Fight Quest: Wing Chun

[James Smith]

Not sure if this has been posted before but I used search and didn't find any review of the episode. I don't know much about Wing Chun other than what I see from the movie Wing Chun, the Ip Man movies, and chinaboxer's youtube videos.

From my brief exposure to the system, it seems like chain-punching is in no way the main focus of Wing Chun like they were saying. The fights were really bad it just turned into a bad boxing match without both the main two characters of the show or the students using any WC. It really made the system look terrible and I see posts on the internet forums and Netflix comments about how inferior WC is if a guy off the street could beat a practitioner with only 5 days of practice and not even doing anything right to boot.

Sorry if this has been discussed in another thread or my assumption is wrong and chain-punching is actually a really important focus of the system. I'm welcome to any criticism of my novice point of view so I don't continue to assume the wrong things.

 

[mook jong man]

Your going to base your whole opinion of Wing Chun on what you have seen demonstrated from a few students of one particular school on a tv show , a movie and from YouTube ?

If all the misconceptions and internet crap were around in 1989 when I joined up , then there is a chance that I may have took notice of it and never started , and that would have been a very , very big shame.

But instead I walked into the school and based my opinions on the simple logic of the techniques that were demonstrated on me and the high level of skill exhibited by the instructors and senior students.

Go and try a few reputable schools and do a few trial lessons so that you can experience the techniques first hand.

Yes chain punching or 'continuous punching' as we call it is an important part of the system , but so is chain kicking and the chaining together of many other techniques.

A constant flow of aggressive attacking techniques is a tactic used to overwhelm the opponent and put him immediately off balance and on the defensive.

 

[zepedawingchun]

Chain punching or battle punching is in no way the main focus of Wing Chun. Most Wing Chun practitioners resort to battle punching when all else fails. Beginners are taught when in doubt of what to do, battle punch and recover or take away the center from your opponent. Chain punchng is done from a stationary position and you feed a partner punch after punch after punch in training. Thus it's called chain punching, like following the loops in a chain, continueously. Battle punching is chain punching in combat, with energy, intent, drive, focus, and desire to make contact. It is usually done in bursts until contact is made with your opponent and continues until your opponent goes down. It usually can end the altercation quickly, especially if executed by an experience Wing Chun practitioner. Battle punching gets used a lot by inexperienced practitioners because it is so easy to remember and execute, even doing half way wrong. The basic punch is one of the first things, if not the first, taught to beginning student. It's just natural to turn it into chain punching or battle punching, because once learned, it's easy to use. Plus, almost every hand position used is based around the basic motion like battle punching.

However, most inexperienced WC practitioners start using the battle punch from too far away and use it to try to get close to their opponent. The biggest mistake made. You should use it once inside your opponent's defenses when it's hard for them to stop you from hitting them.

Experienced Wing Chun practitioners will use battle punching in volleys of 3 (3 punches) because most believe it shouldn't take more than 3 punches to down your opponent. Plus in a battle punch volley, once hit, you're having to chase down your opponent to catch them to hit them again with another battle punch volley or something else.

But Wing Chun has a few more ways to strike or hit their opponent with power and accuracy. Wan jerns (sideways palm) and dim or deem jerns (fingers pointed upwards), biu jee (thrusting fingers or finger jabs), sat sau (saut sau or throat cutting hands), fung an kune (phoenix eye fist), and cup jarn (forward angled elbow). It just seems like you're never in close to your opponent long enough to use the other strikes to their advantage.

One reason inexperienced WC practitioners look terrible when fighting (resorting to what looks like sloppy boxing) is because they are inexperienced in Wing Chun, especially without doing some form of sparring (not chi sau) in their training regime. It takes several years to make the ideas, principles, theories, concepts, and hand positions natural and your own expression. To where you don't think about using them, they just come out. (I say it takes 5 years, with training several times a week, to get to that point, then you really start to learn the system and become proficient at it).

 

[James Smith]

mook jong man,

Yeah I agree that visiting a school is the best option. You answered my question though that you don't pay any attention to the system in movies or youtube vids because they don't tell the whole story.

The reason I posted was to see if it bothers people who are students of Wing Chun that what is promoted on TV shows, movies, and youtube is so butchered compared to their instructor. I don't understand why a school would want to be on a TV show and have the instructor at an actual school (not a made up one for a tv movie) say that chain-punching is key when there are so many other elements. All that ended up happening was the student rushed the guest with chain punches and then the guest rushed back with chain punches. Neither person used any other move and people commented that the stronger guy won because he punched harder, even though the student must have not been doing the technique right if it didn't even phase the guest and the guest beat both students.

Unless someone has a friend or relative already doing WC, the only way they are gonna find out about the system is through movies, tv, and youtube. I figured it will bother someone that people will get the wrong idea if the system is supposed to be good for a weaker person against a a much stronger person yet the stronger guy easily won just through out-muscling the students.

It bothered me to watch it and I don't even practice the system just because I know the first thing someone will do when I tell them about Wing Chun is find some form of media to get them interested enough to check out a school and they will see all of the sloppy applications and think that it is inferior. Maybe a different poster will agree with what I say but I'm glad I have your input.
--

zepedawingchun,

That is along the lines of what I was thinking and I also thought it was bad for the instructor to ju start out and say I'm going to teach you to chain punch on the first day before really explaining the basics, even though obviously someone isn't gonna learn the basics in 5 days at least it would give viewers a better idea of the system.

EDIT2: I really appreciate you telling me about some of the other techniques and explaining the chain-punch a bit better.

EDIT: Added reply to zepedawingchun

 

[Xue Sheng]

Don't let it bother you and be happy with the underestimation... it can only work in your favor

 

[James Smith]

Xue Sheng,

Yeah I didn't really think about it that way, which is a really good line of thinking! Even though it is cheesy to reference movies that reminds me of something I saw in Ip Man. I remember now that you brought that up a scene where he was going to fight someone and they made fun of him when they found out he practiced Wing Chun and not another system.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Xue Sheng,

Yeah I didn't really think about it that way, which is a really good line of thinking! Even though it is cheesy to reference movies that reminds me of something I saw in Ip Man. I remember now that you brought that up a scene where he was going to fight someone and they made fun of him when they found out he practiced Wing Chun and not another system.

OK, I'm confused. I never brought up any scene... but that is ok... confusion is pretty much been my entire day so far...

Bottom-line... who cares what anyone else thinks, it is what you know that matters.

 

[zepedawingchun]

mook jong man,

Yeah I agree that visiting a school is the best option. You answered my question though that you don't pay any attention to the system in movies or youtube vids because they don't tell the whole story.

The reason I posted was to see if it bothers people who are students of Wing Chun that what is promoted on TV shows, movies, and youtube is so butchered compared to their instructor. I don't understand why a school would want to be on a TV show and have the instructor at an actual school (not a made up one for a tv movie) say that chain-punching is key when there are so many other elements. All that ended up happening was the student rushed the guest with chain punches and then the guest rushed back with chain punches. Neither person used any other move and people commented that the stronger guy won because he punched harder, even though the student must have not been doing the technique right if it didn't even phase the guest and the guest beat both students.

Unless someone has a friend or relative already doing WC, the only way they are gonna find out about the system is through movies, tv, and youtube. I figured it will bother someone that people will get the wrong idea if the system is supposed to be good for a weaker person against a a much stronger person yet the stronger guy easily won just through out-muscling the students.

It bothered me to watch it and I don't even practice the system just because I know the first thing someone will do when I tell them about Wing Chun is find some form of media to get them interested enough to check out a school and they will see all of the sloppy applications and think that it is inferior. Maybe a different poster will agree with what I say but I'm glad I have your input.
--

zepedawingchun,

That is along the lines of what I was thinking and I also thought it was bad for the instructor to ju start out and say I'm going to teach you to chain punch on the first day before really explaining the basics, even though obviously someone isn't gonna learn the basics in 5 days at least it would give viewers a better idea of the system.

EDIT2: I really appreciate you telling me about some of the other techniques and explaining the chain-punch a bit better.

EDIT: Added reply to zepedawingchun

Yeah, it used to bother me to see stuff like that on TV. Youtube is another story. Just way too much crap and bad representation on that medium. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. Eventually, it doesn't bother you too much. Finally, I figured out that most people put stuff like that up because they are trying to impress people. All the really good gung fu masters won't throw anything on a medium like that. They don't need to because they are secure with their skill and knowledge, they don't need to show off, or relish anyone else's acknowledgement.

Now there is some stuff with Bostepe Sifu and Guru Dan Inosanto and a few others, but they didn't upload it. It was done by some of their students or someone not authorized to represent them. Those are the exceptions.

The best thing to do to make sure none of that stuff happens is to not make videos, or allow it in your seminars. And if you do, you have to control who gets it. But once it's made and out, it's pretty hard to keep tabs on it.

 

[zepedawingchun]

OK, I'm confused. I never brought up any scene... but that is ok... confusion is pretty much been my entire day so far...

Sounds to me like you've been hit by one too many battle punches.

 

[James Smith]

OK, I'm confused. I never brought up any scene... but that is ok... confusion is pretty much been my entire day so far...

Bottom-line... who cares what anyone else thinks, it is what you know that matters.

Sorry my words were mixed up in my head. I was just trying to say that since you brought up a style being underestimated, it reminded me of that movie where someone laughed at the WC practioner because of its origin and in that case the guy who didn't take it seriously changed his mind after.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Sounds to me like you've been hit by one too many battle punches.

NAH :whip: OW!! maybe a :boxing: DAMN that hurt... but there was the ocassional and of course :duh: but never:btgooooooo that was painful

 

[dungeonworks]

Just an FYI, any style can be made to look a fool on the internet, and ESPECIALLY YouTube! I have always held that as a general rule, the practitioner must fit the style to make the style most effective. For example, a stocky un atheletic person usually would find Tae Kwon Do an easy system to learn yet very difficult to apply. Same for the Karateka or TKD practitioner crossing over into Jiujitsu or Wing Chun. Natural tendencies and past training that is ingrained into the student's own instincts will become a factor, especially if they are coming from technique based arts with visual sensitivity ala Karate, TKD, Hapkido, Norther Chinese Kung Fu...compared to the spatial/touch sensitivity ala Boxing, Grappling systems, Wing Chun...(there is a name for this but it escapes me at present) in Wing Chun. The latter being my own struggle learning Wing Chun.

 

[chinaboxer]

don't believe the hype! wing chun is poo..practice UFC instead! :soapbox:

 

[James Smith]

Just an FYI, any style can be made to look a fool on the internet, and ESPECIALLY YouTube! I have always held that as a general rule, the practitioner must fit the style to make the style most effective. For example, a stocky un atheletic person usually would find Tae Kwon Do an easy system to learn yet very difficult to apply. Same for the Karateka or TKD practitioner crossing over into Jiujitsu or Wing Chun. Natural tendencies and past training that is ingrained into the student's own instincts will become a factor, especially if they are coming from technique based arts with visual sensitivity ala Karate, TKD, Hapkido, Norther Chinese Kung Fu...compared to the spatial/touch sensitivity ala Boxing, Grappling systems, Wing Chun...(there is a name for this but it escapes me at present) in Wing Chun. The latter being my own struggle learning Wing Chun.

Yeah you hit the nail on the head with someone having tendencies of one system ingrained into their heads messing up their learning of another system.

Not sure if you've seen the show I'm talking about but it is basically two guys with a Boxing and Muay Thai background and they go to different countries trying to learn their art in a week and then apply their knowledge in matches with the current students. It seems like they only got matched up with formidable opponents in only a few episodes of the series. I think the concept would've been better for both of them to stick to what they know, provide time for an instructor to explain their systems to the audience, and then have them spar with an instructor rather than trying to mimic a system sloppily against some novice student. It was really funny to see the one Muay Thai-trained muscular host goto Thailand and get whooped by a 140lb 14 year old with 70+ matches under his belt.

 

[oaktree]

Sounds to me like you've been hit by one too many battle punches.

More like hits with branches from trees.:hammer:

 

[Xue Sheng]

More like hits with branches from trees.:hammer:

When Bruce Lee said "Boards don't hit back... well... he was right..... but trees are a different story

NEVER trust a tree :mst: :uhyeah:

 

[geezer]

When Bruce Lee said "Boards don't hit back... well... he was right..... but trees are a different story

NEVER trust a tree :mst: :uhyeah:

Yep. I've been smacked by trees more than once. Sneaky things they are.... standing all still and everything, then, bonk! they get you right on top of the head. Hey, I'm being serious here!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yep. I've been smacked by trees more than once. Sneaky things they are.... standing all still and everything, then, bonk! they get you right on top of the head. Hey, I'm being serious here!

Back in my days worknig on the tree farm...one of the damn things jumped me and it was then... I knew... You can NEVER trust a tree :mst: