Before Wing Chun I trained in Karate
and Hung style. I have seen very good people in both arts. Then in
1976 I met a Yip Man student by the name of Patrick Chow who
defeated me easily by having superior tactics and not on speed or
strength. Also coming from a mathematical background the Wing Chun
theory just really appealed to me and the training was very
interesting. After all these years I don't see any reason why Wing
Chun cannot do well against any style. Usually the limiting factors
are lack of experience, lack of conditioning, not learning about the
other style you fight, etc.
To me Wing Chun is just the very
good core actions and principles from Chinese fighting. It has some
similarities to boxing and fencing. I think people shouldn't wonder
if Wing Chun can beat this or that. I think the idea in one's mind
should be to make it work. You make the art work by developing the
skill not by relying on it to work without the hard work and may
failures on the way. Each failure is a learning experience.
I think Wing Chun is just like a taste. Some people like
apples and others like oranges. Some people like the soft flowing
actions of Yang style Tai Chi. Others don't like that and like the
variety that Chen style Tai Chi offers and feel it is better for
fighting. But Yang style people will say they can match the
fighting. So any martial artist tries to make their art work. Wing
Chun to me is about economy. However all arts say they are about
economy. But we do seem to move less in general. For any specific
application every art can have a simultaneous strike and counter
just like Wing Chun. So one idea can't define the art. The art is
really the smooth operation of all of it's elements which work
together like the parts in a well running engine. when a good guy
fights, you can see the SLT, CK, BJ, Dummy all integrated together
depending on the circumstance. Wing Chun people can also develop
arms and shins of steel and in fact there are such hard core
individuals around.
However for most people Wing Chun is
just a hobby and so they have no need to fight the Thai boxers and
condition in that way. Most people have to go to work the next day
and can't afford to get hurt and take time off from work. Also many
people later get married and have families and so can't afford to
train 7 days a week 7 hours a day like some of Yip Man's students
(today's masters) did.
Ifind for myself that all the Wing
Chun actions are very natural. I enjoy looking at Hung style very
much but I wouldn't be able to put in enough hours to make that art
work for me. For myself I also have some torn knee ligaments and
injuries of that sort would limit what types of arts one can do. So
TaeKwonDo is out. Thoes with back injuries would likewise tend to
keep away from grapling arts.
These days mixed martial arts
is in vogue. This has a positive aspect to become a more well
rounded fighter but has the negative aspect that good (once proven
in real combat) traditional styles would slowly disappear. For me it
is interesting to see Preying Mantis against wing Chun or Tai Chi
against Karate. But now it's mixed martial artist against mixed
martial artist.
It takes a long time to be able to apply
one's art against skilled opponents. It is easy to apply one's art
in movie style against inferior opponents. In Hung style you would
train 10 years solid before you were ready to apply it to fighting.
Then by constantly fighting, by trial and error, by getting beat, by
getting tips from the teacher, you would slowly learn to become a
Hung style fighter. These days realistic combat is someone shoots
you or ten people attack you either empty hand or with machete's.
They say Hung style trains you to fight 10 people at once.
Then when you fight one person he gets the intensity of you fighting
ten people. However when I see the tactics used for multiple
opponent fighting , I see parallels with the Wing Chun technique.
This means I see an equivalent idea and application that we also
have. So it's just a matter of how you train. I think the Wing Chun
theory is pretty good.
Even arts that people consider garbage
like Aikido are actually pretty good in the hands of a fighter. I
know someone who has a background in TaeKwonDo, Iron Palm, Judo,
Preying Mantis, White Crane, Arnis and Wing Chun and he is very
effective in his art of Aikido. At the lower levels the art is
practiced big so that many counters are possible. But at the higher
levels in the real application, it is very short and applied such
that no counters or nice rolling falls are possible.
They say
there are no bad martial arts, just bad martial artists.
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Different
styles against Wing Chun - a letter submitted - Administration - November 16, 2003 (7:19 p.m.) (125 Views, 1
Replies) 
