Hello to everyone

[wingc]

Greetings and welcome to MT's forum from me!!

 

[WTchap]

For me the chi sao sections were one of the biggest attractions to WT. I understand how, and why, they need to be abandoned (or perhaps the better way of phrasing it is how you should 'step outside of them') once you have them, and this type of logical progression was something missing in my previous Wing Chun experience.

And I like very much Fighterman's explanation of reverting everything (forms, chi sao, lat sao, etc) back to body mechanics first and foremost. Regarding Fighterman's Youtube clips, when I see the Lat Sao it reminds of some Lat Sao clips from Chris Collins' (someone who also studied with LT in HK). Perhaps there is a flavour that comes from HK :ultracool

Fighterman also mentioned having studied some internal arts - does anyone else here have WC/WT and internal art experience? My short time with Xingyi was a real eye-opener with regards my Wing Tsun.

 

[geezer]

Fighterman also mentioned having studied some internal arts - does anyone else here have WC/WT and internal art experience? My short time with Xingyi was a real eye-opener with regards my Wing Tsun.

Could you elaborate a bit on that? I've never trained Xingyi, but I've seen what look like some similarities in body mechanics and power generation, in beng quan for example. "Internalists" have told me that what they do is completely different, and that I misperceive the true nature of nei jia... but then they may have some misconceptions about the nature of WC as well.

 

[wtxs]

Fighterman, you are correct, there is no mystery to WC or any other martial arts. How good you are depends on how well you know and effectively you employ your body. Lots of people got hung up on what it should look like.

Just look at the title of WSL's training video ... "The Science Of In-fighting", I think it sez it all.

 

[fighterman]

yep thanks for the comments, you know theres a saying in italy that goes something like 'everything you do is seen as an internal or possibly a spiritual event. so i guess maybe it depends on your outlook refelcts on what is termed as internal. one thing for sure was the fact that when i reanalysed the forms it taught me much about the nature of gravity and how when we do chisao we tend to depend on the pressure of the other person. this unfortunately leads to a false sense of security and completely puts us out of touch with our centre of graviyt. problem is that many become so accustomed to this type of training that in the end they dont even realise they are doing it. the forms is a way of rebuilding your internal structure and also dealing with mentally creating the so called 'passive' techniques without the input of an opponent. this is really hard work because in order to build what we call passive muscles, it takes a great deal of relaxation, mental concentration and in the end rebuilding a new type of force. which in Italy we call 'antigravitational muscles' and 'antigravitational bone structure' its not so science fiction as it sounds but it does take a while to explain it.
umm chris collins, you know I never actually met him but I know of him. i think my biggest influence was my father. he played and coached A grade soiccer all his life and one of the things he taught me was that no matter how hard you trained in any sport or art in this matter. it was always important to play the game.
ciao guys,
Im starting to get accusotmed in writing english. before I go and if the moderators let me I wanted to share with you people an article I wrote. (I like writing articles) on female aggression and what steps to take. I'll probably start a new thread. i appreciate very much your welcomes and making me feel at ease.

 

[WTchap]

Could you elaborate a bit on that? I've never trained Xingyi, but I've seen what look like some similarities in body mechanics and power generation, in beng quan for example. "Internalists" have told me that what they do is completely different, and that I misperceive the true nature of nei jia... but then they may have some misconceptions about the nature of WC as well.

Hi Geezer,


Well, for me the Xingyi training was interesting for a few reasons, but of course all of what follows is just my opinion only ;-)




When I first started Wing Chun back in 2001, I figured it must be more internal than external due to the softness. And all the internal practitioners I met and spoke to said, “No, your art is very cool, but not internal.”


So I figured they were correct as they knew more about their arts than I did. Then when I started training some Xingyi the things that made that art internal (in my opinion) were often things found in WC/WT or where similar to WC/WT, so now I’ve swung back to thinking of WC/WT as more internal than external.


Firstly, I should say that when I think about internal arts I don’t, in my definition, think about ‘chi’. Energy does of course make all movements possible, but I’ve yet to see (for example) someone show me how sinking chi to the dantien adds more power to their strikes, or how circulating their chi aids in the martial aspects of their arts. Of course, the situation isn’t helped by it being impossible to ‘show’ any movement chi at all.


But I have been struck by internal practitioners who were able to generate great hitting power with seemingly relaxed and very small movements. How do they do it? I think that the way this force is generated is, perhaps as Fighterman is saying, via great body mechanics.


For example, in Xingyi the power comes from: co-ordinated stepping and full body integration of movements, the use of opposing forces (a part of the body moves forward while another part balances this by moving back, or by hitting upwards while another part of your body moves downwards), opening and closing movements (scapula, for example), compressing and expanding (the ribcage, for example), working with the body’s center via those opposing forces (sinking down into the stance while pressing up with the body), using the mind/intent/focus to aid in some of the things I just wrote, using spiraling movements (they look linear to the eye, but when you look - or feel - they have tight spirals that make use of the joints and connective tissues - ligaments, tendons), using very relaxed movements that take advantage of most of the above.


Xingyi is kinda sneaky, you know. At first glance you can't see these things, often if you look closely and know what to look for you still can’t see them. But if your instructor lets you put your hand on his arms, shoulders, ribcage, etc, during his movements, you can ‘feel’ what is going on - and it is complicated!


Good WC/WT, in my opinion, has much of the above. It is just done in a slightly different way to Xingyi (which itself does things in a slightly different way to Taiji and Bagua).


For example, Xingyi’s Santi stance is core to the art and core to all movement in the art. Santi is different to WC/WT’s YGKYM stance, but what is being worked in the stance is pretty much the same. The same applies, in my opinion, to elbow power. Trained a little differently, but still training the same thing.


The best description I ever head of Xingyi was this: “Imagine a man standing in a strong stance. You run into him with a punch as hard as you can. It will hurt him and he might lose his balance and fall. Now imagine the same man stepping out of his stance at just the point where his balance is at its weakest - at that moment the man gets hit by a car. The car is Xingyi.”


This doesn’t mean that Xingyi only strikes when the opponent is potentially about to fall over, but it does mean (I think), that Xingyi likes to strike with great force when the opponent’s structure has been weaken, his balance affected.


WC/WT, it seems to me, is also about breaking structure in this way.


All, of course, just my opinion and I am sure I could be wrong.

 

[shaolin_al]

Sifu Geezer after learning some wing chun from you I went back and tried internal again. I find similarities between xing yi and wing chun definitely. The turning in the styles is the same, the stance is similar, and many of the 2 person drills are almost the same as well. Xing yi tends to use the Phoenix eye fist and twists it chambered over the other arm before u strike with it. The fighting stance is also the same or similar between the styles. Basically I realized wing chun has all the good same internal aspects that the internal arts i've done have.

 

[KamonGuy2]

Hi Fighterman/Hi all,

I am also new to the forum, but a WT student (recently started). I'm from the UK, but live in Budapest, Hungary now. So I study WT under Maday Norbert's leg of the WT organization. Before that, I trained some Xingyi and before that (when in England) I trained Wing Chun with Kevin Chan's Kamon organization (for a few years).

I too would love to hear about Fighterman's time learning in HK, and his experiences in WT in Europe.

Anyways, that's my short little intro.

Your name wouldnt be Duncan would it?

 

[WCman1976]

I'm too new to the board to know if there has been any lineage fighting, but there doesn't seem to be from the threads I have browsed. It's really sad when things like that happen because, unless someone is teaching something absolutely ridiculous and ineffective, we can ALL learn from each other. As for me, I study under Sifu Russell Cichon in Albany, NY, who has been accepted as a student under Yip Ching. I've met Yip Ching a few times when he came to our school for a couple seminars, and he was a very pleasant man. I don't know what more to say when I'm talking about the son of a man who taught Bruce Lee. LOL

Anyway, welcome to the board.

 

[Domino]

I like how you say this, in chi sau it helps with a certain type of situation but this is not always the case.
Been training with a street brawler who loves to throw, like how you describe 'real real' fighting as you put it and agree in the heat of a real fight some things just don't work or help, timing and range can change far too fast etc.

 

[fighterman]

well ur pretty lucky to be direct under Sifu Maday,
ur one of the few that learns more closer to the Ting version than the KK

 

[WingChunBear]

Good Day everyone, I am new to this forum as well, hope you all can show me the ropes on the sorts of discussion to have in regards to Wing Chun.
Infact does anyone know how i can put a signature below my post?

Cheers!

 

[Domino]

Welcome,
Start your own thread in future if you can but you can change signature by clicking to the top right for 'settings', 'signature' is on the left hand column.