WT is a BOXING style. From leung tings poster:wing tsun is a method of chinese pugilism. Pugilism is boxing, or striking and parrying with the hands. This can be done as a sport or self defense. As it is, I don't see WT becoming a "sport" anywhere.

Real World Self Defense skills-the ability to survive a street fight vs. a highly skilled assailant.

As for how to train for these skills, hard workout EVERY time. When my seniors trained us (not the instructor) and in time when I trained the class I would work for some serious conditioning, albeit using wt techniques.

Full contact sparring, within reason, develops excellent self defense skills. But so does full contact reflex drills. For example, get out some mats and work takedowns with a SKILLED partner. Learn how its done, get comfortable with it, then you will be much better of to stop it.

Have a partner put on boxing gloves and come after you. Learn how to parry,evade and shut him down. Its different when someone is really trying to take your head off.

Do sucker punch drills and scenario training. Sucker punch drills can be done 2 ways: defending vs. sucker punch (and I mean here any surprise attack) and ATTACKING with a sucker punch. I found when we did this (the attacking portion), especially with full contact, we become really good at DETECTING similar surprises.