The problem With practicing WC and other arts...

[geezer]

A lot of people try to pick up some WC to use along with other martial arts. Sometimes it can work to a degree, but more often not. There's a huge problem. And it has nothing to do with politics, egos, or which approach is best. It has to do with the fact that WC is an integrated system that's based on efficiency and simplicity. It's a paired down system in which each movement performs essential functions, and all redundant movements are discarded. The best WC is that which gets the job done as simply, directly, and effortlessly as possible.

Ok, so what happens if you practice another pugilistic art that uses different movements? Well, learning about other arts is fine. Sparring against them is essential. But training them will defeat the purpose of WC. WC demands simplicity, so your responses become automatic according to the force you receive. Tacking on an extra "bag or tricks" will complicate and slow your responses, Rather than just moving automatically according to the force of your opponent's attack (objective response), you now will have to think. You will have to sort through your "menu" of tricks and choose which response you think will work (subjective response). Normally, pausing to think is a good thing. But not in the middle of a fight. Any thoughts?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Had not thought about it, but I see your point.

I had not given any thought to adding training in a different striking art to my training - I have enough on my plate with Isshin-Ryu! However, at some point in the future, it is on my list of things to do to add some training in some sort of ground art, such as Judo. I have also given some thought to Tai Chi or Aikido. No decisions yet, I have so much more to accomplish inside my own art before I could even think about trying to absorb other types of training.

But I have seen how very different the body structure and strikes are in WC as compared to many arts. I can see how it could cause a person confusion if they were training in WC and another striking art that had a different underlying philosophy.

 

[seasoned]

I liken it to walking, learning to drive a car and so on. The best moves and the fastest ones are the ones we don't have to think about.
As babies and are beginning to walk, the steps are labored jerky and not smooth. In time the walking movements become automatic with the thought process taken out of the picture. Same with driving a car, with much practice everything begins to happen absent of thought.
Now, as martial artist, IMHO, start an art and stick with it until you no longer know the art, but you "own that art".
As stated, in competition we sometimes have the luxury to think and calculate our moves with a perceived outcome. But, in a life and death situation, we need to transcend the natural thought process and allow our training to surface.
I have heard it many many times in law enforcement situations, when asked, "what do you owe your success to in saving your life or the life of someone else. Unequivocally it always falls back on training and the ability to not think but "just do".


Side note for those that have driven a standard car for many years. Switch the brake and gas peddle around and get into a drag race and you're right back to thinking your moves again. :asian:

 

[mook jong man]

It's not only the "log jam effect" with too many responses and conflicting reflexes that is the problem.
Many people try to integrate Wing Chun techniques into their style , but they don't use the Wing Chun stance.
They tack on a few Wing Chun techniques and continue to use the stance from their core system.

It doesn't work like that , Wing Chun techniques are designed to work optimally from the platform of the Wing Chun stance , attempting to use them from a different stance means generating and overcoming force correctly will be a very difficult proposition.

The techniques will be an empty facsimile because they don't have the correct "engine" to power them.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Then train them separately, not complementary

And it is highly likely if you train them well, when and if a fight comes, all will be automaitc and you will not be thinking at all about which way to go.

 

[arnisador]

Wing Chun and the FMAs work very nicely together. In JKD we would practice boxing-style techniques sometimes and WC-style techniques other times, then practice switching between them--you were in boxing mode for a while, then dropped into a straight blast scenario when an opening occurred and used trapping as needed then. It worked fine as long as you did only one of them at a time. In my opinion the martial arts are mostly paper-scissors-rock (or Pokemon, given all the different types of styles) and so knowing when and how to switch approaches based on what's happening is beneficial--flowing, as we say in arnis.

 

[WC_lun]

Straight blast isn't the only Wing Chun type technique, but it seems this is what many want to add to thier current training

The OP is correct in that WC is an integrated system, as in the hand works because the rest of the body is positioned correctly to support the hands. Feet work same way. If you take a technique from WC, such as lom lun quin or chain punches, the technique becomes much weaker if the supporting body structures are not there to support it. I quite often see other schools or systems try to incorporate "Wing Chun techniques" into thier own training, but then decide those techniques are weak and dimiss WC as a fighting art. In fact, those techniques are quite strong if trained correctly. An example of this is tan sau. An aquantance of mine was telling me how it was a useless technique because it callapsed when any real pressure was applied to it. I asked him to apply pressure to my tan sau and he could not cause it to collapse no matter how hard he struck and later pushed on it. That isn't because I'm really strong, but rather have been trained on the proper angles and body structure to have to keep it from collapsing. His tan sau collapsed because he had not been trained in those things. He just took what he saw and tried to use it, then made a decision on its effectiveness from very limited information.

 

[geezer]

Then train them separately, not complementary

And it is highly likely if you train them well, when and if a fight comes, all will be automaitc and you will not be thinking at all about which way to go.

That works more easily when there is a clear distinction of method and objective, or at least of range between the styles practiced. For example, practicing a long range kicking art, a close range striking art (like WC) and a grappling art. Each has it's own domain and there would be limited areas pf contradiction. Along this line, I practice WC, Eskrima and I used to do a bit of grappling (until age and injuries ended that). I could employ each when appropriate without compromising the integrity of each.

Even so I've encountered some conflicts. Many Filipino martial arts use some variant of the well known contact/"sensitivity" drill called hubud. I don't make much use of it in the Escrima I teach. I find that it overlaps too much with chi-sau, but it trains responses that are less efficient and even counterproductive from a WC point of view. Since most of my Escrima students are WC practitioners, I've made some adjustments to keep the arts distinct and compatible.

To get back to the your comment Xue, if we were just learning self defense sequences and combinations, then maybe you'd respond to a given attack by going onto "automatic-setting" and doing what you'd trained ...regardless of which art it came from. But WC isn't based on responding with trained sequences like, say a lot of Kenpo, etc. WC is based on using a particular type of flexible energy and forward pressure together with specific structures to yield a truly spontaneous response dictated by the energy you receive from your opponent rather than from a memorized sequence. It's taking me my whole life just to get this right. I'm not going to mess it up by training stuff based on conflicting principles! And I'd say others who try that are ill advised.

I've visited quit a few "chop suey" schools that teach "MMA-BJJ-Boxing-Karate-Kung-fu-Taichi-Weapons-You-name-it". If you ask the Sensei-Sifu-Guro, they'll tell your that they know it all because after you get to be a "Master" you see that under the surface, "it's all the same". Yeah, sure it is.

 

[Xue Sheng]

That works more easily when there is a clear distinction of method and objective, or at least of range between the styles practiced. For example, practicing a long range kicking art, a close range striking art (like WC) and a grappling art. Each has it's own domain and there would be limited areas pf contradiction. Along this line, I practice WC, Eskrima and I used to do a bit of grappling (until age and injuries ended that). I could employ each when appropriate without compromising the integrity of each.

Even so I've encountered some conflicts. Many Filipino martial arts use some variant of the well known contact/"sensitivity" drill called hubud. I don't make much use of it in the Escrima I teach. I find that it overlaps too much with chi-sau, but it trains responses that are less efficient and even counterproductive from a WC point of view. Since most of my Escrima students are WC practitioners, I've made some adjustments to keep the arts distinct and compatible.

To get back to the your comment Xue, if we were just learning self defense sequences and combinations, then maybe you'd respond to a given attack by going onto "automatic-setting" and doing what you'd trained ...regardless of which art it came from. But WC isn't based on responding with trained sequences like, say a lot of Kenpo, etc. WC is based on using a particular type of flexible energy and forward pressure together with specific structures to yield a truly spontaneous response dictated by the energy you receive from your opponent rather than from a memorized sequence. It's taking me my whole life just to get this right. I'm not going to mess it up by training stuff based on conflicting principles! And I'd say others who try that are ill advised.

I've visited quit a few "chop suey" schools that teach "MMA-BJJ-Boxing-Karate-Kung-fu-Taichi-Weapons-You-name-it". If you ask the Sensei-Sifu-Guro, they'll tell your that they know it all because after you get to be a "Master" you see that under the surface, "it's all the same". Yeah, sure it is.

That post seemed more specific to me so.....

I look at this from the POV of Taijiquan and Wing Chun based on what style I do and what you do which are not as different as many believe. However I do see an issue if you are talking a style like Okinawan Karate and Taijiquan or sports Sanshou and taijiquan but I still do not think you will get the hesitation you are talking about but you will likely end up with either Karate or Sanshou not Taijiquan.

A few months back I saw a Combat Taiji demo that was a Kenpo guy that learned 24 form and applied kenpo to it and although it would likely be effective, it was not taijiquan so I know what you are talking about. There are styles that do not mix well together and those woild be hard to keep seperate

 

[J W]

I began training Wing Chun last year; before that, I spent about a year training Kenpo. When I first started with Kenpo, I began brushing up on some of my Tae Kwon Do techniques (kicks mostly, of course) because they seemed to compliment what I was learning. Revisiting kicking techniques that I learned years ago in TKD seemed not only to help my Kenpo kicks (which are very similar, just with a lower target range), but also to augment my repertoire.

When I made the switch to WC, I immediately stopped practicing everything I had learned in Kenpo and TKD. This was because I suspected what you are saying here. I thought that continuing to practice Kenpo or TKD alongside my new art of WC would actually hinder my progress rather than help. The systems are too different. I felt that I needed to "undo" alot of what I had learned previously in order to properly learn WC. I've heard some of the guys refer to prior training as "poison", that it's actually easier to learn WC starting with a blank slate.

As a side note: "WC isn't based on responding with trained sequences like, say a lot of Kenpo, etc." The understanding that I got during my admittedly short stint as a Kenpoist was that the "techniques" (as they call the sequences) that they use are not intended as pre-programmed responses. Ed Parker stated in his Infinite Insights books that the ultimate goal was to spontaneously react without thinking, same as our goal in WC. The purpose of the techniques is to teach the student how to flow from one movement to the next. We train chi sao, they study the techniques. Two very different training methodologies, but ultimately the same goal.

 

[Thunder Foot]

I personally believe that the underlying factor towards integration is, as someone called it the "engine that drives the techniques"... namely the stance and footwork. If these don't share the same objective, then the following techs will lack substance.

 

[arnisador]

I personally believe that the underlying factor towards integration is, as someone called it the "engine that drives the techniques"... namely the stance and footwork. If these don't share the same objective, then the following techs will lack substance.

We have to be careful about believing our own PR, though. While things may work very well "as designed" it may also be possible to "absorb what is useful" and take some material from the system and use it with different footwork and stances. If done in a happenstance manner it's not likely to be very good but it's also not a house of cards. I've sometimes hit people pretty hard in practice when I've been in a pretty lousy stance because the guy wasn't standing still and was resisting me. That's not a plan, but it's an indication that not everything has to be perfectly aligned--indeed, if that were the case the system would be useless. Sometimes we overthink these things.

 

[mook jong man]

See I'm a person that believes everything does have to be perfectly aligned , that's why we have to keep training.
Wing Chun uses the YCKYM stance for a reason.
This is an excerpt from a transcript of a seminar given by Tsui Seung Tin
I quote:

"The Two Adduction Stance is the stance which is only seen in Wing Chun Kung Fu.
On the face of it , one may feel that such a stance is unstable and difficult to move around.
It is also thought that the lower part of such a stance is wide open for attack.

However if you look at it more carefully, you will find that the Two Adduction Stance consists of plenty of advantages including the invincible attack and effective defence.
It will also enable you to suck in the opponents force for your own use when coming into contact with the opponent.

This means that your own body weight will increase whilst the body weight of the opponent will decrease.
This special effect of increasing in body weight will therefore give you an enormous power in counter-attack.

On the other hand , the structural performance of the Two Adduction Stance completely fits into the logic of force.
It can gather up the strength of the whole body onto a point of attack.

In other words whether you punch or kick , the attack will contain the strength of the whole body.
It may take pages for me to explain how this is happening in black and white.
I therefore decide to talk about the theory and structure of how to gather up the strength of the whole body during my demonstration.
End quote.
He then goes on to explain the structure and theory of Tan Sau , Bong Sau and Fook Sau.

 

[WTchap]

I've had time away from Wing Tsun (often due to work and changing where [country] I live), and I took the opportunity to play around with different arts to see what else was out there, how things work, etc. Some arts do have various 'connections' or 'similarities' with Wing Tsun, but....

My Xingyi instructor said I did Xingyi which looked like it still had WT as its engine; and my Aikido instructor often just smiled and shook his head when watching me (by the way, Aikido is simply a fascinating art - I would recommend any martial artist with an open mind giving it some time).

Despite some dedicated training in these other arts... the WT was inside my movements and use of the body - I just couldn't get it out :ultracool

 

[yak sao]

WC is not a collection of techniques strewn together and called a system.
It isn't even techniques as much as its techniques are a physical manifestation of WC principles at work.

WC is a very technical art, but you have to get beyond that and see the concept. WC is quite simply, (yea, right) body mechanics. How can I move my body in such a way to deliver devastating stopping power, while at the same time, keeping my opponent from doing that to me?
The step and punch isn’t just me stepping in so I can get close enough to hit with my fist. It’s about me getting close enough so I can deliver my body weight into my opponent, using my fist as the delivery system, and having it backed up from proper stance, body alignment, etc.
As my opponent launches a powerful attack to my face, the sensitivity I’ve gained through countless hours of chi sau practice, isn’t about me being sensitive to his attack so that I can respond with the proper arm structure. It’s about me being sensitive to my own body so that I am able to respond in such a way so that I am still balanced and in control of my structure.

In order to do these things properly, you can't just cherry pick. You can't have some of this style and some of that style with a little WC thrown in for good measure. In order for WC to work as it should, you need to have it from the ground up.

 

[arnisador]

See I'm a person that believes everything does have to be perfectly aligned , that's why we have to keep training.

I've studied WC proper and I likes it a lot, but I've also used aspects of it as taught in JKD with a boxing-style stance and had success there too. If things have to be perfectly aligned, how could the art ever be used in the heat of combat? I don't disagree with what you say as an ideal but it really isn't a house of cards where removing one collapses the whole structure--no such system could ever be useful in a fight.

 

[arnisador]

In order to do these things properly, you can't just cherry pick. You can't have some of this style and some of that style with a little WC thrown in for good measure. In order for WC to work as it should, you need to have it from the ground up.

And yet I've seen aspects of WC integrated well and successfully into JKD. It isn't WC and doesn't use anything like the WC strategy but you can take some techniques and ideas and, with though, practice, and care, work them into something else. After all, WC came from earlier arts too.

 

[yak sao]

I've studied WC proper and I likes it a lot, but I've also used aspects of it as taught in JKD with a boxing-style stance and had success there too. If things have to be perfectly aligned, how could the art ever be used in the heat of combat? I don't disagree with what you say as an ideal but it really isn't a house of cards where removing one collapses the whole structure--no such system could ever be useful in a fight.

You will never achieve perfect body alignment, especially when looking at the unpredictability of a fight, such as terrain, etc. That said, the closer you can get to achieving total body unity in practice, the better it will serve you when you have to deviate from that structure when suddenly you find yourslef with a fist or body propelling toward you.
WC is not all or nothing...there are redundancies built into the system as a backup to either our shortcomings, or the unpredictability of our opponent or whatever.

 

[Danny T]

A lot of people try to pick up some WC to use along with other martial arts. Sometimes it can work to a degree, but more often not. There's a huge problem. And it has nothing to do with politics, egos, or which approach is best. It has to do with the fact that WC is an integrated system that's based on efficiency and simplicity. It's a paired down system in which each movement performs essential functions, and all redundant movements are discarded. The best WC is that which gets the job done as simply, directly, and effortlessly as possible.

Ok, so what happens if you practice another pugilistic art that uses different movements? Well, learning about other arts is fine. Sparring against them is essential. But training them will defeat the purpose of WC. WC demands simplicity, so your responses become automatic according to the force you receive. Tacking on an extra "bag or tricks" will complicate and slow your responses, Rather than just moving automatically according to the force of your opponent's attack (objective response), you now will have to think. You will have to sort through your "menu" of tricks and choose which response you think will work (subjective response). Normally, pausing to think is a good thing. But not in the middle of a fight. Any thoughts?

It is the picking up of some WC and attempting to use itwithout understanding physically and tactilely. No different from someoneattempting to pick up some parts of any other training system without anunderstanding of what or why.

I learned and trained WC while training boxing, muay thai,and later silat, tai chi, and fma. I have taught and continue to teach manystudents training in wing chun, muay thai, grappling arts, fma, karate systems, hapkido, and a host of other arts or any mixof them. Depending upon the individual and the amount of time they put inwithin 5-7 years they are highly skilled in all the systems they train. Formost between the 3[SUP]rd [/SUP]& 4[SUP]th[/SUP] year they begin to transitionfreely and efficiently within the different ranges, the spatial relationships,and forces being applied and/or encountered. I do not believe I alone am fortunate to have so many students with greater abilities than other instructors.

As to having to stop to think..., I practiced and played baseball (and other sports) from my youth into my mid 30's; I also played golf starting in my early teens. Using these two sports utilizing two different instruments to strike with and the manner of striking being quite different I was a good hitter in baseball and a very strong driver in golf. Didn't have much concerns with confusing a baseball bat with a golf club or the swinging of them. I played football and never got confused between tagging someone in baseball and tackling them as they were running to a base.

Most of the greatest masters in all the martial arts trained more than one methodology. How did wing chun get the bart dom jo and the pole? A practitioner trained something else with someone, added to what they did, passed it on, and in time it became a part of what is now the system. For it to become intergrated in the system it seems logical it would have to have been trained would it not?

All the systems I have trained to any advanced level in there is a intergration of the material. Unfortunately one must train for a long time 10-20 years in may cases before getting keys or have a understanding of the intergration and efficiences in the combat aspects. Wing Chun teaches that from the beginning and that is one of its strongest suits.

 

[mook jong man]

I've studied WC proper and I likes it a lot, but I've also used aspects of it as taught in JKD with a boxing-style stance and had success there too. If things have to be perfectly aligned, how could the art ever be used in the heat of combat? I don't disagree with what you say as an ideal but it really isn't a house of cards where removing one collapses the whole structure--no such system could ever be useful in a fight.

In Wing Chun precision is measured in mere millimetres , If my Fook Sau is off the centerline by a tiny bit it will allow a strike to get through , get it back on the centerline and try as they might they wont be able to strike me.

I can also demonstrate when my Bong Sau or Fook Sau is off the centerline , I cannot effect the persons balance , soon as I get them on the centerline and focused at the right point on the opponent the oppponents toes will start lifting and using my stance I can move them back effortlessly.

The thing that separates us from the top Wing Chun masters is their correctness in technique , and being able to consistently aim towards this focal point on the opponent , we can do it some of the time , they do it 100% of the time.

You maybe able to take some things like a Pak Sau and use them with a boxing style stance and body orientation , but I stand by my assertion that they will not work optimally.

Due to not being in the correct Wing Chun stance with the toes pointing inwards to the focal point , the body mass will not be properly transferred into the technique at the point of contact on the opponent.

Without the support of the correct Wing Chun stance you will probably be using upper body strength to generate the force for the technique instead of the force coming from the stance.