Wing Chun striking vs Muay Thai striking for street fights

Maybe it's just me, but I think any battlefield art is going to revolve around weapons, and I think any claim of an unarmed art being more legit because of any "battlefield" connection is very sketchy.

MT as practiced today is a combat sport art, and IMHO that is a good thing.

 

I think he is referring to Muay Boran, which I think Thai soldiers used when they lost their weapon. I think this was in a time when they still fought with swords and stuff.

 

Again I think you missed my point, and I apologise if I am not articulating it well.

Punching someone in the back of the head in a boxing bout breaks the rules of the match, it does not break the LAW. Punching someone in the back of the head as part of a "reasonable response" to the threat of physical violence may or may not be in breach of the LAW (depending) but it certainly breaks no rules... because there are no rules (just a lot of emotion, fear and shock)

It seems to me that there is a clear difference between a "real fight" vs a "duel" and being good at one does not necessarily follow that you will perform well in the other situation. A good example of this, given to me recently, was the pre-fight scrap between Tyson and Lennox Lewis.. here you had arguably the two leading boxers in the world having " a real fight" - and what happened? Lennox got off one shot as Tyson charged in, Tyson tripped over his feet and ended up grabbing and biting lennox's legs from a prone position!

Well if the last time you were in the uk was '83 - that was 31 years ago... and as I pointed out things have moved on since then.

Now you're referring to the relevant merits of WC vs everything else. But I think you paint a strawman arguement - "Being able to hit well and hit very hard is important when fighting - Wing Chung teaches you to not hit very hard - therefore don't train in Wing Chung".

I am not suggesting that there was an evangelical, road to Damascus moment in the late 80's were a whole swathe of hard bitten bouncers suddenly discovered that their go-to good right cross had suddenly been superseded by chain punching...! and this somehow proves the efficacy of Wing Chung... I would also not expect to find a raft of Ex-doormen sifu's who now evangelise about the D3adly WC (although I suspect there may be some WC practitioners who have been doormen - but I don't have documented evidence for that either - it would be pretty weird if I did)

My comment about WC and bouncers was that it was anecdotal - it was something I picked up in conversation - and was made to raise the point that people train for what they need...and what they can get access to..clearly some found aspects of what WC was teaching to be useful.

But my point still stands - This is not about technique it is about context and that is an individuals responsibility and choice. You often see comments on forums like "Martial Art xxxx is not effective because you have to x-train in the grappling arts if you want to enter the cage" - Well duh! You need to train in the right context, do people think that BJJ has a monopoly on wrestling technique? Tell that to the catch boys - or grecko-Roman chaps..

I can not profess to have much experience of WC, nor particularly want to..it may be true that there are fundamental problems with basic technique in Wing Chung... but I am not qualified to suggest that.. I will leave that to the kung fu guys to defend....

 

Good point about it being Muay Boran.

Not to side track this, but I have watched a lot of this guys videos while looking for Muay Thai stuff recently :

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-y57A8Y4Fo"]30 Muay Boran Techniques - YouTube[/ame]

I think a lot of stuff he shows in his videos (the ones I have seen, he has hundreds) is pretty interesting - Some of it I have seen in MT class, and some I have seen in Kung Fu class as well. It would be pretty cool to see a list of how Muay Boran differs from Muay Thai. Is there Muay Boran being taught today that is really that different than MT?

 

It was a reply to Tman. I'm amused by the idea that you would counter a head kick with a shot at the groin.

Sure kicking someone in the head is harder than a swing between someone's legs, but that doesn't mean that kicking someone in the groin is a good technique.

 

There is a place around here that teaches Muay Boron, but it's YET AGAIN to far for me

 

Fair enough. Just checking. But I'm curious now. What makes it a bad technique? Seems like a pretty time-honoured countermeasure to me. Probably wouldn't be my "go to," but it's listed as one of the two primary targets (along side "eyes") in many of the sources I've seen.

 

Well yeah, there wasn't rules there so that would be it... my mistake there.

I had read an article once that pointed out that if you wanted to find some of the most deadly arts, look for the ones that have been tested throughout history. Most of us look down at Krav Maga for instance, but a real, hardcore Israeli soldier likely knows it and knows how to do it right instead of the watered down versions that come overseas and such.

Much like Muay Thai, Arnis, or any other country where there was constant fighting. You get good at it. Karate IMO has been really watered down to just a family fun and fitness style, when it should be (and hopefully still is in a lot of places) an art learned to break your opponent in half.

 

"Real hardcore Israeli soldiers" shoot you or stab you or blow you up - military H2H is not too hot because it is last ditch for them the same as it is for every military unit around the globe

 

Yes, they do... but and hand combat they are taught should be taught to work and from what I've heard about REAL instructors.. it's very nasty stuff.

 

Good chance it doesn't

 

I've seen it and felt it - it's nothing special or unique, just simple stuff delivered hard because that's how they train it.

Once more we find methodology > style.....I sense a theme somehwere

 

So would you rather go against KM or MT? Out of curiousity? Assuming both are of about the same level of experience.

 

Personally I'd take on the KM guy

 

For what reason?

 

Wants to win?

 

Well I am interested in specifics from someone more experienced since I am starting up some private lessons on Friday... I want to know the good and bad points of MT.

 

Given that it is a military art, how much do they focus on weapon retention and gaining space to shoot? That would seem to be the most important thing in H2H fighting on the battlefield, or have they completely retooled it for civilian life?

 

Much will depend on how good your instructor is. Then it's how hard you're prepared to put in and take. Nothing is black & white as everyone isn't created equal

 

No of course not... I mean just the general reasons. For instance if someone said I would prefer to fight KM instead because of the use of the elbows and the knees, or maybe because KM is an art that isn't as simplistic as using "the art of 8 limbs". Much like many here say they would prefer to fight a boxer the least because all they use is their hands so 2 years in boxing could be equated to several more in a more complicated art. I'm just assuming that you have the two arts, both of them are very good in their respective arts, and all is equal... so just pretend that it is black and white lol.