Ah I get ya, my brain slow. Although it was a fair question, there is often debate on whether particular styles can, "actually work."
I think that many people, not just boxers, can have difficulty defending against the WC striaght blast, including me because it is so direct and can be overpowering. However I would have to say that a well trained boxer should be able to down a Chunner, especially when just using fists. The boxer should have a much better grasp on distance and combinations as well as setting up shots, not to mention the fact that a trained boxer should be very used to people coming in full throttle and therefore shouldn't be phased by the agression of the WC straight blast. The guy in the video that was shown didn't seem to know what to do and just covers.
In my view, THE primary tool of self coaching is the technique of "disappointing expectations". One of the first expectations to dis-appoint, i.e. let go of, is the idea of being unhittable. Many of us, I should think, when younger, kind of appointed an expectation that martial artists learn to be unhittable, and that they can block everything. The longer we cling to that expectation, the longer we fail - and then we keep thinking it's something physical that we're doing - it isn't - it's mental. A boxer "defends" against Wing Chun pretty much the way he defends against anyone - his usual way. But he also has, as part of his "defence", an overall expectation that he will get hit. He factors in getting hit. What matters isn't getting hit, it's winning. How do you defend against wing chun? You win. Usually, in any kind of sustained fight, real or sporting, you can expect to get hit - and that's key, I think - expect to get hit; then when you do, it's not like you've failed or lost - getting hit, taking it, continuing to function under the pressure, already are all parts of your defence - or should be - that's one thing you should train for. Straight attacks, right through your guard, get through every now and then, depending on your level - sometimes more, sometimes less. Although technically you have "failed" to defend against it, in reality, you should expect to take a manageable percentage of shots, and not be phased by that. As for Wing Chun directly, as an art that has a lot of forwards, aggressive momentum, your primary defence, even when taking a few hits, in my view is the same as the defence against all forwardly aggressive styles - hit them really hard, right on the nose, see if they really do want to come forwards - and if they do, do it again. If they attack, you can only retreat so far - you have to sort the men from the boys - sort the ones who are easily put off by a nose smack from the much smaller group who will keep coming.
This completely reminds me of times where you would be messing about and somebody will find an opening and put their fist there, not hit though just make it obvious that they found the gap. Then they look with a, "I beat you," face on, forgetting the fact that they would have to hit you and that the shot might not even do anything.
there does seem this mentality with some trad arts. The 'one hit' magic, we have to learn to accept that the hit that gets through may not KO the opponent, it may stun them, in which case it needs to be followed up. I found from my previous kungfu club a lot of the drills seem to stop after you made a hit, and this mentality came through in the sparring, i did very little combo work and the combo work that I did ended once I had made contact, my brain would just stop after that and reset. I spend a lot more time getting used to being hit
Thats where mine breaks down as well, not that I'm very good in other aspects either. I think it is a common pitfall for many TMA's where hitting with power against an opponent is very rare, point sparring and non contact drills being more prominent.
When I was doing light sparring/no kicks with my friend who was doing boxing(only several months of training, me more or less 2 years of WC). Forget bridging and sticking, he obviously won't play my game. Forget trying to catch or receive his punches with taan, bong, paak, or jut. Its like catching bombs, you'll keep missing. You really have to be more aggressive than him in order to gain advantage. Things I took note of: No bridges to stick, he'd just cover with both arms. His head is a hard target. He keeps his chin down, shoulder up for cover. Jabs are fast, forget pak sau or even taan, just tried to parried them with my own biu jees. He's used to one-sided orthodox. Whereas we used to being ambidextrous and more square on. When I had him to a corner, he'd cover up and bob and weave. Which I'm wary of becoz I know he's just waiting to sneak in a few as I go in to pummel him. I myself have to resort to waan wun yiu(our so-called version of bob and weave sort of) to avoid jabs and crosses with mixed results. Gwai ma chuis can actually work well with good timing and recovery. Those close hooks can come out of nowhere. OUCH!! Lesson learned is, when you go in be prepared. Not only is it WC's ideal range , it's boxing's ideal range as well. Throughout the entire session I find that what I was using most was the biu jees, straight punches, hooks and uppercuts for in close, kwun sau and wu sau for cover, a few gaan saus, and lot and lots of elbows for cover and strikes. Not a single taan, ****, paak, jut sau that I can remember. Btw in the end I got nailed hard in the nose by a blind left hook. Granted he had no sparring or control as a novice and was heated up but point is.....I got nailed clean....by a novice. Shame on me. No excuses there.
So what have you done to shore up what you think are deficiencies in your game, in a punching only scenario?
I find that adaptation is key when it comes to traditional arts, most combat sport arts (boxing, muay thai etc.) are easily adaptable, hence why they are used my MMA fighters. When training im Mantis I found that I had to adapt a lot of my techniques for sparring and I used the boxing cover quite a lot to block hooks, just because it works for me. But it definately required more thought for me to apply, I have only a month of boxing training but I can easily apply it to sparring and often resort to it or just naturally fall back to it I think because it is more pliable skill set, for me anway.
Lol - that's very true. I was just talking about this with someone the other day. Very often, people say "Oh you should acknowledge that I would have hit you there, and not just hit back".... Well, first and foremost NEVER train any bad habits if you can help it. So first off, you should very rarely be doing that kind of non contact sparring anyway - only for sheer technical improvement practice. For two, you should never, obviously, train the reaction that when you get hit you acknowledge defeat, lol. You should train the reaction that when you get hit you keep going, you fire a shot back, you move, etc. Acknowledging to yourself that you had a weakness there that they got through is one thing, but, do your partner a favour, and don't let them learn to punch one inch short of their opponent's face - keep coming on - make them actually stop you with more realism.
At the end of the day, bridging simply means that you're in contact with them. You can put your hand on their arm - it's then a matter of what you're going to do with that. You have to be able to make "intelligent contact". Boxing is so excellent because it is just stripped right down to a core set of superb skills that just seem to have infinite, applicable variations - and they train you to be fluid in your ability to vary.
I love that about boxing as well, I find other arts can be overly complicated and needlessly so. There are core principles in there but you have to dig under the numerous forms, stances and 70 different fist attacks to find them.
I have been taking Hung Gar for about 3 months now, and I went against a boxer. Bridging worked quite well with him when combined with the tiger claw, also when I was able to just catch his punches then catch his fingers and bend them and all that jazz. I was able to keep him at a distance with the panther fist and snake hand to certain areas. He wasn't very good per say, but I thought I did rather well. Against a boxer of actual caliber, then I will need to train for so much longer.
Well here was a professional fight under K-1 Kickboxing rules, perhaps this will shed some light on the subject. (work safe if your work allows access to this site) http://www.dailymotion.com/relevanc...eo/xbjtk_muay-thai-kickboxing-vs-boxing_sport
As beknar said, try gloves Ive sparred a Hung Gar guy a few years back who was trying his hand at boxing, cant remember how long he had been training but it was a lot longer than 3 months. The biggest bit of advice i can give, dont learn back whilst punching. He seemed to put a lot of weight on his back leg. Probably a fear of taking a shot too the face more than anything
How does this shed light on Kung Fu vs Boxing? All it does show is that Muay Thai can defeat Boxing, especially if the Boxer tries to actually block a low roundhouse with a forearm and only uses an overhand right. Actually all this proves is that low roundhouse kicks can work well vs punchers.
That was and still is my problem to an extent. My Sihing called it the "Kodak" moment for me. I would just stand there when I got in a good blow as if I was posing/celebrating, but never followed it up with anything else. The best thing that has helped me is shadow boxing and mixing it up, then applying it to sparring. Secondly, I just rail like a mad-man, as much in control as I can, but keep advancing. You're not really thinking at that point, but when I spar, I tend to over analyze, freeze and get nailed.
