Sparring and drilling?

[IRONMONK]

Do you favour sparring over drilling or vice versa?

How much of your time do spend sparring(that is if you do any?) and how much on drilling?

[SAAMAG]

Here's my take on this...

I personally love doing both. Although one is basically there to build up to the other. Drilling is a means by which to learn application of a technique in a hands on environment (vs. doing it in the air). Proper structure, Timing, and feel are learned here, and once it can be applied well in a drilling session, it can be thrown in with the rest of the techniques and then attempted in a live session (ie sparring).

So one is a step stool for the other. Ultimately the goal is to be able to apply anything and everything in a live environment, but drilling them prior helps to build specific application skill in efforts to transpose it from the learned stage to the "spontaneous" stage.

Right now I'm doing only drills and no sparring (broken wrist) but normally I drill techniques to keep the technical aspects sharp and "correct", and then spar just as much as possible to make sure things are spontaneous and actually absorbed. As far as which I prefer, it really depends on what's injured...;)

[t_niehoff]

Vankuen is correct about the importance of both (he's incorrect about timing coming from drills; you only get timing from fighting).

All fighting methods use some variation of the following: Step 1 - learn the form or technique or tool or strategy or whatever; step 2 - drill it until you are "comfortable" with it (drills can also be progressive); step 3 - put it into fighting (what we are training to do; the activity itself). And it's often a loop, in that your experience in step 3 may change your view of whatever you learned in step 1, which means you'll need to do step 2 again with this new insight in mind, and then try putting it back into step 3. And so on.

[SAAMAG]

Not to hijack the thread...but Terence, I believe that timing can be learned from certain drills, but I guess to elaborate, I need to know what your definition of "timing" is....I just didn't want to debate on something that may be merely a matter of semantics.

[Ultimatewingchun]

Van:

Yeah...you can learn "some" timing from drills....but the real place for timing education is when it's "live" and spontaneous: during sparring.

[Ali Hamad Rahim]

Drill, drill, drill. You have too drill to understand timing, if you don’t, you could get hurt very easily jumping right into applications, by not drilling you will not see were timing has it place in a certain technique, easily getting you teeth knock out, and at the same time becoming very wild with your wing chun. There are drills for distance, timing, and entries, very simple mon sao drills for entries. To understand the concepts you must ponder on the principles, without strong principles you will have no substances, without substances you will have no subtleness, without subtleness you will have very wild wing chun when needed for real. Then again who I’m I too say, we are all born free, maybe wild is good. If you can, wait for one year before sparring.

Ali Hamad Rahim.

[old jong]

Wild turkeys?...;)

[Ali Hamad Rahim]

Originally posted by old jong
Wild turkeys?...;)


LOL!

Ali Hamad Rahim.

detroitwingchun.com (http://detroitwingchun.com)

[SAAMAG]

See so far I think Ali has got it for the most part. Drilling sets you up and prepares you for the real thing. To me, it does take timing to apply techniques to a real attack coming at you, even if it is merely a fragment of a "live" session.

Drilling can be done a million ways, on hundreds of techniques and fighting concepts. To me, it is basically a "fragment" of what can happen in a fight, a piece of a pie so to speak, with the pie being the fight and the piece being...well...part of the pie. If that makes sense. You can tell I haven't eaten lunch yet right?

Anyway, you train how you want to fight....as Ali says, if you want to be wild...then so be it....what works for one person may not work for another.

[old jong]

IMHO, You "learn" something and after you "test" it to see how well you "learned" the **** thing. Just as when you were in school,it was too late to learn something when the exam day had come.
Timing is one of those things. ;)

[t_niehoff]

I suppose one can get some sense of timing from an "alive"-type drill (sparring-type drill) but not where there is any pattern to the drill. Timing is being able to "pull the trigger" in exectution when it's appropriate during fighting -- and you can only find that for yourself by fighting. Go ask fighters, like boxers or BJJists, if they get timing from drills. After they stop laughing, have them explain how you can't get timing or distance or all the things that make the "techniques" work in any way except from fighting, and how they must maintain those by fighting (and if they stop fighting, they begin to lose all those things). Drills are absolutely necessary but they only take you so far.

[AndrewS]

To the original question,

depends on the learning phase. I've been at 'sparring' 90%+, I've been at 'drilling' 90%+.

If you're learning something or trying to refine it you need to drill it to get the groove. Once you know how it works, you need to use it against resistance to incorporate it into your game.

I favor work against light resistance with variabilty ('live drilling', 'limited sparring') immediately after 'pattern-type' drills- basically exercises in mechanics. It makes for a much faster learning.

Once you add intent and variablity to a drill, the boundary between it and sparring gets pretty fuzzy- 'here's a double neck tie, here are your mechanics for countering it, here are your mechanics for when you're broken, here are 3 counters based on where the guy tries to take you with the neck tie. guy with the neck tie can push, pull, or knee. 2 minutes.' Is that a drill or sparring?

Terrence- IME, my *best* work on timing comes not from totally free sparring but light limitation sparring designed for work on timing. I know good competetive fighters who train this way, and have felt the best results in free sparring when I've done light work mostly for timing first. I'd add that most grapplers have very little awareness of timing, even if they use said timing, while it's bread and butter to boxers and kickboxers, one of the reasons why converted strikers can be so dangerous on the ground (Bas, Mo Smith, CroCop)- they think in smaller time.

Later,

Andrew

[YongChun]

To me a drill is not a pattern thing. As an example one student attacks with anything, the other tries to apply movements learned on the dummy to counter. There is distancing and timing in that. I think it requires more skill to do this intensively without hurting your partner then to just go in wild not caring for your partner's safety.

Most often on the news real fights are multiple opponents who are armed.

A more useful training scenario might be to work through the following table:

Number of opponents
1
2
3
4
5
Scenarios: empty hand punching only, punching and kicking, weapons. So there are 15 entries in my table.

I think fencing even intensively against a highly skilled guy still develops a different thing than training fencing against several people attacking you at the same time.

Maybe it's not practical but this is another way to beef up the intensity because it shortens the time you have to react, it trains your footwork under stress.

It's a good experiment to compare Choy Lee Fut and Wing Chun under these circumstances. Maybe there is a place for flailing away.

In the multiple opponent situation, for example against two, the two should learn how to cut off the circle to prevent one of the two from being isolated. So they learn to fight as a team. Likewise for the case of three and up.

With one on one, there may be a lot of rest time that's not available with the many on one case. You can't just back up or create some distance like a Thai boxer might with a push kick because you may just back yourself up into the next guy.

I think it requires more skill to train intensively and not break your partner's nose than to train intensively and break it. I think the level of intensity should be whatever is possible to still control. Safety should always be a concern. There are many injuries that can end your martial arts career.

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by AndrewS
I'd add that most grapplers have very little awareness of timing... That statement is completely off the mark. Grappling depends just as much on timing as does striking.

Takedowns, throws, chokes, arm locks, leg locks...counters to each of these... getting position... improving a bad position...mess up your timing and the opportunity is gone.

[Ultimatewingchun]

It's a different kind of awareness of timing...but it's still awareness of timing that a grappler must need to develop.

For example - the timing needed to deal with (and to throw) punches and kicks form a standup non-contact range distance...is a very different "timing awareness" than what a grappler needs in order to exploit openings or changes in position on the ground, for example.

But in the end...timing skills...are still timing skills.

It is what it is...and ALL competitive athletes (whether it be fighting or anything else)...need to develop them.

And in the end...we need to develop all of the possible timing skills necessary to be a good fighter...standing...in the clinch...on the ground.

[AndrewS]

KF writes:

>That statement is completely off the mark. Grappling depends just as much on timing as does striking.

Dale,

I didn't say that grapplers didn't have/use timing; I said they weren't as aware of it as strikers. The point I was trying to make is that you are far more likely to get a serious discussion of timing in stick fighting, boxing, or kickboxing training than in grappling training. If you're used to trying to read whether a guy is gonna jab, picking up whether he's gonna shoot is much easier (why few people open with a double leg in MMA any more).

Any combat sport requires developing timing, yet there are differences between the grappling and striking arts in terms of the attributes developed. Striking sports require visual reactions and tend to work at a quicker pace than grappling. In terms of motor skills, the timing discussed in striking is hand/eye coordination, and control of distance, while that in grappling is heavily dependant on your tactile perceptions of another's balance in relation to your own. They are physiologically different things.

Having watched a few strikers learn to grapple, I think that's one of the things a striking background brings to the table. a greater awareness of timing, and a comfort in working in much 'faster' situations.

Later,

Andrew

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by AndrewS

I didn't say that grapplers didn't have/use timing; I said they weren't as aware of it as strikers. The point I was trying to make is that you are far more likely to get a serious discussion of timing in stick fighting, boxing, or kickboxing training than in grappling training. If you're used to trying to read whether a guy is gonna jab, picking up whether he's gonna shoot is much easier (why few people open with a double leg in MMA any more). Grapplers just talk about it in different terms, but it is still the same thing... ie- "when he pulls his arm in, you push it through and shoot up to the triangle'; "when he pushes his arms up, you swing around for an arm bar"; "from the head and bicep tie-up, shuck down and penetrate for the double leg"; "fake to this arm and then sit back to the other arm".

As far as reading the shoot vs. the jab, of course the shoot is easier to read. It takes much longer to move the whole body than it does to flick out a jab... not to mention the fact that there are more visual cues with a shoot. If anything, the guy who shoots and hits the double leg has to have better timing than the guy who is landing jabs.

[SAAMAG]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
I suppose one can get some sense of timing from an "alive"-type drill (sparring-type drill) but not where there is any pattern to the drill. Timing is being able to "pull the trigger" in exectution when it's appropriate during fighting -- and you can only find that for yourself by fighting. Go ask fighters, like boxers or BJJists, if they get timing from drills. After they stop laughing, have them explain how you can't get timing or distance or all the things that make the "techniques" work in any way except from fighting, and how they must maintain those by fighting (and if they stop fighting, they begin to lose all those things). Drills are absolutely necessary but they only take you so far.

See that's what I thought you were getting at and just wanted to make sure, in reference to your definition. TO me, a drill isnt necessarily a preplanned and patterned exercise. I have lot's of drills that use to apply timing principles or "pulling the trigger" as you say.

Some drills, for example a typical pak sau drill, doesn't do much for timing, in fact most people go off of the rythm of the person feeding the punches, and you're right, but that's not what I was thinking of. What I was thinking of more, was for example a sparring drill teaching someone to pak da against a punch from any side, not telegraphed, and in a moving environment...so in other words, like a "piece" of a fight, they move around for position, one person is attempting to hit the other with either hand at any given moment, and with any rythm they wish, and the "defender" is practicing his pak da. What I tend to encourage also is that if they mess up and something else comes out, to "deal with it in any way you know how". I tell them "things rarely go as planned in fights and you're going to need to adapt and overcome in this drill, just like in real life, so if you mess up, deal with it, and then try again. "

Hopefully that example makes more sense and you can get a better visual of what Im talking about.

[t_niehoff]

AndrewS wrote:

Terrence- IME, my *best* work on timing comes not from totally free sparring but light limitation sparring designed for work on timing. I know good competetive fighters who train this way, and have felt the best results in free sparring when I've done light work mostly for timing first.

**Good stuff. The isolation/limitation permits you to focus more on that aspect, then you put it into your game.

--------------
YongChun wrote:

To me a drill is not a pattern thing. As an example one student attacks with anything, the other tries to apply movements learned on the dummy to counter. There is distancing and timing in that.

**IMHO this is a really poor way to train, and will develop very little real skill. And there is no timing in it.

I think it requires more skill to do this intensively without hurting your partner then to just go in wild not caring for your partner's safety.

**This is why they have protective equipment -- so that you can really hit without injuring your partner. FWIW, one significant problem (there are so many) with your drill is that folks aren't dealing with genuine attacks and they are not responding with genuine responses (but holding back). You can't learn to hit people with real power if you don't practice trying to hit people with real power; you can't learn to respond to real attacks without facing real attacks. This is just contrived nonsense.

Most often on the news real fights are multiple opponents who are armed.

**In my town, fights rarely make the news -- shootings make the news.

I think fencing even intensively against a highly skilled guy still develops a different thing than training fencing against several people attacking you at the same time.

Maybe it's not practical but this is another way to beef up the intensity because it shortens the time you have to react, it trains your footwork under stress.

It's a good experiment to compare Choy Lee Fut and Wing Chun under these circumstances. Maybe there is a place for flailing away.

In the multiple opponent situation, for example against two, the two should learn how to cut off the circle to prevent one of the two from being isolated. So they learn to fight as a team. Likewise for the case of three and up.

With one on one, there may be a lot of rest time that's not available with the many on one case. You can't just back up or create some distance like a Thai boxer might with a push kick because you may just back yourself up into the next guy.

**Multiple attack scenario training is IMO, for the most part, a waste of time. Learn to deal with what you are actually going to face -- and you aren't going to face people that behave like they do in the drill. All you develop from these sorts of drills are poor habits.

I think it requires more skill to train intensively and not break your partner's nose than to train intensively and break it. I think the level of intensity should be whatever is possible to still control. Safety should always be a concern. There are many injuries that can end your martial arts career.

**Hence why we have protective gears, why conditioning is so very important, and why fighting is mandatory (that's how you learn to protect yourself from injury).

[YongChun]

YongChun wrote:
To me a drill is not a pattern thing. As an example one student attacks with anything, the other tries to apply movements learned on the dummy to counter. There is distancing and timing in that.

**IMHO this is a really poor way to train, and will develop very little real skill. And there is no timing in it.

Ray: I find it’s a very good way and develops better skill than just drilling against a known technique. If you know a roundhouse is coming each time then does that develop better skill then if there is at least a choice in what kick the attacker throws? The latter is better. It’s easy to do a drill against a known technique. It’s difficult when you don’t know what’s coming. Now you are arguing for drilling as opposed to fighting. I’m advocating sparring but not in the standards you proposed in your clips. That level can be achieved in a few months of training. If those are your standards for excellence then something is wrong.


I think it requires more skill to do this intensively without hurting your partner then to just go in wild not caring for your partner's safety.

**This is why they have protective equipment -- so that you can really hit without injuring your partner. FWIW, one significant problem (there are so many) with your drill is that folks aren't dealing with genuine attacks and they are not responding with genuine responses (but holding back). You can't learn to hit people with real power if you don't practice trying to hit people with real power; you can't learn to respond to real attacks without facing real attacks. This is just contrived nonsense.

Ray: Boxers don’t go for the knockout when training with their sparring partners. Thai boxers hold back on certain elbow techniques in real matches. You don’t need to really hit your partner and injure him to learn something. If I really hit some of my female students wearing full protection, they would still end up crippled or dead. Maybe you don’t really hit your students full out in the head or perhaps your punches lack power? Your approach doesn’t make any logical sense. Put a helmet on and have one of your 240 pound students hit you as hard as they can in your head and see if you can think straight afterwards. All kinds of things can be isolated in sparring training without going 100% constantly which is counterproductive. With a proper hit, your not getting up, protection or not. Try standing in the middle of the road with your protection on and get hit by a car. There is a difference between a 250 pound guy and a 90 pound woman. You don’t hit the latter in the same way or your looking at a major lawsuit. we have size differences like that: 250 pound muscular guys and ladies who weigh less than 90 pounds. They all practice with each other. The big guys help the small ones. The small ones can't really challenge the big ones. The small ones can go all out but not the big ones.

Most often on the news real fights are multiple opponents who are armed.

**In my town, fights rarely make the news -- shootings make the news.

Ray:
In my town it’s home invasions , party crashers armed with bats. We have less shootings than in the USA because of gun control laws. Pretty well all the attacks that make the news are multiple opponent attacks. If you aren’t training that then you are also wasting your time.

**Multiple attack scenario training is IMO, for the most part, a waste of time. Learn to deal with what you are actually going to face -- and you aren't going to face people that behave like they do in the drill. All you develop from these sorts of drills are poor habits.

Ray: What we are most likely to ACTUALLY face is multiple opponent attacks. Teens operate in packs. It’s safer that way for them. We don’t drill a multiple opponent attack. You can’t drill that, you just fight and use your instincts. With practice your timing gets better. With practice the pack learns to fight better as a pack too making it harder for you. It gives you less time for your super power blows when there is more than one attacker. The Korean Thai boxer who was teaching us said the most common form of attack in Korea is also multiple opponent attacks. Non trained fighters, fight in packs. If they don't they are stupid.

Actually for the most part we don't train multiple opponent stuff. We did a few days ago and it was an eye opener for those who never tried it the same as wrestling is for those who never tried it. But if the goal is to train what you are actually going to face, then by that logic more multiple opponent training is a good idea.
It can be using the Terrence approved method of really trying to hurt the guy in the middle but of course he has protection on.


Ray:
I think it requires more skill to train intensively and not break your partner's nose than to train intensively and break it. I think the level of intensity should be whatever is possible to still control. Safety should always be a concern. There are many injuries that can end your martial arts career.

**Hence why we have protective gears, why conditioning is so very important, and why fighting is mandatory (that's how you learn to protect yourself from injury).

Ray:
Protective gear is not always useful because you develop reactions based on knowing that you are protected. Blocking a Thai roundhouse with a protected shin is different from blocking one without protection. You movements are just a little different. Facing a rubber knife is different from facing a live blade. A small lady or child can do all the conditioning they want but a full force hit will kill them. These kinds of people are martial arts students too and the training has to be adjusted accordingly which means hits have to be controlled. To go beserk is very easy. To injure someone is very easy. Remember the people we are talking about are students trying to learn a martial art. They don’t have the reactions of a professional that can stop 90% of hits? So if you can hit them 90% of the time then control is necessary or you won’t have any students left. Phil’s many video clips show controlled drilling and sparring. Most clubs do this. There is forms, sparring and fighting. Sparring has a control element and is not fighting no matter how intense. It is a training that isolates various factors to work on. From free sparring you can discover weaknesses than can then be drilled by isolating that particular thing. The intensity can be increased slowly to check if your response will really work.

Of course I do advocate protective gear!

[sihing]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
AndrewS wrote:

Terrence- IME, my *best* work on timing comes not from totally free sparring but light limitation sparring designed for work on timing. I know good competetive fighters who train this way, and have felt the best results in free sparring when I've done light work mostly for timing first.

**Good stuff. The isolation/limitation permits you to focus more on that aspect, then you put it into your game.



Yes the drill sounds good to me also, but Terence I'm surprised by your response. Andrew is advocating light sparring and you are agreeing? What use is light sparring in your eyes, that's not real fighting, no one's going to lightly rob or mug you are they? Your funny sometimes, I've advocated drills similar to AndrewS in the past and you chop it down quick with some sort of silly comment like you always use, them someone else comes around to say something similar with different words and your on their band wagon. You said earlier that timing is learned from fighting and only fighting, so is light sparring fighting? According to you the word sparring is non-existent in MA terminology, never mind when it is light, so it seems you are contradicting yourself, again...but of course you will have a rhetorical answer for this too, you are a lawyer.


James

[YongChun]

Even if you advocate exactly what Terrence has said in a past post then he will try to cut it down or so it seems.

It seemed like a flip flop to me also. Before Terrence always advocates 100% knock your partner's head off or else it isn't real fighting practice. If anyone suggested to go less than 100% then he would say it's totally useless. Real men are tough and don't do that pattycake practice designed for Whimps.

There are no clips of him doing the 100% anywhere so likely those are just words that sound good. For an average martial arts school with students from a variety of backgrounds, sizes, weights, medical conditions etc. you just can't do what he is advocating. But he doesn't run a martial arts school, is not liable for your students and only trains with a hand picked selected few people so his experience teaching is limited by the sounds of it.

With a hand selected set of very fit training partners who know what they are doing then Terrences suggestions are great, maximum intensity bashing. But what he showed in two clips as something good isn't my idea of quality either. It's something your average spunky student in any club can do in a few months or before they even start a martial art.

For the past few thousand years fighting training hasn't really changed much I imagine, you learn some movements or ideas, then spar with different intensities according to the partners in action and after that it's real fighting. Sparring is sparring or play fighting and fighting is fighting where you aim to injure your opponent.

[t_niehoff]

sihing,

We do all kinds of sparring-type drills, from isolation stuff to lighter stuff, too. And we do forms, and drills like lop sao and chi sao. FWIW, I typically find Andrew's posts, along with a few other posters, generally insightful and useful (and we don't always agree). That's because I *know* he's genuinely training WCK -- and we've never met (nor are we of the same lineage). I can tell by the things he says that he "gets it." Just as I can tell by what many others say that they just don't "get it." If someone is really mixing it up as part of their training, as opposed to those that "spar" a bit with the laddies, they will have a certain perspective on things. Theoreticians/nonfighters have a different but easily recognizable perspective.

[YongChun]

For us many of the students came from fighting backgrounds such as bouncers, police, or from other arts like KyokoShin karate, competitive Judo etc. Some students have competed in tournaments but for the most part it's street combat results that I hear about. Whatever we train seems to work for that.

Ray

[t_niehoff]

Ray,

If you put Ken Chung in with those guys from those clips, he'd "look" just like that too -- because that's what fighting looks like, that's what it is going to be like, that is what you have to learn to deal with. Cheung-Boztepe wasn't some aberration; that's what fights look like. You can either face the reality and begin to learn to deal with it or keep your head in the sand and keep playing "pretend fighting". It's easy to "look good" in chi sao or demos but fighting is going to be nothing like chi sao or demos. And that's why most of what WCK people are demonstrating on their websites make the MMAists howl with laughter (they post links of them on the MMA sites from time to time for chuckles) -- they know what fights are like and can tell that those "techniques" WCK people so proudly display are worthless in that sort of environment.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot -- I just love when I hear theoreticians talk about multiple-attackers when they aren't even training to fight one person! If you can't beat one guy, what makes you think you can beat two or three? LOL! Or is it the case of "I can't make it work in the gym, but it will in the street"?

[YongChun]

To me Phil's clips, Ali's clips, James clips, Ernie's clips are all OK and show normal training. That's not much different from what anyone does including us. From that kind of practice our students go to fighting for real or tournaments. That's our experience. As for multiple opponent stuff it's something worth trying and not something to be afraid of and criticize. Try it, you will like it. It's not a drill, just fight you might learn something in the process. And don't have the attackers come one at a time either. Some of our members cross train in Judo, Thai boxing, submission wrestling and stick fighting. I think it is not necessary but that's what they like to do. Ladies shouldn't be looked down upon as some are very good martial artists. I guess you don't train any but some of the members on this forum probably have some ladies who are pretty good.

I doubt Emin would look like those people you admire in your clips. I don't know how Ken would look but I have seen Emin move and I have also seen other good martial artists fight. Thai boxers and western boxers have much more skill than those guys display. I would rather use those people as models than what you advocate as model fighting.

Terrence why not display in some clips what you advocate as good fighting by yourself or your students. Then we will all have a good understanding about real fighting and how it differs from what everyine else does.

Ray

[t_niehoff]

If you have the "eye" -- which comes from fighting -- you'll see vast differences in just those clips you mentioned.

If you want to do multiple attacker drills, that's fine. Maybe you can go onto the boxing forum and explain to them how that would help them develop greater boxing skills if they had two or more opponent's in the ring. Or the BJJ forum and explain why they should roll with multiple opponents. Or the thai boxing forum . . . . Well, the aikido, tai ji, and other TCMA forums might buy it.

And why do you mention looking down at the ladies? I said "laddies" -- young lads (men), classmates.

And if you put Emin in with those guys, he'd look like that too. Anyone will.

Sorry, but there are no tapes of me. If you ever want to see me in person, you're always welcome. But you should keep in mind, that the validity of my points doesn't rely on my skills; they are true whether I'm a monster or a scrub.

[YongChun]

Originally posted by t_niehoff

If you want to do multiple attacker drills, that's fine. Maybe you can go onto the boxing forum and explain to them how that would help them develop greater boxing skills if they had two or more opponent's in the ring. Or the BJJ forum and explain why they should roll with multiple opponents. Or the thai boxing forum . . . . Well, the aikido, tai ji, and other TCMA forums might buy it.



Actually I don't like doing that. Boxing and Thai boxing and BJJ are designed for one one one fighting as is Wing Chun. If those guys like to try to fight againts a gang of youths instead of in the sporting ring then they may add some supplemental training to their otherwise excellent training too.

I don't speak the Scottish language so I slipped up on the ladies thing. Just making sure your not cutting down the innocent.

The first Wing Chun fighter I met demoed against random attack
four or five guys against him in continuous fighting. His job in Hong Kong was to fight since he was a gang enforcer. How that fighting looks is very much different than what you showed in your clips. There is much less wasted movement, much more power, better body mechanics, better relaxation, better explosiveness and the fights don't involve throwing out hundreds of ineffective hits. Real fights don't last too long. I have met one other real Wing Chun fighter who also had the same kind of job but in Vancouver. These people are hardcore and fight very well. The look is like a good boxer, they move in and do the job. No bouncing around flailing away.

[t_niehoff]

That's great -- demos are fun. They are not realistic, but they are fun. The trouble is that people mistake them for being realistic (some of those aikido guys think they'll really be able to throw multiple attackers around too!). No one is going to be able to genuinely fight, and defeat, competant multiple opponents. You saw those clips -- do you think you could put an extra person or two on one side and have the alone fighter win? Please. Sure your demo guy looked good in a demo. Put him in with those guys from the clips and it would be very different. You don't need to take my word for it -- try it for yourself. This is the problem with demos and drills: they don't reflect the reality of a fighting environment.

The argument that "well, it works in the street" is really a poor defense. What you're really saying is "while we can't make it work against skilled fighters, we've found that if they suck (are untrained, unskilled, and out of condition), then it seems to work fine." You may be happy with that -- but I'm not.

[old jong]

Maybe you can go onto the boxing forum and explain to them how that would help them develop greater boxing skills if they had two or more opponent's in the ring. Or the BJJ forum and explain why they should roll with multiple opponents. Or the thai boxing forum . . . .



And that's why most of what WCK people are demonstrating on their websites make the MMAists howl with laughter (they post links of them on the MMA sites from time to time for chuckles)

Do we really have to care about what these guys think?...IMO,people who care too much about this should simply become boxers,BJJists or whatever and live happily, howling with the guys.


Thai boxers and western boxers have much more skill than those guys display. I would rather use those people as models than what you advocate as model fighting.

Exactly!...My "eye" is telling me this the same.

[YongChun]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
That's great -- demos are fun.

You saw those clips -- do you think you could put an extra person or two on one side and have the alone fighter win? Please. Sure your demo guy looked good in a demo. Put him in with those guys from the clips and it would be very different. You don't need to take my word for it -- try it for yourself.

The argument that "well, it works in the street" is really a poor defense. What you're really saying is "while we can't make it work against skilled fighters, we've found that if they suck (are untrained, unskilled, and out of condition), then it seems to work fine." You may be happy with that -- but I'm not.

My example wasn't a nice demo. This guy made his living from fighting, he was a professional. He fights for a living not talks for a living. He was asked if he could handle multiple opponents, so he said OK let's get it on, let's go and try. No planning, no drills, just do it.

The attacks you hear about are not a dozen professional Thai boxers or a dozen professional BJJ artists picking on one guy. That would be impossible. However handling 6 or seven teenage punks is no easy feat either. That's more like what you are training for.

Those guys in the clips are not competent fighters and tha's when one competent fighter could take them out. Take any well known MMA and he could certainly take out the people in your examples who you think are so good. I can guarantee that. Some people around here can fight and have done the same. No drills fighting.

The people I am talking about are skilled fighters not the same as your hand picked sparring buddies who think they are doing real fighting but have never tried it.

No use to bring up Aikido since no one is pushing that art here. However I do know a few good Aikido fighters. If you are a real fighter then you can usually make any art work.

Ray

[YongChun]

Originally posted by old jong
Do we really have to care about what these guys think?...IMO,people who care too much about this should simply become boxers,BJJists or whatever and live happily, howling with the guys.



Exactly!...My "eye" is telling me this the same.

Yes, I think so too. Who cares what these people think? I have seen Wing Chun people who fight for a living and some of the students here did it as part of their job in bouncing or police work for years. They tell me what works and what doesn't. They fight. Some Wing Chun people fight for a living and that's why they learned their art in the first place.

If one is talking about professional fighting then that's another thing. No one on this forum has gone to Thailand and won any championships as far as I know.

There is no use to demand good posture, good structure, efficiency if the real fight is flailing away and it takes 100 hits to take a guy out. The best model is the Western boxer if you want a skilled model and not those people in Terrences clips. I don't think Ernie and Phil or Emin or Ken will look like those guys and especially the MMA who are good wouldn't look like that if fighting people of that calibre. When two equal opponents fight, then it looks more messy although in Judo competitions there are a few very talented types who can still make their art look good and different from a school yard brawl.

I think the professional MMA would also think Terrences clips look like a joke.

Ray

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by YongChun
The first Wing Chun fighter I met demoed against random attack
four or five guys against him in continuous fighting. His job in Hong Kong was to fight since he was a gang enforcer. How that fighting looks is very much different than what you showed in your clips.Real fights usuually don't look much like demos, even between skilled fighters. Non-fighting theoreticians think they do, though.

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by sihing
Andrew is advocating light sparring and you are agreeing? What use is light sparring in your eyes, that's not real fighting, no one's going to lightly rob or mug you are they? Light sparring has its place. You can't always spar at 100% (this is one of the advantages of the grappling arts...you can spar at 100% more often than with striking arts). The point is that if you never go past light sparring, you will not develop much "real world" skill application.

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by YongChun
if you want a skilled model and not those people in Terrences clips. I don't think Ernie and Phil or Emin or Ken will look like those guys and especially the MMA who are good wouldn't look like that if fighting people of that calibre.No they wouldn't look like the people in those clips. That is because none of them would be trying to use straight WC when fighting.



Originally posted by YongChun
When two equal opponents fight, then it looks more messy although in Judo competitions there are a few very talented types who can still make their art look good and different from a school yard brawl. That's because a judo competition is not a fight.


Originally posted by YongChun
I think the professional MMA would also think Terrences clips look like a joke.That is because they are attempting to use only WC in their fights and don't have much in the way of ground skills.

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by YongChun
There is a difference between a 250 pound guy and a 90 pound woman. You don’t hit the latter in the same way or your looking at a major lawsuit. we have size differences like that: 250 pound muscular guys and ladies who weigh less than 90 pounds. God help her if a 250 lb. guy ever does attack her. While a small woman can't take hard hits from a larger man as often as a smaller man could, it behooves her to mix it up hard with them occasionally if she wants to be prepared for the hard reality of what could happen (another advantage of the grappling arts is that womem regularly roll hard against the guys).

[kj]

I prefer evaluating the merits of what is written based on what is written rather than who is writing it. It isn't always easy, and being human I'm not always 100% successful, but I do try.

I have also learned that it's a wise policy to avoid making too many assumptions about people based on their internet presence, writing style, etc. In my experience, this is more conducive to a) learning, b) building constructive and mutually beneficial relationships, and c) remaining open minded to new or potentially useful information and ideas. It also helps to d) mitigate the risks of error-prone assumptions or faulty conclusions.

In general, this has proven to be a valid approach in my Wing Chun pursuits, as well as in other endeavors.

To the more immediate point, regardless of agreement or disagreement, I am appreciative for the opportunity to entertain all reasonable perspectives relative to Wing Chun. So to all of you concerned, and regardless of your practices, predilections, or stance (sic), I thank you for that.

MMV.

Regards,
- kj

[kj]

Originally posted by Knifefighter
God help her if a 250 lb. guy ever does attack her.

Well said. I, for one, wouldn't dream of denying a sincere offer of divine assistance. Nor would I wish to disappoint such a benefactor by failing to make my share of contribution to the task at hand.

Regards,
- kj

[sihing]

Originally posted by Knifefighter
Light sparring has its place. You can't always spar at 100% (this is one of the advantages of the grappling arts...you can spar at 100% more often than with striking arts). The point is that if you never go past light sparring, you will not develop much "real world" skill application.

Yes I agree with you here Dale, 100% intensity all the time in any sport will do more harm than good (Bjorn Borg the famous tennis god from Sweden retired at 26yrs old, prime age in that sport due to burnout from 100% effort over his teenage years). It has to be paced and incorporated with similar methods that will enhance the end effect and for most on here that is fighting effectiveness.

I feel the same about the Grappling arts, and since you have more personal experience with this than I it was nice to hear someone edify that feeling with the sparring thing in the grappling arts, its not as physically abusive as the striking arts are on one's body.

Terence's method comes off as a "all out or nothing" approach, it's either Black or White in his eyes it seems like most of the time.

James

[Vajramusti]

KJ-

ROFL-
divine assistance is indeed a blessing.