Originally Posted by
Mutant
I think there are a lot of factors that can conspire to relegate Wing Chun to the fringe in terms of modern fighting arts. I don't think there is anything inherently flawed with Wing Chun itself; the principles, techniques and energies are sound.
When 'applied' to solve the actual relevant fighting challenges one may face today (reality or sport fighting), its a great operating system. But one has to really FIGHT with it, not use it for pseudo-fighting masterb@tion. Which is tough for people learn how to apply it against real violence, chaos, and people not playing by a stereotypical WC rule set. Most WC people, sifu's and students, don't know what the heck a real fight is, whether outside the kwoon in personal defense or in competition. So yeh, I can see how a lot of people who get into this art with great expectations turn sour and disenchanted. A lot of time they're listening to the wrong people present the wrong approach and answers to the challenges at hand. They don't really allow their students or themselves to think outside the box and fight creatively with this stuff. Things can only be applied in a certain way to answer the limited questions that they're asking, not the challenges that the world is presenting. And they become so enamored with certain drills that they think that is sparring or even fighting, while its just an old set of drills that do have value in teaching specific lessons, but are not complete answers. And thus people become completely confused about what a fight is and how to apply their Wing Chun. They get the idea of ranges and applications of various techniques at ranges completely screwed up. And then of course its not going to work against a skilled and conditioned (thats a whole other story about so many WC people not being in actual fighting condition) combatant from another style, whether it be western boxing, Muay Thai, Sanda, MMA, etc.
I LOVE a lot of the history and technical discussions on energies and such, one of the best things about this forum. But it always derails when people get overly pedantic and use the wrong core mission statements when applying their art. They somehow want the 'style' to fight for them, and the history of their ancestors and dogma of their particular branch to win all the battle, interweb or actual... A lot of the beliefs about what will work if just applied a certain way can be astounding. Wing Chun is its own worst enemy. Almost none of the branches get along or provide consistent answers, and way too much of the energy is focused in the rearview mirror.
In order to get by with that approach, the various Wing chun circles get more and more insular, existing successfully in a bubble that has little to do with reality. Only training against other students doing the exact same thing, looking to a pedantic sifu who doesnt know what real power or violence looks or feels like. And on top of that, these cultures usually spend an inordinate amount of time cutting down other styles verbally, like there's a style wide low self esteem complex.
Its gotten into a viscous cycle. In this state at this point, it only attracts mostly non-athletes. Its run by enablers and protectors who have no intention of going hard against REAL contemporary combat sports practitioners or other skilled and trained stylists. When there are videos, they're usually against someones 'friend who trained in 'x', who is usually terribly inexperienced -or- the WC guys getting killed by someone who is actually decent. And the more the style looks bad and doesnt produce many fighters, the more naturally gifted potential fighters will naturally seek out other training formats. And we're left with something thats more akin to an Anachronistic Society Convention with practitioners LARPing and wondering why the help they can't apply their arts during moments of sobriety.