Chi Sao,does it have any purpose in real fighting?

[futsaowingchun]

It is an important piece of the puzzle , but it is only one piece of the puzzle.
Sparring in chi sau , is training for close range combat , where the sense of touch becomes more reliable than vision.

It's definitely not the only type of sparring you should be doing , you should also be doing hand sparring from your Wing Chun guard vs Wing Chun guard , so that you work on your visual reflexes and Chark Jong (smashing defences) before contact is made.
Easiest way to do that from chi sau is to practice breaking off and re-engaging again.

You should also be doing a fair bit of stuff like four and six corner deflection against non Wing Chun punches , as well as working on your leg defences against non Wing Chun kicks , you can mix it all up together in an exercise we call "random arms and legs"

Chi sau is a great tool , but we have to get past the pre contact phase intact first before we can use it , which means that when the opponents hook comes rocketing in at a great rate of knots we have to rely on our eyes to see it and make sure that our arm is up where it needs to be to intercept it.

I agree..do you have a video of your exercise " random arms and legs"?

 

[mook jong man]

I agree..do you have a video of your exercise " random arms and legs"?

No , I've only got a video on here of random four corner deflection.

But "random arms and legs" is pretty simple.
One person plays the role of the Wing Chun guy and the other person throws pretty much any type of punches and kicks , grabs , with random timing , random trajectories. etc.

I always have found it quite ridiculous that some Wing Chun people seem to spend the majority of their time training against other Wing Chun attacks.

 

[futsaowingchun]

I agree you have to mix it up not just with wing Chun guys. For me most of my friends are into some kind of martial art and many don't have a Wing chun background so I just mix it up with them.

 

[mook jong man]

I agree you have to mix it up not just with wing Chun guys. For me most of my friends are into some kind of martial art and many don't have a Wing chun background so I just mix it up with them.

It's great if you have other people to train with outside of Wing Chun , but it doesn't even have to be with outside people
Even Wing Chun people should be able to throw some semblance of a jab , hook , upper cut , round house kick , spinning back kick etc.

It might not be as good as someone that does that art , but it will still get the other Wing Chun student used to dealing with attacks that aren't coming straight down the centerline.

Just have one student break out of the Wing Chun mode temporarily and throw typical street fighting attacks , you could even have them doing chi sau and one nominated person will break off and throw a round house kick to the head , or a upper cut to the gut etc .
Anything really as long as it is not a typical Wing Chun attack.

 

[Danny T]

It's great if you have other people to train with outside of Wing Chun , but it doesn't even have to be with outside people
Even Wing Chun people should be able to throw some semblance of a jab , hook , upper cut , round house kick , spinning back kick etc.

It might not be as good as someone that does that art , but it will still get the other Wing Chun student used to dealing with attacks that aren't coming straight down the centerline.

Just have one student break out of the Wing Chun mode temporarily and throw typical street fighting attacks , you could even have them doing chi sau and one nominated person will break off and throw a round house kick to the head , or a upper cut to the gut etc .
Anything really as long as it is not a typical Wing Chun attack.

This is an excellent start in developing and understanding your skill set. But I strongly advise working against well trained boxers, muay thai fighters, wrestlers, or whatever. I've had numerous elsewhere trained chunners come to us for continued training and most were quite good vs. other wc fighters but were in trouble vs. our boxers and muay thai fighters. They were not prepared for the different timing, the tight presentation of the punches and kicks much less how powerful it was. If you want good skills vs a boxer then spar against boxers not wing chunners pretending to be boxers. Same vs other stylists.

 

[futsaowingchun]

This is an excellent start in developing and understanding your skill set. But I strongly advise working against well trained boxers, muay thai fighters, wrestlers, or whatever. I've had numerous elsewhere trained chunners come to us for continued training and most were quite good vs. other wc fighters but were in trouble vs. our boxers and muay thai fighters. They were not prepared for the different timing, the tight presentation of the punches and kicks much less how powerful it was. If you want good skills vs a boxer then spar against boxers not wing chunners pretending to be boxers. Same vs other stylists.

Yeah I agree, If you want to see if you can deal with boxers spar with boxers. Its really about the skill level of the fighter not so much what style there are using. Any fighter who is good will be difficult no matter what style they are using.

 

[mook jong man]

This is an excellent start in developing and understanding your skill set. But I strongly advise working against well trained boxers, muay thai fighters, wrestlers, or whatever. I've had numerous elsewhere trained chunners come to us for continued training and most were quite good vs. other wc fighters but were in trouble vs. our boxers and muay thai fighters. They were not prepared for the different timing, the tight presentation of the punches and kicks much less how powerful it was. If you want good skills vs a boxer then spar against boxers not wing chunners pretending to be boxers. Same vs other stylists.

That is true , but how often have you taught people with no previous training before in anything?
For me I would say not that many , most of the people I have taught have done something before , so they aren't chunners pretending to be something else , they are chunners using what they have been taught in their previous training to attack another chunner.

I would also add never underestimate people who haven't trained in anything before , I find those people can have a very strange awkward type of rhythm.
They are very unpredictable and don't seem to move the way you would expect them to move.

 

[futsaowingchun]

That is true , but how often have you taught people with no previous training before in anything?
For me I would say not that many , most of the people I have taught have done something before , so they aren't chunners pretending to be something else , they are chunners using what they have been taught in their previous training to attack another chunner.

I would also add never underestimate people who haven't trained in anything before , I find those people can have a very strange awkward type of rhythm.
They are very unpredictable and don't seem to move the way you would expect them to move.

I would agree on the point the untrained have an strange and awkward rhythm. There is a saying the "the beginner can kill the sifu."

 

[mook jong man]

I would agree on the point the untrained have an strange and awkward rhythm. There is a saying the "the beginner can kill the sifu."

Yeah I don't quite know what it is , but they are sort of jerky in their movements and quite unsure of themselves.
They just don't seem to give off the typical visual cues that are normally the precursor to attacks we are used to.