"Wing Chun" as an Adjective vs Noun

[Gerry Seymour]

Does wing chun need updating?

Personally I believe the art of wing chun is fine. There may be a case for updating the culture and by extension the training methods traditionally associated with wing chun, but to me this is a different questions than updating the art.

Any update needs a solid reason for being added and the real nature of the problem assessed.

IMO, every art needs updating. We (humans) learn new things and arts can benefit from these advancements. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with an art - just that there’s something it can do better. There always is, for every art, every skill.

 

[KPM]

IAgree with this too. Spend time with MMA fighters and learn how to respond to their movements.

.

And, interestingly enough, the Wing Chun guys that take this approach to heart and spend time with MMA fighters tend to end up looking more and more like MMA fighters and less like Wing Chun guys when they spar/fight!

 

[lansao]

And, interestingly enough, the Wing Chun guys that take this approach to heart and spend time with MMA fighters tend to end up looking more and more like MMA fighters and less like Wing Chun guys when they spar/fight!

So to that I’d ask: If that were the case, and they were better fighters for it, why would that matter?

 

[KPM]

So to that I’d ask: If that were the case, and they were better fighters for it, why would that matter?

Exactly! But my point was really directed towards the poster that YOU were responding to that stated that Wing Chun did not need to be "updated" and was fine as is and the problem was simply that Wing Chun people needed to spend more time sparring with people that actually knew how to fight. So, if his point was true, why would the Wing Chun people that actually do that end up looking less and less like Wing Chun people? If their Wing Chun was fine "as is", then why would it change?

 

[lansao]

Exactly! But my point was really directed towards the poster that YOU were responding to that stated that Wing Chun did not need to be "updated" and was fine as is and the problem was simply that Wing Chun people needed to spend more time sparring with people that actually knew how to fight. So, if his point was true, why would the Wing Chun people that actually do that end up looking less and less like Wing Chun people? If their Wing Chun was fine "as is", then why would it change?

Gotcha, I misread that. Agree with that in it’s entirety.

 

[DaveB]

So to that I’d ask: If that were the case, and they were better fighters for it, why would that matter?

Exactly! But my point was really directed towards the poster that YOU were responding to that stated that Wing Chun did not need to be "updated" and was fine as is and the problem was simply that Wing Chun people needed to spend more time sparring with people that actually knew how to fight. So, if his point was true, why would the Wing Chun people that actually do that end up looking less and less like Wing Chun people? If their Wing Chun was fine "as is", then why would it change?

I was actually suggesting that if inter-style combat was the goal, then one should abandon wing chun altogether because their just isn't the frame work in place to make it a reality in comparison to MMA.

People do what they train. It's not superior effectiveness that makes people change to look more like mma fighters it's that they are in an environment that only has non wing chun answers to whatever the problem is.

Also some answers, like the boxing guard, are genuinely more straightforward than something like a standard wing chun guard. But, taking the easier route to do better in sparring is fine in the short term but there are reasons for the more difficult guard and you lose them if you are unwilling to take your lumps while you develop the skill to use it.

If your aim is just to get good at fighting then just switch to mma. If your aim is to fight using wing chun then that takes more.

The wing chun guy who lost to the one armed boxer just couldn't block a non wing chun punch. He didn't recognise the signals that it was being thrown, he didn't understand the shape it took or the distance it came from.

All of that is easily developed through training, but he hadn't done so and he paid the price.

 

[PiedmontChun]

Do we just accept the ground as a blind spot in our training and go elsewhere to learn how to handle that?

Yes. People have been working relentlessly on grappling in many different forms for a long time now. Its much better to go to the source and learn from people who know what they are doing, rather then to try and reinvent the wheel, or worse - have false confidence in some homegrown techniques / strategies just because they work on your unwitting fellow students. A determined wrestler will eat a punch or half-hearted elbow to take you down if they want, and there is little you can do from the ground to get back up if you don't spend time training on the ground.

 

[Martial D]

IMO, every art needs updating. We (humans) learn new things and arts can benefit from these advancements. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with an art - just that there’s something it can do better. There always is, for every art, every skill.

I would go one further and say that not only should a good system continually refine itself, but how each individual expresses a style should also continually refine itself, and grow. Once a system, or person, stops taking new input, they are practicing a dead system.

 

[Callen]

IMO, every art needs updating. We (humans) learn new things and arts can benefit from these advancements. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with an art - just that there’s something it can do better. There always is, for every art, every skill.

Well said.

I'll also add that because Wing Chun is concept based, it is the practitioner's responsibility to do the refining and updating of how they utilize the system. After a certain point of training Wing Chun, the level of development and skill is guided by the individual's understanding of the system. The combinations that are available from the concepts of the system itself are endless and ready to be applied.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Well said.

I'll also add that because Wing Chun is concept based, it is the practitioner's responsibility to do the refining and updating of how they utilize the system. After a certain point of training Wing Chun, the level of development and skill is guided by the individual's understanding of the system. The combinations that are available from the concepts of the system itself are endless and ready to be applied.

I agree with everything in this, as long as you aren't saying it's entirely the practitioner's responsibility. I think every instructor bears the responsibility to pass along something somehow better than they learned (because it will always be somehow worse, as well).

 

[Callen]

I agree with everything in this, as long as you aren't saying it's entirely the practitioner's responsibility. I think every instructor bears the responsibility to pass along something somehow better than they learned (because it will always be somehow worse, as well).

I like what you're saying and I agree completely. Clearly, an open-minded instructor is needed to guide the learner towards updating their understanding of the system.

However, good Wing Chun instructors are still practitioners themselves. With the system being concept based, any practitioner at any level can discover new ways to hone their craft. There will always be a certain burden of responsibility on the practitioner (student or instructor) to excel.

 

[Martial D]

I like what you're saying and I agree completely. Clearly, an open-minded instructor is needed to guide the learner towards updating their understanding of the system.

However, good Wing Chun instructors are still practitioners themselves. With the system being concept based, any practitioner at any level can discover new ways to hone their craft. There will always be a certain burden of responsibility on the practitioner (student or instructor) to excel.

And this is why we have 300 different strains of Wing Chun now. People learn, grow, adapt and evolve in local populations until 'speciation' happens. Eventually cross breeding becomes impossible and...

Wait am I talking about martial arts or evolutionary biology?

 

[lansao]

Yes. People have been working relentlessly on grappling in many different forms for a long time now. Its much better to go to the source and learn from people who know what they are doing, rather then to try and reinvent the wheel, or worse - have false confidence in some homegrown techniques / strategies just because they work on your unwitting fellow students. A determined wrestler will eat a punch or half-hearted elbow to take you down if they want, and there is little you can do from the ground to get back up if you don't spend time training on the ground.

That's fair. We wouldn't want to just invent things out of the blue. One of my Si Hings is doing that now at a BJJ school. Why can't we go out and seek other arts, learn them deeply, and find ways to incorporate them into the kung fu where they meet WC criteria? Master the movements, learn how to break them down using the vernacular of WC, and be able to teach them to others in the system in a way that is consistent with WC principles.

 

[Martial D]

That's fair. We wouldn't want to just invent things out of the blue. One of my Si Hings is doing that now at a BJJ school. Why can't we go out and seek other arts, learn them deeply, and find ways to incorporate them into the kung fu where they meet WC criteria? Master the movements, learn how to break them down using the vernacular of WC, and be able to teach them to others in the system in a way that is consistent with WC principles.

Not only that, but learning functional stuff from other sources will also give you a more robust understanding of your own techniques.

My WC improved more between last April and today(the time I've been training MMA with pros and ex pros) than it did for the ten years prior. So many 'a ha' moments

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That's fair. We wouldn't want to just invent things out of the blue. One of my Si Hings is doing that now at a BJJ school. Why can't we go out and seek other arts, learn them deeply, and find ways to incorporate them into the kung fu where they meet WC criteria? Master the movements, learn how to break them down using the vernacular of WC, and be able to teach them to others in the system in a way that is consistent with WC principles.

Over a couple of generations, that should be entirely possible.

 

[DaveB]

Not only that, but learning functional stuff from other sources will also give you a more robust understanding of your own techniques.

My WC improved more between last April and today(the time I've been training MMA with pros and ex pros) than it did for the ten years prior. So many 'a ha' moments

MD, can you update us on some of these "aha" moments? I've been meaning to ask how the wing chun in mma project is going?

 

[Martial D]

MD, can you update us on some of these "aha" moments? I've been meaning to ask how the wing chun in mma project is going?

Heh, I actually forgot about that thread. It's so buried now it's looking up a dinosaur fossils.

There's so much! It seems every day I'm tripping over WC things masquerading as other things(or vice versa?) Or finding completely new(or maybe very old) uses for movements and hand positions I just never got from the forms and the chi sau.

I'll get up to posting about it in greater detail sometime in the near future.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Heh, I actually forgot about that thread. It's so buried now it's looking up a dinosaur fossils.

There's so much! It seems every day I'm tripping over WC things masquerading as other things(or vice versa?) Or finding completely new(or maybe very old) uses for movements and hand positions I just never got from the forms and the chi sau.

I'll get up to posting about it in greater detail sometime in the near future.

I'm interested in hearing this, too, MD. Every time I've cross-trained (even half-day seminars), I've found something I understood the application for better from another source. Whether this is because "NGA teaches it wrong" or it's because Gerry needs a different explanation (or maybe just a lot more explanations) I can't say. But boxing slips really informed my entry to techniques, etc. I'll be interested in seeing what lights came on when you saw a different approach to something you originally saw in WC.