reneritchie
09-18-2002, 11:43 AM
<<I have noticed a trend over the last few weeks on the forum about how wingchun will work with different attacks or styles even without personal experience. The taichi thread, the multiple grappling thread. It distresses me that people might be so over confident in their wingchun as they are. Why would that be?>>
Sorry, couldn't resist. For me, the bottom line is, at the end of the day, if for some horrible reason you have to use your WCK to defend yourself or someone you hold dear, not your sifu, not your sigung, not your lineage, not your ancestor, not anyone else will be fighting for you. It will be just you and just what you've cultivated. WCK, IMHO, is a fantastic way to systematically train yourself for stress combat. It gives you a method to develop the tools you'll need, and gives you a workable strategy to apply those tools and to deal with anything that goes wrong in the process. It can make a bad fighter OK, an OK fighter good, and a good fighter great.
There is one severe drawback to WCK, however. One potentially fatal weakness - it is inextricably bound to the person using it, and if that person is not as good as WCK, it can and will fail. If that person is overly lazy, overly c0cky, or for some other reason gets in WCK's way, it can and will fail. If that person believes that, despite no hard work (kung fu) on their part, and no personal experience, they'll magically be able to cut down Thai Boxers, knock out submission wrestlers, toss MMA/Vale Tudo fighters around like flies, and destroy people in Taiji/Bagua/Xingyi with nary a sideward glance, WCK can and will fail.
If, however, that person gives as much as they get, if they put the time in and train to use WCK in the situations the modern world dictates they'll find themselves (even if its against a drunk football O-lineman at the bar), then maybe WCK will just pull them through.
RR
Sorry, couldn't resist. For me, the bottom line is, at the end of the day, if for some horrible reason you have to use your WCK to defend yourself or someone you hold dear, not your sifu, not your sigung, not your lineage, not your ancestor, not anyone else will be fighting for you. It will be just you and just what you've cultivated. WCK, IMHO, is a fantastic way to systematically train yourself for stress combat. It gives you a method to develop the tools you'll need, and gives you a workable strategy to apply those tools and to deal with anything that goes wrong in the process. It can make a bad fighter OK, an OK fighter good, and a good fighter great.
There is one severe drawback to WCK, however. One potentially fatal weakness - it is inextricably bound to the person using it, and if that person is not as good as WCK, it can and will fail. If that person is overly lazy, overly c0cky, or for some other reason gets in WCK's way, it can and will fail. If that person believes that, despite no hard work (kung fu) on their part, and no personal experience, they'll magically be able to cut down Thai Boxers, knock out submission wrestlers, toss MMA/Vale Tudo fighters around like flies, and destroy people in Taiji/Bagua/Xingyi with nary a sideward glance, WCK can and will fail.
If, however, that person gives as much as they get, if they put the time in and train to use WCK in the situations the modern world dictates they'll find themselves (even if its against a drunk football O-lineman at the bar), then maybe WCK will just pull them through.
RR