That's a good point. I know what a chain punch is supposed to do and I can replicate that in sparring. Most WC guys can't do that because they don't spar.
Speak to several lineage of wing chun and they will tell you there is no chain punch.. For a simple direct art (according to its marketing anyway) it's pretty messed up
Jik Chun Choi is a pretty widely used term though - in the years I have been using it I have yet to have any issues with any WC lineages. I have found that the more you point out flaws the more entrenched people become - I have got a lot of recent exposure to WC via Singh (obviously) and his teacher Sifu Der. In addition I have found Francis Fong to be very open and capable in his own right (and any man who slapped Seagal must get props). The commonality between these guys is a willingness to "knuckle up" and test their stuff as well as an open mindedness to other arts and approaches...once again it is the training method that makes or breaks WC is a component or "polishing" art for me - and the "simple" marketing is frankly hogwash
Phillip bayers lineage if I remember rightly do not accept chain punching for example as a technique it's teaching a principle of occupying the centre and clearing it it not chain punching to them, their lineage is from Wsl Wing chun community also always argues about what chi sao is form, what the weapon forms teach and so on, as I said for a simple style it's pretty screwed up
Not Hannibal but it's often argued that the more compact and unique southern arts, wing chun, bak mei, southern mantis are better learned after you have a good back ground in a more regular natural style which is easy to make work because these arts often go against natural instincts. As for being a component art I imagine it refers to being so specialist it needs other arts to help make it work, other southern arts for example include wing chin principles but recognize it's limitations so include longer strikes, more movement etc this is how hung gar evolved from a compact art a bit like wing chun to what we see today
Thanks for the explanation! I don't know if it is true or or not, but I heard a fellow student say this about Aikido, although she didn't use that terminology.
When people actually were said to be able to make aikido work back in the day, most were already high level judo goes used to fighting... Take from that what you will. A friend who was a Canadian national full contact karate champion, national judo and amateur boxing title holder got into southern mantis after years of the above arts and hung gar he argues that the specialist training southern mantis gave him added something others have never seen and gave him an edge, but he could only make it work so well and overcome the natural instincts of how to fight because he has fought so much
Sure! I also use the term "graduate system" just for reference....I could also use "DLC for combat" but that is WAY to nerdy Take the (oversimplified) "traditional" mindset of technique first and then application and compare that to the more (oversimplified) "modern" mindset of get stuck in and eventually you will get better, I always opted for the latter. I have always had a more pragmatic approach to my training so for me I wanted application up front - it's why I boxed early on; fewer tools to use! However over the years I have found that revisiting systems I "wrote off" has VASTLY increased my abilities in the other styles and in the way I fight. I suspect it is as much spotting "common threads" as anything else, but taking just two concepts from WC as an example I use the "thumb firing" and "immovable elbow" in my CACC wrestling against the highest level of opponent and it has really worked well for me. However, in order to "plug in" the ideas i had to be able to wrestle in the first place (or box/fight/whatever...delete as appropriate). This mindset is also shared by one of my teachers, Professor James Hundon in his application of Small Circle methods...you have to be able to fight or else the "high skill/refinement" techniques are nigh on impossible to pull off. Historically Kano used to do the same things with his students - Kenji Tomiki being an obvious example - which seems to suggest he saw Aikido as a "finishing art" I have no doubt that the WC system produces solid scrappers...hell, I have met them...but it takes a long time and there are far better methods to get the same results quicker. However once you HAVE the ability to throw down then the addition of elements from other systems really takes off Vunak used to half jokingly say "take Wanderlei Silva and add Wing Chun and you get Anderson Silva" to illustrate this I will also add that in terms of systems there is little in WC I have not found elsewhere in some form - notably my FMA training. Some Serrada techniques can look very "chunlike"
I 100% agree with this. It's punching, using both hands together, occupying center, and replacing the hand. Chain punching isn't a "technique" any more than a 1-2 1-2 is a technique. Wing Chun straight punches are just that, straight punches. Use them once, twice, three times, but in a tactically sounds manner. "Chain punching" or as I would prefer to call it, repeated strikes, has somehow become synonymous with swinging for the fences and hoping to land. It's also a problem because people don't focus on individual strikes and somehow think they can throw three shoddy punches instead of one good one. Chunners need to think more like boxers and karateka; throw that punch and make it hurt. Your goal is not to be the flash but to hit people and actually do damage. Ironically if you look at Moy Yat, and you look at WSL tapes from the 80's the movement style in forms and in training are almost exactly the same between both men. I suspect that the problem there is that as the family split people ended up diverging because they had no high level students to practice with and so they're effectively their own echo chamber, and part of it probably was that if you're competing for the same students then teaching the same things in the same way isn't very competitive. Biggest problem with most chunners right there. I started in wing chun while I was still training and sparring MMA. If I had done it in reverse there would have been no benefit to the chun. Well you have to emphasize certain aspects over others. The problem is that the entire system is adapted from sword work. It's meant to be a style complimentary to and derived from the wu dip do/hu die dao, or what most people are familiar with by the Wing Chun form name, baat jaam do. You have things like Yee Gee Kim Yeung Ma, great to keep your legs back because you can't cover your legs with your short blades like you can with a full sized sabre. That's also the part of the reason Tsui Ma should be 90% back weighted. You don't have to defend against looping strikes because the mechanic isn't the same with a blade even when the attack is down the same line. Those are poor choices if you're in a sport fight though, but you can use existing mechanics in the system to fight better in sparring, and oddly enough it ends up looking a lot like boxing with trapping, low kicks, and some clinch work. Now conversely if you were to take boxing and adapt it to short-sword play however, things like the shoulder roll as a defensive movement or keeping the front leg exposed would be poor choices. In a lot of ways the technical criticisms are trying to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. They're entirely valid in the context of "is wing chun well adapted to sport fighting?" No. No it's not. Not even close. But that's like judging a rapier on its ability to cut. Hooks, yes. You technically have a covering position from Biu Jee. Head movement does exist against straights but not against hooks/swings because it's not terribly useful against swords being swung at you. The defense for uppercuts is either head movement, from the mook jong form, and/or stuffing it with your hand which end up being identical to boxing. And in principle either you should be at maximum range striking or if you're close enough that they can throw hooks and uppercuts you should be clinching and working to sweep them, jamming their strikes by body position, disrupting their balance, or a combination thereof. The bigger problem is actually jabs and crosses, and other slightly looping strikes. They occupy a position not found in swordplay. Wing Chun focuses on center and not the upper end of those regions because of the differing mechanics of a sword being thrust at that angle and a punch being thrown at that angle. You don't have to passively occupy that area with a sword but empty handed you had better. Really the biggest problem boils down to something actually found in the Kuen Kuit; "Unknown techniques are not suitable for practice." The problem is almost no one who does wing chun and trains it as an empty-hand style actually bothers with boxing, which is really the foundation of empty-hand striking. If you don't know the basics, how do you know where the holes in the style are or how to start to build a defence against them? So yeah, I'd agree with the premise that it's generally unsuitable unless you have previous experience boxing. Then if you want to use it for sport fighting you end up adding suitable bits of wing chun into the boxing, not the other way around.
I would also add that on the "watered down" front that's very much the case. I've been to schools which are supposedly Ip Man Wing Chun and don't even know that the kuen kuit exist. But it really does end up being like McDojo karate schools most of the time. The quickest way to form a martial arts business is to get as many students as fast as possible. I've seen the same thing happen even with some of my Sifu's students. The ones who've grown quickly have students who lack the same level of technical detail they were taught from my Sifu, meanwhile some of the most technically skilled students who only have a few students themselves end up making a small number of skilled students, or they don't teach at all. You take a look at Ip Man's students; a fair number of, as the Chinese call, "outdoor"students, with a much smaller number of "indoor" students. In a very short time we've gone from a small number of long term student to millions of practitioners. Hell I've met people who are like 9th generation in Ip Man's lineage and I'm like 3rd. That kind of massive explosion, and everyone who ever trained with Ip Man, seriously or not, coming out of the woodwork to claim association so they can teach, none of that is good for the general quality of the art.
If we are going down the route of without experience your opinion isn't valid then the forums a bit pointless And it's a slipper slope usually used to defend the indefensible, because the come back then is oh you haven't trained long enough, or not with the right teacher like what I have e etc etc The fact is jesting aside if we take the average wing chun student from the average wing chun class, and the average Tai Chi student from the average tai chi school neither one would be able to fight there way out of a paper bag this is based on my personal experience of training both arts, being in Chinese arts for over a decade and also from talking to students of both arts, watching countless clips and sparring them, I suppose the difference is at least tai chi students for the most part recognise they are training for purposes other than fighting wing chunners mostly are still deluding themselves
Yeah,most TC folks are at permanent kindergarten level and aren't training for martial expertise. A problem is some of those who think they are restrict themselves to formal exercises only.Not unlike many WCers.
