even if you had to fight a guy who naturally had a longer reach than you, would limiting your own reach further help, hurt, or make no difference?

yes footwork is very very important, but again would limiting your reach help, hurt, or make no difference in the situation?



Quote Originally Posted by grasshopper 2.0 View Post
yes i would agree with this. it's easy to say and 'do" by reaching or not squaring up a la the kickboxer for example. But what happens when you face a guy who is 12 inches taller? or how longer arms? all of a sudden your 'reaching" is useless.

footwork on the other hand, doesn't play this reaching game. entry, timing and cutting in with footwork is the way to go, although probably ridiculously scary and is difficult to do, which is why 94.542% of the people out there don't do it.

WC's strength is in being able to use both hands, independently and at the same time, which means, to an extent, we do square up against the opponent. Of course, in the thick of things, yes, many will still incorporate some degree of reaching, twisting, etc. but our strength is in squaring up.

let me also state that i don't imagine my self squaring up, pigeon toed, with man sao/wu sao per se. but, i think the functions of the wing chun weapons have to be there and those functions are based on a foundation where our center-line is facing the attacker, meaning that we would work off this "squared off" positioning.