Yes, they dedicate an entire month to bashing WC (_ing _un sucks month), well they do this for many styles..
But what I saw as a testament to what you said about their egos was when they had (tried to have) BJJ & MMA sucks month, the furry and complaints coming from their members forced the mod to retract on stating that these two styles could ever suck.
They had the chance to show that they're doing these "style X sucks month" out of fun, but they cannot even poke fun at themselves. And that to me is very sad.
Seeker, it's *********....the best example of a running mouth and empty brained "herd mentality" run amok! :wink2: For more on that, please see Sherdog Forums as well. Most of these bashers really think MMA/BJJ are the be all/end all to any fight. I believe that about 80-85% of this is a product of adolescent's in possession of a keyboard and internet connection creating accounts and feeding into it because it makes them feel better about things uncontrollable in their life....and just want to fit in and found a place they can write insults to each other and have a proclaimed common ground, no matter how unfounded or ignorant of Martial Arts they are. Bottom line, they are kids and will learn with life experience.
I am brand new to Wing Chun but not to martial arts. I have studied Tae Kwon Do, Koei-Kan-Karate-Do, Kickboxing (American rules/no leg kicks), and did some training at a local MMA/Grappling club. They all have things I can and at times have used. For me, this is what I got from each:
Tae Kwon Do: Good long range kicks and leg flexibility. I kick better from my TKD experience than anyother art I have thus far seen.
Koei-Kan-Karate-Do: Toughness. Full contact sparring educates you in technique....especially defensively. I also learned some basic Judo throws that have proven useful in two bar altercations.
Kickboxing: Movement, boxing skills, and
more toughness :hammer:. I was able to tie together what kicking combinations in real-time full power felt like. I also was able to become more adept with my offensive hand skills and my physical fitness level was never higher, even better than when I was in the Army.
MMA/Grappling: Showed me the holes in my game created from too much reliance on kickboxing and further improved on my kicking as the kick-game changed when I was sparring guys with decent wrestling ability. A few hard takedowns after attempting kicks above the waist that I could get away with all day long kickboxing really got me interested in learning some low level kicks ala Muay Thai. The there is the grappling. I enjoyed it very much as a game, but as practice in MMA sparring, i focused so much more on takedown defence and escapes than anything simply because I am by roots a striker.
I am an MMA fan....BIG MMA fan and have been since the first UFC's came about in the early 90's. Even then they had rules. BJJ ruled that era because they had fighters from styles that didn't deal with grappling very well for the most part. Let's face it, it showed gaping holes in their game. MMA is the closest "sport" we have to seeing an actual fight and their are things to learn from it as well. Enter the wrestler, Mark Coleman, Dan Severn, and Tito Ortiz ect. They came around and it showed weakness to the BJJ guys with thier ability to control the body through physuical attributes + technique. They created ground and pound that is not uncommon in a street fight. Enter the kickboxer, namely Maurice Smith and then Chuck Liddell. They figured out how to beat both BJJ and wrestling by takedown avoidance and submission escapes. Now, they all need to be well rounded in ALL aspects of the game because it has evolved full circle and into it's own "MMA style" with MMA gyms popping up all over God's creation. These gyms focus on techniques for the ring/cage. They are practiced VERY hard with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. It takes a special kind of person to subject themselves to that kind of training. Now, compare the average MMA guy to the fat out of shape guy in a gi standing in the window of your average McDojo/McDojang/McKwoon (and I've seen a lot of them) boasting that he can train you into a lethal killing machine without any kind of contact in sparring. Which is gonna appear more legit? It is no suprise many people will equate the UFC/MMA with real fighting, especialy if they are not martial artists or have not experienced an altercation since school, if ever.
What is my point (and there is one!) to all this (assuming anyone got past the preceding paragraph! :lol2: )??? Every form of fighting we see in MMA is from traditional martial arts be it Jujitsu's, Wrestling (various), Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Kung Fu's...ect. An arm bar is an arm bar no matter how you apply it. There are only certain ways to bend an appendage or choke out a person. Well, most any of those bashing Wing Chun or anyother style is doing so out of ignorance. Their mouth is getting ahead of their brain. They are exposed much more frequently to the sport of MMA than the study or exhibition of TMA. Not every technique in each style is suitable to the in ring rules that limit certain skill sets contained in a style (some more/less than others)....notably Wing Chun with it's targeting of the eyes, throat, groin...ect. The answer is as simple as that.
