Is it ok for Wing Chun to evolve?

[m1k3]

There are ample tools and tactics in VT to get the job done in stand up... MT, Western Boxing are fine as is apparently without adding ground work so I see no reason to "evolve" VT into a ground fighting system, since it was never intended to be that in the first place IMO.

.

Ok, but MT and Western Boxing are sports with set rules. Yes they can be very effective for self defense but they are sports. Ground fighting is outside the rules of those sports.

WC is a martial art with a focus on self defense. Ground fighting was not common in southern China and thus WC did not need to deal with it.

However in the US ground fighting is common. Wrestling is big in a lot of areas of the country as well as Judo and BJJ.

Now, should WC evolve to deal with this situation or should it ignore ground fighting and say go else where to learn that.

I don't have an answer for that but I think your answer would depend on your view of what is and isn't WC.

[Frost]

No, there must a specific reason and direction...

Personally I see the problem of not fighting, where fighting must be a prerequisite to any evolving.. Something must be in use to evolve, otherwise you have (mainly) theoretical fighters theorizing about how to evolve what they don't use anyway... Sounds kind of silly to me.. One person may say VT can't deal with X but this may simply be out of ignorance... No one can even agree on what the core is, but many agree that core must change, but into what, from what?

In my opinion everyone is putting the cart before the horse .. Go out there and fight first and then go evolve yourself--this was always the intention of the art--see what Bruce did--he evolved himself not the core..

There are ample tools and tactics in VT to get the job done in stand up... MT, Western Boxing are fine as is apparently without adding ground work so I see no reason to "evolve" VT into a ground fighting system, since it was never intended to be that in the first place IMO.

Does VT need to evolve? Everything does but what and why depends on what you think VT is.

to be fair under boxing and thai boxing rules you dont end up ground fighting, if those arts compete in an enviroment that does allow ground work guess what they adapt to the situation, and from a self defense point of view i know lots of thai guys that also train bjj

[Vajramusti]

[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;1076932]
Of course in a subjective and microcosmic way, WC does that already when a WC practioner testes his WC VS a ground grappler and makes the needed adaptatiions to defeat that puzzle and that is the WC way.

((True that, Have done that and will continue to do so))

WC is a personal system of combat.

((For sure- among other things))


But for the WHOLE of WC to evolve, the whole of WC must adapt the answer to any given puzzle to the whole.


((The WHOLE? Wow? Wing chun is a very very -often incompatible- gathering of people doing quite different things.)) joy chaudhuri

[sanjuro_ronin]

,Joy,
You make a valid point.
Perhaps it is like Jim said, we are looking at WC to evolves to deal with A. B or C but maybe it doesn't have to, certainly MT and Boxing ( to name only two) haven't.
BUT I think for that to be the case then WC has to admit to itself ( not that it is an entity but you knwo what I mean) that it doesn't have the solution to ground work ( as an example) and to advocate addressing that problem somewhere else, like Boxing and MT and Karate do.

[ShortBridge]

So, following this logic, should enlightened and evolved wing chun include a uniform of kevlar vests and sidearms? After all, getting shot is unfortunately a puzzle that we may be faced with here in the US. Is anyone willing to make the argument that Wing Chun is stagnant and invalid without integrating armed combat?

What about gas masks? What about performance driving in case we're in a car chase?

Or is this just about MMA?

[GlennR]

So, following this logic, should enlightened and evolved wing chun include a uniform of kevlar vests and sidearms? After all, getting shot is unfortunately a puzzle that we may be faced with here in the US. Is anyone willing to make the argument that Wing Chun is stagnant and invalid without integrating armed combat?

What about gas masks? What about performance driving in case we're in a car chase?

Or is this just about MMA?

Maybe you should include nuclear strikes????

No, its not about MMA, its about facing up to reality.
And lets be serious and honest for a minute.... the underlying theme for over half the threads here is how to make WC more effective.
This in itself shows the doubt that so many WC people have in their own system.
And who do they worry about most?
MT, Boxing, wrestling and BJJ......... the styles that compete day in and day out

Its not about WC evolving... its about WC competing and being tested

GlennR

[Vajramusti]

Good Wing chun training IMO of course is way to unite the body, the mind and energy in a martial way.
Paul had a good analogy of dealing with a grappler as puzzle solving. Work on various kinds of puzzles that interest you.

joy chaudhuri

[Nite Templar]

But wrestling and grappling aside, does good wing chun also have answers in pure striking modes of fighting? How does it fare against boxing? How does it fare against MT? As fighting arts. Without necessarily having to focus on boxing rules, MT rules, ring rules. Where are all the wing chun vs. boxing and MT videos on youtube? Where are all the anecdotes outside of the ring or a tournament situation of wing chun beating up boxers and MT guys? Is the answer always that good wing chun does very well in these situations, without offering any evidence? What's good wing chun, anyway? And who has it?

I look at Alan Orr's people on youtube in tournamnets and I see some pretty good results. But in truth, all I see are guys with their centerline facing directly at the opponent throwing some lefts and rights and then almost immediately follow with some form of clinch fighting that looks mostly like MT and standing grappling. And then maybe some takedowns and groundfighting. And again, they seem to be doing okay. But just how much wing chun is going on there? Not a criticism of Alan's guys. Not at all. Just a reporting on what I see.

[ShortBridge]

Despite how I may sound, I'm really not trying to be snide.

I checked the original poster's profile to see where he was coming from. It says 5 years of BJJ "and working some wing chun on my own". Joy, I looked at your site too and I think it's clear how you feel about that perspective. There are a lot of people trying to "blend wing chun" with things who haven't really learned wing chun. Probably because of the perception that Bruce Lee did. Fine, but after some years of very good instruction and very dedicated training, I realize that a) you can't learn or understand wing chun on your own, or in a school that has dabbled in it without going deep and b) that it's a deep well and despite good instruction and dedicated training, I'm still a beginner with it too. So, when someone from that perspective asks me (or a forum that I'm experimenting with participating in) about combining Wing Chun with things, I don't have a better answer than to welcome them in or send them away. The notion that you can "get some trapping from wing chun", especially if you're looking to books and MMA schools for those lessons and then mix it with completely disparate ideas and come out with your own system that is superior is...well not in line with my thinking.

I realize that some very experienced and credible Wing Chun people have weighed in on this too and I've been reading with interest your experiences and opinions. No disrespect intended to you or to the original poster for that matter. Sincerely.

I believe in modern training methods, both for conditioning and application. I don't want to fall into the trap of training strictly to defend myself against other people who are doing what I do. I don't have delusions about super-mythical-ancient powers. When I saw UFC for the first time in about 1990 it absolutely impacted my mindset (before I did wing chun) and I get why people are struck by it in the way that they are. I reject, however, that "in the octagon" = "on the street". I think that people too focused on those competitions are falling into a similar trap to the one that traditional martial artists have been guilty of in the past, thinking that their microcosm equates to reality.

For the record, I started boxing in grade school and kept up with it until I was about 22 or so. I wasn't great or professional but I'm not ignorant of the capabilities of boxers. There were some years that I was very serious about it and worked very hard. I also started martial arts because I did not feel entirely confident or complete with that skillset outside of a ring, without gloves and rules to protect me. Between there and wing chun, I spent a few years with Muay Thai and loved it, but didn't feel like I could grow old with it and felt similarly limited in terms of how I could respond to trouble. Held that skillset up against the types of danger I was tending to come across in my life and kept exploring. Experienced a lot of things, trained with some really good mixed martial artists who I learned a lot from. Spent about a year in love with a particular style of Japanese Jujitsu (yes I had seen BJJ at that point, it was an informed decision).

Then I relocated and "settled for" wing chun because I thought it was the best school where I was living at the time. Much to my surprise, Wing Chun was way more effective and brutal that I thought. One of my sihings was a corrections officer in a very difficult county and his perspective mattered to me. To be fair, there were other people in that school, who learned the forms and advanced and I don't think were ready to defend themselves in the real world. I've met plenty of wing chun people like this and plenty who I thought were pretty dangerous.

I've now relocated again and am in my 2nd wing chun family and it's what I do now. It's not because I'm ignorant and don't know any better, I arrived here as very generally described above. I don't claim that it's the one best system. i don't claim that I'm a superior practitioner of it. I don't claim that my family has the secret techniques that were held back from everyone else and I don't claim that I walk around invincible.

I want my training and my path to be a fruitful one. A realistic one. We train hard and with our eyes open. The things I've done before influence me now, just as my accent is a bit of a hodgepodge at this point. But, I haven't changed the system, nor do I intend to.

I don't do squats with water buckets on either end of a bamboo pole, because I belong to a gym and they have a squat rack there. I can appreciate that people like to ground fight, especially in tournaments, which I don't intend to enter. I agree that it is faster to become somewhat proficient as a kickboxer than as a wing chun player (or most other things). I also hate, but accept that people carry and use weapons and that really screws up my un-armed defense plans. I have no issue with cross training to make yourself more well rounded and I certainly have no issue with wanting to know your enemy and learning how to deal with them. In fact, I have no issue with anyone doing anything with their training that they think will be helpful to them.

But, in all humility, I reject that our system is flawed, limited, stuck in the past or otherwise lacking. Especially when asked the question from someone who hasn't spent time learning it properly.

[ShortBridge]

But wrestling and grappling aside, does good wing chun also have answers in pure striking modes of fighting? How does it fare against boxing? How does it fare against MT? As fighting arts. Without necessarily having to focus on boxing rules, MT rules, ring rules. Where are all the wing chun vs. boxing and MT videos on youtube? Where are all the anecdotes outside of the ring or a tournament situation of wing chun beating up boxers and MT guys? Is the answer always that good wing chun does very well in these situations, without offering any evidence? What's good wing chun, anyway? And who has it?

I look at Alan Orr's people on youtube in tournaments and I see some pretty good results. But in truth, all I see are guys with their centerline facing directly at the opponent throwing some lefts and rights and then almost immediately follow with some form of clinch fighting that looks mostly like MT and standing grappling. And then maybe some takedowns and groundfighting. And again, they seem to be doing okay. But just how much wing chun is going on there? Not a criticism of Alan's guys. Not at all. Just a reporting on what I see.

Look, YouTube is not a comprehensive view of the world, only a part of it. I see a lot of Wing Chun vs .... videos where it just doesn't appear to be people who are really experienced in wing chun OR they've taken off their shoe's, put on gloves and agreed not to kick the knees or touch the other persons eyes, etc.

Same with tournaments, I don't know anything about "Alan Orr", so no disrespect there, but I don't advise taking wing chun to a tournament that has ANY rules. It's not what it's for. If tournaments are your goal, it's probably not the right style for you. If wing chun players or other traditional martial artists want to use full contact tournaments as part of their training, I think that's great. I admire anyone who has the courage and conditioning to do that. But, if they agree to those rules, they will not be using their system to it's fullest and when they end up doing the things that the tournament has facilitated with it's construct (like pound and ground), then a billion 14 year olds, who may or may not have any training of their own will say "See! Proof that nothing, but MMA works in the real world!"

So, when you represent a family, a sifu or a system, you've got way more to lose than to gain by letting yourself get into those situations. In my opinion, that's one major reason, why you don't see really, really credible wing chun, or mantis or .... putting themselves in those situations.

[Nite Templar]

The very last thing you wrote there, John Ray Brooks, is something that I believe is very widespread within the wing chun world. About the dangers to one's school or lineage if one competes and loses. And I compliment you for having the honesty to come right out and say that. But I also believe that this type of thinking is indicative of what's most problematical for wing chun. A lot of people, and I'm not saying you are one of them, but a lot of people seem to be more interested in the title, or the grade, or the certificate, or the name they are being called, or who their sifu was, then they are in actually knowing what works.

Including what works or not against trained wrestlers and grapplers and trained boxers, trained MT people, and all the rest. How quickly can a striking match or a fight turn into a wrestling or grappling match? Very quickly. Isn't that so? But wing chun does not train this, I don't believe. Wing Chun people believe that they can fight very close and control the opponent and yet not let it become a wrestling match. That's a very big order to fill in the real world, isn't it?

And therefore they have a built in antagonism to ever seeing wing chun evolve outside of a tight little box. But like everythng else in this world, if it doesn't evolve and change with the times it will surely go by the wayside. Sooner or later. Don't you think?

[Vajramusti]

[QUOTE=Nite Templar;1077027]The very last thing you wrote there, John Ray Brooks, is something that I believe is very widespread within the wing chun world. About the dangers to one's school or lineage if one competes and loses. And I compliment you for having the honesty to come right out and say that. But I also believe that this type of thinking is indicative of what's most problematical for wing chun. A lot of people, and I'm not saying you are one of them, but a lot of people seem to be more interested in the title, or the grade, or the certificate, or the name they are being called, or who their sifu was, then they are in actually knowing what works.

((An overgeneralization and not quite accurate))

Including what works or not against trained wrestlers and grapplers and trained boxers, trained MT people, and all the rest. How quickly can a striking match or a fight turn into a wrestling or grappling match? Very quickly. Isn't that so? But wing chun does not train this, I don't believe. Wing Chun people believe that they can fight very close and control the opponent and yet not let it become a wrestling match. That's a very big order to fill in the real world, isn't it?

((Again- an overgeneralization))

[GlennR]

[QUOTE=Vajramusti;1077042]

The very last thing you wrote there, John Ray Brooks, is something that I believe is very widespread within the wing chun world. About the dangers to one's school or lineage if one competes and loses. And I compliment you for having the honesty to come right out and say that. But I also believe that this type of thinking is indicative of what's most problematical for wing chun. A lot of people, and I'm not saying you are one of them, but a lot of people seem to be more interested in the title, or the grade, or the certificate, or the name they are being called, or who their sifu was, then they are in actually knowing what works.

((An overgeneralization and not quite accurate))

Including what works or not against trained wrestlers and grapplers and trained boxers, trained MT people, and all the rest. How quickly can a striking match or a fight turn into a wrestling or grappling match? Very quickly. Isn't that so? But wing chun does not train this, I don't believe. Wing Chun people believe that they can fight very close and control the opponent and yet not let it become a wrestling match. That's a very big order to fill in the real world, isn't it?

((Again- an overgeneralization))

Hi Joy
I think you dismiss his points to quickly.
All of the things that he brings up is things we constantly hear over and over agin in WC....... from practitioners through to casual observers.

Would i be fair in saying that you think WC ,on the whole, is taught poorly?

[martyg]

Same with tournaments, I don't know anything about "Alan Orr", so no disrespect there, but I don't advise taking wing chun to a tournament that has ANY rules. It's not what it's for.

Yes, because everyone knows Wing Chun just trains eye gouging super human killing machines.

An art that prides itself on adaptability can't adapt when there's a ring and a few officals involved. Ohhhh the irony.

[ShortBridge]

I respect boxers, I used to fancy myself one. A good boxer is tough to face, especially in a ring with gloves and restrictions. (they do tend to break their hands in bar fights, though) I'm all for finding boxers or people with boxing experience to train with. It is helpful to me. Since I am the guy in our club with the most boxing experience, the others like to use me to train with. Here's a secret that I don't like to share with them, because it ends up hurting me. If they abandon their wing chun training and start moving around like a boxer (which a disappointing number of them tend to do), they have no chance against me. If they kick my legs and follow through, I'm in trouble fast.

I really respect BJJ players. What they do is interesting and impressive and I don't slack it off at all. I know that it's valid. I'm always interested in training with people with those skills. I would be an idiot not to acknowledge that they can hurt me. That said, I reject the idea that I have to what they do to become a legit martial artist. If I were them, I would be offended at the suggestion that I could "mix in some of what they do" and improve my odds against them at all playing their game. I don't have any interest in being a dilettante.

Here's a story. A wing chun guy who I train with, who is a friend, was a very good high school wrestler. One day, when I was tying my shoe he jumped on me, took me down and put some kind of awful squeeze on me that I was going to be able to take about 15 more seconds of before my head exploded, but his nipple was more or less in my mouth anyway, so instead of tapping out as he expected me to do, i decided to bite the ***** off. Guess what, he let go and I crammed my fingers into his throat and was soon following him off of me. Most importantly he went from offense to defense and escape really quickly. If my objective is to survive the attack instead of winning the match, that's enough.

What I did was against the rules in any and all tournaments. But, it turns it, it's perfectly legal in my basement or on the BART platform in Oakland if that should ever come up. But, it never occurred to him that that might happen, because the "real world" training that he had behind him didn't allow for that possibility. I have similar stories that involve cramming a finger into a eyesocket, I'm not talking about Bil Gee, I'm just talking about taking a finger or a thumb and cramming it into someone's eye socket. They don't like it and they tend to change course. Hard to practice that, but it works and it's not that complicated. It also turns out that people with tournament experience don't really protect themselves from those dangers, because it's inconceivable that it will happen.

I will also say that in watching UFC, yes x% of fights go to the ground. But, I get a little tweaked when people write, "It's been proven that x% of the fights in the real world go to the ground", because I've seen a dozen fights or so in the last 5 years in the actual real world and I've observed carefully, (while calling 911) and processed after the fact. Here are my statistics:

* None of them went to the ground, except for one, in which the loser got knocked down and then stomped by a small group of teenage girls while someone else was stealing her purse.
* I saw very little training or skill in any of them.
* All of them either involved more than 2 people or could have at any moment, because there was a crowd who's involvement was unclear.

Deciding that you want to be on the ground in those situations doesn't make any sense to me, so it's not what I want to dedicate my time to perfecting the art of. Those are the scenarios that I train for, not YouTube, not sparring with other schools and not tournaments that take tools away from me. There is no fair match that involves me playing someone else's game. I may very well lose, a lot of people have skills in a lot of different things (and some are armed and some travel in packs). Many more have no skills and are sloppy. In any event, I train the way that I train and I respect other people for training how they see fit. If it comes down to it, we all live with our choices. I have a lifetime of training ahead of me (4 hours tonight, how about you?)

For the record, no belts, no titles, no rankings where I'm from and I chose not to say who I train with or what my linage is, because it is not the point and I don't want to drag them into this argument. I think rankings are in fact, not especially common in the statistical majority of wing chun families. I realize that some do have those leveling systems and I'm not disparaging them, but your comment shows me that much more that you don't understand as clearly as you think you do what you are criticizing.

Final point, I'm not hanging out in a BJJ forum telling them what I think is wrong with their system. I'm not going to sports fan sites for UFC and claiming that those guys could never survive against a "real martial artist". Why is it that they seem to always be hanging out in Wing Forums bringing this argument to us?

I've only been on this forum a month and I'm weary of it. I'm also a little ashamed of myself for getting sucked into this debate. It won't be resolved.

The original poster is learning some wing chun on his own, according to his profile. He's not in a position to suggest that he understands the limits of the system and suggest "evolution". Your arguments about YouTube don't sway me either. Nor will the existence of "the octagon".

I'll just say one more time for the record, I'm ashamed of myself for getting sucked into this pointless debate.