I wouldn't be so quick to judge. He's exploring concepts of movement in a way that is keeping a teenager interested in training. That's not an easy task. His teaching style might not be for everyone (me included), but he does seem to be keeping this big, strong wrestler interested in what he has to teach: So I wouldn't write him off completely on the strength of one clip of him doing some lighthearted exercises with a teenage girl. I think a bit of context is important.
Yeah, I don't disagree, but understand the reasons I think. Partly as they want to protect their intellectual property (Klaus Brand is very precious about it from memory) but also to ensure anything posted meets their expectations of quality, both video quality and demonstration quality. These days of course there is the whole issue of privacy of students too.. Not personally bothered about being in videos. Agreed a lot of s* videos, but there is a lot of s* WC. Not saying ours is perfect by the way... Hence supplement.
You're right. I guess it was a combination of the giggling and the fact that he is a bit morbidly obese looking, that put me off. Still watching the whole thing though there's more lively contact between them, than anything I can find in the Wing Chun libraries that isn't made by actual MMA fighters. It's nice that neither art is truly written off entirely by knowledgeable people, also a bit of a shame there is so much riff raff and worse, mountains of explanation with little substance of interest. I'm not hard to impress but yeah unless I see somebody who reps Wing Chun or Tai Chi holding their own like Mr. Chen or Mr. Garcia, I'm just eh, in my Kung Fu movie bad guy voice, "your so called kung fu, is quite, pathetic".
For wing chun, Alan Orr's guys (and apparently his teacher and his teachers other students) are the only ones I know who are great: https://youtube.com/channel/UC7qPrL8KJ2Psg8ZnNRTYAJw
Thanks! So question, because I read his bio. This seems to be a chicken and egg story. Let's assume Alan Orr represents quality, pragmatic Wing Chun. Did that come about because he properly internalized the style (based on his holistic experience)? Or because the style directed Alan Orr properly, and his contemporaries are all "doing it wrong"? Because let's face it if Mr. Orr was a dojo storming type, he'd probably wipe the floor with one school after another, even though ironically Wing Chun schools all seem to talk a big game whereas Mr. Orr is clearly walking the walk, so to speak. In my head at least, this is like Lyoto Machida "making Shotokan work". Everybody in MMA was all "crane kicks don't work!" Then this happened.
From what I can see, his sifu has the same approach, and his Sifu's other students in other countries also have the same approach. So if the system consistently makes people who can fight, then its not just one person being an outlier.
Alan Orr's guys are not the only ones fighting full contact in wing chun William cheungs guys in Australia and America have been doing it for years And then we have the east Europeans fighting for fun The issue is that the few lineages that do fight hard seem to train differently and look differently than the vast majority of wing chun clips. Mind you compared to tai chi their are much more clips of actual sparring hard and fighting, for an art known as the grand ultimate fist there's precious little actual hard fist work to be seen.
That is the question isn't it, It's the same with tai chi the few lineages that actually fight train and look differently than the mainstream So who is right and wrong,
I'm still learning the names and purpose of basic Tai Chi techniques but one of the first (a basic arm drag and push) wouldn't look anything like the form in a real fight, but the feel of it (bodyweight transfer, mostly, with hip power) would be the same and physically it makes sense, and when going over the application in class, it's as though the basic arm pull and subsequent strike/push is hidden in broad daylight. So is that the real "secret" in all these art forms? How you learn the form portion is important, so you could learn a functional arm drag in Tai Chi, or a very non functional version from someone who knows the form proper, but not the body dynamics that make it work against resistance. As with Wing Chun, you could learn the core points correctly with practical use, but just as easily learn them in a subtly wrong way (ie looks good, fails under pressure), all because what the eyes see and what the body feels are not the same. Seen this in boxing all my life. Great shadowboxers who can't make it work nearly as well inside the ropes.
Dan Docherty, that's a name from the past, I used to love his monthly articles in Combat magazine. Him and Tony Leung, who had a steel wire mantis club. It's good to see Dan was/is legit. Thanks for the link!
Arguments about Form and proper application are the two banes of Chinese martial arts because it brings away the argument from what the real issue is, the methods used to progressively test your applications and principles. If your methods of progressive testing are good the form and function of the applications take care of themselves. If your methods of testing are poor then you end up with terrible applications and forms which serve no purpose because a few years down the line no one can figure out how to actually use them. Which leads to a while new issue of then having to make up really bad methods of testing which fit your terrible applications or pushing inferior methods of testing as the holy grail and single best way to test your art (chi Sao anyone, or even some of the pushing hands methods you see) and those methods then become the driving force of how the art should look when they should be at best a small part of the training program. They didn't have these issues back in the day as empty hands made up a small part of actual fighting (weapons were obviously the main go to methods of fighting empty hands a back up) and it was easy to see what worked and didn't because you either won battles and stayed alive or didn't and died and your crappy applications and methods went with you
Ive never heard of steel wire mantis. Too bad it is nearly impossible to actually see what is happening in those videos. Would have been interested.
That looks great, they certainly look like they have a good idea about contact. I think combat was the last "martial arts" magazine I've read, that wasn't completely full of fakers trying to scam people.
It's an old 90s system combining hungar and chow gar mantis, Leung fell out with the IP family and went his own way, seems he has moved onto shaolin now But some more Steele wire here
That's Ian Sinclair, I believe he was a student of Liang Shouyu, (and possibly others as well), and Ian is, from what I can tell from his past videos and folks in Canada I have talked to who have trained with him, quite legitimate
I remembered seeing a couple of his videos before. He had a good explanation of leading with the fist rather than the body that I remember as being much more practical than other Tai Chi punching videos I'd seen, and people I've known who've done Tai Chi, where the body moves first and you see it coming a mile off.
