Hi Kenton,
IME, pressure and fighting distance has a lot to do with wing chun's success in certain situations. In light-to-medium sparring between a wing chun man and a martial artist of another traditional art, there is an advantage of establishing our ideal range, and then chaining a non-stop flow of attacks together the way that we do that makes it very difficult for many traditional stylists to handle. They will often get so busy defending that they have little time to think about how they will counter.
-But what makes wing chun successful in those scenarios (the strategy of using aggressive pressure to put the fight into a preferred range and keep it there while one launches all kinds of attacks), was also used successfully by many grapplers in the early UFCs.
The parallel seems pretty straightforward when I look at it like this:
wing chun vs tae kwon do / kenpo / shaolin / etc. wing chun's strategy is:
1) Close the gap to preferred range
2) Maintain pressure and control so opponent does not escape back to longer range.
3) Launch rapid attacks that opponent is not as comfortable dealing with as they are at their preferred range.
grappling vs wing chun / tae kwon do / kenpo / etc. grappling's strategy is:
1) Close the gap to preferred range
2) Maintain pressure and control so opponent does not escape back to longer range.
3) Launch rapid attacks that opponent is not as comfortable dealing with as they are at their preferred range.
The reason I qualified the wing chun success with this strategy in the first paragraph (light to medium sparring, and with traditional asian martial arts), is that I do not feel it is nearly as effective against full contact fighters such as boxers and MT stylists, particularly when you are sparring medium to hard....... They will shell-up or move, defend, and let you expend a good deal of energy, not minding if they take a some glancing, or even medium-powered blows (and they usually much harder to hit than TMA stylists too, by the way). -Then, when they see an opening, they will pick their shot, and counter explosively....... I think the key against these kinds of fighters is to know how to be aggressive, but in a controlled and disclipline way (or as Ernie says; lining up the target and firing instead of just spraying bullets all over the place). Conditioning is also invaluable, because these guys will not be easily overwhelmed and defeated the way a typical McDojo brown belt / black belt would be. It's (almost always) going to take a lot more than a single burst of attacks.......
-Lawrence
I don't think Wing Chun is so limited that I can't do it when I wrestle, box, kickbox, or fight by MMA rules, nor am I so limited a student that I can't improve by training in each of those forums. -Andrew S
A good instructor encourages his students to question things, think for themselves and determine their own solutions to problems. They give advice, rather than acting as a vehicle for the transmission of dogma.
-Andrew Nerlich