Simplifying the simple, and 80/20 rule...

[wckf92]

"IF" WC/WT/VT was supposedly created by distilling other Shaolin arts into their most basic / successful / least flashy elements and re-purposed into WC...(apparently to create a more efficient learning curve), is it possible to do this again?

To clarify...let's say that way back then, some really smart dudes applied an '80/20' thought process to the bloated Shaolin fighting styles. They extracted the most important/successful/high percentage "20%" and oila we have WC.
Can we / should we do this in each generation based on the changing times and advancement of other combat methods? What if some really smart dudes or uber great grand masters got together and did the same thing in todays world? IOW, review the WC curriculum in its entirety, extract the stuff that works, dismiss the rest.

I realize this may be a silly topic for a thread, but I was recently listening to an audio clip on the 'meta skill' of 'meta learning' ANY topic with ease and in extremely short time periods. His method was simply to identify the most important things to learn/train (and NOT to learn/train), on the extremes, and once learned/trained/practiced the middle would take care of itself. It was a fascinating lecture.

Here for reference: The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Anyways, hope to dialogue this with you guys to see if I'm deranged, or whether something like this has merit.

Thanks.

 

[KPM]

Isn't that kinda what Bruce Lee did? I think if someone was to do as you suggest and look at how fighting is done in today's world, then what they would come up with would have a kickboxing-like flavor and likely start to resemble JKD.

Now I am likely biased, but as to the point of redoing things to make them quicker and easier to learn....if that was the goal then I think what someone would come up with would be very similar to Pin Sun Wing Chun.....since that was Leung Jan's goal when he retired to Ku Lo and reworked his Wing Chun.

 

[marques]

The 20% solve 80% of the situations. But if you fight a lot (competitors) you need the other 80% to win 100% of fights and to be less predictable. (There is no 100% in fighting skills but I hope you got the idea.)

Focus on the core is a great way to learn and become effective faster. But the core is not all.

 

[wckf92]

Isn't that kinda what Bruce Lee did? I think if someone was to do as you suggest and look at how fighting is done in today's world, then what they would come up with would have a kickboxing-like flavor and likely start to resemble JKD.

Now I am likely biased, but as to the point of redoing things to make them quicker and easier to learn....if that was the goal then I think what someone would come up with would be very similar to Pin Sun Wing Chun.....since that was Leung Jan's goal when he retired to Ku Lo and reworked his Wing Chun.

Hmmm....hadn't thought of that (the Pin Sun LJ thing). Having no experience with PS WC, nor its associated learning timeline...I can't say. But IIRC, didn't you say PS doesnt have forms, just mostly San Sik? If so, is it this reason that you think it is more of a "20%" rather than an "80%"?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

"IF" WC/WT/VT was supposedly created by distilling other Shaolin arts into their most basic / successful / least flashy elements and re-purposed into WC...(apparently to create a more efficient learning curve), is it possible to do this again?

To clarify...let's say that way back then, some really smart dudes applied an '80/20' thought process to the bloated Shaolin fighting styles. They extracted the most important/successful/high percentage "20%" and oila we have WC.
Can we / should we do this in each generation based on the changing times and advancement of other combat methods? What if some really smart dudes or uber great grand masters got together and did the same thing in todays world? IOW, review the WC curriculum in its entirety, extract the stuff that works, dismiss the rest.

I realize this may be a silly topic for a thread, but I was recently listening to an audio clip on the 'meta skill' of 'meta learning' ANY topic with ease and in extremely short time periods. His method was simply to identify the most important things to learn/train (and NOT to learn/train), on the extremes, and once learned/trained/practiced the middle would take care of itself. It was a fascinating lecture.

Here for reference: The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Anyways, hope to dialogue this with you guys to see if I'm deranged, or whether something like this has merit.

Thanks.

I don't think any art or approach is irreducible. Every person has influence on their own training, and passes along that influence if they teach. Since nearly all teaching is to groups, a good teacher will be teaching bits for different kinds of people at the same time, so each person gets some bits that don't suit them. Add to that the fact that some complexity is used to further develop concepts and principles (though the complexity might not be directly used in combat).

So, yes, I think any instructor in any art should be looking for ways to refine and improve what they deliver. Those refinements may come from an improved understanding (from where they were when they started teaching), from learning something new from training in or working against another art, or from changing circumstances.

 

[Vajramusti]

Isn't that kinda what Bruce Lee did? I think if someone was to do as you suggest and look at how fighting is done in today's world, then what they would come up with would have a kickboxing-like flavor and likely start to resemble JKD.

Now I am likely biased, but as to the point of redoing things to make them quicker and easier to learn....if that was the goal then I think what someone would come up with would be very similar to Pin Sun Wing Chun.....since that was Leung Jan's goal when he retired to Ku Lo and reworked his Wing Chun.

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The bias clearly shows. Huge assumption on Leung Jan's goal and that he reworked his wing chun.
He retired to his Gu lo village about a couple of years before his death. Sheesh! Self serving pseudo history!

 

[Xue Sheng]

I tend to avoid posting in the WC section these days, but....

Sounds like Bruce Lee: "The goal should simply be to simplify"

 

[Gerry Seymour]

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The bias clearly shows. Huge assumption on Leung Jan's goal and that he reworked his wing chun.
He retired to his Gu lo village about a couple of years before his death. Sheesh! Self serving pseudo history!

Is that tone really necessary?

 

[wckf92]

I'm talking / asking about current day WC/WT/VT specifically.....not what Bruce Lee did.

For example, will our grand kids learn a stripped down version of WC/WT/VT? Perhaps a version without the weapons (just a generic example). Or perhaps a version without a Bong sau or a Tan sau or a gum sau etc?

 

[KPM]

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The bias clearly shows. Huge assumption on Leung Jan's goal and that he reworked his wing chun.
He retired to his Gu lo village about a couple of years before his death. Sheesh! Self serving pseudo history!

We've been over this before. Why do you continually let whatever grudge you have against Pin Sun Wing Chun show in your posts? Leung Jan was in Ku Lo village for 3 years prior to his death. That is a fact documented in Ku Lo village. He had a small dedicated group of students while there, he realized his time was likely short, so he set about redoing his curriculum to teach the essential core in the most efficient way possible. Three years is plenty of time to train with someone when you are doing so in a quite fishing village for several hours every day. Many top people around today didn't spend more time than that with their teachers. No "pseudo history" about it. This is what his lineage in Ku Lo village has documented. This is just as valid as any of the 2nd and 3rd hand things we hear about Ip Man and his training with Chan Wah Shun.


Now if I was going to redesign something to be as efficient a teaching model as possible, this is what I would do. Keep classes small to give each student as much "hands on" teaching as possible. Rather than teaching long forms without clear application, break things down into smaller "chunks" or "modules" of information. Teach a student a module as a short form. Don't make these modules too abstract so that they don't really represent how a movement would be done for real, but make them as applicable as possible. Then teach students application ideas from this module by working on semi-choreographed 2 man drills that uses the techniques from the module. Teach them to perform this same module on the wooden dummy so they can practice when a partner is unavailable. Then teach them how to use the information in this module in a more "live" and free-flowing format....Chi Sau and eventually free-sparring or San Sau. Design these progressive modules of information so that many of them have overlapping elements that link them together. Design these progressive modules so that the movements often have more than one way of application so that the student can come back later and discover that they had already been practicing something that they only have to now see in a little different light. Design these modules so that they also incorporate the main concepts of the system and main footwork patterns. And finally, teach them how they can combine and string various modules together and "mix and match" creatively to explore even further applications and uses for what they have learned.

This would be much more efficient that requiring a student to spend a year or two learning the SNT form and doing simple Chi Sau before they ever even start to use realistic footwork and apply things in a "free" environment. This would be much more efficient than not letting the student work on the dummy until he or she is several years into the system. This would be much more efficient that a long "Lat Sau" program that teaches complex responses in Chi Sau that are unlikely to show up in a real encounter with someone that isn't also doing Wing Chun. This would be much more efficient that making your system so "conceptual" that it is hard to grasp what you are working and training towards until you have been training for several years.

But yeah, I'm biased.

 

[guy b]

For example, will our grand kids learn a stripped down version of WC/WT/VT? Perhaps a version without the weapons (just a generic example). Or perhaps a version without a Bong sau or a Tan sau or a gum sau etc?

Why? Everything there serves a purpose, nothing is superfluous. Removing anything would only break the system.

 

[guy b]

This would be much more efficient that requiring a student to spend a year or two learning the SNT form and doing simple Chi Sau before they ever even start to use realistic footwork and apply things in a "free" environment. This would be much more efficient than not letting the student work on the dummy until he or she is several years into the system. This would be much more efficient that a long "Lat Sau" program that teaches complex responses in Chi Sau that are unlikely to show up in a real encounter with someone that isn't also doing Wing Chun. This would be much more efficient that making your system so "conceptual" that it is hard to grasp what you are working and training towards until you have been training for several years.

Is this your understanding of system progression in YM VT?

 

[anerlich]

Systems that embrace evolution, rather than try to stick to historical precedent, like Jiu Jitsu, tend in my experience to become more complex rather than more simple.

Josh Waitzkin's stuff IMO is way more about learning a skill for your own purposes rather than developing generalised teaching programs or altering the way things are done in a preexisting system.

In modern Wing Chun, the 20% would be training the physical techniques, the 80% ranting on internet forums about peripheral issues like terminology, lineage, who is cleverer (sorry, but none of you are), etc.

I want to like Tim Ferriss, but I always get the feeling when I'm listening to him that he's about to turn around and try to sell me a used car. I feel like that about a few posters here as well.

 

[drop bear]

Systems that embrace evolution, rather than try to stick to historical precedent, like Jiu Jitsu, tend in my experience to become more complex rather than more simple.

Josh Waitzkin's stuff IMO is way more about learning a skill for your own purposes rather than developing generalised teaching programs or altering the way things are done in a preexisting system.

In modern Wing Chun, the 20% would be training the physical techniques, the 80% ranting on internet forums about peripheral issues like terminology, lineage, who is cleverer (sorry, but none of you are), etc.

I want to like Tim Ferriss, but I always get the feeling when I'm listening to him that he's about to turn around and try to sell me a used car. I feel like that about a few posters here as well.

Emphasis on basics though.

 

[Nobody Important]

"IF" WC/WT/VT was supposedly created by distilling other Shaolin arts into their most basic / successful / least flashy elements and re-purposed into WC...(apparently to create a more efficient learning curve), is it possible to do this again?

To clarify...let's say that way back then, some really smart dudes applied an '80/20' thought process to the bloated Shaolin fighting styles. They extracted the most important/successful/high percentage "20%" and oila we have WC.
Can we / should we do this in each generation based on the changing times and advancement of other combat methods? What if some really smart dudes or uber great grand masters got together and did the same thing in todays world? IOW, review the WC curriculum in its entirety, extract the stuff that works, dismiss the rest.

I realize this may be a silly topic for a thread, but I was recently listening to an audio clip on the 'meta skill' of 'meta learning' ANY topic with ease and in extremely short time periods. His method was simply to identify the most important things to learn/train (and NOT to learn/train), on the extremes, and once learned/trained/practiced the middle would take care of itself. It was a fascinating lecture.

Here for reference: The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Anyways, hope to dialogue this with you guys to see if I'm deranged, or whether something like this has merit.

Thanks.

First off, you're definitely deranged I also happen to agree. Some arts need to adapt to current accepted standards of practicality. Others need fluff removed and others need stripped of the restrictions and protocols applied to them.

 

[marques]

Another perspective about the 'simplifying the simple':

Myself as a student sometimes go so deep into the simplification that I use and abuse of 1 or 2 combined techniques.
But as an instructor, it would be better to deliver 'full programme', so each student could simplify or complicate in his own, personalised way.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

They extracted the most important/successful/high percentage "20%" and oila we have WC.

To train MA is to solve problems. Most of the problems come from people from other MA styles.

If you and your style doesn't train the other 80%, how will you be able to develop your defense and counter when your opponent from other MA style to use it on you? The simplest example is the defense and counter to "under hook". If you just raise your arm straight up, your opponent will never be able to apply that "under hook" on you. But if you don't train that counter daily, you will never be able to react correctly when you need to.

The question is if you train a counter to a certain technique, why don't you also train the technique itself?

A general will need many soldiers. That 20% may be your generals but the other 80% are your soldiers.