Terrence,
It can't be better said than by your own Sifu:
Originally Posted by chusauli
The Cleveland, Ohio wing chun get-together was my idea, and it took place in May, 2003. A wing chun sifu from that city whose student used to post here volunteered his school for the weekend - and it was arranged.
But you should know that at that time this forum was in complete chaos in terms of wing chun lineage squabbling - and there were also numerous wing chunners posting day-after-day trying to counter some others (such as myself) who were constantly talking about the need to do real contact sparring.
I was simply trying to get people down to first base, (ie.- a wing chun get-together that was not going to be just some forms, chi sao, demos, and lots of talk, talk, talk)...
and so this was going to be a wing chun-only get together for actual sparring (and it did include contact sparring with protective gear)...
and even though the turnout was small, the weekend went pretty well, as far as it goes.
BUT IT WAS HARD ENOUGH TO EVEN GET THAT GOING - since there were plenty of people who didn't want to come if it did include contact sparring with headshots, etc.
So I knew that if it became a completely "open" affair the wing chun turnout would have been even smaller.
Was hoping that the idea would take off - and then at some point down the road we could have started inviting other stylists as well. And I made that clear on my posts as well.
Tried to follow it up about 6-7 months later with another get-together at my school here in Brooklyn at the time - but my landlord started giving me problems (she wouldn't fully commit to allowing us to have the room exclusively for an entire day - much less a whole weekend)...
so I had to cancel it.
Last edited by Ultimatewingchun; 06-11-2009 at 06:36 PM.
It appears little has changed. Well, leave or learn to love the chaos, I guess.But you should know that at that time this forum was in complete chaos
My BJJ teacher teaches Muay Thai with some other Asian kickboxing blends in there as well. Every 6 months or so another local school, run by a former ranked MT fighter (also a blue belt under my BJJ teacher) has an open sparring day at his MT school where guys can come and spar a few rounds, and several schools in the city turn up.
There's no lineage wars, some school pride but little rivalry and no bad blood, everyone gets a little medal for participation, everyone goes home having learned something, minor bruises at worst but usually just a feeling of satisfaction.
Not much of this in TCMA or WC at least.
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It's all good, Victor. Getting together and mixing it up is good intentions. Organizing it is difficult. People make it or not. When it happens it's good times.
Somehow all the mouthy people over at Bullshido seem to pull of this concept - they do the mega-throwdowns once a year and localized ones get organized too. They have smaller turnout even at megas and smaller ones may be just 3-4 people. But they happen.
It seems that this group of mouthy people is unequal to that task. I don't know why.