Originally posted by sihing
Not to step on anyone's toes, but, who says that people in Wing Chun are not training as hard as the Thai's. Just because we don't hit banana trees doesn't mean that we aren't training hard, just that we are training smart. Of course if one wants to put themselves through allot of pain then yeah they will come out tough and strong and all that but not all can or will do this. Thai's look at Muay Thai, as allot of minorities look at organized sports leagues. It’s their way out of poverty and they will do whatever it takes to get out of that situation. This is allot different from someone here in the rich countries that is participating in Martial Arts for self defense or conditioning.
Exactly. Like I said, cma trains for a possibility, whereas we train for an inevitability. Also, as UWC said - organized competitions. The bar would raise across all cma if there were frequent competitions and people who were training for them. As far as training smart, do you really think that thai training is less "smart" than WC training? If so, please explain.
Didn't Boztepe train for 8 to 10 hours a day for a long period of time? I trained for long periods of time also for many years as did my Sifu, who trained all day for many years, why did we do this? Well I can't speak for others but I did it because I enjoyed it and I wanted to gain skill in Wing Chun, not really to go out a use it for fighting or competition.
And there's the problem. That's too individual. people know to expect intense training when they step in a sport fighting school. People stepping into a kwoon don't really have the same expectation. People may train hard individually, but that's not doing any good for the art as a whole.
Hey, it's okay if some want to do that, to test their skills, but from my understanding of WC this was not the purpose behind it and even if it was, the whole idea behind the art is to fight without using strength and speed as the primary attributes, to which Muay Thai is.
muay thai was the freaking military combat art, along with krabbi krabbong...it became a sport later - similar to the jujutsu/judo transition. The original intent wasn't to test your skills at all. Does that mean it can't be used for that? LKFMDC is a lama pai sifu, and they are tearing up the san da world...
As far as fighting without strength, combat sports have similar principles. bjj is all about timing, leverage, space and control - things alot of you guys should be familiar with. boxing and muay thai are the same. strength helps, but isn't the sole factor. a well placed hook doesn't have to be hard to knock you on your butt. strength and speed are attributes developed as a direct result of the training, similar to how sensitivity is a by product of yours.
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