The necessity of real fight experience in teaching?

[Lindley]

Grashoper,

First, congratulations on your 2 years study.

It is a fact of life that our system, like many others, has many interpretations under the same name. Unfortunately these may be the ones who make it to the Inside Kung Fu magazines or books. These people, the "haters", will often generalize on what they have been exposed to instead of understanding the whole.

I have been given this book by a student on the Lead Punch by one of Ted Wongs students. She points out how Bruce Lee "abandoned" Wing Chun, using his reference to traditional Chinese Kung Fu in a letter to GM Cheung. Bruce describes traditional Chinese Kung Fu as being incomplete and I believe this statement may have been true in one sense (where Bruce was at the time in his training). I believe Bruce, like most martial arts students, was looking for the "moves" to do everything. When in essense, those who truly study martial arts to an advanced level realize the "moves" from a system provide the foundation for "your own moves". I believe that Bruce would later understand this from his own maturation process.

I have met those who knew Bruce. Wing Chun was his core and he maintained that Jeet Kune Do was this finding of one's self, that is was not a style or a system. Wing Chun is a proven system. The truth was that Bruce, even though he did not complete the Wing Chun system, had great Sihings and enough insight that he did what we should all be doing - moving in a direction of freedom. Not to imitate but to create. I know that many Wing Chun lineages speak in the same terms as Bruce about Wing Chun. Maybe her allegations that Jeet Kune Do was so different from Wing Chun are based on her experiences with Wing Chun people who did not understand or express those philosophies.

What starts out as Wing Chun should be the foundation that evolves into your own Kung Fu ("Jeet Kune do") with Wing Chun concepts. The system starts you out, but the system should not become your ball and chain. Many styles teach the system without allowing the student to build on the system. If one wants to use joint locks and high kicks, this is ok. However, this is not Wing Chun. It is fine as your own Kung Fu. We must make this distinction.

Wing Chun is a system where by many can become better than others studying much longer in a fight. However, like anything else, this ability can make some very pompous and arrogant. This is why I believe that Kung Fu is not all about fighting. It is great to have the skill, but better to build upon being a great person in society with high character. The great martial artist has the ability to face the challenges others run from.

Becoming a Sifu is using your experiences to share with your students, not to take your interpretation and mold them into it. Like being a parent, you can only hope to instill values and the true concepts of the system. How they use it is up to them, but they will see in the results. The beauty of Wing Chun is that it does not really care about method, as the Kung fu is the result.

Teaching is not for everyone. However, what is the value of learning something and not sharing it? Believe me, you are correct in seeing how much you learn when showing others. Especially, if you find that your explanations are well founded and clear. That you are not saying things like "this is the way Sifu showed me", but have good understanding. The process of learning Kung Fu is not the same for all.

[BFLesley]

Lindley,
So very well stated. I literally could not have said it better myself.
Peace to all,
BF Lesley

[grashoper]

Thanks for your reply. I am glad to see that there are others that feel the same as I do. My daughter who is 8 has started to train in Wing Chun to help build up her self confidence and she loves it. I have gotten with her Sifu, which is my Sihing, and discussed her training. I work with her at home to try to work on some of the details and I really enjoy working with her and sharing my knowledge. I can see how the Sifu's I talk with love to share this art. I can not wait to see how far my daughter can go and learn to apply what she is learning to her life.




A wise man always keeps an open mind.

[shammy]

What starts out as Wing Chun should be the foundation that evolves into your own Kung Fu ("Jeet Kune do") with Wing Chun concepts. The system starts you out, but the system should not become your ball and chain. Many styles teach the system without allowing the student to build on the system.

It sounds a lot like my Sifu, Dana Wong, who although he was with GM Cheung for a long long time, had WC background from the WSL lineage and others while growing up in Boston. He often said to us that WC was about understanding principles and that what you learned from them was more important than the "techniques". He would say that the "techniques" would come out by themselves, depending on one's personality, body style, athleticism and natural abilities, and other things that an individual would bring to their training. He would encourage us to find our own ways to resolve a situation once we were in a position to do so. He would say that WC was a vehicle to get you an advantage, whether by positioning, or from the energy received at a contact point, or whatever. But once you got that opening, whether you applied pressure with straight punches or a well-placed hook or uppercut or a joint manipulation was up to you. WC helped you to find an opening, to get an advantage, to put you in a good position, but then it was up to you as to how you finished it. Sifu would put forth "situations" and then give us some "what ifs" that could occur from the base situation he gave us, to encourage us to see the options and possibilities that could come from any "technique" so to speak. But then he would encourage us to explore even further, saying that there could probably be another four or five "what ifs" that could happen if we only took some time to play with them. By doing so, he would give us a logical explanation of the whys and hows of what he gave us, but then would give us an opportunity to play with those whys and hows so that we could understand them, and more importantly, assimilate them into OUR own understanding and training, so that we would have that knowledge to do with, what we would.

Becoming a Sifu is using your experiences to share with your students, not to take your interpretation and mold them into it. Like being a parent, you can only hope to instill values and the true concepts of the system. How they use it is up to them, but they will see in the results. The beauty of Wing Chun is that it does not really care about method, as the Kung fu is the result.

This is exactly, I believe, is what made my Sifu such a popular person here in Australia, because he is so willing to share his experiences and understanding with us, his students. He really DOES want his students to become better than him. He often would say that he started his "serious" training too late in life to become the best , but he could still be the best that he could be, from THAT day on in his life. And that's what he also tries to instill in us, to become the best that we can be, from wherever we are at any stage in our lives. He wants us to become better than him, because he said, then people would remember him as a good teacher and one who cared about his students. Sifu Wong has had his share of "real" experiences in his life, but he doesn't use them, I guess, to get people to come and train with him. He has always just tried to put forth logical reasons for what he's teaching, and if one can see the logic, then one can make decisions for oneself. If the logic is flawed, or if someone can present him with a better way to deal with something, he is also humble enough to say "I can see that" and will be the first to want to explore that concept to add to his own knowledge.

Teaching is not for everyone. However, what is the value of learning something and not sharing it?

Again, you hit the nail right on the head. Sifu would say that his WC knowledge was like money; you can't take it with you when you go. Plus he would say that one always got MORE from things, when one gave. Too often, he would say, a lot of WC instructors and contemporaries of his would hold their knowledge, even from each other and not share, for fear of one getting one up on another, much to the detriment of their students and to the WC system as a whole. He believed that to be one of the major reasons for so many factions in the WC family today. It is good to see things like this discussion on a forum like this, where hopefully practitioners and instructors can add CONSTRUCTIVELY to each other's experiences and training.

Thanks again for an encouraging and insightful contribution to this discussion.

[Ultimatewingchun]

Seems to me that any martial art instructor (of any style - including boxing) that claims to be able to teach you how to fight for real had better have some sort of real life experience that's been significant - otherwise he's a theoretician first and foremost.

Not surprised to hear of Cus D'Amato's streetfighting experience in this regard.

Always believed that this style of boxing is the most ferocious and street-ready.

[william]

Hi all,

Really good to read the varied posts.

I have to agree with Victor though.

He sums up my point in the first post.

I am looking to be able to do my best if the **** hit the fan for real. Not just to become very good at the ART of wing chun. Therefore I choose to train with a Wing Chun teacher with experience.

I am lucky that my teacher possesses a good balance of skill, ability to teach and experience.

Still leaves the conundrum, that if you are proficient enough in the system, should you teach without ever having any experience in the world of real combat, or should I say prohibiting an attempted assault.

As this is a quality I look for in a martial arts teacher. I feel I would probably refrain from teaching, if I did not possess this quality.

W

[Doug H]

My advice to anyone unsure of how effective Wing Chun can be is to spar. rules that might have been set in stone soon vanish when faced with an opponent who can move in balance, present fake attacks, attacks all gates and has good timing.
For instance the common mistake of trying to chain punch an opponent to submission as soon as they touch you is complete rubbish if your opponent is presenting a trap for you, a hole if you like that takes advantage of your reflexive reactions. good footwork and taking angles gets you out of this sort of mess.
you might want to first try chi sau whilst moving about your opponent trying to take his or her balance instead of being in a fixed position that some families adopt. then take it a stage further and very slowly attack using much more hip and shoulder work for throws, punches, kicks and locks. if you do this one step at a time you soon learn how exposed you are after making an attack, check you angle, can you be knee struck in the family jewels, can you be swept of you feet or side kicked etc? develop and strategy and then you can speed it up bit by bit.
good luck.

[BFLesley]

William, Ultimate,
Respectfully submitted:
Do either of you plan on going on to be "Sifu" (if you are allready I mean no disrespect)? And if so, hypethetically let's say neither of you have had that much experience, using W.C. in street fights. So how do you plan on going about getting the experience to truly test the reality of your Kung Fu? And are you willing to put your life on the line in a fight, to gain the really hard core experience, et al, multiple armed opponents, singular armed opponent, and so forth? And if your not willing to seek that out and experience it, then your neither one going to make a very good Sifu, in YOUR own words, you won't be able to teach effectively without the expereince. Your only going to wait for life's battles to come to you? Thats taking a crap shoot no? Unless you secretly plan on hanging out in the wrong places, the wrong neighborhoods and so forth, hoping someone will start some shiite with ya? Then in that case your back to my first thought of actually instigating something. So how do you plan on gaining YOUR experience so you can be the best Sifu possible?
I will state that for the most part I see your point and agree somewhat in theory, but, I do not feel that the lack of actual street combat experience makes a Sifu less qualified to teach W.C.
Kindest Regards,
BF Lesley

[Sihing73]

Hello,

No matter what is said some here will retain their viewpoint irregardless. While I would agree that real life experience is helpful I am not sure it should ever be the defining quality.

Lets compare two different perspectives as regards real actual combat.

The US Military does drills and trains and yet seem to do okay when actually engaged in battle. Although todays discipline in the military or lack of it is shocking to me personaly. I could not even fathom refusing an order from my superior. Yet, still they do fine once engaged in battle, even without direct combat experience.

The Russian Military, when there was a Russia , actually tested and used live fire and chemical agents on their people during excercises. As a matter of fact they also subjected civilians to nuclear testing in order to observe the effects. Did their use of real checmical agents and such, in which a good portion of their people actually DIED during excerices make them a better fighting force? Did their subjection to nuclear fallout give them a better understanding of such things than their American counterparts?

As a matter of fact, someone who has been in actual military combat is not always an ideal instructor, although many tout this experience as some sort of qualification. The needs of actual combat are quite different than those of self defense. Techniques geared for soldiers do not apply to the needs of civilians.

Now if we are talking about the AVERAGE person and their needs for self protection then IMHO, the ideal instructor would not only have the knowledge and skills of his/her chosen art, but they would have the ability to pass that knowledge onto others. They would also, idealy, have some knowledge of first aide and the legal implications of using their art on the street.

Lets be honest, most NORMAL people will be quite happy to never need to use their art in the first place. And, given todays criminal element, there is little one can train for as regards real fights. After all, most reall street encounters will be surprise attacks and often involve weapons and multiple opponents. So all the arguing about this and that don't really stack up to reality. I myself would be cautious of training with someone who pointed to their "real life" encounters as some sort of validity of their method or approach. I would wonder if I was training with some sort of psycho who seeks violence as a means of proving themselves. I would wonder if such a person had a low self image and perhaps would require me to seek out confrontation as well.

The other thing is that no one knows how they will react to a given situation until they are in it, period. No matter how much you've trained you really can't say how you'll react until the sh** hits the fan. And just because your instructor was in 1 million death matches and only lost once is no guarantee that you will be able to apply "their skills" as your own no matter how much training you have under them.

[ghostofwingchun]

Hi Ghost. Hope you don't mind me popping in for a moment.

That's a leap. While participants may "wish" to behave safely, I don't presume it's inherently true that they do. You'd also likely find a fair number of participants that have indeed been victimized in some manner.

You may be right . . . that many victims take course . . . I am only saying that in taking course in first place they are taking extra step in preparation and awareness . . . defending themselves is now in forefront of mind . . . being if forefront they will behave accordingly. . . not take chances since are more aware of chances they are taking . . . sort of like person who takes voluntary firearm safety class . . . this shows they have firearm safeety on mind . . . while class will give good info to them . . . most important is that first step of making firearm safety a priority . . . so it would not be surprising that they have less firearm accidents.

I would opt for the person who could most help me to improve. My needs and what is most helpful may change over time. One's "fencing" may even prosper thanks to someone or something unrelated to fencing on the surface.

I am saying that those not interested in fighting do not need to be concerned with their teacher's experience in that area . . . just because some teacher has fighting experience does not mean he can not also deal with other aspects of wc . . . or that one person can have more than one wc instructor . . . I am agreeing with you one hundred percent the goal is to find instructor that can help us improve . . . that is what we are talking about . . . if my goal in wc is to be very good fighter . . . and please understand I am not saying this should be true for all . . . then I want instructor that can help me improve in that area . . . and all I am saying is some one can not help me improve in an area that they do not have skill or ability in that area . . . for me this is common sense . . . how can some one teach or coach me in area they do not know?

That's an interesting comment. Would you mind expounding on it?

Regards,
- Kathy Jo

I am saying that concept is not primary . . . if we look at any martial art including wc . . . technique is primary . . . our skill is in how well we can perform our techniques . . . concepts and attributes are there to help us perform our technique . . . concept is idea to help us make techniques work . . . attributes are qualites that go into making techniques work . . . attributes and concepts are useful only in how they can help us make our techniques work . . . so in heirarchy of things going into skill technique is above concept or attribute . . . this is why I say technique is primary and concept secondary. Does this make sense to you?

Thanks,

Ghost

[william]

This is proving an interesting discussion.

Dave, you make some good points. After reading your post it makes me think that, as you say, in this day and age the main reason to practice Wing Chun is for fun, as that one time in the street may never happen. And to spend your life training for something that may never happen does perhaps seem like a waste of time. But to spend your life training in something you love is perhaps one of the best things you can do.

I guess it is a question of what you use it for. I think as a function of the many replies my opinion is changing.

Perhaps one of the best things Wing Chun will give is confidence. Their may be very little chance of experiencing real life street violence, but I guess every one has experienced, psychological/dominance issues from others (bullying, threats, big guys walking round like they own the place) and having reached a high level in Wing Chun will give the confidence to feel unthreatened by others, thus giving you a chance to live a life where fear or lack of self confidence is less apparent.

W

[Sihing73]

I am saying that those not interested in fighting do not need to be concerned with their teacher's experience in that area . . . just because some teacher has fighting experience does not mean he can not also deal with other aspects of wc . . . or that one person can have more than one wc instructor . . . I am agreeing with you one hundred percent the goal is to find instructor that can help us improve . . . that is what we are talking about . . . if my goal in wc is to be very good fighter . . . and please understand I am not saying this should be true for all . . . then I want instructor that can help me improve in that area . . . and all I am saying is some one can not help me improve in an area that they do not have skill or ability in that area . . . for me this is common sense . . . how can some one teach or coach me in area they do not know?

Thanks,

Ghost

Hello Ghost,

Perhaps we should define what you mean by Fighting or Good Fighter. Are you referring to someone good in the ring or on the street? If you are referring to the street then I would question your motives. Do you want to engage in real fights? If so then perhaps your true motivation should be re-examined.

If you are referring to the ring then I would agree that to be a good ring fighter you should train with someone with experience in that arena.

The academic world is full of people who can teach who do not necessarily have the actual experience in their subject but who prodice excellent students. How many physics teachers are able to produce excellent physicists without having direct experience working in that field?

[ghostofwingchun]

Hello Ghost,

Perhaps we should define what you mean by Fighting or Good Fighter. Are you referring to someone good in the ring or on the street? If you are referring to the street then I would question your motives. Do you want to engage in real fights? If so then perhaps your true motivation should be re-examined.

If you are referring to the ring then I would agree that to be a good ring fighter you should train with someone with experience in that arena.

The academic world is full of people who can teach who do not necessarily have the actual experience in their subject but who prodice excellent students. How many physics teachers are able to produce excellent physicists without having direct experience working in that field?

What is good basketball player . . . do we need to ask such a question . . . is it some one great on playground . . . or someone good in stadium court . . . it is someone that have basketbal skills . . . I am thinking that level of these skills is what makes basketball player good . . . they must adapt game for streetball . . . which can have lots more fouls . . . lol . . . or for college ball . . . a good boxer can box in ring or can use it in street . . . just need to adapt game . . . or to go back to fencing example . . . a good fencer is judged by how well he can handle sword and deal with foe's sword. Look . . . if I take fencing . . . I do not want to go out and slay people . . . I am not blood thirsty . . . but I may want to really fence . . . if not then this is not issue . . . but if I want to actually be able to fence well . . . and in old days I may need those skills if challenged too . . . yes piste is not back alley . . . then I need fencing abilities . . . sword handling ability will serve me in either case . . . so what I am getting at is I am thinking that skill or ability is what fighter is after . . . academic pursuit is not the same as physical pursuit . . . can you name one great coach in sport that has not played sport at decent level? You see this is my point?

Thanks,

Ghost

[Sihing73]

Hello Ghost,

I am not a big sports fan, don't even watch the Super Bowl, so no I can not name anyone who is a great coach wihtout playing the game. But I would ask you to name 5-10 great athletes who were able to play their game at the elite level and yet were still able to teach others how to do the same.

Seems to me you are focused more on the ring than the street. Given your replies, I doubt that you are seeking to go out and confront others. Many who train with that perspective are living in a fantasy world where they train and go out and slay the dragons of the world.

Is street experience a benefit, yes, but only to an extent. A thorough understanding of the law and legal conequences would be more applicable. Given that each situation is different just because your instructor was able to apply his her skills on the street does not mean you could do the same thing, even in almost the exact situation.

If you want to focus on street defense then you would probably be better off attending shortened programs which focus on specifics rather than train in any traditional art. I think that what you will find is that these course will stress mental aspects even more than physical skills, although the physical skills are still needed.

[Sihing73]

Hello William,

If the replies envoke thought then that is a good thing. No one here has a monopoly on the truth and each person needs to evaluate their own needs and reasons for training.

When I first started Wing Chun I was in the US Army. I found the training to be quite effective. At one point I actually went out and sought confrontations, I was a bit younger and not as wise as I am now . However, this was dring a different time and I would not do the same thing today nor would I encourage others to do so.

I think that the average person today trains more for the enjoyment and confidence that if they do need to use the art they will be better prepared to do so. I do not think the average person is going to have either the time nor inclination to train to prepare for ring combat nor wish to seek out people on the street to test their skills. Rather they will train for pleasure and the mental and physical aspects which will give them a better chance of surviving an actual encounter. Studies abound showing that the mental impact of attacks is often far greater and last longer than the physical effects.

Anyones training needs to address the mental consequences and legal implications in addition to the physical. Also, they must be able to apply skills in accordance with thier own body type and physical ability.

If you are lucky enough to find someone with real life experience to train you and is not an abnormal personality type, then by all means take advantage of the opportunity. However don't make that your overlying concern as to their worthiness to teach. Keep in mind that many of those with real life street fights, such as the late WSL, would not be able to do the same thing in todays legal atmosphere without going to prison. So, is someones real life experience the all determining factor of training? Unless you are seeking out underground cage fights or wondering the streets as some sort of vigilante, is such experience really needed?