Wing Chun and sparring - staying true to techniques

[geezer]

I never use bong, ever. At least I try not to. I got rid of bong sau from my sparring a long time ago. Do u find it works well for u?

Bong definitely has it's place, especially in close. Check out how Alan Orr uses it in sparring, starting at about 21:00 in the clip below:

BTW let's avoid text speak (using "u" for "you", etc.) ...it's in the forum rules. Thanks

 

[JowGaWolf]

I see sparring as part of learning so I'm not sure why there is so much separation. When I look at wrestling and other grappling systems, there is no separation of what's too early. For my school "too early for sparring" simply means that someone doesn't have the control that's needed to spar safely. I think a lack of control during sparring or even drilling can be more dangerous than a competitive fight. If a student doesn't have control then that's when there's a risk of things being broken.

 

[Herbie]

What I found lacking in Wing Chun was what I refer to as "alive" training. Not necessarily sparring, but it could include sparring. Alive training can be totally unstructured - glove up and go at it. Or semi-structured - OK, you've learned tan, pak, and bong, so I'm going to attack you with punches; see what you can make work. I learned more about applying WC after I left WC classes, and started working out somewhere that does randori at the end of every class. Randori as in: partner up, I attack you 3 times and you defend, then we switch. That's not "sparring", but it's valuable training. And for what it's worth, I have been amazed at how many bong saos present themselves against those pesky hooking punches.

 

[Juany118]

What I found lacking in Wing Chun was what I refer to as "alive" training. Not necessarily sparring, but it could include sparring. Alive training can be totally unstructured - glove up and go at it. Or semi-structured - OK, you've learned tan, pak, and bong, so I'm going to attack you with punches; see what you can make work. I learned more about applying WC after I left WC classes, and started working out somewhere that does randori at the end of every class. Randori as in: partner up, I attack you 3 times and you defend, then we switch. That's not "sparring", but it's valuable training. And for what it's worth, I have been amazed at how many bong saos present themselves against those pesky hooking punches.

What you note here is VERY school dependent. Most of the schools in my sub lineage do something very similar to what you describe as lacking in WC, as do schools of other WC lineages in my area. Note by lineage I mean sub-lineages of YM. We used to have YM via WSL>Gary Lam, now we have YM via Sigung William Cheung, Moy Yat and Ip Ching and Ip Chun in my area.

 

[DanT]

Bong definitely has it's place, especially in close. Check out how Alan Orr uses it in sparring, starting at about 21:00 in the clip below:

BTW let's avoid text speak (using "u" for "you", etc.) ...it's in the forum rules. Thanks

Okay will do. Yeah I shouldn't have said I NEVER use bong, I do occasionally, almost like how Alan does in the clip, when contact is already made. I don't do it like some schools do, where you use it to block jabs and crosses, that's what I should have said.

 

[Juany118]

Okay will do. Yeah I shouldn't have said I NEVER use bong, I do occasionally, almost like how Alan does in the clip, when contact is already made. I don't do it like some schools do, where you use it to block jabs and crosses, that's what I should have said.

Pretty much sums up my method, with the exception of the "jam".

 

[Herbie]

Juany118 - re: very school dependent. Understood. I could have worded my comment better.

 

[DanT]

What I found lacking in Wing Chun was what I refer to as "alive" training. Not necessarily sparring, but it could include sparring. Alive training can be totally unstructured - glove up and go at it. Or semi-structured - OK, you've learned tan, pak, and bong, so I'm going to attack you with punches; see what you can make work. I learned more about applying WC after I left WC classes, and started working out somewhere that does randori at the end of every class. Randori as in: partner up, I attack you 3 times and you defend, then we switch. That's not "sparring", but it's valuable training. And for what it's worth, I have been amazed at how many bong saos present themselves against those pesky hooking punches.

At my club, a majority of the training we do is alive training, exactly how you described, in addition to sparring, Chi Sao, and various partner drills.

 

[dudewingchun]

If you don't spar how do you know anything will work. I didn't develop any fighting skill until I started sparring regularly, of course you will be **** at first but after a while you get used to what real attacks are like and it gives you a reference point for your drills. If you are doing these san sik drills without knowing what a real punch feels like how can you ever expect to apply it properly.

you say sparring early can develop bad habits, but so can just doing drills that aren't proven to work without sparring, because when you do start sparring and you have a reaction that ends up being useless and only sets you up for strikes then you will be worse off than if you just tried the tech in sparring early on and realised oh it wont work like that in real fighting.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Further to that by sparring early, because begginers dont know how to move, dont have the right reflexes, strength, speed etc. They can develop bad habits, wrong reactions which end up being a set back later on when you do learn to apply it all correctly.

In my experience, sparring helps break bad habits, not build them.* It's one thing to drill a technique and have the instructor come over to nitpick that your elbow is in the wrong position. It's another thing to experience getting punched in the face or arm-locked and then realize it was because your elbow was in the wrong position. That sort of experience gives you a lot of motivation to clean up your form and listen to your instructors advice. Sure, students start out sparring their technique usually goes to crap. The more they continue sparring (with appropriate feedback and guidance, of course), the faster that technique improves and the better it holds up to pressure.

*(This depends on how the sparring is structured, mind you. I have seen schools where the sparring is set up in such a way that it probably makes the students worse, not better. Just about any training drill can be structured in such a way so that it fails to accomplish its purpose.)

Perhaps boxing is more natural to pick up

Wing chun typically is not the most natural feeling martial art to practice

This is a distinct possibility. Students may need more time to internalize the basic body mechanics in a less intuitive art before they can do anything effective with it. I'm new enough to WT that I will withhold judgment on the matter. I was able to use at least some WT methods effectively in sparring after just a few months, but I'm starting from a very different place than a typical beginner.

On the other hand, many of WC's origin myths include the idea that the art was designed so students could reach the ability to fight more quickly than in older systems, so who knows.

maybe there is less to learn in terms of individual techniques

Hard to say with regard to boxing. There are fewer officially distinguished techniques in boxing than in most arts, but they are explored in a depth equal to or greater than any art out there. If you were to name all the individual variations of techniques (ex. the many ways to throw a jab) and the subtle moves used by high-level boxers which don't have an official label, then the count might be higher. Muay Thai probably has a comparable number of individual techniques than WC. BJJ has many, many more individual techniques. All of these arts benefit from early sparring.**

**(There are a minority of BJJ schools which make students wait until they have a grounding in the fundamentals before they start free sparring. Usually this takes just a few months. I do know of one association where it takes over a year before the student is considered to have enough of a foundation for free sparring. That is an extreme outlier, though, and they do have the students work on semi-free-form "reaction drills" in the meantime.)

Without having refined the individual components to a high level and then learned to put them together its just a mess and can be very frustrating

This brings me to a term I've mentioned before, though not recently. It's a concept from engineering and computer programming called "failing gracefully." Basically the idea is that if a system has a flaw (as all systems do) and encounters a problem, you don't want the whole thing to just blow up and fail completely. You want the system to do the best it can with what it has and continue on.

One implication of this is that you don't want to build a system which requires perfection or near perfection in order to be functional. A system which works when everything is 99% bug free but crashes and burns at 96% bug free is not a good system. Preferable would be a more linear relationship: 30% perfection gets you 30% functionality, 70% perfection gets you 70% functionality, 99.9% perfection gets you 99.9% functionality. Even better is when you can front-load the system so that 50% perfection gets you 90% functionality, 70% perfection gets you 95% functionality, 99.9% perfection gets you 99.99% functionality.

How I apply this to martial arts is that if your system requires the practitioner to fully master all the subtle details at a high level in order to be effective, then your system has a problem. It takes a long time for a student to reach that level even for demonstration and much longer to be able to maintain that level under pressure. If you are using a martial art to build fighting ability, then the student should be better at fighting 3 months in than when they began, better at 6 months than at 3 months, better at 1 year than at 6 months. If they can get a 20% handle on the principles of the art, then they should be able to spar with 20% effectiveness. If they can get a 50% handle on the principles of the art, then they should be able to spar with 50% effectiveness. If the whole thing requires 90+% perfection in order to be functional, then something isn't right.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I never use bong, ever. At least I try not to. I got rid of bong sau from my sparring a long time ago. Do u find it works well for u?

I believe the "wrong Bong" that you use right arm Bong Shou to block your opponent's right punch is a big NO NO.

I don't use Bong Shou to block a punch. I use it to hide my head behind my arm from punch when I move in. I also use it to break my opponent's jacket grip and twist his body when my opponent hand cannot reach to my elbow joint.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You are wasting your time training Wing Chun or any traditional martial art if you entire goal is to be good at sparring.

My goal is not just for sparring. My goal is to integrate the striking art and the throwing art. For example. I have used the

- WC principle that use straight line to counter the circular attack.
- Preying mantis principle that use circular move to counter the straight line attack.

In the early years, I used the WC Tan Shou to "bounce" my opponent's straight punch away so I can move in and attack. Later on I use rhino guard as wedge to separate my opponent's arms away from his body.

The principle of "my arms are in your striking path. If you want to punch me, your have to go through my arms first" is very important. This principle neither exist in my primary MA system long fist, Shuai Chiao, nor it exists in my cross trained systems praying mantis, Baji, Zimen, ... I have to give 100% credit to the WC Tan Shou principle.

 

[anerlich]

I keep hearing about the "deadliness" of Wing Chun techniques, and of the "kill" techniques, but see remarkably little evidence for it/them.

Where are the corpses, and the perpetrators doing hard time for manslaughter? Why are Wing Chun guys not clogging the court systems? How did guys like Emin with his claimed 300+ fights avoid killing even one person?

The easiest way to kill someone while unarmed is to hit them hard from the side or behind when they don't expect it, have them fall over and hit their head on the pavement, a step, pot plant, etc. Plenty of people in jail where I live for that. But all that requires is rage, not skill. No Wing Chun guys among them.

I and most of my clubmates use "head dodging" (which actually comes from the waist, not the neck) to slip or evade punches all the time. If Wing Chun is meant to be effective and efficient, it should recognise that such movements are faster, more efficient, more effective, keep you better protected because you don't always have to use your hands to parry, and can put you in better positions to counterstrike, than trying to step around all the incoming with an immobile spine, looking like you have a broomstick stuck up your clacker.

Moving targets (the head in this case) are harder to hit. Adding a slipping movement to a pak, larp, bon, etc. can often mean the difference between effective parrying and not in my experience.

I use bon, but really only as a quick deflection with the elbow. Most of the guys I spar with are too quick to let me pass it to the other hand,

I'm a multi-stylist anyway. I don't care whether anyone thinks the way I might spar makes me look like a traitor to their system.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Where is the guy who always said:

- This is not WC.
- We don't do this in WC.
- This is against our WC principles.
- This can make WC not "pure".
- Why do you keep bringing ideas from other MA systems into WC discussion?
- ...

 

[DanT]

Im wearing the red gloves, i think at :25 you can clearly see a tan da and at :27 a lap da, etc.. My sparring partner here is way more skilled then me, and has been training for much longer. Any constructive feedback is much appreciated.

 

[Juany118]

Im wearing the red gloves, i think at :25 you can clearly see a tan da and at :27 a lap da, etc.. My sparring partner here is way more skilled then me, and has been training for much longer. Any constructive feedback is much appreciated.

First, thank you for sharing...

I actually saw only a couple of "obvious" things.

First: early on I saw you lean in a couple times finally at the end you opponent appeared to take advantage of that and went to control your head.

Second: when you made some of the kicks above the waist your torso appeared to lean back. This is an issue, at least with how I am taught to kick, with your straight kicking method. I'll explain.

I am taught to straight kick in a 4 movement action: knee up>extend leg>retract leg> knee down.

You appeared to simply lower your leg linearly after extension. Combine this with the leaning back, if your opponent "caught" your kick, he could have planted you on your butt.

The reason we train straight kicks as I described is that the retraction can rip my leg free of the "catch." If you are trained differently disregard, I was just projecting how I am taught there regarding the kick itself but that backward lean could be an issue.

Other than that I saw you do one thing that not only my Sifu but a private student of the Sigung of my system have integrated into TWC, with Sigung Cheung's permission actually. We refer to it as a "Kali cover" or "salute cover". It's where you brought your hand back to roughly your temple, elbow facing the opponent, to cover an attack to your left side. This made me smile (in a good way) for a few reasons. I can elaborate if you want, just thought it might be a derail of sorts.

 

[KPM]

What I found lacking in Wing Chun was what I refer to as "alive" training. Not necessarily sparring, but it could include sparring. Alive training can be totally unstructured - glove up and go at it. Or semi-structured - OK, you've learned tan, pak, and bong, so I'm going to attack you with punches; see what you can make work. I learned more about applying WC after I left WC classes, and started working out somewhere that does randori at the end of every class. Randori as in: partner up, I attack you 3 times and you defend, then we switch. That's not "sparring", but it's valuable training. And for what it's worth, I have been amazed at how many bong saos present themselves against those pesky hooking punches.

I agree. This is what I would call a form of "progressive sparring."

 

[DanT]

First, thank you for sharing...

I actually saw only a couple of "obvious" things.

First: early on I saw you lean in a couple times finally at the end you opponent appeared to take advantage of that and went to control your head.

Second: when you made some of the kicks above the waist your torso appeared to lean back. This is an issue, at least with how I am taught to kick, with your straight kicking method. I'll explain.

I am taught to straight kick in a 4 movement action: knee up>extend leg>retract leg> knee down.

You appeared to simply lower your leg linearly after extension. Combine this with the leaning back, if your opponent "caught" your kick, he could have planted you on your butt.

The reason we train straight kicks as I described is that the retraction can rip my leg free of the "catch." If you are trained differently disregard, I was just projecting how I am taught there regarding the kick itself but that backward lean could be an issue.

Other than that I saw you do one thing that not only my Sifu but a private student of the Sigung of my system have integrated into TWC, with Sigung Cheung's permission actually. We refer to it as a "Kali cover" or "salute cover". It's where you brought your hand back to roughly your temple, elbow facing the opponent, to cover an attack to your left side. This made me smile (in a good way) for a few reasons. I can elaborate if you want, just thought it might be a derail of sorts.

Yeah, too much leaning in, and my stance was too wide. My sifu taught us to cover up like that with the hand on temple. Please, elaborate more about what you mean, and thanks for the tips brother!

 

[Juany118]

Yeah, too much leaning in, and my stance was too wide. My sifu taught us to cover up like that with the hand on temple. Please, elaborate more about what you mean, and thanks for the tips brother!

In seeing the cover I smiled thinking "I hope that happened because he gets it as well as instinct." By "get it" I mean the following.

IMO way to many people I think get tied up in terms of techniques. They think "a tan must look like this", or "I must always revert to man sau/wu sau if I am not actively striking etc." I think some people get wrapped up in these things, they confuse them for the principles of WC that brought them about and so if there is another technique, that equally follows the principles, but it's not in the forms they say "that's not WC."

I am taught WC is a conceptual Martial Art. To me that means so long as a technique adheres to the core principles of WC it is WC, whether or not it's in the form and that cover does adhere to said principles imo.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I am taught WC is a conceptual Martial Art. To me that means so long as a technique adheres to the core principles of WC it is WC, whether or not it's in the form and that cover does adhere to said principles imo.

That's my view of every art, Juany. Others have different opinions, but to me, it's all about what fits within the principles.