The Thinking Man's Art

[Grumblegeezer]

Thinking is useful in designing one's training. That would be how techniques that support each other （and thus bring out principles) become habit.

Once fighting, thinking is a liability most of the time. If your training doesn't prepare, then hope for luck and take advantage of it.

This is true of every real style.

I agree completely.

Other than that I have no interest in reviving the old arguments on this thread about social class and all that rubbish. I will say that all the great coaches I've ever known where really smart guys. Not necessarily educated, intellectual, or upper class, ...but just really smart. And there's truth in the old axiom, "Don't just train hard, train smart". This applies to every sport and MA I know, not just WC.

[KPM]

I agree completely.

Other than that I have no interest in reviving the old arguments on this thread about social class and all that rubbish. I will say that all the great coaches I've ever known where really smart guys. Not necessarily educated, intellectual, or upper class, ...but just really smart. And there's truth in the old axiom, "Don't just train hard, train smart". This applies to every sport and MA I know, not just WC.

Yes. Please do ignore all the other rubbish on this thread. I meant only to revive the idea that Wing Chun is a "thinking man's art." People are free to interpret that simple statement any way they want!

[JPinAZ]

I agree completely.

Other than that I have no interest in reviving the old arguments on this thread about social class and all that rubbish. I will say that all the great coaches I've ever known where really smart guys. Not necessarily educated, intellectual, or upper class, ...but just really smart. And there's truth in the old axiom, "Don't just train hard, train smart". This applies to every sport and MA I know, not just WC.

I agree, that a teacher should most likely have to have a good amount of intelligence to be able understand the deeper ideas of the art, as well as be able to construct good ways for various types of people from different walks of life to learn and be able to use the art in an efficient amount of time.

That said, I don't think you necessarily have to be an overly smart and/or educated person to be able to just learn to use the art of WC. There is a difference between becoming a teacher of an art and just a practitioner of an art. What is needed to be a fighter/practitioner is hard work ethic, some natural abilities/attributes & coordination, heart, proper temperament, and of course a good teacher. Intelligence can help, but isn't a pre requisite to just be able to fight with the art.

[Faux Newbie]

I agree, that a teacher should most likely have to have a good amount of intelligence to be able understand the deeper ideas of the art, as well as be able to construct good ways for various types of people from different walks of life to learn and be able to use the art in an efficient amount of time.

That said, I don't think you necessarily have to be an overly smart and/or educated person to be able to just learn to use the art of WC. There is a difference between becoming a teacher of an art and just a practitioner of an art. What is needed to be a fighter/practitioner is hard work ethic, some natural abilities/attributes & coordination, heart, proper temperament, and of course a good teacher. Intelligence can help, but isn't a pre requisite to just be able to fight with the art.

Definitely. Also, there's different sorts of intelligence, so sometimes the people who seem intelligent in one way are almost hopeless in others.

[anerlich]

I'm resurrecting this old contentious thread, well, because at least Danny agrees with me!


http://www.wingchunbrotherhood.com/b...king-mans-art/

Danny seems to have travelled around a bit and met a whole lot of people who have similar interests to him. He's going to see them as intelligent thinkers, perhaps because they are, but also possibly because of confirmation bias (look it up if you don't know - you're a thinking person - let's not be sexist like Danny and Robert (j/k) ).

Many of my BJJ training buds know about biohacking and Dave Asprey, though most of them became aware of it through Tim Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Body". I've been listening to some of DA's podcasts. There's some dispute about his opinions, most notably about coffee. My BJJ training buds and Dave Asprey, however, are thinking men and women ... even though not practitioners of Wing Chun - and would seek more opinions.

Suspending judgement for a moment about whether "thinking man" and "detoxifying the pineal gland" actually belong in the same sentence, and though I prefer my dreams lucid rather than spiritual (though I'll take a mix), I haven't heard about the apple cider vinegar trick before and might give it a shot.

[tc101]

Thinking is useful in designing one's training. That would be how techniques that support each other （and thus bring out principles) become habit.

Once fighting, thinking is a liability most of the time. If your training doesn't prepare, then hope for luck and take advantage of it.

This is true of every real style.

I really wonder if this is true. I think what really is useful in designing your training is experience. Without the experience what would your basis for thinking about things be? What I mean is you can think all you want about how to train as a boxer but the guys who have done it who have that experience pretty much have already figured it out. If I want to get fit I go train with a personal fitness instructor someone with experience in training fitness.

The other part of your view I wonder about also. My experience is most fighters are thinking when they fight or spar. They are thinking about how to beat the other guy. It's a lot like driving some times you are on auto pilot sometimes your are very focused sometimes you are thinking sometimes you are pure reaction and so forth all depending on the situation.

[Faux Newbie]

I really wonder if this is true. I think what really is useful in designing your training is experience. Without the experience what would your basis for thinking about things be? What I mean is you can think all you want about how to train as a boxer but the guys who have done it who have that experience pretty much have already figured it out. If I want to get fit I go train with a personal fitness instructor someone with experience in training fitness.

The other part of your view I wonder about also. My experience is most fighters are thinking when they fight or spar. They are thinking about how to beat the other guy. It's a lot like driving some times you are on auto pilot sometimes your are very focused sometimes you are thinking sometimes you are pure reaction and so forth all depending on the situation.

On the first part, experience is vital. But, each student, in boxing or otherwise, often elects aspects of what sort of fighter they choose to be. In designing training, there needs to be objectivity, and some sort of lab to make sure that you are getting actual results, not just imagining them. Experience needs to provide feedback. So, in designing training for myself, sometimes I may be drilling something to deal with something that comes up a lot in sparring certain people. Sometimes it may come from theorizing and testing. Nothing wrong with theorizing as long as you are testing. Additionally, you cannot count on teachers to have figured it all out, everyone has what they are strong at teaching and what they are not. The reality is good boxing coaches are a tiny minority of all boxing coaches, but even the good ones leave room for the boxer to find what sort of boxer they are, and that requires shaping their training. I don't think all champions are made by following what is, but by trying to be ahead of the curve, so I see value beyond what others do.

On the second part, I think you are right, thinking does occur during a fight or sparring session, but the thinking shouldn't be what move you are hoping to apply, but about how what the other person is doing effects one's plan. If they are hopeless, the feints and tricks you might normally use may not be necessary, if they are very skilled, it also may change things. But, as far as technique, once it is time to apply, if the technique isn't drilled into your habit, thought does nothing to help. So, thought on the game is natural, but only if training time was spent entraining what is useful in this fight will technique consistently work, thought has little to do with that. Nonetheless, I don't see this as an absolute. Sometimes an idea may come up in the fight that involves technique that has not been drilled that way, and it may work. But it's way more likely to occur if the rest of your technique and responses are well entrained.