I just had my first Wing Chun Kung Fu lesson

[Rukas]

90 minutes of Kung Fu. Awesome, I had so much fun, but it is so hard coming from a Maui Thai and Krav Maga background, the stance is completely different and you dont have a "knockout" hand.

But, really really awesome. Im going to take it three times a week and eventually develop my own Jeet Kun Do concept from all that I have learned and find my own style, which is what the real Jeet Kun Do is.

 

[Universal]

Muay Thai sucks imo.. now Muay Boran that's a completely different story. That's the true art of "kickboxing" and unfortunately incredibly hard to find anyone willing to teach it. I was even prepared to fork out $300 a lesson a few years ago but the man that taught it left to go back to Thailand and eventually died.

Krav Maga I've never been sold on, even when I've seen a proper fight staged we could see an unlimited amount of weak points. From it's "strike to kill" to it's "hit & run" to it's "use any tool & object close to you". It's not too different from the modern day bar room brawl.

Now Wing Chun, that is an impressive form. But unfortunately it too has many weak points. However due to it's nature of force once one progresses to the stage where you use weapons as an extensive part of the body then Wing Chun truly shows it's true colors. Some attacks are practically impossible to block.

My only concern with the form is that it's been passed down through the ages via oral communication rather then written scriptures so the form has been very diluted. It's actually a popular form with women, due to the legend saying a woman Yim Wing Chun created it when she challenged her proposed Husband and beat him.

Also an interesting thing about Wing Chun is that Hung Gar is practically it's rival form (which is what I do). So Rukas if you ever come close to mastering Wing Chun, may I suggest we spar one day?

 

[Shahin]

Muay Thai sucks imo.. now Muay Boran that's a completely different story. That's the true art of "kickboxing" and unfortunately incredibly hard to find anyone willing to teach it. I was even prepared to fork out $300 a lesson a few years ago but the man that taught it left to go back to Thailand and eventually died.

Krav Maga I've never been sold on, even when I've seen a proper fight staged we could see an unlimited amount of weak points. From it's "strike to kill" to it's "hit & run" to it's "use any tool & object close to you". It's not too different from the modern day bar room brawl.

Muay thai is esentially muay boran but stripped down to the most basic and effective techniques. How you can say muay thai sucks and muay boran is good is beyond me since they're the same thing except muay thai is more practical. As for krav maga, it's purpose isn't to be effective in a staged fight, it's purpose is to severely hurt an attacker in a real life self defense situation. From what I've seen it's very effective too.

 

[masta247]

First of all there's no better or worse style. It's what you want to achieve, how will you train and who will train you.

@Universal - Muay Boran basically doesn't exist these days in it's original form. People who teach it usually come from Muay thai. MT evolved from Boran and there are only some minor differences between them..

Krav maga - good marketing and that's all. It's useless if you don't already know how to fight. Also usually those simulated kicks in the groin and such won't work so even on the street it's better to be a good kickboxer than a Krav maga adept. It also depends on where you train it. I encountered a Krav Maga trainer who taught box and jiu-jitsu techniques and called it Krav Maga and it was actually good.

Wing tsun is not a sport so that's the biggest difference. You won't win a MMA fight with it - the guard, stance and many techniques are rather useless in real fight but like each martial arts it has it's own really good elements (like Chi Sao).
I'd stick with Muay thai/kickboxing/karate/tkd and such and add grappling to that but everybody's got a different taste and likes different things. Anyway what counts the most is your sensei/sifu. A good wing tsun dojo might be better for you than a bad muay thay one.

 

[Rukas]

First of all there's no better or worse style. It's what you want to achieve, how will you train and who will train you.

@Universal - Muay Boran basically doesn't exist these days in it's original form. People who teach it usually come from Muay thai. MT evolved from Boran and there are only some minor differences between them..

Krav maga - good marketing and that's all. It's useless if you don't already know how to fight. Also usually those simulated kicks in the groin and such won't work so even on the street it's better to be a good kickboxer than a Krav maga adept. It also depends on where you train it. I encountered a Krav Maga trainer who taught box and jiu-jitsu techniques and called it Krav Maga and it was actually good.

Wing tsun is not a sport so that's the biggest difference. You won't win a MMA fight with it - the guard, stance and many techniques are rather useless in real fight but like each martial arts it has it's own really good elements (like Chi Sao).
I'd stick with Muay thai/kickboxing/karate/tkd and such and add grappling to that but everybody's got a different taste and likes different things. Anyway what counts the most is your sensei/sifu. A good wing tsun dojo might be better for you than a bad muay thay one.

I trained Krav Maga coming from a Muai Thai background and just being able to handle myself in a fight regardless (lots of practice unfortunately) and we mixed it up with BJJ and MMA sparring. Theres only so much you can learn with Krav Maga.

So now that I have a solid grasp of the more brutal styles, and can fight, I like Wing Chun, it is a nice change, and I like the fluidness of the movements.

I wouldnt say the blocks and guards are useless, quite the opposite, my instructor can block anything I throw at him, and there are a lot of block+strike counters. First thing we were shown was a drill where someone is throwing a punch, you move it away with one hand, creating an opening, and striking with the other.

Also, if you look at perhaps the most famous Wing Chun fighter, Bruce Lee, he took it and pretty much started MMA with it. Jeet Kun Do is a mixed martial arts concept.

The attacks themselves are very practicle, the shortest method of attack is the best one, no spinning kicks that can be ducked or countered, no fancy jumping that is useless in a street fight, it is just quick strikes or kicks from point A to point B with the purpose of disabling the opponent.

Also, one of the guys at my acadamy is the speed punching world record holder, having performed 700 punches in one minute!

Lastly, and I hate to kind of be going through your post disproving it, but Wushu is literally a sport, and Wing Chun is part of it.

Anyway, I suggest you look into it a little futher, although I dont know if there are any good Wing Chun academys in Poland?

 

[Rukas]

Here are two clips showing a Wing Chun you might find interesting.

[youtube]VQTBArJYRVE[/youtube]

[youtube]-2lkGynvAqk[/youtube]

 

[masta247]

Poland has a lot of greatest masters here we're european leaders if it comes to many martial arts.
I trained Ving tsun (which is basically Wing Chun) for a few weeks with a guy who studied it in China. His dojo is like 150m from my house. What I mean is Wing Chun differs from Judo, Taekwondo or other sports. It has a different training metodic.
Literally there are 2 different kinds of Wu shu these days.
Wu shu in original means all chinese martial arts but Chinese communists made it into a martial sport to convince more people into doing them, they even teach it in many schools now.
To me saying that hung gar, ving tsun or tai chi are sports because they are also wu shu is wrong. In reality they are martial arts. Sanda is the only Chinese martial art that I consider a sport.
Looking at it from a different angle all martial arts are sports because you make your body move and you kind of compete against each other. Anyway pro martial artists distinguish styles which are sports and styles which are arts based on their metodic of training, at least that's how it works in my country.

Sure like I said there are many useful things including blocks, short strikes and such and it teaches you how to react and attack fast but stances and guards are less efficient than for example a standard muay thai guard. Also it won't teach you how to strike as efficiently, only faster and accurate.
I'm not saying that it's a bad style because every style has it's own pros and cons and it depends on what do you want to currently master. It's definately better for your fighting skills to train WC than Aikido or other light-contact martial arts but in my opinion many things in Wing Chun are performed in a worse way and some things imo are a bit useless like long "katas" or Qigong. Anyway those things make that style more spiritual and if you're looking for that too then it's good for you.

About the jeet kune do concept - that's exactly what I'm doing too. I trained Jeet kune do in master's Dan Inosanto academy and his student Wojciech Adamusik being my sifu but master is no longer coming to Poland regularry and they closed the academy in Warsaw. Since then I'm visiting various dojos and trying different styles but I'm getting a bit too lazy lately unfortunately. I'm having a brake but I plan to start something after the holidays. I wanted to do Shidokan which was my favorite (I think there are a few Dojos in Australia and I would like to suggest you to check it out) but the only dojo here also got closet lately. Now I'm thinking about something lighter and less demanding to try out because of my laziness. I might as well do some Wing chun because of a few movies I watched lately hehe.

Good luck with your trainings. May the motivation be with you.

ps. I'd love to see a big guy like you on a Wing Chun training

 

[Rukas]

The big guy thing, I havent really found it to ever be a problem. Im pretty well balanced. I dont think I would be able to do the more agile martial arts or something with more jumps though. But my reach has always been an advantage. At the very least I can do a straight low or medium forward kick and keep my opponent at a distance.

We'll have to spar in Poland. But to be honest, Im getting bored of sparring, here its such a pissing competition if you know what I mean. I guess its another reason that I like Wing Chun, and even Tai Chi (I do it in the morning and for warm ups), its so much more personal.

If all these schools are closing down perhaps I might consider opening one there one day. My uncle is a Greco Olympic wrestling coach, and a good friend of mine and my family's is Paweł Skrzecz. I'd love to start a MMA academy over there.

 

[masta247]

The big guy thing, I havent really found it to ever be a problem. Im pretty well balanced. I dont think I would be able to do the more agile martial arts or something with more jumps though. But my reach has always been an advantage. At the very least I can do a straight low or medium forward kick and keep my opponent at a distance.

We'll have to spar in Poland. But to be honest, Im getting bored of sparring, here its such a pissing competition if you know what I mean. I guess its another reason that I like Wing Chun, and even Tai Chi (I do it in the morning and for warm ups), its so much more personal.

If all these schools are closing down perhaps I might consider opening one there one day. My uncle is a Greco Olympic wrestling coach, and a good friend of mine and my family's is Paweł Skrzecz. I'd love to start a MMA academy over there.

Yeah but when I see someone big training martial arts my bet goes that he's doing box, muay thai or eventually some grappling. On Wing Chun I remember seeing 90% people shorter than me that were there because of self defence. I know that it's most probably not a problem for you, it's just that it's hard to picture a big guy on a Wing Chun training with all those finesse moves.

I stopped liking sparrings too recently, I don't know why tho. They always motivated me to train harder but now I prefer "lighter" trainings with more spiritualized things too. They start to relax me better.

We have a huge Copacabana MMA academy here in Warsaw so a Jeet Kune Do school would fit better 2
Unfortunately our "dojos" have weak standards (they're usually located in elementary school gym halls) and I think it's because martial arts are "cheap" here. 50$ = one month of everyday trainings for one person. There are usually 10-25 people training so there's not much money to earn considering you have to pay the insurance, pay for the "dojo" etc.
Also smaller schools are closing down because people these days want to traing something with Muay thai, Krav maga, MMA or Vale tudo in it's name. That's a strange fashion.
But somehow we have a lot of martial art clubs here, they're just located badly so most of them are rather far from me. Also the quality really varies. If there's about 150 martial art sections here I could recommend only about 40-50. I visited so many terrible clubs with stupid, inexperienced or irresponsible trainers that it's unbelievable.

 

[Rukas]

Yeah but when I see someone big training martial arts my bet goes that he's doing box, muay thai or eventually some grappling. On Wing Chun I remember seeing 90% people shorter than me that were there because of self defence. I know that it's most probably not a problem for you, it's just that it's hard to picture a big guy on a Wing Chun training with all those finesse moves.

I stopped liking sparrings too recently, I don't know why tho. They always motivated me to train harder but now I prefer "lighter" trainings with more spiritualized things too. They start to relax me better.

We have a huge Copacabana MMA academy here in Warsaw so a Jeet Kune Do school would fit better 2
Unfortunately our "dojos" have weak standards (they're usually located in elementary school gym halls) and I think it's because martial arts are "cheap" here. 50$ = one month of everyday trainings for one person. There are usually 10-25 people training so there's not much money to earn considering you have to pay the insurance, pay for the "dojo" etc.
Also smaller schools are closing down because people these days want to traing something with Muay thai, Krav maga, MMA or Vale tudo in it's name. That's a strange fashion.
But somehow we have a lot of martial art clubs here, they're just located badly so most of them are rather far from me. Also the quality really varies. If there's about 150 martial art sections here I could recommend only about 40-50. I visited so many terrible clubs with stupid, inexperienced or irresponsible trainers that it's unbelievable.

Well yeah, Jeet Kun Do, I like Martial Arts to be a Martial Art, not a sport. I find MMA just lacks discipline and spirituality. JKD is a concept and it really motivates you to find your own path, as I am sure you know, where as MMA is just once again following what the instructor shows you.

As for sparring, I think it is because we have different goals now. I dont care whos ass I can kick Im not in it for that, where as before you know I wanted to show off or whatever, blah blah, then I hit a stage where I wanted to KNOW who I was better than, now I just want to know I am the best that I can be.

All part of growing up I guess. I did spar a little last week, this little Bruce Lee wanna be challenged me saying he wanted to spar someone bigger. He was from interstate and just visiting our academy for a week or so. So I thought ok, he is curious to pit himself against a different sized opponent I know how that is; I used to walk around malls and spot people Id like to spar with based on build and it being something new, of course I never challenged them or anything.

Anyway out come the "waaacha!"s and all that shit. He wasnt very good and I dont think he is coming back lol. He looked the part, but I just kept blocking his kicks with a basic MT like leg block, just lifting it basically, and then after I got bored I saw an opening and punched him in the chest throwing him backwards. It was my first and only strike, and I could have seriously just knocked him out.

 

[masta247]

Well yeah, Jeet Kun Do, I like Martial Arts to be a Martial Art, not a sport. I find MMA just lacks discipline and spirituality. JKD is a concept and it really motivates you to find your own path, as I am sure you know, where as MMA is just once again following what the instructor shows you.

As for sparring, I think it is because we have different goals now. I dont care whos ass I can kick Im not in it for that, where as before you know I wanted to show off or whatever, blah blah, then I hit a stage where I wanted to KNOW who I was better than, now I just want to know I am the best that I can be.

All part of growing up I guess. I did spar a little last week, this little Bruce Lee wanna be challenged me saying he wanted to spar someone bigger. He was from interstate and just visiting our academy for a week or so. So I thought ok, he is curious to pit himself against a different sized opponent I know how that is; I used to walk around malls and spot people Id like to spar with based on build and it being something new, of course I never challenged them or anything.

Anyway out come the "waaacha!"s and all that shit. He wasnt very good and I dont think he is coming back lol. He looked the part, but I just kept blocking his kicks with a basic MT like leg block, just lifting it basically, and then after I got bored I saw an opening and punched him in the chest throwing him backwards. It was my first and only strike, and I could have seriously just knocked him out.

I like to do something in between sport and a spiritual martial art. It's cooler to do something just for yourself and not to be the best asskicker. Also with time I came to a conclusion that I don't want to be the best - martial arts are not my life, it's just a way to relax me and I should do it just for fun and my own enjoyment.

Yeah when I trained Jeet kune do 50% of people there were Bruce Lee wannabes. They were funny. Jeet kune do is about finding your own favorite techniques, those that you do and like the most and not about mimicing Bruce Lee ones. I think many people misunderstand the Jeet Kune Do concept - those wannabes, movies and video games all prove that - each Jeet kune do character either in Dead or alive or VF has to act like Bruce.

Whenever I sparred someone bigger with fighting skills I just watched for my chance to grapple (tho I'm not too good at it) and I think it's the best way to minimize the size difference.

 

[Shahin]

I've always found that sparring is a lot more enjoyable and a better learning situation when you spar with people who have some experience and know how to pace themselves. Sparring should be about trying to land your techniques in a more relaxed situation. There's nothing worse than sparring with someone who comes out swinging like you are threatening their life.