So I got in a fight three years ago and decided to learn martial arts to kick that guys ass. Being young and enamored with early Jackie Chan, I thought kung fu was the end-all-be-all. So I joined a local chun school.

A year later, joined Bullshido. Discovered the truth about the chun, but stuck with it. After all, we did weekly sanshou sparring, hard contact with gloves and head gear, so I still thought I was the ****.

A week ago, we had a seminar with the top dude in our system. I learned some pretty slick moves, some "submission holds," joint locks and the like. Now, I'm a 22 year old recent college grad living at home until grad school starts. I have a 14 year old little brother. I wanted to demonstrate some of the sweet moves I learned to him, so I had him punch at me. My attempt to catch his hand and get him in a lock failed miserably. But it worked so well at the demonstration.

"Hold on," I tell him. "Punch a little bit slower and leave your hand out there so I can...." It finally dawned on me. ****.

Moral of the story: end of this summer, I'm moving to Springfield, Illinois. Instead of continuing my chunnery, I've decided to enroll in Gracie Barra Springfield.

tl;dr - it took me three years to experience the fail myself.

you're a college grad?
wow...

lol!

Better to learn from your younger brother than in an actual fight, no?

Ignoring the chunner part ... let's take a look at these:

You're trying to catch a punch.
You are trying to do something that requires multiple steps and movements while someone is doing something basic.
You've had little training using an advance technique.

Good for you. You're intellectually honest enough to admit the truth when it reveals itself. You'll get what you're wanting out of martial arts with that attitude.

Good for you man (or woman, I didn't see a specification in the post). I'm starting MMA/BJJ again in 2 months and I can't wait. At least you didn't suffer through Kuk Sool Won first like me. RIDGE HAND!

Also:

http://juantadeo.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/springfield.jpg

What an awesome place to move to.

Hey it can't be THAT bad. I mean you did weekly hard contact San Shou sparring and from what I have heard San Shou is pretty good.
It's better than most Kung Fu I have heard about in the site...
But... you seriously thought you could do KF submissions on an unresisting opponent even after joining bullshido?

Also, please tell Homer I said hi.

So I got in a fight three years ago and decided to learn martial arts to kick that guys ass. Being young and enamored with early Jackie Chan, I thought kung fu was the end-all-be-all. So I joined a local chun school.

A year later, joined Bullshido. Discovered the truth about the chun, but stuck with it. After all, we did weekly sanshou sparring, hard contact with gloves and head gear, so I still thought I was the ****.

A week ago, we had a seminar with the top dude in our system. I learned some pretty slick moves, some "submission holds," joint locks and the like. Now, I'm a 22 year old recent college grad living at home until grad school starts. I have a 14 year old little brother. I wanted to demonstrate some of the sweet moves I learned to him, so I had him punch at me. My attempt to catch his hand and get him in a lock failed miserably. But it worked so well at the demonstration.

"Hold on," I tell him. "Punch a little bit slower and leave your hand out there so I can...." It finally dawned on me. ****.

Moral of the story: end of this summer, I'm moving to Springfield, Illinois. Instead of continuing my chunnery, I've decided to enroll in Gracie Barra Springfield.

tl;dr - it took me three years to experience the fail myself.

Hi,
You did sanshou sparring every week? Did you train to grab hands during these sanshou sparring sessions?

After the seminar, did you practice diligently on the timing of grabbing hands etc etc...

I'm not saying that the action of grabbing a punch is not ridiculous (it is), what I am saying is the way you came to the conclusion is not conclusive. You say you were unable to grab your brother's hand, therefore, what you've been learning in the past 3 years is b.s.

What you've been learning and practicing for the past 3 years, is not what you learnt at the seminar. Just because you see someone doing something and them teaching you how to do it, does not necessarily mean you can do it straight away... having said that, some techniques should never be taught or learnt for that matter - trying to grab a punch would probably fall into this category.

Hey, better that your art fail you there than in the middle of a fight, right? Good thing you realize it now.

Did you ever fight the guy again?

Would you say the experience was completely useless? Or would you say that, although Wing Chun is a flawed system, you've learnt a few things?

atomicpoet, are you kidding? It is obvious, he hasn't learnt anything useful, whether it is completely useless is just fucking with wording.

Would you say the experience was completely useless? Or would you say that, although Wing Chun is a flawed system, you've learnt a few things?

Yeah, he learned not to use wing chun in a real fight

atomicpoet, I'd suggest sticking to your findings in your newbietown thread.

What you've been learning and practicing for the past 3 years, is not what you learnt at the seminar. Just because you see someone doing something and them teaching you how to do it, does not necessarily mean you can do it straight away... having said that, some techniques should never be taught or learnt for that matter - trying to grab a punch would probably fall into this category.

Well, what we do in sanshou was completely different than the wing chun we've been learning. Our Sifu keeps saying that once we got a better grasp of the chun we were learning, we should incorporate it into our sparring. We'd done grabs and throws as part of sanshou, so I thought after the seminar (which partly covered things we had already learned and some new material) I would get a head start by practicing on someone with no fighting experience (and who weighed 40 pounds less than me). I'm not saying the chun doesn't work, it could be completely my fault, but after three years I'm not very good at executing what I learned, so someone is doing something wrong.


Did you ever fight the guy again?

Nope. Got into Buddhism instead (part of the reason I went for the chun) and decided such petty **** was below me. (In reality, weighed the pros and cons of fighting someone I'd taken to court. Cons won out.)


Would you say the experience was completely useless? Or would you say that, although Wing Chun is a flawed system, you've learnt a few things?

Experience wasn't useless. Met some great people, and the sanshou sparring is still good. But I did learn:

...not to use wing chun in a real fight

Nope. Got into Buddhism instead (part of the reason I went for the chun) and decided such petty **** was below me. (In reality, weighed the pros and cons of fighting someone I'd taken to court. Cons won out.)

Taoism is the reason I want to get involved in Taijiquan.

Originally, I was told that Wing Chun was like doing Xingyi, Baguazhang, and Taijiquan all at once. Well, after doing research, I've found that's a load of bung.