The "easy" way to tell if you are using WCK is to see if you are actually using WCK -- are you regularly and consistently using the tools of WCK in your sparring. WCK has a relatively small "tool belt", and if you are not using most of the tools in your sparring, then I'd suggest there is something "wrong" with what you are doing (your approach).

---But that begs the question....how do you develop the "tools" of WCK that are functional and realistic? By practicing the traditional forms? By doing the traditional two man drills? This goes back to my prior question...how do you "functionalize" WCK without "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" and having it become something else? How much of the "traditional" WCK base do you continue to use and practice?


FWIW, in my view WCK is a "clinch" method.

---There's a good starting point then. How do you practice and develop WCK methods in the clinch?



Any form or linked set is useless as training (it won't develop skills). If you want to retain them as a teaching device, that is up to the individual. But I think they are more trouble than they are worth (which is why we don't see forms used in functional arts).

----Then from where do you get your essential WCK "tools" that you mentioned previously?

As far as the dummy goes, it depends on how you use it.

---I tend to look upon it as a rather sophisticated heavy bag. :-)



In my view, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.


----Its not "reinventing" the wheel, just "reformatting" the wheel. Its just as Leung Jan did when he retired to his hometown in Ku Lo. He reformatted the previous WCK he had learned into a system of san sik that included what he considered to be the essential elements needed to fight with WCK. From what I understand, the Ku Lo system was Leung Jan's version of a "functionalized" WCK for his day and time. Same or very similar content, just a different teaching format.



What we need to do is realize that for WCK or any martial art to be a functional MA, that we need to approach our learning/training as a functional MA. And to do that, we need to look at the common characteristics of all proven functional martial arts. If we do that, we see they all use the same "process", where the learning/training/fighting corresponds 1-to-1-to-1.

---That sounds good. Can you lay out the individual steps in a bit more detail for us? That would seem to form a good "blueprint" to follow.

We also need to get rid of the traditional worldview, and the associated magical thinking, because that is a signficant obstacle that holds us back.

---I agree. I've been burned by that type of mindset in the past. Thanks Terence. Good post. Let's keep it up.