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NPMantis
07-11-2002, 03:31 PM
...and I am still in pain. I thought I was going to vomit half an hour into the lesson from the workout - I'm not unfit but it was really hard! It was a different school but still not exactly what I want from a school.

I still really love the concepts behing WC (for people who read my last post), really looking forward to studying it, not sure if this was the right class though, is it common not to learn from the Sifu from from students who have gone longer than you? (and I'm talking about a month longer). It's not the type of school I really want to go to, I'd rather learn from someone who really knows what they're doing, I know I'm a beginner but I think the foundation is a very important part of your training, your're learning your bread and butter moves.

Does anyone else have any similar experiences? Perhaps I expect too much?

stuff
07-11-2002, 04:01 PM
i've only been at my school for about 1.5-2 months. If I see a newer student doing some thing wrong I might correct him, but most of the time i leave it to the instructors. There some times that they will pair me up with a new student to teach 'em things like single stick or proper punching. The majority of the time its sifu and the snior students who teach. Most have been there for 15-30 years, so I trust in their teaching.

Axiom
07-11-2002, 04:28 PM
I learn from everyone I train with. Usually my Sifu will pair or group people up and ask different sets of people to work on whatever he feels they should work on for a while. Usually people are grouped with others of a similar level, but quite often a more senior student will get paired with a newer student or asked to oversee some newer students to help their training. He still wanders around and makes sure everything is going ok, spending some time with everyone to make a few corrections or point something out, or doing whatever else teachers do :)

I think the reasons behind it are twofold: firstly he can't be with everybody at once and having a more senior student help out with something you have already had some introduction to is a good way of making sure everyone's training is going smoothly. Secondly, it's good for the senior student to analyse things from a third person point of view and to be a teacher for a while. Questions are often asked that can reveal weaknesses in their knowledge, and they can then ask the main teacher about it. It benefits both the senior and the newer student.

stuff: Do you mean you trained at a different school before your current one, but have been at the current one for 2 months?

stuff
07-11-2002, 04:59 PM
no the only other schools I've trained at were a Karate school that seemed like karate kid cobra kai and a TKD school (self-d. oriented) that i was at for like 3 years.

Wei Sui
07-11-2002, 10:06 PM
That school sounds like a Mac WingChun type of place.

Grendel
07-12-2002, 12:37 AM
Originally posted by NPMantis
I'd rather learn from someone who really knows what they're doing, I know I'm a beginner but I think the foundation is a very important part of your training, your're learning your bread and butter moves.

Does anyone else have any similar experiences? Perhaps I expect too much?

IMHO, you are not expecting too much. You should expect to be trained by your teacher in the beginning. It's fine to pick things up from your fellow students of whatever level, but it's no substitute for the guidance of a good Wing Chun teacher.

In the school I attend in San Jose, my Sifu teaches all the beginners, explaining the sets, and then teaching them all our drills, such as don chi, pak sao, and lap sao, and then after a certain skill is attained, teaching chi sao and each set in turn. My Sifu is very hands on. In a typical class, he touches hands, instructs, and corrects all the students.

Regards,

Nichiren
07-12-2002, 01:02 AM
Don't sweat it! You will get your chance to train with the Sifu. And don't listen to the McWC advice. I think WC kwoons where they have a thourough workout in are to be prefered, but thats me.. ;)

/Cheers..

NPMantis
07-12-2002, 03:31 AM
Cheers guys,

I don't mind learning stuff from other students but I guess my Mantis Sifu discouraged it a lot, he thought it was better to learn from the source so to speak, though senior students sometimes taught the beginners.

I agree with the hard workout but I felt it was a bit too hard, I'd rather train myself in fitness outside, I could hardly chain punch after I was so tired - and that's really not like me.

I'm going to try another school on Tuesday, I guess it's probably better I go to a few and decide which one is really right for me.

I really rate WC, just have to find the right school though. I think there's a lot more too it than I originally thought, I think that's the same with most arts, one of the students asked me about my mantis and thought it was like the crane-style stuff karate kid used!

Out of interest has anyone here tried a WC class and left for a different school?

Axiom
07-12-2002, 03:55 AM
Some teachers will get you to exhaust your shoulders so that it forces you to relax them (you can't use them any more, they're knackered). I find that some of my classes are more physical than others, with different warmups accordingly. Sometimes it's very hard & fast in the warmup, sometimes it's not. Perhaps you visited on a particularly hard & fast day. It sounds ok, so long as it's a Wing Chun class and not a circuit training class.

With regards to learning from the source: in my class the teacher will introduce any new concepts, or demonstrate any new techniques or sections of a form first. The senior students, if they're helping out, are just there to remind you about things and give a few pointers. If you're having no contact at all with the teacher, that sounds like a bad thing to me.

stuff: I have to admit I am a little surprised you are showing new students how to do stick work after just a couple of months. I'm not particularly experienced myself, I've been studying since the beginning of this year, but I would still consider myself a new student really.

NPMantis
07-12-2002, 12:05 PM
Hey there,

I think the class is always that hard as they basically told me it is, I would rather work on the technique than fitness side of it in class. I prefer to work on my fitness by myself, though I completely understand what you're saying about tiring shoulders out, mine were really exhausted after the workout!

Your class sounds like what I'm looking for, learn stuff from the Sifu and Senior students help you, I think that's how it should be, not learning from people a few weeks further on than yourself!

Highlander
07-12-2002, 03:58 PM
The purpose of every job is to produce a product. Generally, in the case of a Wing Chun school, that product is a proficient Wing Chun fighter. But even that can be ambigious. Some schools emphasize the combat, some the art. To judge a school, learn what is being strived for and then evaluate if it is being produced. Do not focus on the tasks being performed in the creation of the product.

To clarify let me give you a couple of analogies:

1) The function of a janitor is to produce a clean room. To determine the janitors productivity you would measure the cleanliness, not count the broom strokes or base it upon whether he used a broom or a vacuum cleaner.

2) The function of a mechanic is to repair your car. Do you care how many wrench strokes he made, or how well you car runs after he is finished.

3) The function of a cook is to prepare your food. If the food tastes good, do the mechanics of preparing it matter.

The point I'm trying to make is, all good Wing Chun schools strive for the same end product. They teach the same principles and concepts, but they may all teach them differently. So to judge whether a school is good or not, look at the senior students, not how each class is run. If the senior students are good, you should be able to learn there.

fa_jing
07-12-2002, 06:17 PM
NPMantis - you may be pursuing your fitness elsewhere, but you need some conditioning specific to the art you are studying. There is no other way, and it's like that every style that I've seen - there is always some muscle that you're not used to working that way. Remember when you first started TKD? The hamstrings? You'll be sore after class for the first year. Don't overtrain, though.

-FJ

NPMantis
07-13-2002, 11:31 AM
Highlander - That was pretty much what I thought, I looked at the senior students and they were ok, but I didn't quite see the level I was looking for and that was half the reaon I guess, if they were all incredible then I would be more motivated to put in the hard work. The students going for 6 months seemed as good as the long-term students, the school just wasn't right for me though. I've found a school 5 mins from my house, I'm going to try it out Monday and see how it goes. One thing though is that I am definately more motivated to learn WC than I was at the start of Mantis, I see myself practicing a lot more outside class than I did for Mantis. I'll know when I find the right school straight away, I always look a senior students in a new class first, to see the way they move, etc. I just didn't feel that they were exactly what I was after.


fa_jing - Yeah I completely agree, you're absolutely right, but I just don't think I can hack that kind of workout, my old Sifu trained us hard but this was just too hard, I still ache a couple of days later really badly, it was just a bit too much for me though, I was so exhausted that by the time to chain punch I could hardly raise my arms, I'm not unfit or anything or even the type to give up easily, but this was a killer workout!

ps. sorry for long-winded answers, just trying to explain myself, thanks a lot for the suggestions, given me something to think about!