar to your kind of boang sau) and the yang version, that follows different principles. It is long to explain now in detail the two versions, but if you are interested, I can give you a detailed explanation.
but what I saw isn’t good wing chun.
Again you are quite arrogant. As a beginner you have no elements to judge a master of another lineage.
It is better to ask for details and at last state which interpretation you like the most.
If you prefer the Leung Ting method is ok, there is nothing wrong. I prefer CRCA method, and this is ok with me. No one is doing a mistake.
Every system is good when its laws are followed. Leung Ting’s method is good if you follow his principles, Randy’s method is good if you follow his principles.
Remember that every master has his own interpretation of the system that differs, even a bit, from his teacher and from his wing chun brothers.
Even if I know how “dangerous” it could be I have the impression that the WT system especially the german/european side of it, kept by Kernspecht, is nowday the most refined wing chun. It appears to me softer the others.
Softer doesn’t necessarily means better.
This was my opinion
I hope to have given you some keys to “read” the CRCA method, which is very different from the one you studied.
If you have any question, please feel free to ask me.
Moksha Vito Armenise
CRCA Italy