Hi, I have recently got this article from Wing Chun Sifu Robert Anthony regarding his thoughts about Wing Chun & Tournaments and thought it might be of interest to you as there is often much discussion on here about kung fu and its application in a tournament/competition. Here is a link to the articles page: http://www.wing-chun-training.com/wing-chun-articles.htm What are your thoughts?
I don't think it applies to the thread over in the kung fu section about kung fu in MMA tournaments. This guy is talking about point sparring and "1 hit and quit" sparring, and forms competitions. We are discussing the use of kung fu in NHB competitions like UFC or pride, where many of his valid points are moot.
The article is not "moot" on its point about kung fu as a system of fighting. I agree with Master Anthony on this one. Though I do not see why we could not compete in a tournament with other martial arts/boxing styles. Personally, I see alot of validity in his article about Wing Chun kuen being used in a Televised Competition. Yet there are more N.H.B.s off screen than people talk about. People do not give our style credit for what it has already accomplished in tournament rings,... just because it has not been on 1 TV show? Sad. Though I can definitely understand that the possibilities of serious injury would be considerable,... why do people want to put it down with so much disrespect when compairing Wing Chun to other styles?
And people ask why I left Wing Chun. Sure, pal. Remaining isolated from fighters of other styles will certainly help you evaluate your skills correctly, specially if you do lots and lots of chi sau. Because, see, Wing Chuners do not train regular kicks and punches and knee strikes. Nope. They ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY train eye gouges and kicks to the knees and other deadly stuff. So they cannot compete safely. In fact, the two years of Wing Chun I did, where we did train punches and kicks and knees and elbows do not count, because it was not the real Wing Chun. So wing chuners do not compete FOR THE SAKE OF THE OTHER GUY! WE WOULD INSTANTLY EXPLODE THE OTHER POOR ******* IF WE WENT CRAZY ON HIM! But you must take our word for it, as we won´t prove it. Ugh, depressing.
The trouble is that wing chun was designed as a self defence art as opposed to point scoring. However, you can easily adapt the skills you have learnt to compete at tournament level. I know a semi contact tournament fighter (who is crap and not a good representative of karate) who I always beat on 'points' using wing chun! I train sparring with a lot of Martial Artist's and I tend to beat them, not because wing chun is superior, but because I know the art they do, but they do not know mine!! You cannot throw a traditional wing chun artist in the ring against a tournament fighter, because our punches are designed to hurt rather than score points. Secondly the wing chun footwork is not designed to chase a loose fighter around. It is designed to increase the power of attack and defence. As a wing chun fighter attempting ring sport, they need to learn other styles to compliment what they have already. People always get cynical about wing chun being a deadly art that explodes peoples heads, etc. Wing chun is designed to take a person down quickly rather than gain points.
No one else on this thread (WSL aside) put down wing chun, or disrespected it, or even compared it to wing chun. I think it's funny that half of the wing chun community is defending their style against imaginary attackers. Hoimun, instead of being confident in your style and abilities, you obviously doubt both. Otherwise, you would not feel it necessary to randomly defend your style against an attack that wasn't even there. The only thing I said was, that the article did not apply to a SPECIFIC thread in the kung fu section because the author of the article was commenting on point-sparring and forms competitions.
1) We agree on that. 2) So you admit it is possible to use WC without exploding people´s heads, since you spar with it. Why not compete them? Competition is nothing more than really, REALLY hard sparring. 3) Pathetic. Ever heard of a style whose punches are NOT intended to hurt? I can think of ATA TKD and nothing more - WC punches are, 99% of the time, weak arm punches with no shoulder behind them; what my MT coach calls "cat punches" (cats will keep their heads behind while clawing, same as many wing chuners). And you need "loose" footwork to get out of the way of a powerfull attack, and to attack someone else. It is essential. You are indeed vastly overestimating your style. 4) Yes. Grappling, at least. 5) As opposed to, say, boxing, which is designed for use in children´s parties and bar mitzvahs. Give me a break. WC is not better than anything else out there in the sports department, and it is frequently worse. What makes it worse, in fact, are the sort of attitudes expressed on that article - "let´s keep our heads firmly stuck between our buttocks so as not to see if we can actually carry ourselves against people from other styles, so let´s not compete, because we are too deadly". Listen. MT has horrible kicks to the knees, eye gouges, elbow strikes to the spine, and a bunch of other things, same as WC. But MT can, and is, used without those, because such techniques are relatively low percentage techniques, as opposed to punches, knees and kicks, which are the bread and butter of the style. So MT fighters enter and win competitions, same as Kyokushin people, Kickboxers, etc. And when such people lose, they admit it and keep training. WC, on the other hand, is famous for that sort of excuses. Yes, there are some decent coaches out there who compete, but sadly they are only a handful - in my experience, most prefer to hide their heads in the sand, same as Sifu Roberts. "Too deadly to spar" and "made for Tha Street" are no excuses to avoid competitions.
WingChun Lawyer: Sifu Robert Anthony's instructor is Sifu Scott Baker who you may know has fought in many competitions such as PRIDE fighting and so his views are based real experiences. I believe that WC is diluted massively when you put it into a tournament setting. There are WC people that fight in tourneys but they their WC is diluted and so it is not 'real' wing chun.
Wait a minute. So this guy´s sifu has walked the walk, and this individual decides to talk the talk, is that it? Does his opinions come, maybe, from the proeminent lack of success of WC at Pride? Sad. Those people should train more, enter competitions, and win some trophies BEFORE deciding their art is too deadly for the ring. About WC being "diluted" in competitions...how so? AFAIK the most relevant techniques of WC, the bread and butter, are the straight punches and the low kicks, as well as elbows and knees. Many, many competitions allow all those techniques to be fully used - even if you decide to diss K-1 and Pride, there are always MT and Kickboxing competitions. Hell, I bet you can do pretty much anything you want in kickboxing matches in Thailand. Why a wing chuner has not gone there? Nope, sorry. IMHO, WC will only improve when 1) More sifus allow hard sparring and competition with people from other styles; 2) A "loose" footwork is adopted; 3) The hook, cross and jab are adopted. Until then, nope. WC will keep sharing the retarded seat of martial arts with Sport TKD.
The author of this article isn't saying anything new. Pretty much your basic "too deadly for competition" excuse. My WC master enjoyed and encouraged his students to compete, in any sort of tournaments, whether it be point or continuous, full contact, or whatever. My TSD master always said that if one is truly good at what he does, it doesn't matter whether it's NHB rules, or Lei Tai rules, or the street, or kickboxing rules, or even Olympic WTF sparring rules - a truly good martial artist will be able to adapt his system to be successful under any circumstances. Wing Chun too deadly for the competition because they train "kicks to the lower extremities, elbows, grabbing an opponent's leg, or blocking a kick with another kick"? What the hell does he think all these other systems are teaching? WC has sole domain over the eye gouge, groin kick, and knee kicks? Elbows too? Ridiculous. Many practitioners of systems that do teach these things compete and they are able to control what they do. Not only that, but most of us would agree with the maxim "you fight the way you train." The endless repetitions, the development of power on pads/bags, the commitment of movements to muscle memory and instinct - all have a direct effect on the way you fight. So how does WC train all these special eye gouges, knee kicks, groin kicking etc? They do point of contact drills where they stop in front of their target. Now applying our said maxim, if you train and stop in front of your target over and over again for years and years, every time you spar/fight, you will do exactly that. Because that is what you trained to do. Stop in front of your target. It messes up your timing and distance. I'd rather bet on an eye gouge from someone who doesn't practice it as often as WCer's do, at least they wouldn't have engaged in endless training that would create bad habits like stopping in front of a target. That being said, I have heard of WC schools that actually engage in full contact sparring in street environments (alleys and such) and wear eye goggles and heavy padding so they can go crazy on each other. If you're doing WC with these special deadly techniques without actually hitting a person in a live situation, you're gonna be shooting blanks. Let's look at Wing Chun without the deadly techniques. They train the same things: punching, side kicking, front kicking, etc - usually in point of contact drills. What's a point of contact drill? It's like a one step where someone throws an attack, and the other guy defends it. They sometimes do it fast with power, sometimes even with real striking - pretty good training for point sparring I'd say because it's not continuous and you're developing a strong response to a single attack. WC not made for the point competition? Rubbish. That's the way they seem to train it! Sick of hearing/seeing things like this. The WC club (separate from my master) at my university doesn't spar. They just do POC drills and chi sao all day long. Blah blah blah.
I'd say Sport TKD is a level up from WC, because at least their practitioners (on the most part, still have douchebags here and there) know that what they do is sport. Athleticism. Not fighting.
That´s pretty much how I trained WC. It´s useless: no hard, frequent sparring means no useful skills, simple as that. I was beaten like a dog by a guy with 6 months of MT, and I had two years of "too deadly to spar, too deadly to compete" WC under my belt. My sifu defended the same rationale Mister Sifu Big Honcho Roberts defends, and I am living proof that you might as well play with legos to develop your fighting skills.
Wing Chun Lawyer: Your arrogance really is quite something! "This guys sifu" as you state is a highly respected martial artist and fighter and so this article is based on walking the walk. His article is his opinion and yours is yours albeit not a very respectful one. You are putting your own obvious lack of wing chun knowledge, ability and poor teaching for 2 years into every wing chun school out there. Sifu Robert actually has a MT fighter from thailand who he trains with and he states that MT fighters do not like to fight WC guys because of the incercepting kicks to the knees and this is a guy who is the real deal MT fighter with the purple legs and blood clots to prove it. EternalRage: Everybody here seems to throw at wing chun that they never spar and they all do POC drills. In over 10 years of training in wing chun at various schools both sides of the atlantic I have never come across this method of 'training'. In order to train to fight you must get as close as safely possible to the real thing, i personally did 6 years of 5 nights a week full contact with my Sifu in England and so please do not throw us all into your pigeon hole although even this 'full contact' training was restrained from the obvious techniques like you mention which form a large part of the wing chun system. In summary I dont believe that wing chun can show its effectiveness in a tournament setting but has often shown its effectiveness on the street.
1) Arrogant, moi? Please. I call anyone as I wish as long as I respect MAP´s TOS. Personally, I would call even Mas Oyama "that guy"...but I would say it in a very respectful tone, of course. Incidentally, if the guy you mentioned has indeed entered Pride, I can certainly respect him. I might even listen if HE said WC can have problems entering formal competitions, as he has to be a world class fighter to even be considered for Pride. But his student? A person who is more than likely bitter at the fact that his beloved sifu got beaten at Pride by a dirty, dirty Kickboxer or BJJ guy? Sorry, I do not believe he can be trusted to issue a fair opinion on the adequacy of WC to championships. So, quite frankly, even though my opinion is that of a MT and WC newbie, I believe it can be truste more than Mr. Robert´s, simply because I have no interest in lying or misrepresenting anything. He does. 2) Yes, you do. I have stated the reasons I believe there are no excuses. Kindly state yours.
Yes, by all means attack the messenger instead of addressing my points. I believe I was pretty clear when I said I know of some WC sifus who actually compete and train hard, and who therefore deserve respect. About this "and he states that MT fighters do not like to fight WC guys because of the incercepting kicks to the knees" argument...well, so what? Where is the VIDEO of a WC guy using such a fight-winning strategy to beat the evil, evil thai fighter?
1) 'The guy' has entered pride and many other tourneys and as I have said is a highly respected fighter within the community. I know that Robert is not bitter about any losses that his Sifu has incurred or indeed his wins that he got (hold on did I say a WC guy actually beat someone in a competition! surely not! ) as he accepts that in competitions we sometimes win and sometimes lose. He was giving his opinion as to why he feels WC is not as effective in that environment. 2) As I have stated that because of a large part of the WC systems principle target areas being out of bounds that it would not represent the ability of the wing chun student. It would make him half the fighter that he is. I am not saying WC is the ultimate art and I have never stressed that, indeed that is why i have also training in boxing, kickboxing, JKD, Lau Gar and BJJ but tourney rules go against everything I have been taught in wing chun. An example would be in a street fight I always look at taking out the lead leg with a knee stomp whereas my boxing buddies always look to deliver a jab to set up a cross/hook, this is an example of how I could not apply my WC in a tournament but a boxer can apply everything he knows in it.
There actually is such a video as it happens and I will try to locate it, a thai round kick is stopped with a incercepting kick to the knee which break the thai guys leg. I am also sure there are videos of MT fighters beating WC fighters, neither has the monopoly on the ultimate martial art but one is definetly more applicable to competition fighting which is my point.
OH GOD IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS KIND OF TRAINING PLZ PLZ COME TO BALTIMORE. Ok then Splodgey, when you do your full contact sparring, do you throw your eye jabs and groin kicks at your opponent? Do you smash his knees and elbow him in the face? Probably not because you don't want to hurt your training partner right? Then why can't you just take what you do there and then take it to a tournament? If it's good enough to mimic the street with, then it should be good enough for a tournament no?
