Benny Meng - WC, Sparring and Competition

[dmax999]

Here is another point to consider, especially relevant to WC more then almost any other MA.

WC is a great MA and very powerful, but if done incorrectly or poorly you are better off with a month of any other MA instead of WC.

We have all been in the WC class with the guy who just doesn't get it. Is it fair to him to tell him he doesn't need to spar or practice realistic because the style is so awsome? First real fight he gets into he will be beaten to a pulp because he didn't realize how poorly he execute the basic techniques of WC. He didn't recognize them because he never sparred. Now imagine a full class like that and you get the typical WC video clips posted.

I personally believe learning a MA without sparring is dangerous because you don't know how bad you really are. It take months to get good with frequent sparring. And once you get good, the number of hits to your head reduce or you end up quitting because you are just not cut out for it.

 

[Kensai]

But does this mean that only people who want to be hit in the head should do MA? I thought the whole point of learning any art is to try and avoid precisely that?

 

[Hung Fa Moose]

Interesting topic. I admit that I did not read every post fully, I don't have alot of time to do so at the moment. I am also probably a bit biased here,as I am a direct student of Sifu Meng. I will do my best to not take sides, though it seems that everything here is very neutral and productive thus far, one of the reasons I enjoy this forum compared to others where things get personal very quickly.

The article in question as part of the topic is very much true from more than Meng Sifu's eyes. As curator of the VTM, he has probably seen and experienced more Wing Chun in person during the last decade than many do in a lifetime. His research team did not do book research to find out about Wing Chun, they went to different schools around the nation, some the world, and did hands on research and took live expereinces with as many families as they could. Does this mean that they had every possible xp with WC? No, of course not. This is just so everyone knows what the Team's POV is based in. Not conjecture, but in their expereinces. The article was based partly on some of these experiences, not just those of one man, but rather on those of a team doing research for the last 10 plus years.

As I have said in other posts, WC is meant for Martial Artists with some kind of background experience in the martial arts. In the Shaolin Temple, it was not knowledge given to beginners. They went through years of rigorous training, cultivating their bodies into effective fighting instruments first, then as time went on, they became more efficient through their own experience, meaning they became better fighters and did what worked for them. Wing Chun was reserved for the higher level Monks to become efficient in a standardized way that could be repeated and taught to future generations. Why? Well, the older you get, the harder it is for your body to take the rigors of training that a younger one can take. The older it get, the harder it is to keep up with the younger generations, right? So, how can the older Monks still play to hone and maintain their skills? Become more efficient, correct? Make sense?

Look at Morihei Ueshiba (Founder of Aikido), he's a tiny guy, but could deal with people much larger than him. Why? He had a lot of xp in the martial arts before he created Aikido. He understood that there needs to be a certain level of body karma in a person before they can move up in the gong wu. (Yeah, yeah, I doubt he used the Chinese, but you get the piont.)

Many people today train in Wing Chun without a firm foundation or any previous development of their Body Karma in another martial art. They come and train and expect miraculous results, but have not experienced anything else, and get beat down just for lack of experience with other martial arts. Wing Chun is an advanced programming language for the body. But you cannot make it work if you don't even have the ABC's of your body down. Calculus does not work without basic Math, correct (except the occasional savant)? The same is true of Wing Chun. No previous body karma, the less likely it will work for someone in sparring or in self-defense/combat.

Thoughts?

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

Nice posts guys, I´ll try to answer next week. Sorry if I have not answered all the points made here, but it is getting hard to follow all the arguments (some of us still have lives, you know ).

 

[Kensai]

Nice posts guys, I´ll try to answer next week. Sorry if I have not answered all the points made here, but it is getting hard to follow all the arguments (some of us still have lives, you know ).

Yeah, right!

























:asian:

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I just have to say as a jujitsuka who really wants to train in WC, this has been an interesting and informative thread.

Jeff

 

[Kensai]

I just have to say as a jujitsuka who really wants to train in WC, this has been an interesting and informative thread.

Jeff

It has hasn't it. I didn't give WCL the credit, as I initially thought that it was just a blatant flame attempt. I'm big enough and ugly enough to admit that it was a good debate.

Funnily enough, I'm pretty keen to expand my MA training to include ju-jitsu soon. Trying to find a place in Wolverhampton. :asian:

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

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.

Kensai, I believe we are actually in agreement over this issue.

Sparring is a training aid in the same sense that a drill is a training aid. It is a relevant part of training: the trick is using it correctly in your favour. You will never do enough sparring, for the very same reason that you will never do enough pad work or shadow boxing.

It certainly is not fighting, we can agree with that. But it is as close to a real experience as your average student will get, and for that reason alone it is invaluable - how else would a student learn how to control his adrenalin surge or his fight or fight reflex, other than with lots of sparring practice? There is no other way, other than picking up fights. Something which I, for one, do not advocate.

Also, even people who have been into real fights can learn a lot in the controlled environment provided by a sparring exercise. Depending on the rules you adopt, sparring can get pretty damn close to a real fight, and you can therefore use your own brain to fill in the gaps created by the rules. This will result in a better fighter.

As for your three points, I would say all three are essentially correct. Sparring is just a tool. You do not discard, overuse or under utilize a tool - you use it when you need to.

And sparring on a cyclical basis is precisely what good schools do. For instance, my roundkicks currently suck: my coach has kept me out of sparring for a couple of weeks, training those, because he wants me to get good at roundkicks.

When I finally "get it" (hopefully this week!), he will put me back in the ring, so I can practice what I learned against someone who wants to kick my *** into next week.

If I do not use my roundkick well during my sparring match, it´s back to the drawing board again - probably two more weeks going cold turkey until I learn to kick decently! If I do well, we will work on something else, but he will put me back into regular sparring practice so I can practice my roundkicks in the meantime.

This is what I call "cyclical" use of sparring. This, I believe, is how sparring should be done. It should be used for a specific goal, in a certain context. Going at it with no goal other than to "learn by experience, w00t!" is certainly a good way to get some bruises while getting little in return.

PS: when you spar bareknuckle, do you actually make contact with the face? How hard (nosebleeds, lost teeth, broken noses?)? I ask you because I never tried bareknuckle sparring with contact to the face, so I am genuinely curious. I mean, your girlfriend will certainly not like it!

 

[WingChun Lawyer]

Many people today train in Wing Chun without a firm foundation or any previous development of their Body Karma in another martial art. They come and train and expect miraculous results, but have not experienced anything else, and get beat down just for lack of experience with other martial arts. Wing Chun is an advanced programming language for the body. But you cannot make it work if you don't even have the ABC's of your body down. Calculus does not work without basic Math, correct (except the occasional savant)? The same is true of Wing Chun. No previous body karma, the less likely it will work for someone in sparring or in self-defense/combat.

Thoughts?

I will not get into the historical part of your post, because, as I said, I have no information to discuss that and anyway I don´t want to open that particular can of worms.

As for WC being an advanced art, meant only (or mostly) for experienced people, it does ring somewhat true. I would expect an older man to fight cautiously, without losing his balance, and to avoid bobbing and weaving, yes. But then we would need an actual example to verify this, right? I mean, we would need an older man who did well against youngsters using WC principles to see if the body mechanics and tactics of WC are well suited for use by senior fighters.

That said, all arts will benefit from (good) previous experiences of the practitioner. Judo helps me immensely in Muay Thai, for instance, and it helped me a lot in WC as well.

 

[Kensai]

WingChun Lawyer wrote:

PS: when you spar bareknuckle, do you actually make contact with the face? How hard (nosebleeds, lost teeth, broken noses?)? I ask you because I never tried bareknuckle sparring with contact to the face, so I am genuinely curious. I mean, your girlfriend will certainly not like it!

Well, it's controlled, but accidents do happen I guess..

 

[swiftpete]

Did no one else notice that the video in the link is labelled as Bruce Lee fighting? It's not very clear so it's hard to see who it is. Has his name just been attached to a video of random fighters cos he's well known as a martial arts name or is that actually him?