what do you guys think of wing chun

[ksennin]

Wing Chun is a very underrated martial art. It needs to be accompanied by a ground game and all Wing Chun practitioners better know how and be prepared to defend agaisnt grappling, but as a boxing system it has a lot of potential when used in the right hands.

Bizarro?

[Sovvolf]

It should be common sense...if you can already fight to some degree, Wing Chun is mostly a set of simple principles you can utilize to supplement your boxing. If you already know the basics of how to box, body movement footwork all of that, THEN focusing on things like the centerline or swarming punches makes sense. We've seen plenty of pro boxers win with a combo of powerful centerline strikes (e.g. Tyson). What Chunners typically lack is the game outside that. Boxers can throw a flurry of strikes effectively because, generally, they can throw one strike effectively. So, if a Chunner can't throw one strike effectively, forget about a chain of them. Logical right?

A boxer's idea of "chain punching" looks right to the educated eye. Most Chunner's idea of chain punches looks wrong, because it was trained in that vacuum.

Having now had the experience of watching Chunners fight full contact, and up close, you can tell which ones are training in the right ways, and which are still stuck on this idea of Wing Chun being "complete". It most certainly isn't, in the same way BJJ isn't "Complete". Claiming your art is "complete" is like saying you have nothing of value to learn from other (full contact) arts. Talk about being unenlightened...

The real weakness of Wing Chun seems to be in the arrogance that it spawns through its teachings. As we've seen quite often on here and pretty much all round the martial arts circuit. They tend to Chun (hehe) cross training "Boxing? don't need it, Wing Chun is teh deadly" and all that bollocks. From what you describe, the style only really works with any real effectiveness is when it is cross trained. When you already have the power and techniques down on a more "Complete" fighting style, Wing Chun should ideally be used to compliment and support it. Now, I may be misinterpreting what you're saying but if I'm not then it's a fairly sad irony.

As for what I think about Wing Chun... I may have made a comment in this thread but I haven't been on here in a while and the new forum change means I have time to boil the kettle, make a sandwich and maybe sort out those wage slips on the side by date like I've meaning to do, before it loads another page. I was once at Spartan Martial Arts in Hinkley (wasn't there long before the job got moved) and one of the new kids joining along with my said he had an extensive background in Wing Chun. He couldn't throw a kick and he seemed confused on how to do pad work, punching the right pad with his right hand as opposed to crossing over... If he's anything to go by and along with the rest of what we see of it on the internet, I think I'll pass.

[Eddie Hardon]

Wing Chun is a very underrated martial art. It needs to be accompanied by a ground game and all Wing Chun practitioners better know how and be prepared to defend agaisnt grappling, but as a boxing system it has a lot of potential when used in the right hands.

In London, Kevin Chan was a noted teacher of Wing Chun. He identified the ground-game as a weakness and remedied by training BJJ and the last I heard he'd earned his Black Belt.

Minor thought on Chain-punching. I remember Jackie Turpin (nephew of World MW Champ Randy Turpin - who beat Sugar Ray Robinson) was lauded for his very fast hands and multiple punching. He used to be featured on the BBC's then mid-week Sports Programme, "Sportsnight". He built up an enviable record and reputation but sadly it all ended in tears. He fought a bloke who didn't go down from what was effectively light punching and he put down poor Jackie some 10 x in the fight. It was career ending: he simply was not punching his weight, so that's the thing to keep in mind with fast hands.

That apart, I love Fast Hands work and the intricacies that can flow from it: Escrima, Boxing (see Don Curry's KO of Milton McCrory) etc.

[Chili Pepper]

but as a boxing system it has a lot of potential when used in the right hands.

No True Scotsman, etc., etc.

[ksennin]

People will hold on to their fallacy of investment.

Yesterday a karate guy I know dropped by my friend's MMA place for a joint training session. The guy has begun to train grappling and round up his game for MMA style, and he is a very strong explosive fighter, though overweight like the stereotypical krotty instructor. I was doing pad work with a student and krotty guy walked over to correct him saying he did not need to punch through the pad, that just an explosive hit and pull back was enough. When I rather disagreed with this, he went on to state, among other things, that he was sure a karateka could beat a boxer in a punching-only match. Nothing I argued or tried to demonstrate could change his mind. I ended up asking him to cover up and then throwing some quick jabs at him, pulling short of hitting him 2-5 times by a near margin, to show how he was limited by lack of head movement. He threw a punch back at me "showing" me he could hit me back. Sure, because I was not moving my head either, I agreed, as I am a crap karate guy, too, and my head movement is also nearly non existing.

But he still thinks he can beat a boxer of equal experience to his own in his weight class. He is never going to meet one, though, as there is very little boxing here (thus our sorry state in fighting skills) and all are only in very low weight classes, while this guy is a heavyweight.

So how can one change someone's mindset if years of UFC fights have shown that even Machida has to use boxing punches?

How can we change Chunners who do not spar people of adecuate skill? Hell, I am sure I could beat up an untrained noob with chun-like krotty-ish chain punches myself, but I have had mediocre boxers nearly take my head off with ease.

[Sovvolf]

People will hold on to their fallacy of investment.

Yesterday a karate guy I know dropped by my friend's MMA place for a joint training session. The guy has begun to train grappling and round up his game for MMA style, and he is a very strong explosive fighter, though overweight like the stereotypical krotty instructor. I was doing pad work with a student and krotty guy walked over to correct him saying he did not need to punch through the pad, that just an explosive hit and pull back was enough...

This may just be me here but I find it faith rude to start correcting people when you're performing in a style a style that you're not familiar with. If I was the instructor he'd be taken to one side and had a word with. Nothing too harsh but the general "this isn't karate mate, could you perform the drills as we are teaching them thank you?"

If he'd disagreed or kept pushing the karate crap I'd probably ask him to leave. This isn't even a style versus style.debate at that point. You come to learn MMA then shut the fuck up and learn MMA.

[ksennin]

This may just be me here but I find it faith rude to start correcting people when you're performing in a style a style that you're not familiar with. If I was the instructor he'd be taken to one side and had a word with. Nothing too harsh but the general "this isn't karate mate, could you perform the drills as we are teaching them thank you?"

If he'd disagreed or kept pushing the karate crap I'd probably ask him to leave. This isn't even a style versus style.debate at that point. You come to learn MMA then shut the fuck up and learn MMA.

Oh, sure, I found it rude. It pissed me off quite a bit, honestly. And that is why instead of peacefully making the least of it, and just ignoring it, I behaved rudely myself and just stated out loud that that advice was nonsense, and that karate has punch-thru, too, making the distinction between keage and kekomi dynamics for different purposes (which he dismissed). But the guy stuck to his guns no matter what, and everyone seemed scared we would actually come to real blows over it. I sugar-coated it for him saying that if he was a top-tier karate champion of course he would feel likely to dominate the low-tier local boxers, but that he may be an outlier, blah, blah. Yet he refused to let me save face for him and stuck to his karate>boxing stance.
Honestly, if I was not in a terrible physical state these days I may have asked him to put on gloves and test it out full out. I challenged him to go fight a local kickboxer, Wilmer Fernandez, who had recently participated and lost in The Ultimate Fighter LatinAmerica, and he made excuses.

The funny thing is that I know his teacher, I trained for years alongside him, and despite his being 30 pounds heavier than me, I once nearly dropped him with a single hook the one time we tried sparring with boxing gloves. Guy had to go lean on a wall for balance. Yet he kept making boasts about the great karate he had learned from this teacher.

And really, even in the old days of long pants karate full contact matches, it was obvious from the start that the punching rulesets forced the karate guy to end up learning boxing.

What pisses me off is that the guy is trying to get into MMA, yet does not accept what MMA is showing him. Sure, it does not mean he has to give up his karate, but if he is serious, it has to be more than cosmetic, or more than just adding a grappling component, he needs to really expand his arsenal. At least learn enough boxing to know what parts of karate may work best against it. MIXED martial arts and all.

Guys like that, I would actually prefer to stay out of MMA, actually. They are not going to much more than try to subvert it from beneath with their tightly-held dogma.

We talk about Chun guys adding some extra skills to their arsenal to become better, but if they do so, while still retaining the same rigid beliefs about their core techniques and basic philosophy, are they really doing much besides adding some basic grappling and maybe a hook or two? Yet they may claim they are a viable variant of MMA, viable of course while they do not fight with others.

So shut up and learn MMA indeed.

[Sovvolf]

They teach Karate at the gym I train for Muay Thai and MMA. The guys that train all three (Most of the instructors) try and integrate it all into their over all style. They use all the boxing punching and Muay Thai knees, elbows and stuff. However there's the advantage that Karate does bring and that's the movement, you don't stand and bang as often and instead learn how to get out of the way and frustrate your opponent. Which was pretty much what Lyotto Machida did. Lyotto made Karate work in MMA but wasn't stupid or arrogant enough to believe he wouldn't have to adapt the style to suit.

[Permalost]

And really, even in the old days of long pants karate full contact matches, it was obvious from the start that the punching rulesets forced the karate guy to end up learning boxing.

If karate was so great, they wouldn't have had a kick quota to meet in those matches.