I have noticed over the years that a lot of people have problems seperating drills (usually used for development) and actual practicallity of ving tsun/wing chun techniques for use in a street fight etc.
What are other peoples thoughts?
I have noticed over the years that a lot of people have problems seperating drills (usually used for development) and actual practicallity of ving tsun/wing chun techniques for use in a street fight etc.
What are other peoples thoughts?
I think competition has a role but not neccessarily a determining factor in one's ability with regards to self defense. Would a sport shooter fair better than a green beret? Would an Indy 500 racing champion fair better than a cop in a neighbourhood car chase? Would your champion toast master win the election for US presidency?
Maybe they would...but at the same time, many would also fail too. Too many variables to say for sure.
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Full contact competition against an opponent whom you don't know and who is trying as hard as he can to hurt you is vital to effective self-defense training (and just one of the many variables neglected by the "self-defense" crowd).
There aren't any other controlled situations that can give you close to the same adrenaline dump you are going to get in a street/self-defense fight. Being able to perform under the stress of that adrenaline dump is one of the factors of effective street/self-defense training.
Last edited by Knifefighter; 06-29-2009 at 05:07 PM.
Ya the options are certainly limited. I agree with that. There's gotta be a way to drill against a resistant partner..ya? Without having to go into a sparring situation - perhaps as a bridging mechanism to introduce the person into the sparring setting..
I have "sparred" with mma guys. I've sparred with mma guys who are hardcore at it and those who are like me - 6 hours a week, on and off, casual training. Of course, the hardcore guys are..well..hardcore. But the guys at my level were so-so and it was an eye opener for all of us, given the popularity of mma. I think drills have their place, as with sparring. But again, both are pieces of the puzzle, not the all encompassing solution.
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One of the ways we used to try and ramp up the adrenaline/unpredictability level in partner drills was to do "eyes closed drills."
Stand facing your partner, an arm's length from their body.
Agree on what the drill/training situation will be.
Both of you stand casually, relaxed, arms at your sides.
One person closes their eyes, readies themselves ("empties their mind"), opens their eyes, and reacts to their partner.
The other person pays close attention to the moment their partner opens their eyes. This is like their starter's pistol.
When they see their partner open their eyes, they launch an attack according to the agreed drill/situation.
Generally, it's a good idea to start with simple, single attacks. Then a gradual progression into full force attacks, combo attacks or different scenarios can happen.
This drill helps ramp up the pressure because you're being attacked the moment you open your eyes, and don't have time to consciously process the scene. It significantly trains and develops the reaction response of the right side of the brain, and depending on the level of training, trains the left side as well.
As with any training, there is always the caveat that training does not equal actual experience. This drill, however, went a long way to helping me bring relevance to my previous training, if for no other reason that I quickly learned not to "plan" moves, working with the reality of the situation instead.
P.S. As the level of pressure and realism goes up, so does the level of risk. We had a saying:
"If you break your partner, you don't get another one, so take care of the one you have."
Last edited by Xiao3 Meng4; 06-29-2009 at 06:40 PM.
"It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own." -Cicero
I forgot to give an example of an agreed upon drill. Here's one:
When their partner opens their eyes, the attacker, from a hands-at-sides-position, will attack with EITHER fist to ANY region of the upper gate. The defender will attempt to block and then counterstrike.
This ups the unpredictability nicely.
"It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own." -Cicero
Not sparring... competitive, full-contact fighting against guys you don't know who are trying as hard as they can to hurt you as badly as they can.
Training in the comfort of your studio will never come close to the adrenaline dump you will get by competing in full-contact venues.
Last edited by Knifefighter; 06-29-2009 at 07:57 PM.
To me it seems at times that people take developmental drills too seriously and take these drills in their entirety to the fighting arena almost as if they get tunnel vision from focusing too much on the drills in my opinion. Then needless to say their drils usually don't work or may for only a little peice of the pie.
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You often hear from the fantasy guys that "this is for street, not sport" (one of the many give-aways that you are dealing with a fantasy guy), and a commonly held MYTH among people who don't fight is that sport is somehow a lesser form of training. In reality, it's just the opposite. The sport model, which includes competition, has PROVED itself to be a much, much superior from of training than anything else. Sport has and continues to produce world-class level fighters, continually expanding levels of performance, etc.
I do agree very much so however the training of some of the eye gouging, leg destruction kicks (as in straight to the knee) etc. which is part of VT/WC as well as other arts can also save your ass in street though that is also only part of the pie at the end of the day but nothing to be left out in my opinion.
In my experience, most of that stuff -- the eye gouging, leg destructions, etc. -- is low-percentage, high-risk stuff that generally isn't reliable. Anyone who depends on that stuff as part of their game is training to fail.
Most of these things simply can't be trained realistically (you can't really eye gouge or break your sparring partner's leg), and because you can't train them realistically, you can't develop the ability to use them under realistic conditions (in fighting). They can only be practiced under unrealistic (nonfighting) conditions. That is the advantage of sport training: you can really do/practice those things you do in the sport.
And while "foul tactics" can be used effectively in limited situations, the ability to use them depends on having solid fundamentals (the non-foul stuff). Once again, the stuff comes from sport-type training.