Please do. Incidentally, in my opinion the only good thing WC has ever taught me were those low front kicks, I believe they can be good for attacks and defenses. But I still don´t believe WC would suddenly become anything better than it really is, in competition terms, if stomp kicks to the knees were allowed.
Sounds like I do not want to go and train in Baltimore! Of course we did not employ the techniques you mention in our sparring and I could 'spar' in a tourney, but you are missing me whole point.........when sparring, you are limited and so in a tourney the WC techniques are limited and therefore you lose a lot of the effectiveness of the WC system. Which is what I believe the article says.
2) Why must people compete at all? I enjoy sparring but I don't see any need to compete. 3) You can get power in a punch without shoulder. I have no choice but to do it without the shoulder on one side because I have a shoulder injury. The power comes from the lower body, twisting at the hips and dropping the knee. I agree with at least part of your final point. I'm not a huge fan of the "eye jabs are guaranteed fight enders" belief, and I don't think they are percentage techniques at all.
As my above post indicates, wing chun is severely limited is you cannot employ are large chunk of the system and so its effectiveness in the ring is therefore limited also.
I dont disagree that Wing Chun can technically be used in competitions, but the fact is it will be watered down. The fact is there is some things a WC guy cannot do in competitions, but are effective for street level fighting. It wouldn't also be fair that a MMA or MT fighter could use all the stuff that he has trained for, but the WC guy has to eliminate many of the things he trains because there no allowed. You'll take out some of the most effective stuff.
I've an example where I had to remove a piece of t3h d34dly Wing Chun arsenal for sparring. For a while, a friend who does JJ refused to spar with me because he didn't like me chopping to his neck. Fair enough! The problem was that this particular technique (bong sao, lap sao, chop) was ingrained in me, and it was a real mental struggle to not do it during sparring. It was a bit like that thing where you can't quite pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. It feels like you're fighting your own brain. So I had to replace a more efficient technique with a less efficient one, and in doing so, eventually had to alter my "natural" reaction. This is a problem. Because chi sao teaches you to react instinctively, you might have to remove some of those instincts if you want to spar full contact, because under pressure the techniques will come out regardless. So in essence, in order to get improve your fighting ability through sparring, you have to remove some of your better techniques from your arsenal.
Ok so then many other traditional martial arts systems also teach things such as eye gouging, knee stomping, arm breaks, and a whole host of other techniques that can't be used in competition. Would you also agree that in competition, say for example, Tang Soo Do would also be watered down? After all, I'm not allowed to eye gouge, groin kick, or any of the other techniques in our self defense repetoire. And if you would agree that many, many other arts are watered down in competition, why is it that they can live with it in competition and still make their systems work (albeit with the rules), but Wing Chun can't? The author of that article is saying that WC is too deadly and using that as an excuse to NOT advocate competition. Many other arts are just as deadly. Karate, TKD, TSD, we all have self defense techniques that cannot be used in tournament. How is Wing Chun at a greater disadvantage? The way I see it, the rules hamper everyone to the same effect. Yet you do not see other systems running around saying ie "Karate is too deadly for competition" or "Kenpo is too deadly for competition."
I agree, you will fight the way your train. Which is why sport training in my eyes wont to any good. You'll be used to long sparring matches, fighting fellow practitioners etc. We train hard techniques (i.e. you dont stop it you get hit), multiple attackers, pinned against the wall, haymakers etc. The only time there we stop in front of our traget is direct knees/punches to the face and head (for obvious reasons), but even then is pretty close. Still sometimes take a hit. As for your "point of contact" thing, we train feeding techniques where it might be one attack, two, six. Although because we attack and defend together we try to do the damage instantly, but we still train further attacks. In Chi Sao your are constantly looking for openings and defending continus attacks. As for sparring, first you need to define it, because a lot of arts have different ideas. I believe sport based sparring and defence based sparring are totally different, with different aims. While i don’t discredit sport style sparring, for Wing Chun it's aim is utterly useless. For Wing Chun or self defence for that matter I don’t think you can stick to one type of "sparring" because the need for self defence can occur in different ways and a certain type of sparring, no matter how good and effective it is just wont work for that specific situation. When a 'sport guy’ looks a Wing Chun ‘sparring’ he's like, "what the hells that, it's not sparring", and of course it isn't - from his sport/ring perspective.
As Taff has indicated above and I keep repeating myself the very essence of how wing chun works involves these 'too deadly' techniques in its very principles so in order to transfer it to the ring it wouldnt be wing chun but a very poor relative.
Lol and I keep repeating how the essence of most other martial arts are no different yet how they can adapt but WC can't? That's a lie. I've seen it done well in competition. I've seen it done bad. What I haven't seen is any other system making "too deadly" claims like WC has done. What are other systems for then? Ballet? Ok some like TKD have evolved into sport. Countless others have not. They are just as deadly as WC. They were created out of a need for self defense. They have evolved with this essence intact as you put it. Yet they are able to adapt.
I guess because most of WC is done in contact, hence a greater emphasis on reacting without actually having anytime to think before hand (alot of the time you will barely even see what is coming at you, so it's all about contact sensitivity, where your conscious mind cannot really be involved). It's much harder to "deprogram" techniques out of your subconscious than it is from your conscious mind.
By that rationale, how is it you can train all these deadly techniques? I'm not talking about just knees and elbows to the midsection or head - plenty of systems train that live. You guys kick each other in the knees? Smashes to the elbow? You poke each others eyes out? You're saying that sport training and certain types of sparring build habits that are bad for fighting. Fair enough. Nothing is the street. Well I'm saying that the sparring that you do engage in DOESN'T build the skills that some people (like that author) claim to make WC into "too deadly" of a style for competition. The eye gouges, the knee stomps, the strikes to the throat, the smashes to the groin etc etc - you train them in live situations as much as any other system. You don't actually make contact. Your training partners would flip out if you did.
Emphasis on reacting without having to think? That's like the goal of every martial arts system out there, sport or not! Who the heck wants to sit around all day for a punch to come eat their face? Again, sensitivity, training blazing speed isn't unique to Wing Chun. Virtually all martial arts strive for this "reacting without thinking."
Ultimatly i'm saying train for your needs. For example against a hook i would tan sao with a fak sao to the throat. The fak sao isn't full contact but then the attempt at it would result in disqualification in a competition. This technique is natural for me, an instant reaction to a hook so it's very hard to not use it. We do kick in the knee with some contact, we also dont just stop once contact is made, but continue to get the feel of pushing the knee in. Because our training partner is aware of this he can add slight cooperation for this. On the street the stamping motion is the same regardless, but much quicker and harder. We dont just stamp to the knee cap, but also the side and back of the knee (to drop them). I feel competitions would build habits i dont want. Long sparring rounds (i want to focus on powerful blasts that get it done in seconds), removing some of the most effective techniques (throats strikes can stop anyone, period). I feel the competition sparring is too flat. For self defence you need to vary the type of sparring you do (as i mentioned in my last post).
Also, if i’m under pressure I look for vulnerable areas (throat, eyes, groin etc), hair pulling if necessary to finish it. If a Wing Chun guy is under pressure in a competition they wouldn’t be able to use their fundamental principles and training. A competition fighter could uses everything they train, hence the Wing Chun guy would more likely loose.
By competition fighter, do you mean just any old practitioner of X martial art, because many styles out there do as much self defense as Wing Chun and still go to tournaments without the "i'm too deadly for competition" excuse. Karate, TKD, TSD, we all have as much self defense as WC. Like I keep saying, WC is not unique in that it's for fighting. I already said I don't disagree with the fact that competitions, assuming that's all you train for and if that's all you do, will cause bad habits for fighting. This is the point I'm disagreeing with. You just wrote in that quote that you don't practice your technique against a fully resistant opponent 100% as you would a side kick or front kick. This quote brings up two points to my mind: 1.) You said before that competition will build bad habits. Well so will the way you do your knee kicking drills. You are trained to feel for your partner's cooperation. You are trained to do it slow and soft. Like you agreed with me before, the way you train is the way you fight. What I'm getting at is that these "lethal uber deadly techniques" that keep WC from competition are impossible to train in a realistic training setting (unlike a sidekick or a front kick or a jab, etc etc). 2.) When you spar and do this thing to the knees in the manner you specified, it shows that you aren't allowed to bash your partner in the knee like its life and death. That's a rule. When you spar, you have rules. The article said that WC is unfit for competition because the basic essence of WC is degraded with the rules of competition. Then how do you guys spar?? That means your WC is degraded in sparring too?!? Then the only true way to train it is on the street then, poking out eyes, smashing groins and knees? (lol actually maybe that explains why most WC don't like to spar )
I beg to differ. They don’t have just as much self defence. Some of the core aspects of Wing Chun go against competition rules. Unlike some of the styles you listed (and I also to TSD) Wing Chun is built for self defence and has been adapted for modern life. Those styles may have self defence in them, but the whole system isn’t self defence orientated. I’m sorry but a system that focus on a certain area of fighting (kicking) wont have the upper hand in street fighting compard to a system that has a more broad striking focus. While more importantly it’s the way in which it’s learnt, you need the practical street level techniques there in the first place. I feel you've miss read what i said. For a technique that can break someone’s leg in half, no i dont expect to be allowed to start training it full power, full resistance. Of course when you build more control you kick against resistance. Usually powerful kicks are not dont straight against the knee cap, but kicks against other parts of the leg (side/back of knee or thigh) are. Although we do use contact for knee kick it's just too dangerous to kick someone to the front of the knee full on. I think you need to separate sparring for different areas of self defence because traditional type sparring is too flat. No matter how alive or good it is, it just won’t fit all situations. Feeding techniques to deal with an attack… be it a hook, straight, uppercut, grab, trap, tackle, headlock, choke etc. It might be one attack or multiple. Remember that someone on the street might innocently stop you or come up to you then try to grab/assault or mug you, or you might have someone in your face then throw an attack. It's not always attack after attack. You can do this with multiple attackers, as soon as you counter one the other attacks as so on. Chi Sao can work for longer continuous attacks, maybe someone attempting to close in, take you down, grabs, holds etc. You learn to flow with it by feeling them. Then you can pad up and go for more brawling, punch after punch type stuff etc. Of course there are rules - you dont want to kill someone but there not the same as competitions. We can train all our techniques, the only rules are the obvious ones, i.e. not stamping someone’s leg in half or smashing there throat in etc, of course, accident can happen. I agree with your last comment, the only way to truely train it is on the street because there are other factors to deal with that you dont get in training.
