What do you guys think of Wing Chun?

Notice how a lot of WC and kung fu ppl dont do weight training and so they get over powered by a half desent boxer or MT guy because they do strength training.
 
With all due respect, I don't think that's true at all. To be honest it sounds like a sales pitch for a martial art that has little real world application.

A top Wing Chun practitioner would be absolutely annihilated by a top Muay Thai fighter or a top boxer for that matter. In this day and age, if there was any real evidence to the contrary, there would be lots of readily available footage for all to see.

The common thread between the videos you posted is that the "fighters" for the most part stand flat footed in front of each other, which is highly unrealistic. Could it be effective in self-defence against an untrained person? Perhaps but I can't see the value in it unless one's interest in largely/purely learning a martial art for its own sake. As a combat system it gets very low marks relative to other options available.

This is still such a common common mistake. A whole lot stuff never gets video coverage. You got think that less than 1% of the total population even has an interest in practicing a martial art. There are hundreds of arts out there that have no video footage available on the ol'e youtube for them.

Um, last time I checked a UFC fight the fighters stood in front of each other, some flat footed, some doing the bounce thing, hell one of them just sort stood there with his hands up, I mean how you gone to fight some body if your not standing in front of them? they certainly are not going to just let you walk around them.

Just a bit tired of them same bad arguments getting dragged out. Are there good arguments against WC? Sure, first one is that a lot of the art has gotten lost do to bad training, and getting made more peaceful after the Red Boat era. Another is that it has developed in to a specialized striking art that is very hard to get in the right range to use.
 
This is still such a common common mistake. A whole lot stuff never gets video coverage. You got think that less than 1% of the total population even has an interest in practicing a martial art. There are hundreds of arts out there that have no video footage available on the ol'e youtube for them.

Um, last time I checked a UFC fight the fighters stood in front of each other, some flat footed, some doing the bounce thing, hell one of them just sort stood there with his hands up, I mean how you gone to fight some body if your not standing in front of them? they certainly are not going to just let you walk around them.

Just a bit tired of them same bad arguments getting dragged out. Are there good arguments against WC? Sure, first one is that a lot of the art has gotten lost do to bad training, and getting made more peaceful after the Red Boat era. Another is that it has developed in to a specialized striking art that is very hard to get in the right range to use.

In this day and age, if a fighting system was effective against other fighting systems, then yes there would be ample evidence on Youtube, etc... Everyone has a video camera these days, and the net is full of those "this martial art vs. that one" type videos.

I'm not sure if you train or spar at all, but your 2nd paragraph makes no sense at all. Lateral movement and circling are fundamental to Muay Thai and Boxing to name two examples. Not quite the same as standing flat footed squarely in front of your opponent.

In any case, people train for different reasons, and if WC floats someone's boat then that's great. But hopefully they are not under the illusion that it equips them to deal with a combat situation vs. someone comparably trained in a more effective martial art.
 
In this day and age, if a fighting system was effective against other fighting systems, then yes there would be ample evidence on Youtube, etc... Everyone has a video camera these days, and the net is full of those "this martial art vs. that one" type videos.

I'm not sure if you train or spar at all, but your 2nd paragraph makes no sense at all. Lateral movement and circling are fundamental to Muay Thai and Boxing to name two examples. Not quite the same as standing flat footed squarely in front of your opponent.

In any case, people train for different reasons, and if WC floats someone's boat then that's great. But hopefully they are not under the illusion that it equips them to deal with a combat situation vs. someone comparably trained in a more effective martial art.

It's unfortunate as well the guys that are busy taping themselves are the ones that need to train more also. You have to remember that the youtube phenomena is driven by people that want to show off to the world something of their lives...be it talk show type stuff, funny stuff, martial arts or what have you.

The guys that put up their martial arts activities are generally doing it for a number or combination of reasons:

1. They're marketing themselves, their school, or a product
2. They have something to prove and want the world to know they can "fight"
3. They genuinely believe that they have something worthwhile to offer
4. They're filming themselves for research purposes in order to refine their skills (these generally aren't publicized though...)

But most of them, do it because they are the same guys that'd you see showing off in public, voicing their knowledge base, and/or talking down to others. Just like the guys in the youtube videos, these folks generally don't know wtf they're doing and do nothing but shine a bad light on everyone else that also has interest in the same thing.

Instead of filming themselves, they should be working on perfecting their skills.
 
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In this day and age, if a fighting system was effective against other fighting systems, then yes there would be ample evidence on Youtube, etc... Everyone has a video camera these days, and the net is full of those "this martial art vs. that one" type videos.

I'm not sure if you train or spar at all, but your 2nd paragraph makes no sense at all. Lateral movement and circling are fundamental to Muay Thai and Boxing to name two examples. Not quite the same as standing flat footed squarely in front of your opponent.

In any case, people train for different reasons, and if WC floats someone's boat then that's great. But hopefully they are not under the illusion that it equips them to deal with a combat situation vs. someone comparably trained in a more effective martial art.

In all the gyms (boxing, MT, BJJ, TKD, Kung-fu, JKD, and a few others) that I have trained in, there are never any videos. No rule against them just nobody ever bothers with it. So really expecting every art out there to have video camera's filming what they do is unreasonable.

If you watch alot of those videos on the net, they are often the same video retitled to make somebodys point.

Modified WC (what most of the WC videos are) happens to be a fighting system based on staying in just about a toe to toe position, which means you are not going to circle around the guy unless he tries to circle you. Same with an in-fighter in boxing, they are not really interested in circling or taking the outside, they want to hold the inside pocket close to the body, so they only move around a lot when the other guy tries to get them out of the pocket.

Lateral movement and circling are part of WC also. They just use it differently. This is a case of not seeing what you expect to rather than them not doing any. All the circling and lateral movement in boxing and MT is used to get you in the position you want to be in. If you are already there, you stop moving because you don't have to.
 
knowing nothing about wing chun, do they not have kicks? Because his looked like complete shit, and I'm pretty sure he would have been lit up if let into the ring with a half decent fighter
 
Wing Chun is pretty cool.

But long story short - it works better in the movies.
 
Of course there are kicks, generally a front heel kick, frontal side kick, a side kick, there are round kicks, turning kicks and the like.

There are three seeds of wing chun kicking whereby just about any kick is valid so long as it's done in an efficient manner.

Btw, which guy are you referring to that was horrible?
 
Of course there are kicks, generally a front heel kick, frontal side kick, a side kick, there are round kicks, turning kicks and the like.

There are three seeds of wing chun kicking whereby just about any kick is valid so long as it's done in an efficient manner.

Btw, which guy are you referring to that was horrible?
I think they are refering to the video earlier with the k-1 wing chun fighter

I may be of a differnt lineage of WC but we do all low line kicks front and side kicks mostly with the heel plus some sweep type kicks, I've never seen a roundhouse kick in wing chun though in some lineages it may be there....
 
In all the gyms (boxing, MT, BJJ, TKD, Kung-fu, JKD, and a few others) that I have trained in, there are never any videos. No rule against them just nobody ever bothers with it. So really expecting every art out there to have video camera's filming what they do is unreasonable.

If you watch alot of those videos on the net, they are often the same video retitled to make somebodys point.

Modified WC (what most of the WC videos are) happens to be a fighting system based on staying in just about a toe to toe position, which means you are not going to circle around the guy unless he tries to circle you. Same with an in-fighter in boxing, they are not really interested in circling or taking the outside, they want to hold the inside pocket close to the body, so they only move around a lot when the other guy tries to get them out of the pocket.

Lateral movement and circling are part of WC also. They just use it differently. This is a case of not seeing what you expect to rather than them not doing any. All the circling and lateral movement in boxing and MT is used to get you in the position you want to be in. If you are already there, you stop moving because you don't have to.



GOOD POINT!:icon_chee
 
Of course there are kicks, generally a front heel kick, frontal side kick, a side kick, there are round kicks, turning kicks and the like.

There are three seeds of wing chun kicking whereby just about any kick is valid so long as it's done in an efficient manner.

Btw, which guy are you referring to that was horrible?

YouTube - WING CHUN FAIL at M-1 Global Tryouts; Thiago Silva wants Rematches: MMA Confidential

that guy in the vid from the beginning of the thread
 
LOL! Yeaaaa....you're talking about Shawn Obasi. He's a student of Grados out in NY.

He's out there alright. I give him props for trying to make a name for the chunners, but right now he's not doing a great job of it. Can't kick a thai pad?! I thought that was odd that he didn't train any kicks at all...especially considering all the kicking that's done in the wing chun as I know it.

That said, the muay thai way of the round kick is different than the way he would have learned it (if at all). It's not meant to be a dehabilitating power shot as much as a distracting or foundation collasping shot in combination with the handwork.

As a matter of fact, I was showing a training partner of mine the thai kick on my banana bag, and tried teaching it to him. He's a straight up WC guy who learned from a different group than me. He couldn't really get down the whole idea of turning the hip and whipping the leg, nor hitting with the shin. It's hard to flow with some wing chun guys apparently because they're so used to the "box" as I call it. Everything being squared off...no deviation from the square facing...etc.
 
I think a part of the usefulness or non usefulness may come from a couple things

Wing Chun is a southern style (close quarters, grounded, flat terrain/city fights)

most modern MMA is done in a ring/cage that's more like the space a northern style would use (lots of mobility, kicks, long range attacks, granted northern also used a lot more weapons)


decent overview of this here Some Thoughts on Northern and Southern Kung Fu, a Brief History of Shaolin, and What's with These Animal Forms?

Or another way to think of it the northern school styles would be closer to what you would use int eh center of the cage/ring, the southern styles would be what you'd use in an In-fighting/clinch/pocket/ against the cage/ropes situation.

Also the BJJ thing in China may just be more cultural revolution fallout, they still have soldiers everywhere (One of them at a muesum almost took my head off when I tried to take a pic with him in it) and a lot of the kung fu styles have either moved out, or disguised themselves to keep form being destroyed.

But yes a large part of BJJ/Mui thai/boxings effectiveness in MMA seems to be that all three have evolved as combat sports, not self defense thats specifically coupled to the current environment when they were formed (terrain/war/cities/people you fight the most).

And things like Kung fu in order to be effective in MMA need to have people who know what they are doing and who can evolve in those constraints.

All my random off the top of my head opinion of course I've done minimal sparring in some random northern style kung-fu, TKD, and Hapkido and that's about it.
 
Correction: YOUR wing chun falls apart against a decent boxer; and no one has mentioned the movie that I've seen in this thread except you.

Yeah I used to say things like that when I was a Wing Chun nutthugger too.
 
Yeah I used to say things like that when I was a Wing Chun nutthugger too.

The only difference is that I continue to use it in sparring successfully where you did not. I also understand fighting well enough to know that wing chun--while effective in its range--does not stay the entire fight since fights don't happen in a single range.

Perhaps that's where yours failed? You can't use a screwdriver to hammer a nail. Well you could--but then that'd be like you trying to use your wing chun without knowing how it works.
 
He's out there alright. I give him props for trying to make a name for the chunners, but right now he's not doing a great job of it.

Yet he is the most successful chunner in competition.



The only difference is that I continue to use it in sparring successfully where you did not.

Did your sparring partners spent roughly the same time practicing boxing, kickboxing etc. as you did WC? Any videos of your sparring?
 
Yet he is the most successful chunner in competition.

That's debatable. There's the Orr's chu sao lei guys and Hoffman's guys overseas. That last vid of his proves that much.



Did your sparring partners spent roughly the same time practicing boxing, kickboxing etc. as you did WC? Any videos of your sparring?

It depends on which person you're talking about. I have just as much time in WC as I do in Muay Thai...and the people I spar with are from varying disciplines with varying timeframes. Unfortunately, I have never bothered to record anything. I used to have a website with the tricks and stuff on file, and a bit of the wc drills and such. But since then (2000) have disabled the website, and moved on. When I train now, I'm lucky to find a schedule that matches one of theirs right now in order to get a session in, and when that happens there's generally no notice. Not to mention I don't have a video camera anymore.
 
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Not to mention I don't have a video camera anymore.

Rent one then, post a video of your WC being used effectively in hard sparring vs. a competent MT or Boxer and I'll Paypal you the cost of the rental.

Can't get a better offer than that, and I'm sure we'll all keep an open mind.

Prove your point.
 
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