Sparring with Wing Chun

[chinaboxer]

IMO sparring drills with fighters outside of wing chun is more important than just just "brawling" with them to see who can knock out the other. and also IMO wing chun is not so much the "offense" but rather the "defense". so whenever i do drills with my boxing friends, i never hit them, but instead "control" them through the touch. this video is an example of what i'm talking about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKzeOE9dlg&feature=player_embedded

 

[mook jong man]

Hello, I'd like to report my findings, of what I am fairly certain was poorly preformed attempt to put your application into practice.
Let me first explain our clinch defense if I may.
We grab the elbows of our opponent, as their arms are around our neck, trying to pull us down. we keep our elbows in the center pointing down, and we place our elbows into the knee strikes, really hurts to be the one kneeing.. as we detect openings, we will land punches and than quickly regain the grip.. when we detect their balance is compromised, or they are distracted enough.. we will take a big step under them, and strike up through their throat.

In my attempt to implement your application:
I was holding onto the opponents elbows, in a cross handed grip,
(The reason we keep the grip on, is so that they can't release the back of our neck and launch an elbow, which can happen blazingly fast.)
and when he went to launch a knee, I would use the striking motion you described, in my lineage called double gan sau, and I was surprised how well it dissolved the knee thrown at me! but since I had no grip on their elbows, or arms, they were able to strike me the moment I left contact, almost meeting me to the strike.
without the elbow I was very impressed by this strike, and I realize I wasn't able to implement the biu tze movement which perhaps is meant to deal with an elbow attack.

Thanks for your time.

The problem with all this stuff Nab , is that in training you can't really hurt the partner , or if you do , not many people will want to train with you anymore.

If you did the strike full power to his bladder there will be no elbow strike from him because he will be on the ground.

It would be a little bit like if someone threw a big round house punch at me and I stepped in deflected his punch and gave him a little fairy tap on the chest instead of hitting him with all my power , and then he responded with an elbow strike from his other arm .

We have to be a bit realistic and believe that my full power strike would have diminished him somewhat and his ability to retaliate with a strike

Make sure your main aim is to strike his bladder as soon as the arms go around your neck and start pulling you down , don't aim to deflect his knees , the structure is only there as a secondary defence , the main defence is to hit and hit hard.

Its a bit of an emergency technique for when you are caught with your arms down , in the early phase of a clinching knee attack.

If it is a rather prolonged affair then you would probably be better off doing what you were doing and keeping his arms immobilised , while you try something else.

 

[Punchy]

there have been times i would demo something in class only to have someone second guess with a "yea, but what about_________" comment
I then give that person a face mask or body armor or both, have them attack me with their "what if"........that tends to end the discussion

 

[Eric_H]

To say we don't or shouldn't spar in Wing Chun is kind of a silly statement to me.

Combat has stages of engage/disengage, Reading the leverage, moving to gain advantage or neutralize opponent's advantage and then striking.

Sparring from no contact is a great lab to work on engagements.
Drills like chi sao are great to work on reading leverage and neutralizing advantages.

Different coaching tool, different purpose.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Asking questions is good, and keeping gear handy to pummel subordinate students probably isn't such a bad idea either!
I've found holes in several "self defense applications" before, and I've found ways to counter them. Sometimes we've made modifications to them. At the very least it's good to explore things thoroughly so you understand the full mechanics behind them, the guy who questions things, typically walks away with a better understanding than if he had not.
I really like that you keep a face mask and other gear with you, that's a great idea, it's worth a beating to know what will and won't work, and how and why it works.

 

[Punchy]

Asking questions is good, and keeping gear handy to pummel subordinate students probably isn't such a bad idea either!
I've found holes in several "self defense applications" before, and I've found ways to counter them. Sometimes we've made modifications to them. At the very least it's good to explore things thoroughly so you understand the full mechanics behind them, the guy who questions things, typically walks away with a better understanding than if he had not.
I really like that you keep a face mask and other gear with you, that's a great idea, it's worth a beating to know what will and won't work, and how and why it works.

I didn't mean for it to sound like " YOU DARE TO QUESTION THE SI-FU...I WILL NOW BEAT YOU YOU INSOLENT DOG!!"

But it truly is a good way to give students confidence that what they are learning actually is the real deal....in fact, that's kind of a running joke with the group. They will do something and seem surprised that it worked like it was supposed to, and I like to respond with " Huh, what do you know , this stuff actually works"