Benny Meng - WC, Sparring and Competition

[Odin]

The difference is that with Wing Chun, a one-hundred pound woman can be taught to defend herself effectively. This is not so of Muay Thai, where that same woman would be told simply that she is not big enough or physically powerful enough to "compete" against larger attackers.

Thats not true Im afraid my good friend infact size matters not in muay thai!where by maybe in the ring that could statement could be true ,in a real life defence situation she would be be quite able to defend herself against people much larger then herself after all do you think you could win a fight with noog toom??(")peace!

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

Odin, Nong Toon(sp) could probably kick all our asses combined, with or without rules, sex change operation or not.

But I am not quite sure she qualifies as a woman for our purposes here...

 

[Odin]

Odin, Nong Toon(sp) could probably kick all our asses combined, with or without rules, sex change operation or not.

But I am not quite sure she qualifies as a woman for our purposes here...

lol yeah man,I'll be honest I just watched beautful boxser so he/she name is stuck in my head....what about dekker though he wasnt a big guy but dman could he punch!
.....but i leave that for the mt room.

 

[Kensai]

1) True, you made no personal remark. I am always happy to discuss my opinions, and you are free to attack them, no problem.

2) I did not berate WC. Please read again what I wrote.

3) That is precisely what I am doing. I am criticizing the lack of sparring and competition present in many WC schools: I am criticizing the method of teaching, not the art itself. I made no sweeping statements of any kind towards WC as a martial art. Please read again what I wrote.

If you want to discute WC´s TECHNICAL strengths and weaknesses, by all means start a thread to do that - the grappling and the linear attacks are certainly good points to start. But this is not what I am doing here. I am talking only about the non-sparring, non-competiton mentality present in lots and lots of WC schools. That is a fair criticism, not a direct attack on the art itself.

:asian: Fair enough. Just hard to rationalise the debate, when from my own personal experience, we do spar, and hit hard, and get covered in bruises. I imagine, that your experience would lead you to make your comments. Again, from that perspective, if that's all you'd ever known of WC, then I can appreciate why it would appear that way to you. However, I think it's also a fair point that sparring is only as effective as:

1. A training aid, and
2. Depends on the other person training with you.

There's one guy at my class, really, really nice bloke, but USELESS when it comes to fighting. I'm sure there are 5 year old girls with more killer intent and agression than him, so I avoid him like the plague when it comes to training.

Also, please forgive my initial assumption of your thread, I had thought you'd simply tried to start up a fight, as it happens, good debate, the most action I've seen round here for a good week or two. ;0)

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

:asian: Fair enough. Just hard to rationalise the debate, when from my own personal experience, we do spar, and hit hard, and get covered in bruises. I imagine, that your experience would lead you to make your comments. Again, from that perspective, if that's all you'd ever known of WC, then I can appreciate why it would appear that way to you. However, I think it's also a fair point that sparring is only as effective as:

1. A training aid, and
2. Depends on the other person training with you.

There's one guy at my class, really, really nice bloke, but USELESS when it comes to fighting. I'm sure there are 5 year old girls with more killer intent and agression than him, so I avoid him like the plague when it comes to training.

See, it all comes down to personal experience. The problema is that the three WC schools I visited in São Paulo do not allow sparring ("chi sao is fighting practice!"), and, according to what I read in the internet, and according to Benny Meng, that is a very common trend everywhere.

If YOUR Wing Chun school allows sparring, I would say you qualify as a lucky bastard. I certainly looked for WC schools like that before turning to Muay Thai, trust me on this (the fact that there was a good MT school three blocks from home and the only hardcore WC school I heard of is about two hours from my place did have some influence on my choice, of course).

And I suppose you could qualify sparring as a training aid, yes. As I see it, it´s something you should do regularly, if only to measure your skills and to avoid getting soft: it certainly does not substitute techniques training - rather, it should go hand in hand with drills of all kinds.

There is a certain temptation to spar all the time, and there is also a temptation to avoid sparring regularly: the correct path, I believe, is in the middle.

And I know where you are coming from regarding non aggressive sparring partners. I have one fellow MT practitioner who is exactly like you described, he seems unable to feel that cold rage you need to fight. In fact, he seems to be so damned happy all the time it gets annoying! Of course, he does suffer for it. Personally, I like to pound him into next week whenever he gets too soft.

 

[ed-swckf]

This is one of those sticky spots for me. I'll have to agree with Wing Chun Lawer on this and have to say I know exactly where he is coming from.

He was not saying that WC is junk, he was not even saying WC without sparring is junk, he was saying that WC without sparring is not good for self defense as it should be.

but self defense is only about 10% physical, what you gain from sparring is a very narrow part of self defense and its always going to be relative to the person doing it. Most people will not have the option to train full time which means most clubs are not as good as they should be, with the word "should" being highly subjective. I broke a friends finger during sparring once, it did nothing for his fighting skill, this illustrates cons to this practice also. I mean when you get the protective gear on it does continue to remove the training from reality but there is a value to sparring and using wing chun in a number of different ways. So what i am saying is whilst there is a value to sparring its really not a hugely significant part of everyday training, especially once you have got used to sparring and done a fair ammount of it. After a while its just a case of "yes i can hit, yes people can hit me, yes it hurts, yes i'm here to learn and this is no longer what i need to be learning".

I used to be in a WC class with HEAVY amounts of sparring. Its was probably too much for me at the time. Now I can't find a kung-fu class with sparring more then once every three months, push hands in Tai Chi is too intense for them now. We end up with techniques that require catching punches holding on to them and turning the catch into a Chin Na. You try that junk in my WC sparring class, you get your head knocked off in a split second, style of MA doesn't matter in this case.

well yes, practicing realistically doesn't always equate to sparring it means training a valid skill, you can practice all kinds of fancy stuff in the kwoon but what you need is your head on straight saying, yes i can see this in application and in reality and it will/wont work. relying on catching punches isn't realistic, if it happens then great if you can use it but at the base level you need to work very raw wing chun basics. But its like you said the heavy sparring at one point was too much, its something you come too and pass through, i don't intend to be sparring when i'm 70 but i do intend to be training my skills. Its a great exposure tool but it comes back to what i was saying about some schools being way too fluffy to give you any realism and other schools being intensely and unecessarily brutal that you are convinced its all super real. A healthy middle path is what i advocate and there is nothing to stop anyone sparring external from a club if not enough is done there for ones liking.

Practicing without sparring is good, but you don't get used to being hit in the head, used to seeing tons of punches thrown at your head, learn which of your techniques you are so poor at that you need to realize they won't work if you depend on them (for me inner taun sau for example), etc.

Yeah but like i'm saying, how long does it take for you to get used to being hit in the head and how long are you going to want to do it, maybe you want to be hit forever but a lot of people don't. If you are honest with your training you should always pick up your weak points and you can pick them up outside of sparring a lot, perhaps more so. theres a tonne of great ways to improve your wing chun, a sparring partner is great but he can't test your inner tan sau for all varients, if the structure of your inner tan is wrong then you can pick that up elsewhere, if its movement or deploying it habitually in circumstances when perhaps a bui sau would be better you can drill new habbits in different ways. the workout is great and sparring can be good fun but its importance isn't something i'd place as a vital part of my ongoing training. thats not to say it isn't there.

I used to love going to WC class, but hated looking up WC stuff on the internet. Take a look at the average WC fighting video and how bad they usually are (This was also about 10 years ago). Does that look like the WC you want to be practicing? I know I wasn't that bad, and it wasn't because I thought I was better, it was because I knew exactly how to take someone down in a sec no matter how they attacked because of sparring. There are lots of cheap shots out there and unless you practice against them they will get you every time.

Do you know all the cheap shots then?

MAs are designed for fighting, especially WC. If you don't want to fight with the MA you are in, even sparring, you should think again about why you show up.

Because wanting to fight and having to fight are different, most people hope never to have to fight and want to enjoy there training - sparring won't make you invincible, understanding yourself and your attitude completely won't either but if i know i'm not up for fighting i won't be fooled by a false sense of bravado and my plan will be flight rather than fight. That said because of the way wing chun is taught people are often very supprised at themselves when they do use it, it can be used if you have sparred or not but to suggest that people shouldn't train if they don't want to spar is ridiculous.

Sorry to anyone offended, this is just a really sore spot for me.

No offence taken, it certainly does seem sore for you though.

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

I´ll use an analogy to explain the need to spar often, even for advanced practitioners.

A surgeon needs to read lots of books, he needs to commit to memory numerous items, he needs to understand what he is supposed to do.

But he also needs to practice. He needs to open people up and fix them. Of course, it is crucial for him to do it during the first stages of his studies, because otherwise he will never learn how to apply what he learned.

Eventually, he will get good at it, he will have acquired quite a lot of experience.

But this does not mean he can stop performing surgeries now. Not if he intends to keep his skills. There is always room for development, and development of a skill demands practice: also, it is a well known fact that any and all human skills will degenerate if they are not practiced often.

A closer example would be driving. It is a physical skill, demanding good reflexes, perception, and eye-hand coordination. Have you ever spent a long time without driving? When you do get behind the wheel, you will have some problems adjusting, because you are out of practice.

The same analogy could be applied to any and all areas of human achievement. A driving school would not get any clients if they did not allow its students to drive; a medical school needs a hospital to allow its students to practice; a law school will usually provide facilities for its students to get their own cases, or will enroll them at law offices or such.

It is quite sad that, of all areas, the martial arts are probably the only one where some of its practitioners believe constant practice is not essential in order to acquire and maintain their skills.

 

[ed-swckf]

1) I disagree. Top level fighters like Silva still spar hard and often. Now, I will be the first to agree that you should not spar every day, techniques should be practiced repeatedly and often. BUT, any serious martial artist should spar as often as he feels necessary to, in order to avoid getting back to the infamous confort zone. In my experience, there is no such thing as enough sparring.

your experience is yours then, i'm glad its not mine. I don't care about silva i care more aboput my lifestyle and how i live, i don't live with the need to be the best fighter, i know what i can do and i know this idea of the comfort zone i was in before i began martial arts is immpossible for me to return to. If you feel i'm not serious thats fine and you are welcome to disagree based on simply your own experience.

2) Same here.

good.

3) Nope, I disagree. There is no such thing as enough sparring. Human beings will forget what they learn if they don´t practice their skills. This is true in all areas of human achievement. A doctor who leaves his area of expertise for years cannot be expected to perform a surgery as well as he did when he was practicing. A fighter who does not fight for long periods will also see his performence diminished.

I disagree with you, what a supprise. There is such thing as enough sparring, maybe not for someone like you but as its subject to what your intentions and needs are, such a thing does exist believe it or not. you obviously can only see this from your point of view. The skills are continually being practiced you just don't have to spar in order to do so and no one is talking about leaving wing chun. sparring isn't fighting so it really doesn't really figure. People train up to level that fits in with their lifestyle, sparring and risking injury means risking peoples livlihood - thats not smart self defense or preservation. If being a fighter is your buisness then fine but some people want a level of skill to use in a event that hopefully never occurs - the majority of that skill is psychological and whilst for a certain amount of time sparring can help once you have broken down certain confidence barriers repeatedly doing this has little value. If you do resort somehow to being scared or whatever then maybe it would have value again but the usual way things go is that they thrive on the change in attitude and its brought on board and continually used not just in MA but also in their everyday approach.

4) My mistake, sorry. I said many schools do not spar. Few do spar, at least in Brazil - and, it seems, the same rule applies abroad as well.

All schools i've been to have had sparring of some sort so i greatly dispute this. Its just not number one on everyones agenda and its not a marketing point wing chun incorperates.

5) I don´t kow what gor sau is (do you mean gong sau?). I suppose we could debate all day what is the distinction between sparring and chi sao. Personally, I believe sparring, as opposed to chi sao, does not contain weird rules of engagement like not being allowed to remove your hands, retreat, and/or use your legs.

No i don't mean gong sau i mean gor sau. You are allowed to remove your hands in chi sau, you are thinking of poon sau. You are allowed to retreat, the principle is a guide line to ensure you don't retreat when advancing although a little more scarier is more benificial. Also because retreating can invite more oncoming pressure, generally you will find the priciple is there to helpe you work better at close quarters. You can use your legs if arranged before hand, its just bad form to kick your training partner when they aren't up for training with those techniques, its a rule that is more politeness than anything. so if you can do all these things is it then sparring?

6) I agree with you. Many people indeed approach the martial arts for reasons other than for self defense. But if you want to be able to use your skills in a real encounter, you must spar hard and often. That has nothing to do with the intent of the practitioner, this is about good and bad methods of teaching a skill. I would not trust a surgeon who never went past his textbooks.

No i know plenty of people that have used wing chun and never sparred, they have chi sau'd they have trained hard. This training is realistic and perhaps to you its just reading a text book but thats really not what it is and the analogy really doesn't fit. I guess in your eyes what i say is impossible but its really the truth about the way wing chun works. I'm happy for you to disagree with me.

7) I was referring to the WC non sparring crowd, who believe that (i) there is no need to spar to learn how to fight, or (ii) you only have to spar up to a certain point, or you don´t have to do it often, as it is secondary to the teachings of the system. I could name some WC schools in Brazil who do just that, if you want. Thomas Lo´s schools and Philipp Andreas´ school (my former school).

So this really comes down to a couple of schools that you've experienced. You know a lot of people in fights have no martial art experience or any training, so are they unable to fight or just less able than someone who trains a lot? After your description of chi sau i would already see fault in the schools you mention.

8) Do feel free to post a link to another video of the 50´s rooftop challenges. I will believe they were good when I see evidence of it. What I saw was terrible.

I'm not gonna go look for them, if you want to watch more than just one to get a more solid opinion then please go ahead, i do however doubt you will find a lot of videos online of these fights. I don't doubt what you saw was terrible, theres lots of terrible videos in existance representing wing chun.

 

[ed-swckf]

2) Glad to know someone actually read what I wrote!

So i didn't read what you wrote then?

 

[ed-swckf]

I´ll use an analogy to explain the need to spar often, even for advanced practitioners.

A surgeon needs to read lots of books, he needs to commit to memory numerous items, he needs to understand what he is supposed to do.

But he also needs to practice. He needs to open people up and fix them. Of course, it is crucial for him to do it during the first stages of his studies, because otherwise he will never learn how to apply what he learned.

Eventually, he will get good at it, he will have acquired quite a lot of experience.

But this does not mean he can stop performing surgeries now. Not if he intends to keep his skills. There is always room for development, and development of a skill demands practice: also, it is a well known fact that any and all human skills will degenerate if they are not practiced often.

A closer example would be driving. It is a physical skill, demanding good reflexes, perception, and eye-hand coordination. Have you ever spent a long time without driving? When you do get behind the wheel, you will have some problems adjusting, because you are out of practice.

The same analogy could be applied to any and all areas of human achievement. A driving school would not get any clients if they did not allow its students to drive; a medical school needs a hospital to allow its students to practice; a law school will usually provide facilities for its students to get their own cases, or will enroll them at law offices or such.

It is quite sad that, of all areas, the martial arts are probably the only one where some of its practitioners believe constant practice is not essential in order to acquire and maintain their skills.

I never said constant practice wasn't required. I just don't need to get hit round the head often to know what it feels like. I don't need to spar hard in order to be happy in my ability to deal with a self defense situation. I do need to continually train hard and explore myself.

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

Ed, I really can´t go beyond that analogy I made, and I can´t go beyond the training practices of professional fighters. Practice makes perfect, and that´s all there is to it. If you believe there is such a thing as enough sparring, and if you believe it is not necessary to spar to keep and improve your skills, fine, I´ll agree to disagree.

But lots and lots of famous and skilled martial artists disagree with you. That is beyond my personal experience, and that´s beyond your personal experience as well.

Personally, when I want to learn a skill, I see how people who actually proved themselves good at that skill managed to get there. In the case of the martial arts, I would rather follow the examples of Masahiko Kimura, Wanderlei Silva and Mas Oyama, who have documented fights (which they won), rather than try to emulate what people in the 50´s were (poorly) doing, without an objective proof that their method yields results.

It´s your choice. I, for one, am not content with my skills, nor do I expect to be - martial arts are a lifelong goal to me. So I intend to keep training and to keep sparring so that my skills will improve, until the day I physically cannot do it anymore.

Incidentally, Helio Gracie is well into his nineties, and he still spars.

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

I never said constant practice wasn't required. I just don't need to get hit round the head often to know what it feels like. I don't need to spar hard in order to be happy in my ability to deal with a self defense situation. I do need to continually train hard and explore myself.

OK, I´ll try one more time.

So, you said you sparred enough.

Does that mean you

1) Sparred every single person that could ever provide you with a different angle on your skills?

2) Sparred every single person who could provide you with a challenge?

3) Sparred every person who could beat you, and eventually managed to improve your game until you finally beat that person?

4) Did all of the above with different rulesets, in order to avoid developing bad habits?

If your answer is not "yes" to all the questions above, I am afraid you have not sparred enough.

If your answer to even one of those questions is "no", and you are still content with your current skills, I would say you have settled for being less of a fighter than you could ever be, whatever your goals are (self defense or not).

Of course, that is your choice.

 

[ed-swckf]

Ed, I really can´t go beyond that analogy I made, and I can´t go beyond the training practices of professional fighters. Practice makes perfect, and that´s all there is to it.

I don't make professional fighters, a lot of people don't have the time to be such. If we were talking about professional fighting i would agree 100%.

If you believe there is such a thing as enough sparring, and if you believe it is not necessary to spar to keep and improve your skills, fine, I´ll agree to disagree.

I believe for different students different things are required, there is definitely such a thing as enough sparring as for some students the best thing they get from it is overcomming a psychological barrier. If you are saying skills can only be improved and kept if you spar then yes i disagree. Chi sau becomes progressivley different as people go through their training and they bring on board a lot of skills picked up in other areas and continue to utilise them there and in other facets of their training.

But lots and lots of famous and skilled martial artists disagree with you. That is beyond my personal experience, and that´s beyond your personal experience as well.

disagree all they please, they don't teach my students and my students don't choose to go to a class that spars every week. With that in mind they are free to spar their skills and i do push my students and teach in a very realistic wing chun approach.

Personally, when I want to learn a skill, I see how people who actually proved themselves good at that skill managed to get there. In the case of the martial arts, I would rather follow the examples of Masahiko Kimura, Wanderlei Silva and Mas Oyama, who have documented fights (which they won), rather than try to emulate what people in the 50´s were (poorly) doing, without an objective proof that their method yields results.

I want to give people a skill set that is quite viable and accessable and can be used in a situation that they don't want to be in.

It´s your choice. I, for one, am not content with my skills, nor do I expect to be - martial arts are a lifelong goal to me. So I intend to keep training and to keep sparring so that my skills will improve, until the day I physically cannot do it anymore.

What makes you think that i am any different to that?

Incidentally, Helio Gracie is well into his nineties, and he still spars.

Not in wing chun he doesn't.

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

Ed, the mechanisms behind the training undergone by professional fighters and the training undergone by hobbyists such as me are the same. There is no distinction, or at least there should not be. Acquire the skill, improve the skill, train the skill, don´t lose the skill.

Simple as that.

I really can´t see your point here. True, your students are not professional fighters. But their training regime should be as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters, since the goals are the same (i.e. acquire, improve, train, and retain certain skills).

 

[lenatoi]

"should be as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters, since the goals are the same (i.e. acquire, improve, train, and retain certain skills)."
I have to disagree here. Different students don't neccessarily have the same goals. To aquire and retain certain skills, yes, but wich skills? The knowlgedge of proper body alignment, or the flow of motion for some. For others (the ones you're tlking about) those skills would be perhaps self defence or speed.
I must caution you not to discredit other arts because you do not understand them.

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

"should be as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters, since the goals are the same (i.e. acquire, improve, train, and retain certain skills)."
I have to disagree here. Different students don't neccessarily have the same goals. To aquire and retain certain skills, yes, but wich skills? The knowlgedge of proper body alignment, or the flow of motion for some. For others (the ones you're tlking about) those skills would be perhaps self defence or speed.
I must caution you not to discredit other arts because you do not understand them.

Fighting skills. That´s what I am talking about here. In order to acquire, improve, train, and retain fighting skills, you should spar often.

Proper body alignment and flow of motion are not useful skills by themselves, they are part of fighting skills. Any and all student of the martial arts which intend to learn fighting skills (whether for self defence or not) should train in a way as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters. Which is, incidentally, the way the proved masters used to train (Kimura, Oyama, and others).

Of course, if the goal of the student is just to get in shape, more power to him or her. But that´s not what I am talking about here.

Incidentally, I did Wing Chun for two years (Lee Shing lineage). I am certainly not a master, but I am quite sure I know enough about it to talk about it.

 

[ed-swckf]

OK, I´ll try one more time.

So, you said you sparred enough.

Does that mean you

1) Sparred every single person that could ever provide you with a different angle on your skills?

2) Sparred every single person who could provide you with a challenge?

3) Sparred every person who could beat you, and eventually managed to improve your game until you finally beat that person?

4) Did all of the above with different rulesets, in order to avoid developing bad habits?

If your answer is not "yes" to all the questions above, I am afraid you have not sparred enough.

If your answer to even one of those questions is "no", and you are still content with your current skills, I would say you have settled for being less of a fighter than you could ever be, whatever your goals are (self defense or not).

Of course, that is your choice.

well i don't train full time so yes i am less of a fighter i could be.

like i have said its all relative to what you personally want to gain from the art. Yes to be a professional fighter you'd want to be answering yes to all your questions but if you are training with a different goal in mind then sparring isn't always going to be top of the list.

I think at this point you need to look how a lot more wing chun schools train in order to appreciate what i am saying about sparring. You are at the moment disregarding any other ways of training used in wing chun and also adhering to the idea that peoples goals are not attainable unless they continue to spar for ever. I have tried to explain that people can take ideas and skills from sparring and continue to use them in other areas. You are also assuming the reason i sparred is the same as yours and ignoring any reasons i have brought up for the case of sparring.

I answered no to all your questions as they are designed so that is the only viable answer but they still do not say that i haven't got from sparring all i needed to for me or that it is necessary to spar before you can fight. And the answers also do not say that i don't continue to chi sau and gor sau and increase my skill level within those platforms and other training ideas. Its not like i don't get padded up to do some step in work or even to play gor sau with some more impact but the way wing chun is designed kinda just means we look at sparring in a different way. Essentially i guess you could say most of my lessons are sparring but to me thats just the way wing chun is trained and its not that idea of sparring that i was discussing, its like sparring broken down and put under a microscope. I mean we train chi sau with body and head protection in order to be able to up the game, i asked earlier when chi sau becomes sparring because i feel i am continually advancing in my training improving skills and the ability to use them more effectively but i don't consider the training i do to do that sparring. Maybe you would call it sparring, who knows, its just something to think about.

 

[ed-swckf]

Ed, the mechanisms behind the training undergone by professional fighters and the training undergone by hobbyists such as me are the same. There is no distinction, or at least there should not be. Acquire the skill, improve the skill, train the skill, don´t lose the skill.

lawyer, but wing chun does acquire the skill, improve the skill, train the skill and not lose the skill. And i have made no distinction in mechanisms but rather in reasons and purposes. Why have i used sparring and feel that i have sufficed that need? Is wing chun not valid unless its repeatedly sparred, what exactly constitutes sparring lawyer, especially in reference to chi sau.

I really can´t see your point here. True, your students are not professional fighters. But their training regime should be as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters, since the goals are the same (i.e. acquire, improve, train, and retain certain skills).

Ummm, no, i'm not going to put them through the training needed to be a professional fighter. They don't need to spar to build up wing chun skill but you don't believe that skill to have any value, thats fine. They want to have a system that can help them get away or react quick enough to preturb a random attack. It works in my experience, i'm sorry it hasn't in yours.

 

[Kensai]

At the risk of you feeling "ganged up on" WCL, I still think that sparring is only a training aid. Sparring is not fighting. No-one in a street fight will necessarily give their opponent a margin for error, or, control their aggression, so even sparring has a limited use.

If it is used as an aid with which to practice various moves, combinations, then all well and good. I'd like to see if we can "bridge the gap" (did you like the WC euphemism there?) between the main points being raised here,

1. Sparring is important, but different people will want to train to different levels, based on time/natural ability/inclination.

2. Sparring is simply a training aid, neither the only way to train nor the best.

3. Sparring does give any MA practitioner the ability with which to try out moves and combo's, but again, still limited to the extent to which one can "attack" an opponent, or utilise the full repetoire.

I would advocate precisely what I have in my class, sparring on a cyclical basis, to practive moves learnt over a couple of weeks, either with gloves, or bare knuckle, and learning to control yourself under such conditions. Our sifu used to make us do continual pad work, week in, week out. Before long, my knuckles were in shreds, and I was slightly bored. He now varies the contents of a lesson more, and its fun. I do get slightly nervy when he announces a sparring sesh, but I find it concentrates the mind wonderfully. Although it is inevitably done bare knuckle, we will control attacks more if fighting someone of weaker strength/ability etc. My sifu also makes us spar with a variety of people, and also includes padded sparring to enable us to "go at it" a lot more. I come home with bruises on my arms, legs, sometimes face, shoulders, chest... I have a few moves that I "like", and train up a lot, and to me, it gives me as much confidence knowing those, than sparring and knowing what it's like to be punched in the face. I can tell you that for free. "It 'urts". Just my tuppence.

I totally agree that the middle path is "possibly" the best way to proceed. A mixture of sparring and general training is always good, as is retaining an open mind, form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

 

[ed-swckf]

Fighting skills. That´s what I am talking about here. In order to acquire, improve, train, and retain fighting skills, you should spar often.

In that case chi sau is sparring as it achieves these objectives.

Proper body alignment and flow of motion are not useful skills by themselves, they are part of fighting skills. Any and all student of the martial arts which intend to learn fighting skills (whether for self defence or not) should train in a way as close as possible to that undergone by professional fighters. Which is, incidentally, the way the proved masters used to train (Kimura, Oyama, and others).

How close is as close as possible? I mean i work students through scenario work and alertness skills. these skills work better for defense, the fighting aspect is constantly explored from realistic angles of other sorts that relate to self defense and not professional fighting. Its repeatedly trained and upkept - is that then equatable to sparring it?

Incidentally, I did Wing Chun for two years (Lee Shing lineage). I am certainly not a master, but I am quite sure I know enough about it to talk about it.

It didn't work for you, or fit what you wanted i guess.