What is considered Ving Tsun (Wing Chun/ etc)

[mook jong man]

As I've said before I really do believe Wing Chun versus Wing Chun sparring is a waste of time and quite pointless.

That is apart from Chi Sau sparring and light hand sparring from the guard , these are important for developing attributes like hand speed , sensitivity , the different hand structures etc.

My experience with Wing Chun versus Wing Chun sparring at long range , is that both parties straight away bridge the gap with a kick down the centreline , legs clash , then its right into punching and latching like theres no tomorrow until someone gets through.

The end result is that they haven't really worked on any thing that they couldn't already do before and the whole exercise became rather predictable as they both waited for attacks to be launched down the centreline.

Since it always ends up at close range why not just cut straight to the chase and start Chi Sau sparring right off the bat , this is the method of sparring that should form the bulk of your training.

The other very important type of training , I hesitate to call it sparring , because its more reaction training or reflex training is learning to deal with random arm and leg attacks coming from random angles with many and varied delivery methods.

This would be a much better use of your time and energy because circular types of attacks do cause the Wing Chun person some problems as the defences have to be opened up a lot more to deal with them than what they do with centreline attacks.

This sort of training also works on your " Interruptibility " and recovering position.

That is to quickly interrupt your technique and convert into something else if an error has been made , basically rapidly getting your hand in the right position to deal with the threat as opposed to having your arm positioned where you thought the threat was coming from , you thought it was coming in wide but it came in straight or vice versa.

It just comes down to getting that elbow out for the round ones and getting the elbow in for the straight ones , but the skill is deciding which is which.

 

[zepedawingchun]

Most Wing Chun sparring looks like bad boxing and kickboxing to me. Maybe you should find a boxing or kickboxing gym?

In my experience also, yes, it does. That is mainly from the inexperienced Wing Chun practitioner, someone who has no ring or tournament experience or actual self defense fighting experience.

pmosiun, please excuse my fellow forum members, they do not know to whom they speak.

 

[WC_lun]

I think too many people when trading hands get too caught up in the game of sparring. The base of it is are you effecting your opponent, putting him in recovery mode and keeping him there? If you aren't then something is off. If you are then good for you and who cares what it looks like.

 

[hunt1]

Wkmark my Yip Man wing chun comes from several sources primarily Jiu Wan,Moy Yat,Yip Brothers and TST. My last teacher was Chao Ng Kwai he taught me the wing chun of Leung Jan student Lo Kwai.

 

[BloodMoney]

As I've said before I really do believe Wing Chun versus Wing Chun sparring is a waste of time and quite pointless.

That is apart from Chi Sau sparring and light hand sparring from the guard , these are important for developing attributes like hand speed , sensitivity , the different hand structures etc.

*snip*

Awesome post.

Chi Sau is Wing Chun sparring in my opinion, ive never seen any other form in any school ive been to here or abroad in Australasia. Maybe its more of an American or European thing? I see the videos of guys with full armour on wildly flailing at each other, and while it looks kinda fun ive never seen anyone actually doing it in person, or even advocating doing it. Chi Sau teaches you amazing sensitivity and spatial judgement, if you want more sparing out of it then just rough it up a bit, as in one person is the aggressor and the other the Chunner, so its like Chi Sau but starting with a jab or something instead of hands touching.

 

[wkmark]

Thanks for your reply.

Wkmark my Yip Man wing chun comes from several sources primarily Jiu Wan,Moy Yat,Yip Brothers and TST. My last teacher was Chao Ng Kwai he taught me the wing chun of Leung Jan student Lo Kwai.

 

[wkmark]

I want to Thank everyone here for their great input and insights. All of your comments were constructive and helpful. Thanks once again. Should any of you ever travel to Hong Kong, please give me a holler and stop by so we can continue to share.

 

[graychuan]

...Also, WC is about being defensive, counter attacking when your opponent commits to a technique and striking them when it is too late to counter your attack. Once you have control, then you become as offensive as possible. Instead, you started out too offensive, trying to take control of the fight immediately...

I like this one , ZEP!

 

[zepedawingchun]

I like this one , ZEP!

I find this interesting. I take it from your response that you've never thought about doing it that way. I get that a lot from various Wing Chun practitioners. It makes sense to me because that is how you do or feed a lot of the drills in Wing Chun. The feeder or aggressor, initiates the drill with a punch or strike first. And the receiver has to wait to see what is being feed so they can respond. Well, it's not any different when you are posed with an attacker coming to you to initiate an aggressive move. It is an idea we call 'mo tom sic' or no greedy style. Knowing when to wait and when to attack.

 

[graychuan]

I find this interesting. I take it from your response that you've never thought about doing it that way. I get that a lot from various Wing Chun practitioners. It makes sense to me because that is how you do or feed a lot of the drills in Wing Chun. The feeder or aggressor, initiates the drill with a punch or strike first. And the receiver has to wait to see what is being feed so they can respond. Well, it's not any different when you are posed with an attacker coming to you to initiate an aggressive move. It is a concept we call 'mo tom sic' or no greedy style. Knowing when to wait and when to attack.

Not that I never thought of it, just don't hear it a lot...but I haven't been back in the forums til recently. Goes back to what I was saying in the other thread, its not blocking or chasing down attacks....The famous 'structure' of Wing Chun is a Defensive structure first. The defensive structure controls(Chum Kil) and offensives are launched off of that structure.

 

[profesormental]

Greetings.

I agree with Mook Jong man in this post.

Wing Chun works best when surviving attacks from people that want to do you harm, not compete with you in a matched contest.

Thus sparring, in the normal, sporting sense, is not very optimal in the context of ingraining self defense skills.

Controlled sparring designed to simulate self defense scenarios for specific assaults is much better alternative in which to evolve the Wing Chun drills into applications.

There is much more to it, yet this is the core idea.

Hope that helps.

Juan Mercado

 

[cwk]

profmental,
I'd say we really need to train both the kind drills your talking about and full contact sparring. each develops different skills that are needed for fighting.
as much as we'd like to think, nobody is perfect and in a real physical exchange, the chances are that we're going to get hit. Sparring is a good way to get used to taking a hit or two and not freaking out. sometimes after someone gets hit, the adrenaline rush alone is enough to freak them out if they're not used to it. This can be mistaken for fear and they pretty much beat themselves by second guessing, freezing up or panicking instead of accepting and utilizing the adrenaline to their advantage.
Just last night i somehow ended up in a confrontation with a drunk that could have turned nasty. He was stood there snarling in my face and calling me all sorts of stuff. This was completely out of the blue and so, when the adrenaline rush came, I wasn't really prepared and just for a moment I was thinking " holy ****, why am I shaking?" and then it hit me " ah, that's right! I'm just getting angry. time for a few deep breaths."
Anyway, I controlled the adrenaline and spoke firmly but not too aggressive or passive to the guy and it seemed to do the trick.
The thing I'm getting at is. If I wasn't used to that feeling and I'd have froze and looked to passive, I reckon that drunk would have taken advantage and attacked me. on the other hand if I'd have let the adrenaline take over my emotions the other way, with anger and lashed out,I would have got myself into a situation that could have been, and was, avoided by control.

 

[mook jong man]

profmental,
I'd say we really need to train both the kind drills your talking about and full contact sparring. each develops different skills that are needed for fighting.
as much as we'd like to think, nobody is perfect and in a real physical exchange, the chances are that we're going to get hit. Sparring is a good way to get used to taking a hit or two and not freaking out. sometimes after someone gets hit, the adrenaline rush alone is enough to freak them out if they're not used to it. This can be mistaken for fear and they pretty much beat themselves by second guessing, freezing up or panicking instead of accepting and utilizing the adrenaline to their advantage.
Just last night i somehow ended up in a confrontation with a drunk that could have turned nasty. He was stood there snarling in my face and calling me all sorts of stuff. This was completely out of the blue and so, when the adrenaline rush came, I wasn't really prepared and just for a moment I was thinking " holy ****, why am I shaking?" and then it hit me " ah, that's right! I'm just getting angry. time for a few deep breaths."
Anyway, I controlled the adrenaline and spoke firmly but not too aggressive or passive to the guy and it seemed to do the trick.
The thing I'm getting at is. If I wasn't used to that feeling and I'd have froze and looked to passive, I reckon that drunk would have taken advantage and attacked me. on the other hand if I'd have let the adrenaline take over my emotions the other way, with anger and lashed out,I would have got myself into a situation that could have been, and was, avoided by control.

Absolutely , contact is a very important part of your training if only for the fact that you are desensitised to it and wont end up on the ground in the fetal position crying like a baby when you do cop a hit in a real situation.

But I believe that scenario type training is more effective in getting you better accustomed to the stress of a real encounter.

In a sparring match your opponent generally doesn't have an angry expression on his face and is not getting in your face swearing and hurling abuse at you.

These extra things can add a whole new dimension of stress and emotion to the situation.

Sometimes when practicing these scenarios with a snarling , swearing , abusive role playing partner you will be surprised what it brings out in people.

When I first experienced it at a seminar quite some years ago I got so hyped up that I double palm striked my partner in the chest so hard that he went back , slid all the way along on a wooden floor and hit the wall.

That was because he was in my face swearing and screaming at me , I didn't see a training partner he was just something that had to be removed from my personal space.

But after a few more sessions of this type of training you become desensitised to the swearing and abuse , you learn to use well practiced dialogue to either de-escalate or distract for a pre-emptive strike.

You become very clinical and start to formulate strategy based on what targets are open and the range of the opponent.

You also learn to execute your techniques from a non threatening guard , because a Wing Chun guard will just alert your opponent and potential witnesses that you are a trained martial artist.

The scenarios can be about anything , we tend to use ones ones like " Hey you @#$%%$ you took my parking space " things of that sort .

Just remember to put up a non threatening guard , maintain distance from the attacker , the defender uses calming language , the person playing the bad guy swears and hurls abuse as realistically as possible.

Sometimes the de-escalation will work and the role playing partner will walk away , other times it won't and the defender will launch a pre-emptive strike coupled with a bit of random brain engagement dialogue that will distract the attacker and act as a trigger for the defender because it has been practiced many times.

Other times the role playing attacker will launch his own random attack which the defender must counter with his Wing Chun techniques executed from the non threatening guard.

 

[profesormental]

Greetings.

Mr. cwk, I totally agree that full sparring is very VERY important, as it teaches A LOT.

Yet the sparring situation and mentality is NOT the same as the self defense, and the attacks/strategies/tactics in a match/duel/sparring are different by their very nature.

The objectives are different.

The environmental parameters are different.

Thus the ways to handle them OPTIMALLY are different.

Does that make sense?

They should both be trained, yet Wing Chun shines in self defense against attacks meant to do serious bodily injury, not in full contact free sparring matches.

I teach Control and Arrest courses for Law enforcement... and if I say I will control and arrest you, my tactics are different than to blast away, since my attackers or the person I have to arrest has a differing skill level, attitude, threat levels and objectives.

The positions I will use are different from those that will give me points in grappling matches. Consequently, the psychological aspect and the reality of arrest and custody are different than a referee or training hall setting.

Note that I'm agreeing with you. To the point that we end up training control and arrest scenarios with full resisting partners with differing threat levels and such.

Yet it is not free sparring. It is a controlled "sparring" drill with specific teaching and skill development objectives.

Hope it makes better sense now. I'm glad you're safe and didn't have to destroy that drunk punk, even though it might've been epic...

Thanks for your post and views. It is important for sharing and learning.

Juan Mercado

Control and Arrest for Law Enforcement and Responsible Citizens

 

[cwk]

Thanks Prof.
like I said in my other post, I believe we really need to be doing both the situational drills and full contact sparring. The drills are an excellent tool if done the way you and Mook describe, with snarling faces,foul language and full contact. The problem arises when these drills are done half hearted, smiling instead of snarling, worrying about hurting the other persons feelings when shouting at them,etc and using too much protective gear.
Don't get me wrong protective gear is a must for the most part. It allows the students to train with a decent level of force without getting injured every week but too much of this type of training can get the student into the wrong frame of mind and they might become a bit "cavalier" when taking shots off their opponent, especially to the body.
When the time comes for them to have to do it for real, they might not cover up properly and then when they get hit, the full force of that strike enters their body and it's pain/ adrenaline shock time again.
just my tuppence worth.

 

[cwk]

the defender will launch a pre-emptive strike coupled with a bit of random brain engagement dialogue that will distract the attacker and act as a trigger for the defender because it has been practiced many times.

The old " ask him a random question, then chin him" technique. a personal favourite of mine. lol.