Hey can anyone tell me if learning wing chun has helped thier boxing? or do you think it is a waste of time and I am better off spending my time refining my boxing skills
I think you'd be better off spending my time refining your boxing skills. If you wish to train in something else consider something that covers a different range but would blend well - Submission grappling would be a good choice,a s would Muay Thai.
Thanks Yoda. So do you have an opinion on chi sao, lap sao and the other wing chun senstivity drills? I look at the jkd guys like inosanto, vunak, etc and they all seem to swear by it. But most boxers don't seem to do anything remotely similiar in their training. Is it because they simply just don't know about them or because the senstivity exercises don't really add anything to a boxer's training?
The senstivity exercises don't really add anything to a boxer's training. Personally I find no value in them. I must point out though, that I did them for 15 years before coming to that conclusion.
You know I have just sat down and watched some tapes of JKD sparring very closely and I learned something interesting. At no time does the chi sao stuff ever seem to come in to play. These guys move from striking range to clinching so quickly that the chi sao stuff seems really useless. The chain punch on the other hand seems to be the weapon of choice. Looks effective. Perhaps the only thing worth borrowing from wing chun is the chain punch?
"At no time does the chi sao stuff ever seem to come in to play. These guys move from striking range to clinching so quickly that the chi sao stuff seems really useless" you got it mate! too many wing chun guys will say "my strategy is to close on my oponent and then let my chi sau skills take over". this sounds like a flawless strategy but : "chi sau" range is gobbled up in a second by an attacker, from there you will find yourself in a clinch and if not versed in fighting from this range will quickly result in a ground fight. the contact needed to elicit the reflexes honed by chi sau is rare as the hands will be moving so fast that you reactions will not kick in in time and the fact remains that you may not get bridge contact anyway. once a fight has slowed down and your grappling for example, your sensitivity will help (grapplers are VERY sensitive to what their oponents intent is), but the trouble for most wc people is that by this stage their in trouble anyway as they havent got a ground game. you MUST be able to fight with no bridge, if your whole gameplan is based on sticking to the oponent and seeing what happens from there, well, i will leave that to your imagination. shaolintiger Edit: Please don't swear
I agree with the general consensus that wing chun stuff will generally be of no use in boxing however wouldn't the straight punches from wing chun hit before the slightly curved ones most boxers employ? Forgive me if i've said anything stupid i have limited experience in martial arts and none at all in boxing.
in theory the strait line is quicker than the curve BUT ive sparred against boxers (im a wing chun stylist), and had heaps of problems. counterpunching and getting hit from all possible angles with force is something most traditional wing chun training doesnt prepare you for. most wing chun people only spar wing chun people, but you learn a lot about the system when you go outside of the wing chun box. before i sparred boxers i always thought i would fare well with my strait line approach and hand sensitivity. after sparring for the first time with a boxer i have a much healthier respect for "the sweet science".
Hence the old saying (and if it isn't a saying it should be): "Don't try to box a boxer"... applicable to any martial art of course but if you stick to your opponents area of expertise then you are gonna get stung! One of my favourite sparring partners has a long experience in Wing Chun and quite often gives me something interesting to try and deal with. However if he sticks to Wing Chun it isn't long before I start to dominate. The only time he really gives me any grief is when he starts to use everything that he knows. I must also qualify that I am not a boxer but do have some 'skill with the hand'. I am of course talking about hands only sparring which I do appreciate is very different from a fight. The funny thing with training with a Wing Chun man (sorry) is that he is darn right odd to spar against as opposed to someone with a similar martial background to me... he just doensn't do what I expect. Which is of course the fun bit!
Personally I think Chi Sau skills can be applied usefully in a fight when/if a person has realised that Chi Sauing is a training tool and not the same as fighting. If you try to Chi Sau in a fight you will likely be destroyed but thats not the same as using what you've gained from such exercises, I mean a boxer may do skipping but while they dont bring a skipping rope into the ring with them they do bring the benefits that such training has give them. I appreciate their are limitations to this type of training and certainly believe it is is essential to supplement it but I think people seem to be being a bit hasty by judging it as useless. As for a Boxer vs. a Wing Chunner I think a certain issue is not being addressed by most people, namely that the overall level of fitness and intensity of training of Boxers is higher than most people that practice Wing Chun. So in that respect if you put random Wing Chun man against random Boxer man regardless of the merits of both styles the chances are the boxer will have the advantage, having more experience sparring and likely being fitter. But if your considering how one style would fare against the other you need to be considering people who have put in a similar amount of training and have a smiliar amount of experience. I would like for example to see a good boxer against say someone like Emin Boztepe who has put in a lot of training has a lot of experience and yet still sticks with Wing Chun (or Wing Tsun in his case), I dont think the fight would be as clear cut then as most people seem to assume... Oh and Yoda did you honestly gain nothing from 15 years of such exercises?
Be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water though! Chi-sao teaches sensitivity (allegedly). Having never used it myself I cannot say. I do find hubud useful though, especially as an "organiser" out of motion. You wouldn't skip rope in a fight but it develops an attribute (endurance) that could be quite useful. But I do agree chi-sao is of limited use for boxing per se.
