Why does Wing Chun have kicks that are only below the waist? I have studied TKD and have benifited from high kicks, and feel that they work well with Wing Chun.
if your going to hit someone in the knee, do you bend over to punch them there?
i dont think wing chun mechanics lend themselves very well to most high kicks. a wing chun punch will do the job just as effectively and much quicker. however, wing chun does have a high kick or two that do work well with its mechanics (at least in my lineage).
Re: Wing Chun kicks
Originally posted by Chen Zen
I have studied TKD and have benifited from high kicks, and feel that they work well with Wing Chun.
Hey Chen Zen, I too have studied TKD for 6 years, and know that they will not work in most situations. I will refer to this clip for some nice visuals of why you will cut to pieces trying those kicks. http://www.bullshido.us/videos/muaythai_vs_tkd.mpeg Even when I trained in TKD , I rarely kicked high. In my experience, I was able to trap, block or counter higher kicks relatively easily (although I was often reprimanded for using “illegal” techniques). They tend to be too slow, and leave you exposed in many ways. They will NOT work well with Wing Chun, IMO. They will not work well for most martial artists either, unless you’re fighting in a TKD tournament where everyone else in hopping around and make the same errors. They look really good in movies and demos, but are highly impractical.
Your results may vary,
Matrix
Re: Re: Wing Chun kicks
Originally posted by Matrix
I will refer to this clip for some nice visuals of why you will cut to pieces trying those kicks. http://www.bullshido.us/videos/muaythai_vs_tkd.mpeg
Hi Matrix,
Thanks for the clip. Good comments.
Regards,
Matrix is correct.
I would say the guy in the clip is lucky that he was not encounter kick/knee/elbow combination…
IMHO, it is always dangerous to stand there raise one’s leg or doing single long range kick before any good angle…
double Low inside our outside round horse kicks, or the grapper shoot will have lots of chance to take one down… just my 2 cents.
if your going to hit someone in the knee, do you bend over to punch them there?
No but if you change levels properly you can pull a sweet low single.
wing chun kicks…
The kick itself does not go much higher than the waist of the kicker, but the target can be above the opponent’s waist.
i havent had a chance to look at the clip yet as my computer is still downloading it, but i know that in my class (vingtsun)we used to go by the principle that the upper body is used to hit the upper body and lower body for the lower body(shortest distance)lower kicks are a lot harder to stop or dodge and can do more damage in my experience and i personally find high round kicks especially easy to counter by simple distance shortening and chain punching.
having said that though i have met some tkd people that an kick very hard and fast but if you get to them first it negates that power.(but when they get you it can bloody hurt!!)
Originally posted by davethedragon
having said that though i have met some tkd people that an kick very hard and fast but if you get to them first it negates that power.(but when they get you it can bloody hurt!!)
Dave, There is no doubt about that. These kicks can really do some damage if they land, and the practitioner is skilled. I did not mean to infer otherwise. However, as fast as they are, they travel a long distance to the target, and you can negate their effectiveness by moving inside the range of the kick. Try it, you’ll see, and it will be easy to take them out when they are trying to recover their balance.
I think TKD is powerful for a small percentage of students. They rely too much on strength and speed for most people. Most TKD black belts are not effective, but that’s my opinion based on my own experience.
Matrix
Even low kicks rarely work!
Its been my experience that even using kicks to the stomach /groin against a fast moving athlete can be almost as dangerous. Try kicking against a boxer or football player-you may get in, but they may well knock you flat as well. Of course there are many factors, but if the dude is bigger and/or more athletic be careful. Personally I like a low stomp to the shin (a la Kelly McCann’s type combtives.) High probabiliy of working along with good effect. Also better chances of recovering if it fails.
Speaking of which, does anyone practice “recovering”-purposely missing or having a drill where you miss your kick and have to recover?
recovering…
Originally posted by iblis73
Speaking of which, does anyone practice “recovering”-purposely missing or having a drill where you miss your kick and have to recover?
The kick done properly requires no recovery, even when missing the target. Comes down to balance, alignment, and distance.
Isn’t there a Wing Chun proverb that says “A kick never misses”?? This implies, at least for higher kicks, the opponent must be wide open or unbalanced before you attempt a kick. Low shots to the knees and shins are probably appropriate at other times. I certainly wouldn’t attempt a mid-level kick unless i had an advantage at that particular instant.
TKD
Well I have been successful with my TKD kicks. The man I am learning Wing Chun from studied for two years under Augustine Fong and he has an extremely hard time getting close enough to hit me because of my kicks. And he certaintly isnt blocking all of them. Every now and then he does get in and when he does I have to resort to Muay Thai tactics such as elbows and knees since my wing chun isnt as good as his. Also I have found that if I use a lot of low kicks such as Muay Thai roundhouse to the legs or stomp kicks to the shins that after a few of these it becomes increasingly easy to fake these the hit with a high kick. I understand the economy of motion principle but also since my legs are longer and stronger than my arms it makes since for me to keep the opponent as far away as i can with my kicks.
Re: TKD
Originally posted by Chen Zen
The man I am learning Wing Chun from studied for two years under Augustine Fong and he has an extremely hard time getting close enough to hit me because of my kicks
Out of curiosity, does he have any other experience other than those two years learning wing chun?
Chen Zen- two years? Regularly?
He cant get past your kicks?
Who is he.?
Re: Wing Chun kicks
That TKD guy in the posted video http://www.bullshido.us/videos/muaythai_vs_tkd.mpeg was not a good representation of TKD at all! He was really slow and uncreative! The video is good more for Muay Thai propaganda than fact!
Most Tae Kwon Do styles focus mainly on legs, which they use at greater distances than Thai boxers, so yeah, they’d use their legs only against just about anything and try to keep their opponent at an effective kicking distance. Once that distance closes, they need to re-OPEN the gap, not bridge it as Wing Chun practitioners do, so you’d see a TKD practitioner jumping backward when advanced upon quickly, often while simultaneously kicking.
In practice, most TKD schools do point fighting ONLY, not full contact continuous fighting, so every time a blow lands, the action stops and resets like a play in an NFL football game.
I’m a jack-of-all-trades who’s practiced Wing Chun for a year. To corroborate my theory, I spoke to a co-worker who’s a TKD instructor about it all and he agreed. His guys are training to use their art AS A SPORT, to be in the Olympics someday, not as a real situation-applicable martial art, and there are many rules (like no grappling) to follow, so you CAN’T compare it as many of you are trying to! For all the rules they need to follow in their competitions, there is no better art than the TKD they practice, as the rules were BUILT around their art!
To better illustrate, try rolling with someone from another martial art! There’s no way they’d be good at it since rolling’s not done in anything but Wing Chun!
Wing Chun trains it’s practitioners to fight in different real-life situations with no rules, not to win contests with many rules.
What I’d really like to see are videos with really good practitioners of the various arts ONLY for: Wing Chun vs. Krav Maga, Wing Chun vs. Muay Thai and Wing Chun vs. Gracie Ju Jitsu. Anyone have any footage or links they can send me for that? Thanks very much in advance!
Yes two years regularly under Augusine Fomg. His name is Brandon Carlisle. I don’t think he has any other experience but I am teaching him TKD kicks while he teaches me Wing Chun. Id almost agree with you rich wolf but i have been to 3 different TKD schools. @ were sport schools and had the one step and three step sparring. The good TKD school I went to was Moo Duk Kwan Tkd and taught grappling, joint manipulation, finger strikes, knee and elbows as well as western boxing. A great school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Because of schools like these street effective TKD does exist. All be it not that much since the sport aspec has taken it over but its still there. Im not the best kicker but I can throw 5-6 hit kick combos with one leg before touching the ground but my goal is to be able to do it non stop as long as i like. My thinking goes like this " If they aren’t expecting it then wont it hit them?" If they dont think I will kick them in the face and i throw a side kick to the face wouldnt it hit? This refers to real life situations and not sparring or sport. The average man has no training and isnt going to know how to respond to that.
Chen Zen- the name is not familiar. May know him by sight.
He said the training was in Arizona but I dont remember if it was Tucson or Pheonix. He is about six foot black hair about 21 but probably younger then he also had a receding hair line.