Remember the Wing Chun guy on Human weapon

geezer

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I never liked those little CG animated sequences on that series. The stances are al out of whack from the perspective of the IP Man lineage WC I'm familiar with. The legs are wide-set, evenly weighted and there's no adduction ...the knees are splayed apart. And the punches are strictly "arm power". Yes you can deliver a flurry of "arm-only" chain punches, but the most effective punches punches channel the power of the whole body. Especially if you are turning or stepping.

Good short power in any style demands correct structure and alignment, muscular relaxation, and kinetic linkages that enable the puncher to bring the power through his whole body. A good WC punch is very compact, but when linked with a step releases power that looks a lot like the Beng quan of Hsing-i to me. Xue, you are the guy with a background in internal arts. What do you think?
 

mook jong man

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Can't say I'm a big fan of the whole concave chest / rounded back thing.
In my opinion it compromises the structure somewhat and probably makes it that much easier for someone to latch behind the back of the neck and drag your head down.

Relaxation wise , I think it would also tend to tense up some muscles unnecessarily as opposed to keeping a straight back.
 
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Xue Sheng

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Can't say I'm a big fan of the whole concave chest / rounded back thing.
In my opinion it compromises the structure somewhat and probably makes it that much easier for someone to latch behind the back of the neck and drag your head down.

Relaxation wise , I think it would also tend to tense up some muscles unnecessarily as opposed to keeping a straight back.

Watch Wang Zhi Peng doing Chi Sau with greater intent..... the concave chest/rounded back thing....disappears
 
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Xue Sheng

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I never liked those little CG animated sequences on that series. The stances are al out of whack from the perspective of the IP Man lineage WC I'm familiar with. The legs are wide-set, evenly weighted and there's no adduction ...the knees are splayed apart. And the punches are strictly "arm power". Yes you can deliver a flurry of "arm-only" chain punches, but the most effective punches punches channel the power of the whole body. Especially if you are turning or stepping.

Good short power in any style demands correct structure and alignment, muscular relaxation, and kinetic linkages that enable the puncher to bring the power through his whole body. A good WC punch is very compact, but when linked with a step releases power that looks a lot like the Beng quan of Hsing-i to me. Xue, you are the guy with a background in internal arts. What do you think?

It's not Bengquan, but I do see the similarities.... and I do realize that I am being an armchair critic here but.... When I see Wang Zhi Peng doing Chi sau or moving and striking I see a root and I am fairly impressed, but then I know little about Wing Chun. I did not see that root in his Mook Jong video, actually I was fairly unimpressed by it, but I did still see power in some of his strikes, heck the guy is very skinny and 5’5” tall and he moved the Mook Jong with that double palm strike. But his Chi sau has power and root and I see the use of more things other than a chain punch. However his students on the wall advancing and punching and retreating and punching have no root and that takes away from their power and in the sparring video there seems to be a high dependence on the chain punch and little on any other part of Wing Chun. The rest looks more like Sanshou. I would not want to be in front of that chain punch but I am hoping I would get out of the way, sticking with Xingyi, by using Paoquan or Hengquan....or maybe I am just being old and delusional and would in reality stand there and get my butt kicked :D

Bengquan goes from root to root but it delivers a lot of power to the strike, my last sifu said think of Bruce Lee’s 1 inch punch when you are using the short range part of Bengquan or using it fighting in close. And Bengquan can also back up but I look at Bengquan as more of a stopping attack not so much as a continuous one. It hits, hard, and stops the oncoming attack and then, depending on the other guy, you use something more applicable to the situation.
 
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Argus

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Hm. The sparring in the third video doesn't impress me.

I'm going to try to make an observation here, though I have only very limited experience in the art. In the vast majority of Wing Chun sparring videos that I come across, it seems that most WC is thrown out the window, and the WC practitioners become boxers. They will occassionally rush in and overwhelm their opponent with chain punches, but there seems to be none of that "staying in close and sticking to the opponent" that you would expect. Just look at the video above; both guys are WC practitioners, and yet they both with draw the hands immediately, and when barraged with attacks, attempt to move backwards and open the distance, rather than push forward and shut their opponent down.

Am I making a fair assessment of what WC should/shouldn't look like?
 

Vajramusti

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Hm. The sparring in the third video doesn't impress me.

I'm going to try to make an observation here, though I have only very limited experience in the art. In the vast majority of Wing Chun sparring videos that I come across, it seems that most WC is thrown out the window, and the WC practitioners become boxers. They will occassionally rush in and overwhelm their opponent with chain punches, but there seems to be none of that "staying in close and sticking to the opponent" that you would expect. Just look at the video above; both guys are WC practitioners, and yet they both with draw the hands immediately, and when barraged with attacks, attempt to move backwards and open the distance, rather than push forward and shut their opponent down.

Am I making a fair assessment of what WC should/shouldn't look like?
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Agree on the sparring video.

IMO-best not to judge wing chun by most "sparring" videos that you see.

Controlled short power usage is not easy to demonstrate in a video or to recognize when used,

So demos often involve a pushing punch where people can be seen being pushed backwards,
 

Cyriacus

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Hm. The sparring in the third video doesn't impress me.

I'm going to try to make an observation here, though I have only very limited experience in the art. In the vast majority of Wing Chun sparring videos that I come across, it seems that most WC is thrown out the window, and the WC practitioners become boxers. They will occassionally rush in and overwhelm their opponent with chain punches, but there seems to be none of that "staying in close and sticking to the opponent" that you would expect. Just look at the video above; both guys are WC practitioners, and yet they both with draw the hands immediately, and when barraged with attacks, attempt to move backwards and open the distance, rather than push forward and shut their opponent down.

Am I making a fair assessment of what WC should/shouldn't look like?
Then I have a present for you.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChiKeeTuaLan/videos
 

mook jong man

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Hm. The sparring in the third video doesn't impress me.

I'm going to try to make an observation here, though I have only very limited experience in the art. In the vast majority of Wing Chun sparring videos that I come across, it seems that most WC is thrown out the window, and the WC practitioners become boxers. They will occassionally rush in and overwhelm their opponent with chain punches, but there seems to be none of that "staying in close and sticking to the opponent" that you would expect. Just look at the video above; both guys are WC practitioners, and yet they both with draw the hands immediately, and when barraged with attacks, attempt to move backwards and open the distance, rather than push forward and shut their opponent down.

Am I making a fair assessment of what WC should/shouldn't look like?

I've said it before and I will say it again , it is caused by a lack of hard chi sau sparring.
As a result they lack confidence and aggression in being close.
A bit of relaxed rolling with a few attacks thrown in will not get you there I'm afraid.

Attacks and defenses in chi sau sparring have to be performed at full speed , nothing like getting a hard palm strike to your chest to wake you up and get you to close up those gaps.

People also have to learn to use their body mass to stick and press forward in their attack to off balance the opponent.
This ability is developed by using various combinations of Tan , Bong and Fook in synchronization with the stepping to shift the opponent and off balance him.

Chain punching is good , but it should be combined with wrist latching to stop the opponent from getting away from you or even low heel kicks and hook kicks.

Having said all that I find Wing Chun vs Wing Chun sparring quite ridiculous and bizarre , with experienced practitioners it will always end up in chi sau sparring.

So why not just cut to the chase and start from there , chi sau is the Wing Chun method of sparring or a bit of light hand sparring guard vs guard.

The type of sparring they were doing (reflex training) as I prefer to call it would be better utilized with the attacker throwing more punches at random angles , targets and trajectories more akin to punches one would see in a typical street assault rather than him assuming a quasi boxing stance and throwing strictly centerline punches which are already well within the comfort zone of the typical Wing Chun man.
 
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