I do medical research. In the medical world, saying there is no scientific evidence for a treatment's effectiveness is not the same thing as producing a study that shows that there is evidence that a treatment is ineffective. So, it is indeed very true that ........"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Is Wing Chun being used the wrong way in fighting?
- Thread starter geezer
- Start date
I do medical research. In the medical world, saying there is no scientific evidence for a treatment's effectiveness is not the same thing as producing a study that shows that there is evidence that a treatment is ineffective. So, it is indeed very true that ........"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Nobody Important
2nd Black Belt
This ties directly back to the OP, is Wing Chun being used wrong? Myself, I feel that Wing Chun is a specalty method of refinement while others believe it is a stand alone all inclusive method. I would argue that for the latter, it has been forced to fit that paradigm due to bandwagoning.
From my viewpoint, evidence is plentiful that it works fantastic for what it was designed for. My immediate attention is drawn to those who have successfully integrated Wing Chun into their MMA or Boxing. Many argue that it is no longer Wing Chun, because it doesn't look like it. That more than the principles need be present.
From my view of refinement, integration alone changes the dynamics. The goal isn't to refine your movement to mimic Wing Chun, it is to hone your movement, to maximize its efficiency within the parameters of your system when at close range. For this, proof of effectiveness is plentiful, the likes of Allan Orr comes to mind.
For those towing the Wing Chun is an all inclusive stand alone method line. Proof is elusive as to its effectiveness as such a method.
From how I see it, you can train harder or you can train smarter. Fighting should never be about styles. Names like Wing Chun or Kung Fu won't save you. Adhereing to dogma for the sake of purity won't either. Fighting is about doing what ever it takes to increase your chances of winning. If it isn't recognizable as something specific, while engaged in the action, who cares. The goal is to win the fight, not look a specific way. Its not dancing.
It is possible to teach a method that doesn't look the same when fought with. I have yet to encounter anyone who uses every technique they learned from the art they studied while fighting. Most individuals only use a handful of techniques in a fight or competition, ones they are competent with. If some of those techniques come from another art does it really matter?
This ties directly back to the OP, is Wing Chun being used wrong? Myself, I feel that Wing Chun is a specalty method of refinement while others believe it is a stand alone all inclusive method. I would argue that for the latter, it has been forced to fit that paradigm due to bandwagoning.
---I think there is merit to what you have been saying about Wing Chun being useful for "refining" another method's "gross motor skills." I'm just not sure that was the original intent or what it was originally designed for.
From my viewpoint, evidence is plentiful that it works fantastic for what it was designed for.
---Which, in conjunction with my comment above, leads me to believe that fighting "back in the day" was a bit different from what it has evolved to in modern times. For example, the emphasis on lower guards and protecting the chest in TCMAs leads me to believe that, short of battlefield encounters, there may have been a general agreement that they didn't go for the head nearly as often as people do today.
From my view of refinement, integration alone changes the dynamics. The goal isn't to refine your movement to mimic Wing Chun, it is to hone your movement, to maximize its efficiency within the parameters of your system when at close range. For this, proof of effectiveness is plentiful, the likes of Allan Orr comes to mind.
---But then, if that is the intent, why learn the entire system of Wing Chun from start to finish?
From how I see it, you can train harder or you can train smarter. Fighting should never be about styles. Names like Wing Chun or Kung Fu won't save you. Adhereing to dogma for the sake of purity won't either. Fighting is about doing what ever it takes to increase your chances of winning. If it isn't recognizable as something specific, while engaged in the action, who cares. The goal is to win the fight, not look a specific way. Its not dancing.
---While I agree with your sentiment, I don't agree about the final result. If someone has been spending multiple hours and months and years training a martial art with a specific biomechanics and way of moving....and then ALL of it goes completely out the window under pressure, then they have been wasting their time. It doesn't have to be "picture perfect" and look exactly like the forms, but if it is completely unrecognizable in the ring, then why are they practicing that martial art? Why aren't they practicing something that is closer to what they are actually doing in the ring? Wouldn't that be much more efficient? Wouldn't everyone expect that a seasoned boxer attacked by a mugger at the club one night would be throwing jabs, crosses and hooks that looked like boxing????
It is possible to teach a method that doesn't look the same when fought with.
---Then I would say that is a very inefficient method!
I have yet to encounter anyone who uses every technique they learned from the art they studied while fighting. Most individuals only use a handful of techniques in a fight or competition, ones they are competent with.
---Well, yeah! But if your martial art teaches you a specific way to move....a specific biomechanics, why would you expect to use a different biomechanics or move completely different when under stress? That makes no sense to me.
---I think there is merit to what you have been saying about Wing Chun being useful for "refining" another method's "gross motor skills." I'm just not sure that was the original intent or what it was originally designed for.
From my viewpoint, evidence is plentiful that it works fantastic for what it was designed for.
---Which, in conjunction with my comment above, leads me to believe that fighting "back in the day" was a bit different from what it has evolved to in modern times. For example, the emphasis on lower guards and protecting the chest in TCMAs leads me to believe that, short of battlefield encounters, there may have been a general agreement that they didn't go for the head nearly as often as people do today.
From my view of refinement, integration alone changes the dynamics. The goal isn't to refine your movement to mimic Wing Chun, it is to hone your movement, to maximize its efficiency within the parameters of your system when at close range. For this, proof of effectiveness is plentiful, the likes of Allan Orr comes to mind.
---But then, if that is the intent, why learn the entire system of Wing Chun from start to finish?
From how I see it, you can train harder or you can train smarter. Fighting should never be about styles. Names like Wing Chun or Kung Fu won't save you. Adhereing to dogma for the sake of purity won't either. Fighting is about doing what ever it takes to increase your chances of winning. If it isn't recognizable as something specific, while engaged in the action, who cares. The goal is to win the fight, not look a specific way. Its not dancing.
---While I agree with your sentiment, I don't agree about the final result. If someone has been spending multiple hours and months and years training a martial art with a specific biomechanics and way of moving....and then ALL of it goes completely out the window under pressure, then they have been wasting their time. It doesn't have to be "picture perfect" and look exactly like the forms, but if it is completely unrecognizable in the ring, then why are they practicing that martial art? Why aren't they practicing something that is closer to what they are actually doing in the ring? Wouldn't that be much more efficient? Wouldn't everyone expect that a seasoned boxer attacked by a mugger at the club one night would be throwing jabs, crosses and hooks that looked like boxing????
It is possible to teach a method that doesn't look the same when fought with.
---Then I would say that is a very inefficient method!
I have yet to encounter anyone who uses every technique they learned from the art they studied while fighting. Most individuals only use a handful of techniques in a fight or competition, ones they are competent with.
---Well, yeah! But if your martial art teaches you a specific way to move....a specific biomechanics, why would you expect to use a different biomechanics or move completely different when under stress? That makes no sense to me.
wingchun100
Senior Master
No one entering MMA looks anything like their original style because that first M means mixed. I don't know why people throw hissy fits over Wing Chun in MMA not looking like Wing Chun. NOTHING LOOKS LIKE ANYTHING. Oy vey!
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Regarding the biomechanics, you are making an assumption that when it looks different from how it is trained, then the biomechanics are being thrown out the window. Personally, while I believe that may be happening, it also may not be happening. Just because it looks different does not automatically mean that the biomechanics have been abandoned. And it is very possible that this is more or less true for some people than it is for others.
Speaking of my own system, i know that I can throw my techniques in ways that absolutely look very different from the training standard that we use for drilling the technique. But the biomechanics are still in place and it is still consistent with our system.
So I would say, yes, and no, and maybe and sometimes, and it really depends.
That's not true. You can certainly pick out the guys that have a predominantly wrestling background from the guys that have a predominantly BJJ background. You can pick out the guys that have Muay Thai training from the guys that have just learned to do passable stand up fighting to augment their BJJ. Early on in his fighting career, Machida was still doing a lot of recognizable Karate moves and having good success.
That being said....there are certainly plenty of fighters that you can't tell apart. But that is because they are all training the same way. For the most part "MMA" has become its own style now.
Juany118
Senior Master
It depends on the dojo. Example my current school. We learn both Kali and TWC. We have students sparring with knives virtually out of the gate, full speed, we just limit targets to limbs at first. As you advance then we widen the available targets. The WC just has the sparring start later because we don't want to buy that much body armor (it's a not for profit school). Additionally the Sifu is a DOJ instructor and his Sifu is a DOJ and DOD instructor. As such they teach real world application based on years of LE experience.
The issue with TMAs isn't that they are removed. Biomechanics are biomechanics so what worked against punches, kicks and takedowns 200 years ago will work today. Biologically we haven't evolved. The issue is the instructors. Martial Arts has become a business for too many instructors. They do what the do to keep paying students and for many teachers that means making things FEEL exciting but keeping things as injury free as possible. Heck there is a Gracie school near me that teaches Muay Thai but advertises "it's too dangerous so we don't do sparring."
1. For some Aikido schools that means the compliant uke, that way they don't get chased off by their intro to Aikido being seemingly endless ukemi before they learn techniques.
2. For WC that means schools saying "the forms, chi sau and lap sau drills are all you need to fight."
3. It leads to Krav Maga schools saying "it's too dangerous to spar."
4. It leads to Karate schools having belts awarded by kata performance alone.
BUT there are WC schools like mine. The Krav Maga "school" that trains and spars in street clothes 365 at the local park nearby, the Aikido schools that remember the budo they come from. They are there, you just have to look for them.
Martial D
Senior Master
Not so.
Most mma guys either(quite recognizably) box or do Mui Thai at range, a few(northcut, GSP, Thompson, Machida(recognizably) use karate instead. Judo and wrestling takedowns tend to look just like judo and wrestling, and if it hits the ground, much of the time a series of very recognizable BJJ transitions lead to very recognizable BJJ chokes and joint locks.
If it doesn't look like anything, you probably aren't doing it right.
Martial D
Senior Master
I would say if it is as you say, and nothing has changed with the martial arts in general in hundreds of years, and they don't work now, then they didn't work then.
I do not believe that however. What I do believe, as you seem to also, is that how something is trained is as or more important than what is trained.
Juany118
Senior Master
Reading your last paragraph e are in complete agreement regarding what is important in such martial arts is the instruction. I think the main issue is this...
If you aren't talking martial arts actually taught to warriors (FMA, HEMA, Kenjutsu etc) what tested martial arts was the "challenge" culture. Example Yip Man's school became popular NOT because it was WC, or because he was such a well respected teacher from the Main Land. It became popular because people like WSL and William Cheung gained reputations for winning challenge matches. People will pay to learn from someone teaching winners.
Welp that kinda of advertising is frowned upon these days, especially in the West, so finding a "good" TMA teacher is far more difficult. You have to look past the art itself. It took me about a year either emailing or calling instructors asking them questions (first telling them I am a LEO so they didn't think I was hot head just looking for a fight) before I found my school. Luckily, most of the schools were honest and said "oh you are a cop and so you are looking for true combative instruction? Yeah that's not us."
I've done that. I was much younger then.
Really? What part of what I said sounded at all religious-y? I simply cautioned that there's a lot that is not captured, because you made a statement that seemed to say you thought nearly everything was.
There's plenty of evidence to draw on, but we have to acknowledge the gaps and bias inherent in the data gathering method. That's not religious - that's reasoned research.
The majority of Aikido I see isn't combat-ready. That's my opinion from having viewed and participated in classes in several places, as well as watching videos. There are some places that teach differently, and some of the aiki arts and lines of Aikido aren't as soft.
Valid enough, except that scientists don't draw conclusions based upon that absence. It leads them to be more skeptical of the original theory, and to question why Y and Z would not be present if they existed. That's the first step to confirming (as best one ever can) that they likely don't exist. If the data gathering method will miss a large portion of the population studied, then that's one possible source of the omission.
And in this case we know - quite clearly - that a large portion of the population of defense usage is missing. Heck, the clearest application of Aikido in a defensive situation I can think of is from a video - but the video is after the fact. It's news footage about an attempted armed robbery, where an Aikido student (working at a Baskin Robbins) takes away a gun. There are witnesses, but no video of the actual event. That's not at all unusual. Most assault cases do not have some convenient video of the attack.
I'll back you up on this one. When I train on the "stylized" versions of the techniques (similar to training forms and chi sau in WC), I have a fairly upright, relaxed, centered and high-standing posture. It actually works better with those versions. When I get to application and sparring, my posture shifts. My motions are mostly shorter. To me, it still looks like NGA. I don't know of any NGA purists who would argue it's no longer NGA because it looks different. They may argue I'm not doing enough Aikido in my Aikido, and I'd be okay with that statement.
In WC, When you punch your right hand out, do you pull your left hand back at the same time? This punch out and pull back coordination will cause your body to rotate. It will help you to generate punching power. I just don't see this training exist in the WC system.
In the following clip, you can see when he punches one hand out, his other hand is "static".
In the following clip, you can see when he punches one hand out, his other hand is "static".
Nobody Important
2nd Black Belt
It's an issue, there are too many conflicting theories out there, but I have seen success from my viewpoint in myself and others. So I'll take that as if I'm on the right track.
I don't like to speculate on how or why things may have been done back then. I'd like to think that fighting back then, as today, in a survival setting was all or nothing.
Personally I don't think it is necessary, but I can see the value in doing so because you don't know what aspects of the art you'll need now or later. And for an art to continue on and not just be absorbed into another method it needs a full dynamic of what it is presenting. That being said the minutia of it isn't required to understand or utilize the gist if it.
MMA is founded on the premise that no one art can adequately provide answers for all ranges and methods of defense and attack. It is naive to assume that an art based on close range tactics is appropriate for long range delivery. This is why MMA uses arts like Boxing for middle range, Muay Thai for long range, BJJ for close range. Attempt to apply Muay Thai in a grappling scenario and it will look nothing like Muay Thai. It's bio mechanics are not designed for that range or method. When Wing Chun is applied in this same paradigm you will inevitably lose your structure and mechanics. It is only good for the method and range it was developed for, IMO, the clinch. Trying to use it otherwise causes a loss of mechanics forcing you to constantly reacquaint, in layman's term, overuse of Biu Jee to constantly regain position. This put you on perpetual defense, because it's not being used what it was meant for.
And I would retort that it's only necessary to use methods that are appropriate to the situation. Now, I have no problem with using a crescent wrench to drive a nail, if that is all I have to do so. It can work in a pinch, but if I have a hammer in my tool box, why use the wrench? Efficiency is using appropriate methods for response. Wing Chun is, IMO, not a very good grappling art. I may be able to use it to defend against a weak grappling attack, but if I know Jujutsu also, why wouldn't I use what I know will work versus something that may not. Switching back and forth from one method to another isn't difficult, if it were, MMA would not be effective.
Because it can't teach you to defend or attack effectively and efficiently from all ranges and methods of attack and defense. Very few arts have a cohesive and comprehensive integration of Punching, Kicking, Throwing and Grappling that can be used in general self defense situations. Wing Chun, IMO, does not possess this quality, I believe it is a specialized method based around the clinch from close range. I have yet to find anyone who can convince me that it is an effective all around fighting method, the evidence just isn't there. This doesn't mean it is a worthless or ineffective method, just that I feel it is being used to achieve the wrong purpose. There are far more effective and efficient methods for boxing and grappling, that being said, I feel their close range tactics could be elevated through the integration of Wing Chun.
Here is an excellent article that speaks to many of the points touched on in this discussion:
http://rackemannwingchun.com.au/win...-art-direction-needs-take-survive-modern-era/
http://rackemannwingchun.com.au/win...-art-direction-needs-take-survive-modern-era/
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
The point is we should be looking for the evidence and not just following the dogma.
There seems to be this idea that because we can't get definitive evidence on everything we shouldn't bother with any of it.
And so therefore my opinion based on no evidence has the same weight as yours based on only some evidence.
Dogma hits this one a lot. Ask questions about the big bang until you get to I don't know. And so therefore god exists.
