Originally Posted by
wingchunIan
if I understand your question correctly Yoshi, my answer would be that the stances and footwork as trained in class are over training aimed at building habits. They allow you to move forcefully in a given direction, get out of the way, change lines of attack and all the time stay stable. In sparring they should all be there but may be difficult to spot as they aren't applied rigidly. By the same token you don't suddenly throw everything out of the window, the natural ingraining of the footwork happens over time but it still won't look like classical footwork. Footwork needs to be fluid and dynamic so a "stance" of any sorts is unhelpful as it is by definition a fixed position. Drop into classical YGKYM in a fight or sparring session and prepare to have your head taken off after the opponent has stopped laughing, but whenever you move the concepts of YGKYM should be there, leg strength, aduction to provide grip, forwarding the body weight, sinking the centre of gravity etc etc.
Only my two cents worth but for me footwork is the most important part of any system and Wing Chun is no different.