Wing Chun sparring

[Ultimatewingchun]

I say yes, chase space, (the most important space) occupy and control it, then chase the body...unless you can do both all at the same time - which is even better.

For example, he gives you an opening within a very important piece of real estate, and you throw a big rear cross and knock him out.

And I agree with you too, m1k3, wing chun has its limits at close range also, ie.- it may go to clinch and there's nothing you can do about it (or perhaps nothing you should even want to do about it, because a clinch might be to your advantage)...

since you've crosstrained enough so that you're prepared for all three of the most important ranges: standup, clinch, and ground.

The only asterisk I would add is long and short range standup, ie.- the preferred wing chun range.

[m1k3]

And I agree with you too, m1k3, wing chun has its limits at close range also, ie.- it may go to clinch and there's nothing you can do about it (or perhaps nothing you should even want to do about it, because a clinch might be to your advantage)...

Victor, I wasn't commenting about Wing Chun's limits at close range as much as I was saying there are other styles that like the inside game also. So, don't assume you have an advantage just because you closed the gap.

[Yoshiyahu]

Do you have any pics or videos of you doing anything?

I do not have any vids yet. I would love to take some...Maybe when you come to STL bring your camera?

[sihing]

Very interesting so far, but what I don't understand is why you assume you will have an advantage once you have acheived your close in range? Care to trade in close with a Mike Tyson or a Joe Fraser? How about Randy Couture or Rashad Evens or any skilled Judo player? As I have said before your opponent has his say on how the game is played also.

Who's assuming anything? Plus why put pro's into the mix when we are not talking about using our skills against anyone of that calibre? It wouldn't matter what anyone here is learning or training, none of us would stand a chance in the ring or a fist fight against any of those you mention, lol (if any here did, wouldn't they be doing it?). How about we keep this about average joe's with average intent and average amounts of time to train.

It is true that your opponent has a say as well as to what will happen, that is the game or equation everyone must solve when they fight, who can play their own game and not let the other play their's.

James

[sihing]

This is precisely what I'm talking about. Range must be accompanied by leverage and energy awareness of the bridge at hand or space present.
If you get in close without the support of footwork, facing/positioning... Then most likely, you will not have a strong enough control of yourself, the bridge, or your opponant... And you will not have the time and space to nuetralize oncoming energy at the heaven, human, earth. Without even striking, your oponant can crash your techniques, bounce you, and send you flying.

James,
I'm not talking about chasing hands. By range, I'm talking about using precise measurement tools so that one can judge timing for bridging, engagement and occupying space.

By the sound of things, it seems many here may have recently adopted the "occupying space" term these days, but in HFY, when we refer to occupying space we mean "the strongest structure in space" as in "only one object can occupy one space at one time". This often refers to centerline domination, but it also comes in to play in bridging and leveraging upon engagement.

In HFY, we also have another saying... We don't chase hands, we chase space!

Good training to you all!

Hi Alex,

I think when we talk about things on the forum, it must be assumed that when we isolate a particular topic, like Range, we must unconsiously assume that everything else is included. Of course leverage and energy awareness/sensitivity (or anything else you want to mix in) is there as well, this is all a given. The problem with using presice measuring tools, is that in a fight nothing is presice. If I'm thinking about precisely measuring my tools in a fight I will lose. All this stuff is done in the training, learning how to occupy or eat space, measuring range and distance, energy awareness, bla bla bla..all for us to absorb in training and use naturally when we need it in a fight. If you complicate things too much you get caught up in the act of moving, when all it took was a fist in the face to finish the fight. Everything you have mentioned is there in most all WC, as I agree it is not only about occupying space but doing so with you having the strongest structure in place against his weakest. Great things to have on paper, not always possible in reality. The first rule is to hit, hopefully you've trained enough so that these other things fall into place naturally for you as you hit.

Simplicity is the key.

James

[sihing]

In WCK we say, "Mo Juie Sao, Juie Shen!" (Don't chase the hands, chase the body.)

Total agreement here, nice and simple. The question is when do we do that, from far away while we are kicking him to death or closer in. How is the structure and body mechanics different when one is far away or closer in, or is there a difference?

James

[m1k3]

Who's assuming anything? Plus why put pro's into the mix when we are not talking about using our skills against anyone of that calibre? It wouldn't matter what anyone here is learning or training, none of us would stand a chance in the ring or a fist fight against any of those you mention, lol (if any here did, wouldn't they be doing it?). How about we keep this about average joe's with average intent and average amounts of time to train.

It is true that your opponent has a say as well as to what will happen, that is the game or equation everyone must solve when they fight, who can play their own game and not let the other play their's.

James

Hi James, the pros were merely examples of people who have inside fighting skills and are not wing chun players. As for assuming read the posts in this thread. The discussion seems to stop once the bridge has been acheived and you have achieved inside position. I was merely pointing out that just because you have accomplished this goal it doesn't mean you have acheived a dominating position.

There are plenty of average people who train boxing or kickboxing who like the inside game and all grapplers play the inside game. Try to guess the number of people who are former high school or college wrestlers. In the US at least that can be a large number. Failure to remember this can lead to a left hook to the liver or watching the sky fly past as you are about to make violent contact with the earth. Wing Chun wants to play the inside game, and I agree, but just remember others can play that game also.

Mike.

[duende]

Hi Alex,

I think when we talk about things on the forum, it must be assumed that when we isolate a particular topic, like Range, we must unconsiously assume that everything else is included. Of course leverage and energy awareness/sensitivity (or anything else you want to mix in) is there as well, this is all a given. The problem with using presice measuring tools, is that in a fight nothing is presice. If I'm thinking about precisely measuring my tools in a fight I will lose. All this stuff is done in the training, learning how to occupy or eat space, measuring range and distance, energy awareness, bla bla bla..all for us to absorb in training and use naturally when we need it in a fight. If you complicate things too much you get caught up in the act of moving, when all it took was a fist in the face to finish the fight. Everything you have mentioned is there in most all WC, as I agree it is not only about occupying space but doing so with you having the strongest structure in place against his weakest. Great things to have on paper, not always possible in reality. The first rule is to hit, hopefully you've trained enough so that these other things fall into place naturally for you as you hit.

Simplicity is the key.

James

Hey James,

I'm not advocating thinking about precise measuring tools when fighting. That's completely missing the point of my posts.

We have a saying... "The mind understands, the body knows" A WC'ers body has to be able to express the knowledge gained during training.

However, and this is getting to the point of my previous posts... If one advocates hitting without being in the right time and space to hit... IE range, they instead will get hit.

In my experience, there exists in many WC practitioner's today, a sheer over-confidense and/or false sense of security when getting in close.

Just because you were able to close the gap, does not mean that your opponent has no more bullets in their guns.

Time and time again, I witness both first hand and in video's WC fighters get in close without realizing how truly compromised their positioning and range is. Sure, they may have achieved some inside line of attack, but it is all an illusion. As their opponent still has their COG, still has leverage, while the chunner's footwork is vulnerable, and their bridge can't even support themselves, much less generate a real hit.

Like M1k3 says, many other fighters have their inside game as well. Just because the Chunner can get off a couple shots... does not mean the game is over. Heck, we all know people who can take these shots and more. Not to mention, many fighters will jam up your execution, and basically swallow you.

Sure, we all have study WCK and use similar terms and concepts. But how we express these concepts is sometimes very different.

[Ultimatewingchun]

I believe you and I are in complete agreement here, m1k3. While I have great respect and enthusiasm for the wing chun close quarter infight striking game, I also recognize that certain boxing styles, ie.- Marciano, Tyson, Frazier, and certainly close quarter standup wrestling in the clinch, Muay Thai, judo, sambo, etc....all offer infighting tools that wing chun does not...

and in fact, these are tools that are extremely important to have at least some decent skill at doing if one wants to be a truly well rounded inside fighter.

In other words, yes, I agree that wing chun has its limitations even within the close quarter standup game.

Can this be said enough?: 21ft century fighting is all about crosstraining!

[Wayfaring]

Hey James,

I'm not advocating thinking about precise measuring tools when fighting. That's completely missing the point of my posts.

We have a saying... "The mind understands, the body knows" A WC'ers body has to be able to express the knowledge gained during training.

However, and this is getting to the point of my previous posts... If one advocates hitting without being in the right time and space to hit... IE range, they instead will get hit.

In my experience, there exists in many WC practitioner's today, a sheer over-confidense and/or false sense of security when getting in close.

Just because you were able to close the gap, does not mean that your opponent has no more bullets in their guns.

Time and time again, I witness both first hand and in video's WC fighters get in close without realizing how truly compromised their positioning and range is. Sure, they may have achieved some inside line of attack, but it is all an illusion. As their opponent still has their COG, still has leverage, while the chunner's footwork is vulnerable, and their bridge can't even support themselves, much less generate a real hit.

Like M1k3 says, many other fighters have their inside game as well. Just because the Chunner can get off a couple shots... does not mean the game is over. Heck, we all know people who can take these shots and more. Not to mention, many fighters will jam up your execution, and basically swallow you.

Sure, we all have study WCK and use similar terms and concepts. But how we express these concepts is sometimes very different.

There's a couple of things I want to add to Alex's response here specifically to do with HFY and how its trained, of course from my perspective. First, "chasing space" and "only one object can occupy space at one time". This is all framed within a structured body support. For example, with a HFY 6 gate stance, both elbows on the nipple line, structured support for inner and outer hands (man sau / wu sau) and on the centerline, nothing is going to power through that to take your centerline. Sure, movement can change that and no longer make that the centerline, then that's a different game.

Next, HFY trains structured stances and support for body parts from day one. So yes you can in a fight situation maintain your own structure which includes measurements of your body parts like your elbow being a fist away from your chest and on the nipple line. And sweeping space to clear to the upper tan tien and out to the shoulder zero line and not further which would expose your balance / facing.

So what Alex is talking about in context here with the "right time and space" to hit that doesn't just correspond to the range is that your own body alignment, structures, and facing have to be intact for this to be the right time and space. Otherwise it is just trading "lucky punches" as opposed to striking with structure and power behind it.

And while yes HFY trains this, good fighters that I have seen develop an intuition for this kind of stuff as well from other disciplines. And I'm sure other WCK disciplines get to this as well through training. Just one example - Klitschko is kind of a centerline puncher for a boxer, and from my observations he does very well at drawing his opponent in to his structured space - gets them to overextend and thus be offbalanced while he maintains his balance and structure. Klitschko strikes with the right space and time IMO more than I've seen his opponents do.

Anyway, my .02.

[m1k3]

Who's assuming anything? Plus why put pro's into the mix when we are not talking about using our skills against anyone of that calibre? It wouldn't matter what anyone here is learning or training, none of us would stand a chance in the ring or a fist fight against any of those you mention, lol (if any here did, wouldn't they be doing it?). How about we keep this about average joe's with average intent and average amounts of time to train.

It is true that your opponent has a say as well as to what will happen, that is the game or equation everyone must solve when they fight, who can play their own game and not let the other play their's.

James

James, I had a chance to think about your "average joes" comment. Anybody who has trained a couple of hours a week for 6 months or so is no longer an average joe. Your average joe doesn't train and doesn't have even basic fighting skills. I am willing to bet that the majority of us who post here are in the top 20 or 30 percent of the population when it comes to fighting skills. Just like the people who like to jog or run. Even a casual jogger who only does a couple of hours a week of running is in MUCH better shape than your average joe.

So even if you are at the low end of the training spectrum when it comes to martial arts you are still much better than your average joe.

Comments anyone?

[Katsu Jin Ken]

I do not have any vids yet. I would love to take some...Maybe when you come to STL bring your camera?

ya i might get to STL in acouple months. If your in Southwest MO let me know.

[Yoshiyahu]

ya i might get to STL in acouple months. If your in Southwest MO let me know.

Good when you get here you can teach me some submission wrestling...anyway hit me up with a private pm...i give you my information so you can look me up.

[duende]

There's a couple of things I want to add to Alex's response here specifically to do with HFY and how its trained, of course from my perspective. First, "chasing space" and "only one object can occupy space at one time". This is all framed within a structured body support. For example, with a HFY 6 gate stance, both elbows on the nipple line, structured support for inner and outer hands (man sau / wu sau) and on the centerline, nothing is going to power through that to take your centerline. Sure, movement can change that and no longer make that the centerline, then that's a different game.

Next, HFY trains structured stances and support for body parts from day one. So yes you can in a fight situation maintain your own structure which includes measurements of your body parts like your elbow being a fist away from your chest and on the nipple line. And sweeping space to clear to the upper tan tien and out to the shoulder zero line and not further which would expose your balance / facing.

So what Alex is talking about in context here with the "right time and space" to hit that doesn't just correspond to the range is that your own body alignment, structures, and facing have to be intact for this to be the right time and space. Otherwise it is just trading "lucky punches" as opposed to striking with structure and power behind it.

And while yes HFY trains this, good fighters that I have seen develop an intuition for this kind of stuff as well from other disciplines. And I'm sure other WCK disciplines get to this as well through training. Just one example - Klitschko is kind of a centerline puncher for a boxer, and from my observations he does very well at drawing his opponent in to his structured space - gets them to overextend and thus be offbalanced while he maintains his balance and structure. Klitschko strikes with the right space and time IMO more than I've seen his opponents do.

Anyway, my .02.

Thanks Dave for your kind words,

And I agree with you, core body mechanics like the one's you've described go beyond styles and transcend across disciplines. It is not about HFY, although being a practitioner, that is what I use to describe what I'm talking about.

What it is about is just pure physics. Knowing how to generate power, maintain power, without running away, looping, etc... Knowing what makes a hit a real hit... and not some artificial drill that falls apart in reality.

Being able to withstand crashing energy doesn't necessarily mean using force against force.

Good training to all

[iwingchun]

Hello,

i found a web page with many videos, wing chun sparring here
http://www.wing-chun.ws/index.php?op...ing-&Itemid=58

Just take a look!!