Originally posted by Ultimatewingchun
"Ray, tell me how you can measure WCK skill, the ability to fight with the WCK method, if you don't fight? How can someone claim to be good at WCK if they can't "hang" with other good fighters? If performance isn't the standard, please tell me what you would use."
(Terence)
Although Ray's answer to this was hilarious (the tan sau competition)...
he has avoided Terence's question...and his point.
In the final analysis - performance has to be the standard. (fighting/sparring/contact tournaments).
Without some or all of the above - there is no objective evidence that one's wing chun training has been effective. Just hearsay and conjecture.
I avoided the answer because I already gave the answer a long time ago. My model for someone with no fighting background, scared to fight, not in shape, clueless is as follows:
1. Get their body into shape.
2. Teach them the SLT form
3. Teach them Chi sau
4. Do some drills
5. Teach them CK
6. Teach some distance drills
7. Teach a bit of the dummy
8. Incorporate that into the distance drills
9. Train mixed chi sau
10. Train mixed light fighting
Now they feel a little comfortable with fighting.
All along tell them the idea of the whole program, show them videos of fighters of all types.
11. Get some experts in to teach about Thai boxing, grappling, weapons work to expose them to more things.
12. Get some protective equipment and spar a bit, gradually inccreasing the intensity and speed until they are comfortable at each level of intensity.
13. Add in anything from any style into the mix.
14. Now the student can keep doing this, or try competition or just fight harder and harder with people from other styles or diversify.
15. I recommend for the student to go and try something else and if they still want to do Wing Chun later then they are welcome. So some students do that. Some try Escrima, some try mixed martial arts, some try Tai Chi, some try BJJ. The student learns to trust himself and not just listen to me.
16. Some students just stick around, some go and come back, some go and never come back.
17. Many students get married, have jobs, start a family so they either disappear or they come once a week for maintenance mode.
A normal 1 hour class consists of (after the student has a bit of Wing Chun). With longer classes do more of everything.
1. At least the SLT form, 5 minutes (they can do the longer stuff at home)
2. CK and all the other forms just for a warm up.
3. Chi sau: single sticking hands, Lap sau, Rolling hands
4. Various Chi sau drills, or attack and defence or mixed chi sau depending on what the students want to work on and also depends on what they need and who their partner is. Evryone tries to help everyone. Just working on developing a good stance, later a mobile stance, being relaxed, keeping good angles and postures, having crisp sharp and controlled attacks. This takes half the time. Heavy emphasis on stance, position, relaxation and sensitivity.
Have a few minutes break to switch modes from close to far.
5. Hit and kick the bags, pads, in all kinds of ways, moving or not moving to try to develop explosive hits, heavy hits, fast hits, combination his whatever depending on where the student is at.
6. Train distance fighting techniques. How to close against hitters and grappler.
7. Put on some protection and mix it up, either in attack and defense or both trying anythingat the same time. Sometimes train against the shoot, sometimes against hooks and jabs. The intensity depends on the students level. enough to challenge them but not enough to feak them out and turn them off martial arts or to injure them.
8. Work on the dummy.
9. Every once in awhile go very fast and see if the student can relax under pressure.
10. Video some of the fighting occasionally to more clearly see mistakes and in general to see how crappy everyone looks.
Every once in awhile do knife sparring, fool around with other arts, work on the pole or Butterfly knife or whatever.
The time frame to get the student into fighting mode varies very much with the ability of the student, their interest, their age, their physical limitations, their intelligence level, the amount of time they practice, and a host of other factors. Some people fight in 6 months, some in five years and some never.
We don't have any fixed time frame and we don't use too many standard drills. We go random pretty fast but the results aren't as good that way. I have discarded many drills over the years until we have next to none.
We constantly think about all this stuff, try different ways, and learn from the experience of others.
Some students have been bouncers, police officers or correctional officers. Many students had other martial arts before from beginners to advanced levels. They report to me what they found worked or didn't work. I post some of that information on the net. I'm told it is BS and all stories are lies. But that's fine, it's only a chat group.
The real fighters to me are those fighting for a cause, fighting for injustice, fighting for their life when they have Cancer, fighting to support their family, fighting oppression or taking on a wild animal to save a little girl. Fighting to pound someone's head in to get a thrill or get me to a high doesn't interest me. But competitive people need that. I don't look down upon them, it's just a different genetic makeup. I don't look down upon the handicapped and those less abled, I try to help them when I can. None of us are the same. I respect everyone's ideas. We all travel along our own paths and are into the art for different reasons.
I have been in modes where I trained Wing Chun seven days a week but that is definitely bad if you expect to have a family life.
After having seen a few close people suffer from Cancer, bravely fight the pain and die, I don't view the fight for glory as anything important for me. These people provided a model for me of a true fighter. My goal in life is to help who I can and to see my family grow.
The answer: sports skill can be measured if there is a known standard. Fighting a skilled person in many matches can tell you where you are at. But some people just don't feel the need to prove themselves over and over again.
I think a lot depends on what teachers happen to be available in your area. You try to find the best ones. After a certain age, you care less about yourself but just try to point the student in the right direction. In the near future I will try to get a Thai boxing teacher and a submission wrestler to teach my guys something.
Last edited by YongChun; 10-15-2004 at 12:59 AM.
Victoria, British Columbia, Wing Chun