Throws you often find useful in your wing chun

[Sihing73]

Hello,

Being that Wing Chun Forms are conceptual in nature, one can argue for there being throws within the system.
The Gum Sau movements in the SNT, where you press downward alongside your body just after the first section.
You could conceivably use the energy there, the press downward to develop into a throw. You have to use a little imagination but it is there, at least to my eyes.

Having said that, I find many of the "throws" I utilize are really more like foot sweeps. I place my leg as an obstruction and try to make my opponent fall over them. I do not, usually, actively try to sweep someone in the conventional sense. I tend to incorporate things from my Silat training. My big thing is to not use power or strength (as I have neither ) but allow my body to be the obstruction which causes my opponent to fall. Then again, in Silat there is a concept we refer to as a table. This is where when you do drop your opponent you try to drop him into a knee or the like so he feels the impact.

Wing Chun is not a "throwing" art. However, I do believe that one can very easily incorporate foot sweeps into the system without violating any of the principles. Now if you start adding in Hip Throws, Shoulder Throws and the like you are, IMHO, doing something other than Wing Chun because you will have stepped outside of the conceptual framework of the system. Mainly because in those types of throws you need to give your opponent your back for them to be applied, if even only for a moment. This would violate the concept of using the centerline. But, having said that, I would also like to point out that Wing Chun is an eclectic system developed from several different arts as as a result we should keep in mind that as our needs grow and change then perhaps our art may as well. If you find that you can utilize and apply a Hip Throw, for example, then do it as long as you can maintain your own structure and not sacrifice something in the doing.

[Vajramusti]

As the title, what throws do you often find to be useful in your wing chun, or in combination if they are not from wing chun?

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When one develops control over one's wing chun motions- your opponent(s) can show you what to do- including throwing
when the opportunity is there.

[Grumblegeezer]

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When one develops control over one's wing chun motions- your opponent(s) can show you what to do- including throwing
when the opportunity is there.

Well put, Joy.

WC/VT/WT is said to be a complete system. According to a traditional TCMA perspective, that would mean thet it addresses Ti, Da, Shuai, Na or kicking, hitting, throwing and locking. Not all equally of course, but nevertheless it does encompass all four combative aspects to some degree.

WC is built from seed techniques such as tan, bong, and fook, from which a nearly infinite number of solutions or applications may emerge as needed. IMO a good understanding of WC demands divergent thinking -- at least at the higher levels. Instead, some sifus and organizations encourage slavish conformity and cult like dogmatism. Or at least that's the impression some of their students give!

Divergent thinking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking

[kung fu fighter]

About 20 years ago, a wing chun sifu by the name of Robert Debreen wrote a great article in inside kung fu on the hidden swai jao throws in the wing chun forms. if anyone knows the link pleas post it.

[Paddington]

[...]
The Gum Sau movements in the SNT, where you press downward alongside your body just after the first section.
You could conceivably use the energy there, the press downward to develop into a throw. You have to use a little imagination but it is there, at least to my eyes.
[...]

A good post, thanks.

On the bit I quote, now I might not be as experienced as some here but I've found other movements beyond gum sau to really help develop a throw or offset a person's balance to the extent that a foot in the way (trip) or a more active movement (sweep), will floor an opponent. For example, the folding movement of jip sau in chum kui or a tok sau with one hand and a jut/jum or small lap with another, particularly when performed on a turn with the hip leading the movement, works wonders. This simultaneous push and pull on an opponent really helps unsettle their balance.

[Buddha_Fist]

I read throws being hidden in the forms, that to find them you need to use your imagination, that you could possibly interpret BJ's circling steps as sweeps, etc... Does this really sound like a sophisticated system of throws and/or grappling? Any practitioner of BJJ, Judo, Wrestling, etc. would just quietly shake his head and walk away...

Ving Tsun is a Chinese Boxing method. Use it as it was intended. If you want to expand your game in the throws & grappling realm, go to the pros in such things (BJJ, Judo, Wrestling, etc.!); don't waste your time with dilettant attempts of imagining such things in Ving Tsun. Perfecting your Ving Tsun boxing is already hard enough...

[LFJ]

I agree, Buddha_Fist. "Hidden" application really means "forcibly contrived".

Those who do this kind of thing either haven't learned the actual function of the actions, or they are just too attached to their Wing Chun and wish it were a "well-rounded" system. I think anyone serious about their fighting skills will do as you suggest and either just keep training Wing Chun alone or go to the experts in other fields rather than pull things out their asses and say it was there, hidden all along.

[EternalSpring]

I suck at throws, and I still haven't had a good chance to learn them well yet, but I do have a bunch of takedowns that I use. Some of them may be considered Ving Tsun takedowns in their own right, my sisook once showed me how he took down people with his Ving Tsun, but I didn't really understand what he was doing until getting the opportunity of drilling takedowns while cross training in Penjak Silat.

Biset Luar - The person I cross trained with actually learned from the sifu in this video, and I find it to be a trustworthy explanation.


Biset Dalam - This is basically redirecting a strike and sweeping out the lead foot of the opponent and moving in to attack. It doesn't take em down like biset luar, but it breaks their base and if you can pull it off right it does make the other person fall back just because of how they get uprooted.

Poora - Think about hitting someone with a back fist to the neck/head and using that momentum to somewhat grab the neck and pull the guy's head down while controlling one arm so you kinda twist him upside down. That's the best I can explain it at the moment, but it's a common move in many martial arts.

There were also one other silat takedown that I use sometimes, but not often. I dont know the name for it but it's basically getting wrist control (optimally with both hands) and stepping far past the opponent into a bow stance/gong ji mah. The sudden drop happening behind the opponents body brings him down fast and if you whip the arm up right after it's easy to set up an arm bar silat or bjj style.

There are also some ways I learned to take down in Ving Tsun but I think are common in other arts

One is really similar to aikido (according to my friend) but it's basically a takedown where, lets say, you pak or parry a jab from the outside and just use your body and weight to kinda swing your other arm on the inside (in between his arms) around his shoulder area downwards.

One takedown is one where the set up is having a grab on one arm from the outside while doing a back fist or any move that puts your kiu/bridge across the front of the person's neck. Then you just pull the arm that you're holding while using the other arm to kinda push across the neck while shifting to the side and adding downward pressure with the arm across the neck. Sometimes, especially with people bigger than me, my shift will break their base but not take them down, that's where I follow with my staple takedown...

...where the goal is to do a fast but soft kick to the back of the thigh/hamstrings area using the side of my foot. Then I slide down and my foot rests at the knee cap above the calve, from here I just step down, (not to be confused with kicking the back of the knee). It's the one way of taking someone down that I can demonstrate on anyone (well unless the guy can just kick my ass, i need a fighting chance lol). I've never done this just because it would be to rough for the way I spar, but once the knee of the opponent is brought down, this take down can technically be a throw because you can just slam the body down into the ground by sinking and applying pressure to the shoulders/torso. At the angle you end up in, it's unlikely that the other person can resist any pressure to their broken structure and bent body.

I really want to train some Judo and Shuai Jiao to get familiar with the art of throwing, I think it's so cool but I dont know it at all except when learning a hip throw in a brazilian jiu jitsu class, and that was one day and I still suck at it lol.

[Paddington]

I read throws being hidden in the forms, that to find them you need to use your imagination, that you could possibly interpret BJ's circling steps as sweeps, etc... Does this really sound like a sophisticated system of throws and/or grappling? Any practitioner of BJJ, Judo, Wrestling, etc. would just quietly shake his head and walk away...

Ving Tsun is a Chinese Boxing method. Use it as it was intended. If you want to expand your game in the throws & grappling realm, go to the pros in such things (BJJ, Judo, Wrestling, etc.!); don't waste your time with dilettant attempts of imagining such things in Ving Tsun. Perfecting your Ving Tsun boxing is already hard enough...

I agree, Buddha_Fist. "Hidden" application really means "forcibly contrived".

Those who do this kind of thing either haven't learned the actual function of the actions, or they are just too attached to their Wing Chun and wish it were a "well-rounded" system. I think anyone serious about their fighting skills will do as you suggest and either just keep training Wing Chun alone or go to the experts in other fields rather than pull things out their asses and say it was there, hidden all along.

Thanks for these posts, they have indeed given me pause for thought so sorry to Faux Newbie if I necessarily go off topic slightly.


Upon reflection most of what you both say comes from a particular perspective and attitude to wing chun which also, at least in the case of LFJ, cautions against taking movements from forms and mapping them one-to-one onto an application, even when it is stressed that other applications and uses for said movements are available.

First, I don't think it is the case of anything being hidden and I do think wing chun is a complete martial art in the sense of a set of training methods and ideas. Speaking from my own training and view of wing chun, often it is not the case of finding hidden moves but rather performing moves in chi sau, sparring or other scenarios, stuff that comes up in the moment, and asking where in wing chun's training method, which includes form work, can I find movements to refine what just worked in the heat of the moment via partner training.

To give one of my own examples. In one training session I found my self in the position of having a double arm contact on my opponent's right arm on the outside which I quickly took advantage of, by performing a double lap sau to the right side of my body around hip level whilst stepping back with the right leg. I ended up with my opponents arm locked out and lining up with his shoulder and the side of his body and on a tze M seen very much to my advantage, so I thrust his arm very much like in the pole form (biu kwun) and found I could send him a mile. I also found that when we played with the possibilities, I could use a biu kwun with little bit of a dang kwun motion to put his face and body into the ground.

Of course when I did these movements in the heat of the moment I did not have these terms, the Chinese ones, in mind. However I did immediately ask myself, where in the forms and the solo training methods can I practice and refine these movements? For me the double lap I decided to train via one of the knife forms, tor dao, and the latter movements as already disclosed I decided to refine and practice from a pole form. Doing this, IMO, is different from taking the forms and seeing applications or even saying there are hidden techniques. It is, at least for me, more the case of seeing wing chun as a method and a comprehensive method at that.

Yes, I think it does help to cross train and have experience elsewhere but I always find myself coming back to wing chun and firmly remaining rooted here. This is because when I ask myself, where in the wing chun method and solo exercises can I train these moments learnt from other disciplines, I always find good answers that help me to improve. This includes improving both trips and sweeps.

[Buddha_Fist]

I think you can end up doing many things in sparring that do not exist in Ving Tsun, mostly because they do not fit within the framework of strategies and body mechanics of Ving Tsun. Instead of trying to find them in your Ving Tsun, I think it's a better use of your limited training time if you focus on translating the skill set developed through your Ving Tsun into sparring. That way when you spar it actually looks like Ving Tsun and not a like a bad version of Kickboxing (not that it does in your particular case, but you can see the point). This alone requires a lot of hard work, progressive layering in the development of skills, and both an honest and technical examination of what you do when sparring and how it is supported by the drills (forms, Chi-Sao, heavy bag, focus mitts, etc.). It's a never ending cycle of hard work by evaluating your skills through sparring and going back to the drawing board (drills) to reinvent yourself. You are constantly sharpening your knife..

[LFJ]

And when things in the forms don't quite resemble certain applications people think or want to be there, then they alter the movements to look more like the techniques they imagine, likely because they didn't have a full understanding of why things were done they way they were in the first place. In doing so they lose the original purpose and value of the system and are left with a collection of applications and perhaps a new branch of Wing Chun, which should actually be considered a different style if the essence is changed such to where very different kinds of fighters are being developed through it, which is the case in a few examples I can think of.

[LFJ]

By the way, we must also remember an action doesn't have to be found within the forms in order to fit within Wing Chun fighting. So, we don't have foot sweeps in the forms, but they are effective and uncompromising to oneself and one's Wing Chun. If the forms give us the conceptual framework of the system and training tools to develop our individual habits, and we can use a foot sweep within those principles in fighting then it's all good.

Remember how the others blamed WSL for using a non-Wing Chun movement when he kneed someone in the head? He countered saying he used the principle of nearest weapon to the nearest target. So, not doing foot sweeps because they aren't found in the forms I think is expecting there to be applications in the forms, at least in the sense that they contain all attacks we'd use. I think that's looking at it incorrectly.

But also, there's no need to relate something we did in sparring or fighting back to something in the forms in order to work on it. We can simply incorporate foot sweeps into various partner drills and just train it like that.

[Buddha_Fist]

Agreed. Being there no throws or grappling in Ving Tsun doesn't mean that you cannot train them. Personally, I would love to do so and would go to an expert for it (BJJ, Luta Livre, Judo, etc.).

Now, recognizing that one has only so much time available to train, the dilemma becomes whether you want to invest the time you have to become as good as you can in a single martial art or split the time among several martial arts (achieving inevitably lesser results in them, albeit broadening your horizon). I think that some notion of throws and grappling learned the proper way is a good thing.

[Paddington]

I am not unique in approaching wing chun like that and whilst you agree amongst yourselves that throws, trips and sweeps are 'not there' or 'worth the time' to train, I have a different opinion.

[LFJ]

I never said they aren't worth the time, but there are certainly no throws in the forms I do. As far as training time and goals, I think most can get by with something like a basic knowledge of street BJJ then dedicate themselves to WC. After a certain level, BJJ becomes superfluous unless facing skilled practitioners in a sportive environment, which I'm not into. For most self-defense situations, solid standup and some familiarity with ground fighting is enough. Depends on your goals. I think an expert punch is worth a thousand throws.