You've all heard it. Especially if you bounce around on a lot of different forums. And, I think there is a lot of truth to it. Personally, I know some very scary and proficient WC/WT fighters. But they are in the minority, and they are not into sport competition. So they are not well known. As for why so many of the rest are not great fighters, I have read a lot of garbage. And I have my own ideas (more garbage?). Anyway, what do you think? C'mon... feed the troll!
Why 'Chunners aren't good fighters...
- Thread starter geezer
- Start date
Don't think it's chunners that are the only martial artists that are thought of as "bad" fighters.
I find most Mcdojo/Mckwoons who are after making a fast buck turn out bad fighters.
It could be Karate, WC,Kick boxing, TKD whatever, if the students do not pratice sparring/pressure testing often enough then they will not be "ready" for a fight...or as ready as anyone can be without a crystal ball.
Also what do you mean by fighting?
Sparring with gloves and rules, if so, to whose or what styles rules?
Or a good old fashioned punch up in the street!!
I think it all depends on your Sifu and club, lets put it this way, there is a certain style of Karate which is practiced by one club here that I would NEVER train in.
If I went to the UK or US etc to watch the same style, I bet it would be a different story and I would be impressed by what I see.
Blame the Sifu, not the students...but we must also make the choice if we are not happy by voting with our feet. By that I don't mean kicking the Sifu
I find most Mcdojo/Mckwoons who are after making a fast buck turn out bad fighters.
It could be Karate, WC,Kick boxing, TKD whatever, if the students do not pratice sparring/pressure testing often enough then they will not be "ready" for a fight...or as ready as anyone can be without a crystal ball.
Also what do you mean by fighting?
Sparring with gloves and rules, if so, to whose or what styles rules?
Or a good old fashioned punch up in the street!!
I think it all depends on your Sifu and club, lets put it this way, there is a certain style of Karate which is practiced by one club here that I would NEVER train in.
If I went to the UK or US etc to watch the same style, I bet it would be a different story and I would be impressed by what I see.
Blame the Sifu, not the students...but we must also make the choice if we are not happy by voting with our feet. By that I don't mean kicking the Sifu
mook jong man
Senior Master
If you come from a type of school that just does nice gentle rolling type of chi sau while you talk about what you did on the weekend as the bulk of your training then the chances are that you wont be a great fighter.
Realistic training means sometimes going outside of your comfort zone , a lot of people aren't willing to do that for whatever reason.
If you are doing the art primarily for self defence then you must be brutally honest with yourself and want to continually improve your speed , force and reflexes.
That means sometimes putting the head gear on and enduring the discomfort that comes from being hit in the head , it means a lot of sweat and sometimes blood.
But it is being able to endure that discomfort and still keep going , that is what forges your mental toughness , a quality that is needed in self defence situations.
Gentle chi sau will not prepare you for the reflex and physicality that is needed to repel a full on assault.
Along with the forms a good sized chunk of your training must be engaging in hard chi sau sparring with moderate to heavy contact to the body .
Drilling of your reflexes by training against all types of random attacks not just Wing Chun style attacks.
This must include grabs , punches from all angles , kicks from all angles , tackles , multiple opponents , basic groundfighting and unarmed against weapons.
Your deflections must sometimes be done against full force attacks in order to test their integrity so that any mistake can be worked on before you have to use it on the street.
When that first haymaker comes rocketing in is not a good time to discover that your angles are too close and your arm collapses under the force , that is assuming that you have even picked up on his body cues to get your arm up in time . Which could be the case if all you are used to is doing gentle chi sau and you haven't worked on your reflexes from out of contact range.
You must also do a fair bit of power training on various pieces of equipment such as kick shields , focus mitts, wall bag , heavy bag etc.
I think as long as you work on speed , force and reflex in your training as well as using a bit of common sense then you can become a decent fighter.
Realistic training means sometimes going outside of your comfort zone , a lot of people aren't willing to do that for whatever reason.
If you are doing the art primarily for self defence then you must be brutally honest with yourself and want to continually improve your speed , force and reflexes.
That means sometimes putting the head gear on and enduring the discomfort that comes from being hit in the head , it means a lot of sweat and sometimes blood.
But it is being able to endure that discomfort and still keep going , that is what forges your mental toughness , a quality that is needed in self defence situations.
Gentle chi sau will not prepare you for the reflex and physicality that is needed to repel a full on assault.
Along with the forms a good sized chunk of your training must be engaging in hard chi sau sparring with moderate to heavy contact to the body .
Drilling of your reflexes by training against all types of random attacks not just Wing Chun style attacks.
This must include grabs , punches from all angles , kicks from all angles , tackles , multiple opponents , basic groundfighting and unarmed against weapons.
Your deflections must sometimes be done against full force attacks in order to test their integrity so that any mistake can be worked on before you have to use it on the street.
When that first haymaker comes rocketing in is not a good time to discover that your angles are too close and your arm collapses under the force , that is assuming that you have even picked up on his body cues to get your arm up in time . Which could be the case if all you are used to is doing gentle chi sau and you haven't worked on your reflexes from out of contact range.
You must also do a fair bit of power training on various pieces of equipment such as kick shields , focus mitts, wall bag , heavy bag etc.
I think as long as you work on speed , force and reflex in your training as well as using a bit of common sense then you can become a decent fighter.
OK, so other TMAs have the same problem, or maybe worse. Still, if WC/WT has a "street-fighting" heritage, how come we don't produce more really tough guys. And as to what I mean by by fighting... take your choice. A really tough fighter can mix it up and take care of himself in a variety of environments. It's as much mentality as physique and technique.
I think MA attract a lot of non fighters. People who have had sand kicked in their face by the town bully. So they sign up for a karate class to learn how to fight. And while their teacher can teach them technique, that "killer instinct" is a lot harder to impart.
I think that's why when you do get someone of the calliber of an Emin Boztepe, that's why they stand out. He is a lion among sheep. He would have been dangerous if all he learned was tiddlywinks. Now, he is on one extreme of the spectrum, and the mild mannered non fighter type is on the other extreme. I think everyone else falls somewhere in between.
Joining a MA class doesn't make you a fighter any more than walking into a garage makes you a car. I remember in my old Shaolin class. We had what we called the fighters and the theorizers.
We would be doing 2 man drills. And they (the theorizers) would want to stop and analyze every single movement and the psychology behind it and yada yada....used to drive me crazy. I would always tell them, do it a thousand times till your body knows it, then go theorize over a beer.
But to be brutally honest to myself, I wasn't a fighter before MA. But I remember my first kung fu class. It woke something up inside of me. And after years of hard work, I can honestly say a fighter was born that day. Not invincible, not unbeatable, but a fighter none the less.
I think that's why when you do get someone of the calliber of an Emin Boztepe, that's why they stand out. He is a lion among sheep. He would have been dangerous if all he learned was tiddlywinks. Now, he is on one extreme of the spectrum, and the mild mannered non fighter type is on the other extreme. I think everyone else falls somewhere in between.
Joining a MA class doesn't make you a fighter any more than walking into a garage makes you a car. I remember in my old Shaolin class. We had what we called the fighters and the theorizers.
We would be doing 2 man drills. And they (the theorizers) would want to stop and analyze every single movement and the psychology behind it and yada yada....used to drive me crazy. I would always tell them, do it a thousand times till your body knows it, then go theorize over a beer.
But to be brutally honest to myself, I wasn't a fighter before MA. But I remember my first kung fu class. It woke something up inside of me. And after years of hard work, I can honestly say a fighter was born that day. Not invincible, not unbeatable, but a fighter none the less.
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Isn't that the truth? I think that this applies to all MAs, not just WC, because of the competition thing. In real life it is unlikely an opponent is going to stand back in a kumite stance and throw a weak jab at your face. He will steam in, wear whatever you have to give and just go 'bang'. If your not prepared for that style of attack you will go down, champion kumite fighter or not. That is what annoys me in a number of places I have trained. They live in a land of dreams. No evidence of RBSD anywhere to be seen. :asian:
zepedawingchun
Black Belt
I think there are just as many fighters and non-fighter in Wing Chun as there are in other martial arts systems. It just appears there are more bad fighters in Wing Chun because WC has such a reputation as being a no nonsense, combat oriented, fast learning system. It's like being the fastest gun in the west, everyone wants to take a shot at you, knocking you down to see if they are faster. With Wing Chun, everyone wants to prove (outsiders of the system) it's not the best art to train. I just don't pay it any attention. I know the art for what it is, and it has made me a better fighter.
zepedawingchun
Black Belt
Great post Mook Jong Man, you've hit the nail on ther head. Some students are natural born fighters, but a majority are not. As teachers, we have to push them and guide them, with what you have stated, to create the fighters our system is known for.
zepedawingchun
Black Belt
Yep, seen a few of those over the years. Hard to get them to forget about analyzing and just do the drills.
Yak, you hit the nail on the head. I agree. And I think one reason why a lot of 'chunners "can't fight" is that WC/WT is such a sophisticated system that it naturally appeals to those you call "theorizers". In these times, the natural fighters often don't even study martial arts. They just pick up the skills they need through experience. If they do train, they tend to go into boxing, MMA, muay thai, or something similar. WC/WT is too exotic, too slow, and perhaps too cerebral for a lot of these guys. And a lot of WC/WT sifus, although technically proficient and capable of defending themselves, are not fighters at heart. A natural fighter like Emin Boztepe or Victor Gutierrez will spot this the moment they walk in the door, and probably won't hang around. So those who do stick with it and become the next generation of si-hings and sifus are generally not from the fighting end of the spectrum, as you described it.
Now of course, what I've described above is a gross generalization. There are some really tough guys in WC/WT. But by and large getting the best fighters to stick with WC/WT in America is about as hard as getting the country's best athletes to stick with soccer. A lot of kids love soccer in middle school, but by high school the best athletes generally end up in football, basketball, or baseball. Fighters probably end up in hockey. And now there's growing interest in MMA. Face it, at least here in the US, WC/WT attracts intelligent eccentrics. And some, like you, Yak, discover that there actually is a fighter inside. As for myself, it's back to theorizing!
Tensei85
Master Black Belt
To be honest,
I would say this if you want to be a good fighter, you have to fight.
It's the same as if you want to be a good demonstrator of Tao Lu then you have to spend massive amounts of hours in that activity.
Drills are not fighting, Chi Sau is not fighting, forms is not fighting.
Do they help prepare you for fighting (da jiang) based on mechanics & attributes than I would say definitely but its still not the same activity.
Another brief example if you look at Wing Chun Fighter such as Wong Sheun Leung or William Cheung or others not to get too politically involved by mentioning names. Every weekend they would go to a Lei Tai, and fight.
I think as you guys mentioned previously most of us spend too much time in Wing Chun as a past time or hobby as opposed to getting out there and refining our skills with Lei Tai, Da Jiang, San Da whatever...
I would say this if you want to be a good fighter, you have to fight.
It's the same as if you want to be a good demonstrator of Tao Lu then you have to spend massive amounts of hours in that activity.
Drills are not fighting, Chi Sau is not fighting, forms is not fighting.
Do they help prepare you for fighting (da jiang) based on mechanics & attributes than I would say definitely but its still not the same activity.
Another brief example if you look at Wing Chun Fighter such as Wong Sheun Leung or William Cheung or others not to get too politically involved by mentioning names. Every weekend they would go to a Lei Tai, and fight.
I think as you guys mentioned previously most of us spend too much time in Wing Chun as a past time or hobby as opposed to getting out there and refining our skills with Lei Tai, Da Jiang, San Da whatever...
Well I have now watched a few more and whilst the WC isnt that great (they admit to being novices) It does advocate more "real" drilling against opponents. Also plenty of sparring and make sure your partners in drills are not making it easy for you.
I have seen in classes along time ago, when a Sifu is showing a technique, the student is almost subservient trying to please Sifu and can over act.
Not just in WC by he way.
I would prefer the technique to go wrong now and again just to show it can and what to do if it does. It also shows the even the best can make errors etc.
So as long as WC'rs spar and do lots of real world drills, I think they make good fighters. The problem being that Wing Chun isn't known for competitions. I am to old for all that now but back in the day I did want to compete but my Sifu advised against it as the only comps here were Karate. He said we would probably get disqualified.
Now that may sound small minded, but I watched him in a Karate comp and he was disqualified for low kicks.
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mook jong man
Senior Master
That certainly does occur , no doubt about it , but it can also happen the other way as well.
I don't class myself as a sifu , but I remember as an instructor sometimes demonstrating counters to arm grabs. You would pick the biggest guy in the group to demo on and usually they were beginners and new to the school and not quite yet sold on the idea of Wing Chun.
But they had been taught the technique a few times before by other instructors , so already you have lost the element of surprise.
They would grab as hard as they could and resist you in such away that you couldn't apply the technique trying to make you look an **** in front of everybody.
But that was ok I just changed the direction of my force and used a different technique , explaining " That if he resists like that then you do this".
But that sort of thing is alright it makes you improve as a Wing Chun exponent and makes you apply the principles under pressure.
Thats exactly right , and the skill is in knowing how many ways it can go wrong.
If all your used to is half arsed attacks then you never have to think and come up with a plan b , plan c or even plan d because your technique has worked perfectly all the time and never been tested .
Oh dear.........
First off, I am fortunate to live in london where I am surrounded by some excepional wing chun practitioners and fighters. Kevin chan (my master) is known on many forums as a very very good fighter and general hard guy!
Others include James Sinclair, Alan Orr, Alan Gibson, Shaun Rawcliffe, the list goes on...
Wing chun is often viewed as a wimpy art because chunners rarely get into the cage or into sport formats and that seems to be the judge of how good an art is nowadays. People forget how many rules exist in UFC and cage competitions. In a real fight a simple poke in the eye can sometimes end the fight! So I don't really judge arts by that kind of standard
Speaking as someone who has been in the cage and been in knockdown events, wing chun is a very pragmatic, practical, realistic and useful art to learn. True there are some bad teachers out there (people know my feelings on William Cheung and Benny Meng), and it is often the politics of wing chun that puts people off. Bad promo clips on youtube don't help (there are some really really bad ones). There is also a lot of chunners who describe wing chun as the deadliest art etc and wrap it up in an air of mystery. So it loses credibility.
The thing is that many arts use conditioning as their sole method of getting good or they rely on rules. Whilst there is no doubt that cage fighters are great fighters, in order to get to that level you would have to train 6 hours a day every day and be willing to get bruised and battered on a continual basis
Most people are not willing to do this, so they choose an art that will work without having to train relentlessly for hours a day
Wing chun is such an art. If you compared ANY martial artist in relation to how much training they did to how good they are, you would struggle to find better than wing chun
For example if you asked a boxer how much he/she trained, they would probably say more than twice a week. Pro boxers would probably be training every day
A chunner can be very good by training twice a week
I know guys who have handled themselves well in defence situations, and they only trained once or twice a week
Please remember though that it is often the individual that makes a great fighter as opposed to the art.
First off, I am fortunate to live in london where I am surrounded by some excepional wing chun practitioners and fighters. Kevin chan (my master) is known on many forums as a very very good fighter and general hard guy!
Others include James Sinclair, Alan Orr, Alan Gibson, Shaun Rawcliffe, the list goes on...
Wing chun is often viewed as a wimpy art because chunners rarely get into the cage or into sport formats and that seems to be the judge of how good an art is nowadays. People forget how many rules exist in UFC and cage competitions. In a real fight a simple poke in the eye can sometimes end the fight! So I don't really judge arts by that kind of standard
Speaking as someone who has been in the cage and been in knockdown events, wing chun is a very pragmatic, practical, realistic and useful art to learn. True there are some bad teachers out there (people know my feelings on William Cheung and Benny Meng), and it is often the politics of wing chun that puts people off. Bad promo clips on youtube don't help (there are some really really bad ones). There is also a lot of chunners who describe wing chun as the deadliest art etc and wrap it up in an air of mystery. So it loses credibility.
The thing is that many arts use conditioning as their sole method of getting good or they rely on rules. Whilst there is no doubt that cage fighters are great fighters, in order to get to that level you would have to train 6 hours a day every day and be willing to get bruised and battered on a continual basis
Most people are not willing to do this, so they choose an art that will work without having to train relentlessly for hours a day
Wing chun is such an art. If you compared ANY martial artist in relation to how much training they did to how good they are, you would struggle to find better than wing chun
For example if you asked a boxer how much he/she trained, they would probably say more than twice a week. Pro boxers would probably be training every day
A chunner can be very good by training twice a week
I know guys who have handled themselves well in defence situations, and they only trained once or twice a week
Please remember though that it is often the individual that makes a great fighter as opposed to the art.
kg-"Please remember though that it is often the individual that makes a great fighter as opposed to the art. "
aint that the truth,when i did karate we had a few great "technicians" who could perform the drills and katas perfectly but when sparring they were hopeless at using what they were so good at,-mostly cos they were scared of getting hurt.
and then we had a few guys who were not that "polished" but were deadly with the few moves they had down to a tee and if you werent careful they could knock you out.
ive found this not to be the same in wing chun but i know i,m very lucky with the sifu(s) i have and the way they teach.
its very practical very fight orientated or self defense, and sifu said last night to the beginners class about they had arrived at the point where they were gonna get bruised from now on in, he expected correct but controlled contact to begin,if not ,.......join a dance group!!
the thing ive noticed more and more is that the guys that dont look much are the ones that could destroy you! and as beginners come thru they suddenly realise that they are not as tough or as good as they thought.
i personally am more scared of getting into a fight now than ever.gives me more incentive to talk my way out confidently because i know i wont prance around playing fistycuffs if it kicked off i would put the guy down quickly and as visciously as i can..... and i worry about the consequences afterwards!
what was the thread about again??? ive rambled on so much ive forgotten!!
but some of the new guys who join from other schools are so surprised when they get our training,it is so different and fight based.and perhaps there are too mnay people from those schools making the rest of us look like we cant fight. as sifu says if you lose a fight it want wing chun it was you not doing it very well!!
my tuppence of a rant
matsu
aint that the truth,when i did karate we had a few great "technicians" who could perform the drills and katas perfectly but when sparring they were hopeless at using what they were so good at,-mostly cos they were scared of getting hurt.
and then we had a few guys who were not that "polished" but were deadly with the few moves they had down to a tee and if you werent careful they could knock you out.
ive found this not to be the same in wing chun but i know i,m very lucky with the sifu(s) i have and the way they teach.
its very practical very fight orientated or self defense, and sifu said last night to the beginners class about they had arrived at the point where they were gonna get bruised from now on in, he expected correct but controlled contact to begin,if not ,.......join a dance group!!
the thing ive noticed more and more is that the guys that dont look much are the ones that could destroy you! and as beginners come thru they suddenly realise that they are not as tough or as good as they thought.
i personally am more scared of getting into a fight now than ever.gives me more incentive to talk my way out confidently because i know i wont prance around playing fistycuffs if it kicked off i would put the guy down quickly and as visciously as i can..... and i worry about the consequences afterwards!
what was the thread about again??? ive rambled on so much ive forgotten!!
but some of the new guys who join from other schools are so surprised when they get our training,it is so different and fight based.and perhaps there are too mnay people from those schools making the rest of us look like we cant fight. as sifu says if you lose a fight it want wing chun it was you not doing it very well!!
my tuppence of a rant
matsu
I think that is a load of nonsense! I trained at a Wing Chun school, Greenlake Martial Arts School in Seattle, Washington. The Sifu, John N. Beall, was one of the best fighters I have ever seen in my life. The school had full contact sparring, grappling, ever kind of kicking and punching bag imaginable. No, Sifu Beall didn't have any trophies in his school. That's because he was training us for the street where there are no rules, not sports competitions! I would put the Sifu and his students up against anybody. I had to work my butt off to keep up, as I was older and fatter than most of the students, but it was worth it, after all these years my straight punching still impresses people. It may be true "Chunners" don't do well in competitions, but who cares? What counts is what works out on the streets not a tournament with rules!
blindsage
Master of Arts
But Greenlake Martial Arts School doesn't teach Wing Chun as most people think of it. John Beall was a student of James DeMille, who was a student of Bruce Lee's. Bruce Lee taught his modified (and incomplete) version of Wing Chun to James DeMille when he was in Seattle. James Demille developed his own system, Wing Chun Do, independently while keeping much of what he was taught by Bruce Lee and retaining a lot of Wing Chun concepts, but it is much different from Wing Chun. He even uses the title Sijo to reflect this. My understanding of Sifu John Beall's style is that it is his further personal modification of what he learned from James DeMille.
This in no way is intended to comment on the quality or effectiveness of what Sifu Beall teaches, I've been impressed with the few students of both Beall and DeMille that I've met, but it is not Wing Chun in the sense that the vast majority of chunners on here would think of it as, and should probably be taken into account when discussing the topic of 'Why Chunners aren't good fighters'.
This in no way is intended to comment on the quality or effectiveness of what Sifu Beall teaches, I've been impressed with the few students of both Beall and DeMille that I've met, but it is not Wing Chun in the sense that the vast majority of chunners on here would think of it as, and should probably be taken into account when discussing the topic of 'Why Chunners aren't good fighters'.
