To Greedy

[straight blast]

I noticed in your reply to the WC/Boxing thread you said something about difficulties dealing with a hook punch, especially off a jab.

How did you get around it? What strategies are good for hooks? I ask this because one of the criticisms I hear levelled at WC is that it's practitioners cannot handle hooks & are basically sitting ducks when it comes to them. This strikes me as a load of crap, personally, so I'd like to hear your thoughts as someone who has dealt with the issue.

[jesper]

Many people belive that WT only deals with straight punches and therefor cannot defend against hooking punches.
To some extend they are right, not because we dont have defenses but because many WT people tend to dismiss them as inferior to the straight line punch. So they dont spend much time training to counter them.

[greedy]

sb,

I found the hooking problem mainly with those that either had little experience outside wing chun, or had spent only a year or two in wing chun.

I don't want to get flamed for these opinions, as they are only observations of wing chun players and not the system (I am a HUGE wing chun fan!!)

Long hooks seemed to be easily met with bong, tan etc from even the most inexperienced wc students. Easy. I did find, however, when the hook was tightened and thrown off a jab or from the peripheral, many of my wc compadres struggled to either sense it in time to stop it or to effectively deaden it.

My theory on 'why this is so':

1. Some wc kwoons are servants of the misused phrase "The quickest path between two points is a straight line." Not always true. The shortest distance is a straight line, but it is not always the fastest. It all depends on the practitioner. This saying has lead many a wc neophyte to abandon CONSISTENT practice of the hook. If you don't know how to throw a tight hook properly, then it becomes difficult to understand enough to defend against it.

2. The tight hook does not have the same elbow movement as it's haymaking cousin. For those people using the elbows as a point of reference, it is a little harder to differenciate from a straight punch or even the cross.

3. It is generally thrown off other punches designed to obscure vision, or in a clinch-like situation. This makes it difficult to intercept with clean body structure. Chi sao does help in this area though.

To fix the problem?

Just greater exposure and a better understanding of the usefulness of the hook. Once they came to recognise the positions from which it could be thrown effectively and the accompanying body movements, they gained time to pull out the wing chun techniques through moving feet and hands.

Also, we 'discovered' the wing chun stance. One of those times when you think you know why you do certain things, and then all of a sudden the light turns on and you realise what it's really about! By using the wing chun structure a little better, we were more able to detect the blows, and had more 'instinctive' control over our responses to the hook.

With practice, wc players are as capable as any others in dealing with hooks. However, IMHO, lack of exposure to a real hooker (grin) and mistaken impressions of the value of the hook, rather than an flaw inherent in the system, tends to be the problem.

Cheers.

[straight blast]

Thanks for that. I did a class today & they showed us (coincidentally enough) how to deal with a tight boxer's hook. I think it was called Dai Sao (spelling?) and I found the tighter & more boxing oriented the hook the better it worked providing (like all defence I suppose) it was applied with the correct timing.

Enjoy your training!

[greedy]

Cheers mate.

[fa_jing]

How did you execute the Dai Sao? I haven't heard of this one.
-FJ

[yuanfen]

Never underestimate a GOOD hook- but with the right wing chun training they are not a problem. Proper, little bits of good chum kiu foot work is important--- you have to get either outside or inside the path of the hook....but attack also...otherwise the double or triple hook will get ya.... specially if you dont know wing chun and you mechanically duck. BTW folks who are dogmatic about straight lines dont understand that a tight hook is practically a straight line!!!