OODA Loop

[anerlich]

A great article on a concept I was introduced to by John Will, a 5th degree BJJ black belt who gives regular seminars all around the world.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/09/15/ooda-loop/

How does this apply to Wing Chun and your training?

Is Wing Chun enough? Should we be doing multiple styles? JKD? MMA?

[boxerbilly]

That is a great article.

I can not answer the WC question. I have never learned WC. From a visual perspective I can see it's strengths and weaknesses. That is from my perspective of course.


I do not think there is anything wrong with going outside your style to learn. I also don't think their is anything wrong with being a die hard traditionalist if that is what one decides and I am actually glad we have people that want to keep the original art as they learned it, at least, in tact.
Having that may one day prove useful again. But, if it is gone we can not really go back and draw from it accurately.

Thanks. Great article.

Edit- Let me answer the WC question but substitute boxing for it. For the most part, out the ring boxing worked for me. But in a word. NO. Not enough. And I would be at a sever disadvantage against any art that understood boxing strengths and weaknesses in say a ring or whatever. I'd bet against me. But I also think Rousy would kill Mayweather so there.

Come to think of it. And I know no one here. I do not think there is a person here that could beat her in the ring.

[mawali]

Not a wing chun adept but the OODA loop is a continuum. It can be applied to many events (life included) as you are forever dealing with external <stuff>
The better one is trained, conditioned, etc the better they are able to deal with these externals. Specifically, for CMA, etc one has to train rationally for the full extent of how to react, when to react, is this a feint, false flag, bullsh*t, etc and act accordingly with minimal response. Of course, if the other is coming full force, then you react accordingly because those kinds of people do not respect the law.

[JPinAZ]

That is a great article.

I can not answer the WC question. I have never learned WC. From a visual perspective I can see it's strengths and weaknesses. That is from my perspective of course.

Woahh, hold on, I'm confused. You said in another thread you spent 50 grand for your training (implying it was in WC given the context at that point in the discussion). And, you present yourself as having a knowledge of the system (and I think somewhere yo mentioned 15 years in training?). Add to that many strong opinions about what it and it's teachers can, can't, should or shouldn't do. But now you are saying you've never even learned the art?!?

[boxerbilly]

Woahh, hold on, I'm confused. You said in another thread you spent 50 grand for your training (implying it was in WC given the context at that point in the discussion). And, you present yourself as having a knowledge of the system (and I think somewhere yo mentioned 15 years in training?). Add to that many strong opinions about what it and it's teachers can, can't, should or shouldn't do. But now you are saying you've never even learned the art?!?

No, I never wrote anywhere I studied WC or any kung fu. Yes, I was active in MA from 13-27. Then semi for a couple of more before I walked away all together for a couple of years. Came back and studied a Pekiti for a short period of time , then decided this is all bull**** again. But I still hit the bags, and roadwork and shadow boxed. Sort of never stopped that until I got injured. Then everything came to a screeching halt. Somewhere in there I spent a decade investigating and training when able because not many would do it WW2 combatives because I believed strongly in that methodology. I had reached a point where if it took years to make something work it was worthless so why are we doing this? What was the objective ? I could care less about art , theories and all that. Did it work ? Sort of like MMA. High percentage techniques. All the things every art has but tend to down play their practice for safety , you know, foul blows.

As I got older I came to realize that was foolish for myself. I did not want to kill or cripple anyone. 10 years had passed without being in any real confrontation. I then realized, all that stuff was worthless if I avoided trouble, kept my mouth shut, etc. Basically I grew up or got old, You decide!

Having spent most of my life with serious interest in combat arts , well like the other thread. I am a martial hobbiest.

Boxing. Wrestling. ITF. Isshin Ryu and Shaolin Kenpo. Pekiti but I really do not count Pekiti because I just did not do it very long. I could not picture myself stabbing people or cracking them with sticks. I mainly did it because my friend was the Guru and he talked me into it.

Sorry for the confusion. I thought everyone more or less knew I was not kung fu.

I am pushing 50 by the way. Not some young kid that come here to put anyone down or say my way it the right way. Here to discuss . I am very opinionated but always open to others ideas. Other than that I am very sincere. When I say something I mean it. If I have done something I will say so. If I am going to do something, I will continue until I reach the goal. I tend to get what I want. Except money, I just do not have enough yet. If I am dabbling that is more experimenting to see if it is right, wrong or a possible.

[boxerbilly]

Perhaps you assumed I was WC because I had/have such enthusiasm to see it do well against other arts ? Truthfully, I feel this way about all arts now.
Street or ring. Make them work. If you do not know how, find who does and bother his ass until he decided to give you what you want to get you off his back! It works. But leave him with the better end of the deal when possible. That's being honorable. Plus I tend to like people. All people. If they help me I go out of my way to pay them back whenever possible. So be like that and the doors will open I guess.

The other way is to be a disciple. I aint no ones slave!

[robertdreeben]

Great article that everyone should read. In fact the OODA Loop is part of the NYPD's three days 20K training that all members are mandated to attend.

How it relates to Wing Chun is not as important as to how the concept and principle would relate to any human endeavor, imo. What I think is a great study is how "Hicks Law" does relate to Wing Chun and other martial arts. Take Tony Blauer and his "Spear System" for example. Most people either love him or hate him. His spear system is based off of Hicks Law and Tony has made a fortune selling it to the law enforcement/military/martial arts community for well over 20 years....so he must be doing something right. Essentially the "spear point" of his system is basically a simple and sensible entry technique that works with the body's flinch/fear reaction channeling it into a simple movement to work any martial art from that point of entry.

The "Little Idea" of Hick's Law is: the more choices a human being has the slower his reaction time will be when, under pressure he has to make a choice. Conversely, the less choices he has the faster his reaction time to make and implement a decision. In Wing Chun we have one punch and one kick. We have Three hands- Tan, Bon and Fook. Applied properly there's not a whole lot to think about; throw your hands out with a better structure than the opponent's[centerline], engage his hands and move forward with continuous "Chung Chi" replacing one hand with another flowing around the enemy's resistance and tension. Everything else happens with reflex sensitivity running on auto pilot . Hands deal with hands legs deal with legs. When you drive a car again three main elements: steering, brake and gas. You don't have to think about turning, stomping or stepping you do it as the need arises. How do you develop this skill in WC and driving? Lots of chi sao with different people and hours behind the wheel.

Wing Chun was made to be very user friendly only AFTER the student learns the COMPLETE curriculum...and then applies it properly. Wing Chun employs "elbow in technology" driven forward with the body behind it. Thats the only way it works. Don't blame the system, blame the practitioner who is not using it correctly. The martial arts world is full of dilettantes who want to take a gun and use it as a hammer or take pliers and try to make them work like a screwdriver.

BTW, "The Art of Manliness" where the OODA Loop story is posted, is a F...ing awesome website that I have never seen before filled with great articles that are right up my alley, thanks!

[boxerbilly]

Hi, Robert.

Great post. I like your driving analogy. We all have experienced coming home from say work and you are heavily thinking about something or someone or whatever. That's is where you mind is. On your thoughts. Daydreams. Whatever. You get home and realize, you barely recall anything about the "trip" back. You were on auto pilot. You let your subconscious do the driving for the most part.

That would be the ideal. Those kind of ingrained and reflexes habits. I am sure we all experienced brief moments were we seemed to perform miraculously and not even sure how we did it. No thought. I certainly do not have that down. Those moments were far to brief and spread apart.

You should start post on that sort of stuff or the " elbow in technology". Or anything even the " heady".

Our police force had Blaur come and teach them Spear as well. I am not sure if they still use the method. It was over 15 years ago I think.

[CFT]

Actually I find it very scary to have driven home without realising it. I know what you mean. I think I heard about it from Alan Orr - unconscious competence. But I'd still rather be fully aware of what is going on in the journey home. But not having the worry about the "mundane" actions gives you more time and brain power to looking at the road ahead, anticipation, etc. Those analogies still apply.

[guy b.]

A great article on a concept I was introduced to by John Will, a 5th degree BJJ black belt who gives regular seminars all around the world.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/09/15/ooda-loop/

How does this apply to Wing Chun and your training?

I'm struggling to see what is great here. Doesn't everyone think in this way? It is a bit like the scientific method with some mumbo jumbo injected.

Is Wing Chun enough? Should we be doing multiple styles? JKD? MMA?

You need to test and modify. Not sure you need to learn 100 different ****ty unworkable ways of doing something. Be selective in what you bother to learn because you only have so much time

[anerlich]

Wing Chun was made to be very user friendly only AFTER the student learns the COMPLETE curriculum...and then applies it properly. Wing Chun employs "elbow in technology" driven forward with the body behind it. Thats the only way it works. Don't blame the system, blame the practitioner who is not using it correctly. The martial arts world is full of dilettantes who want to take a gun and use it as a hammer or take pliers and try to make them work like a screwdriver.

I guess this is the central issue. The idea of a COMPLETE curriculum is at odds with the central underpinnings of Boyd's thesis, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. These are often egregiously misapplied by non physicists and new agers, but I wouldn't put Boyd in that category.

If you regard WC as a complete system, is it not then a closed system, and open to Boyd's criticism of its entropy increasing without the input of new information? While people misuse pliers to drive screws, is it not possible to try and use Wing Chun where Wing Chun is the wrong tool? Does this criticism perhaps also apply to styles and not just techniques?

I took up Jiu Jitsu after studying Wing Chun for a long time because I thought Wing Chun was light on restraint options as opposed to punching people's lights out, because the Wing Chun ground game is comparatively light on at best, and because it interested me. So I've found my answer to the question. I haven't tried to blend the two much, as few people seem to have managed that with any success. From my limited experience with MMA (a couple of years of training, no ring fights as I was over 50 when I did this) it appears to me that working in that rule set requires it to be treated an a third discipline, containing elements of striking and grappling but with different emphases to both. Some things that are safe in a striking only scenario will get you taken down when grappling is introduced, and going in as a pure grappler could get you KTFO against a sprawl and brawler.

Would FMA be better for sticks and blades? Do we need to learn about guns?

[anerlich]

I'm struggling to see what is great here.

Opinion noted.

[guy b.]

I guess this is the central issue. The idea of a COMPLETE curriculum is at odds with the central underpinnings of Boyd's thesis, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. These are often egregiously misapplied by non physicists and new agers, but I wouldn't put Boyd in that category.

Godel's incompleteness theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the second law of thermodynamics are all utterly misapplied in the link you provided. Their usage is so trivial and inconsequential in terms of the arguments being made that I wonder if in fact the author understands these ideas at all. If I was a fan of Boyd I would sweep all mention of these under the carpet, because using them in support makes his theory look a bit silly.

Would FMA be better for sticks and blades? Do we need to learn about guns?

You cannot learn many ma effectively because you don't have time to do it well. Also if you fail to practice regularly your skill degrades and you become ineffective at applying what you have learned previously, (i.e. these are physical skills, not just mental models of reality). Also many approaches to fighting are utterly ineffective/low percentage (aikido), or mutually incompatibe (tenchnique vs principle based), or incoherent. Running around 'learning' such things is a waste of time. Far better to become genuinely good at something broadly applicable, to understand what it is for, what it is good at doing, and what it is not good at doing.

There is also the fact that problems can be changed by how you approach them (i.e. opponents can be made to play your game). Provided you understand the game you are playing and what it consists of then doing this is not an example of every problem looking like a nail to the man with a hammer.

It is true that many wing chun teachers will say things like "well we just don't get into that situation", or "he wouldn't even get as far as grabbing me", or "of course wing chun can be effective in the ring as it stands" or "while you are taking me down I am knocking you out". These are people who are unprepaed to think about the limitations, the strengths, and especially the weaknesses of wing chun as an approach to fighting. Of course wing chun is not the answer to everything. But if you understand what it is the answer to, then you can make sure that the kind of questions you ask of it are relevant. And when you are asked a question that wing chun cannot answer, you do not try to use wing chun to answer it.

If you study wing chun seriously then I think it makes a lot of sense to also study something proven and effective which works outside of the focus of wing chun and does not really conflict with it in any way. Bjj is the obvious MA to fit in here, because like it or not wing chun has no answer to fighting on the ground. That situation where you do get grabbed, tripped, held on the floor, and punched in the face is not a good time to start searching for alternative methods and trying to construct coherent answers. I don't see any advantage in also learning judo, wrestling, catch, aikido, muay thai clinch and whatever else because you will never be good enough at any of them to make the difference. Also some of them will conflict quite badly with your wing chun principles. Focus on what you need. Only learn what you have time to learn properly. Don't flit around ma like a butterfly sampling little bits of everything- you will just end up completly innefective at fighting.

Do test in unfamiliar environments like boxing or MT sparring, but don't get hung up on learning contradictory approaches to fighting.

[robertdreeben]

I think many people loose sight of what Wing Chun is and what was it meant to be. When I wrote Wing Chun is a complete system, I specifically mean a complete system of STRIKING. When WC was created the founders had Shaolin Kung Fu as a template to go by when they were trying to create a concise, simple system that took less time to learn. They certainly knew or experienced Shuai Chiao and understood the strengths of grappling. While Shuai Chiao doesn't really have ground work, the way we think of it today anyway other Shaolin off-shoots like Monkey and drunken systems certainly do. And more over WC is not concerned with increased health or chi circulation like Tai Chi. The elbow positioning in WC is not conducive to better circulation, if anything its restrictive [for more on this revisit my last William CC Chen piece where he talks about floating the elbows and expanding the inner torso creating more space between the organs for better health]. Back in the 40s and 50s the answer was learn boxing and judo and you had MMA.

So with all this in mind why did WC evolve into this striking, cultish art who's practitioners say this is the BEST and often seem like they're selling Amway?

In WC we don't do heavy lifting and we don't want to spend a lot of time in a fight. Our goal is to get the fight over quickly and go eat. Bending over can hurt your back [especially as you get older I'm 55 for the record]. Using upper body strength can rip rotator cuffs and tear other tendons and we certainly don't want to roll around on the ground and ruin our nice cloths. So the quandary: create a martial art that has everything or just a specifically reliable skill with what we use the most: our hands.

WC is not a pair of hand cuffs or a cannister of pepper spray. Nor is WC a expandable baton or flash light. WC is the Glock 9mm of martial arts it is a gun. Yeah you could use a pistol to club somebody or shine some quick light from the muzzle flash. Maybe use the barrel and slide as a pain compliance kubuton. And if you have to shoot someone in the arm or leg to get them to comply..then you probably shouldn't be shooting him at all. Using a gun constitutes deadly physical force.

WC is a "point and shoot" system of striking. The system's many theories and principles are all about risk management. Why only one punch one kick and 3 hands? Everything else you could do that might be great or better in some cases is too dangerous and risky like a high roundhouse kick. Less is more otherwise there's too much to think about. A hook punch is powerful but it leaves you wide open when you launch it. Grappling and ground work is fantastic but if you're fighting more than one opponent or the attacker has even a small "sharp" Do want to get that close? Perhaps better to keep a safe work space and use your legs for upright mobility [one of our strongest assets]. There's always someone stronger and faster than you but if you maintain your structure, keep your elbows in your centerline you can overcome his muscular strength with your body weight and the strength of your legs through relaxed arms. You can negate his speed by using chung chi [pressing forward continually like water from a fire hose] some WC guys call this a heavy load or spring load [I personally prefer elastic potential energy] his ability to shoot strikes at you can be restricted putting him on the defensive. If you're savvy enough you can even use WC's forward energy to keep a grappler from getting an entry and taking you down. Should every WC guy study ground fighting? Of course they should because WC doesn't have that because, well, its not WC and being on the ground is not the BEST place to be. But you had better know what to do if you end up there!

The magic in WC science is the contact-reflexive skill gained through hours of chi sao and chi gerk [chi sao with the legs]. Chi sao is what we do the most in WC. Once you learn the forms you realize they're not that important. Forms are necessary to produce the tools you will need while learning the movement protocal and as an encyclopedia of the style to pass on to future generations. Chi sao is the meat and potatoes of WC and its what will give each arm and each leg a "mind of its own". When a punch comes flying at you unexpectedly you will not have to think about what to do and REACT. You will be able to RESPOND by "feeling" and doing what we all do in every aspect of our life, move forward...sending strikes at the opponent putting him down. Ultimately the WC guy or gal seeks to find the WC in all aspects of their life. This translates to doing a job completely, quickly and safely. Getting the most from your time and money. You can reflect on something you did that went well and say "That was really WC!". Or "Ugh, what you just did was not WC". You can look at any other martial art and see where is the "WC"in their system spotting where they're doing the FIRST best thing first. Rather than the second or third BEST thing first [not WC].

When my fellow law enforcement colleagues ask my about studying WC for police work I usually don't recommend any TMA, especially WC. Using WC correctly can look like police brutality. WC is not concerned about the opponent's well-being. The average cop doesn't have that much extra time for such a complex curriculum of a TMA. The irony of this; cops are asked to do the hardest thing in the martial arts: subdue an enraged individual using minimal force. I recommend Silat, Krav Maga, Systema, Filipino, or any other all-inclusive DT system that has striking, grappling, ground fighting, and weaponry. Stuff you can learn and use right away under any conditions. If they have the time or prior knowledge I say find a TMA that suits your personality and character. We all don't like the same food or music after all.

I Personally love all martial arts. Chinese, Indonesian and Russian systems are my passion and I see the inherent value in any other style. Learn how to use whatever you have against all types of fighters during [friendly] exchanges and under pressure and physical compression. That's where you develop real skill. Revisit and reinforce the basics understanding your skills are perishable so don't let them expire!