Whilst I agree learning 7 different arts in only a few months is a bit short a time period to then go on a forum telling people what is and or isn’t in those said arts I have always wondered when people use the whole jack of all trades master of none argument what exactly are they on about? What point are they trying to make? Chinese arts history is full of examples of masters who mixed arts together and did quite well: wong fei hung, mixed his hung gar with both lama pai and iron wire and did ok. CLC studied under 4 or 5 different masters before combining all those arts into the art we know as bakmei, and was considered the best fighter in all of southern china in his day so must have done something right. Sun Lu tang combined the three so called internal arts and did ok for himself The founder of CLF studied under three different teachers to create his art form, and CLFh is still winning in full contact sanda matches all over the planet lol. The creator of southern dragon mixed his family art with the arts he learned in several different temples to create an art deemed good enough to be taught in various military academies in southern china and good enough to leave him with far more wins than losses in challenge matches. Ive used examples of Chinese arts as these are the arts I know best but n Japan it was normal for people to learn karate alongside judo and even kendo, a lot of those guys did ok for jack or alls as well In modern times fighters like Anderson silva and BJ Penn have gained black belts in BJJ and become experts in thai boxing and good wrestler, Who exactly is best placed to judge what is a pure art, what is a mixture, and when it is ok to study more than one art? For instance I have a background in the following Chinese styles, lau gar, yang tai chi, hung gar, CLF, bakmei and southern dragon, I also have a background in the Korean arts of sakido and tukido, I also have experience in both western kickboxing and Thai, in submission wrestling and in MMA and freestyle wrestling. Who is to say the above makes me worse than someone who only studied say hung gar (which is in and of itself a mix art form) for the same time period (28 years)
i lol at the argument of "jack of all trades" fighting is just fighting. give it whatever name you want but its still fighting.
I think the "jack of all trades" argument more represents people who train in a bunch of styles but don't put enough time into practicing and understanding the elements and techniques of what they're studying before they start trying to mash things together.
Zaad, I think you're exactly right. I said I've only been doing this SYSTEM, for this long. I've done Tae Kwon Do (fist jerk, heh) Mantis and Eagle Claw Kung fu for a while. Its only in the last 7 months I've been doing the Silat mixed in. And you know what I think of it as a handyman. I can plunge a toilet. I can hang a picture. I can fix a wall socket. Whatever. Of course in terms of silat that means absorbing a blow, fast counter strike, devastating first strike, etc. I dont think there's anything wrong with being a jack of all trades. Master of none, I may disagree with
I totally get what you're saying. My GM expects me to "REMEMBER" everything I do. I almost never do it the next time. I could show you pictures of the cuts I have on my hands from not doing things right (Since we train with knives). But the point is, always adapt. Maybe my GM is just crazy, Iunno.
but who is to say when someone understands an art enough to actually blend them together? who is to say when its right and when its wrong? according to what you have written people think they know what wing chun is and are even teaching it but are wrong, it they cant get one art correct after years of dedication how can what they do be better than someone who style hops but enjoys themselves?
No one, but considering the number of people I've seen trying to blend arts together where they don't even seem to have a grasp of basics. I'm not sure there's a way to directly compare folks who train bad wing chun and folks who style hop and try to blend what they learned without having a proper grasp on it.
Sketco I know what you're saying. But I train 9 hours a week. Not including home time... So sometimes, I throw one punch with a counter block over and over again. I work my Kun Tao Jurus over and over again. I can completely see that you're saying that people doing multiple systems may not be successful, but when you practice, uh, 15 hours a week, it all becomes muscle memory. Every Kun Tao, Betawi, Penchak, Eagle Claw movement is just natural. The only hard part, is picking which one OOPS. ETA. Precas, Blademaster, Mantis, and Snakefist really don't figure into it. I train in them, but I cannot really see me using them.
basics of what though? , one mans basics is another mans advanced, if i ask you what the basics of wing chun are, and i ask a william cheung student, id get two different answers and who are you to say you understand the basics of the different arts you see people trying to blend? how do you know you are right and they are wrong? ANd why not use that example? both wont have an understanding of their respective styles or what the essence of what they are training is: whats the difference between trying to blend the linear footwork and upright stance of wing chuns second set with the bending and low stance of bilj ee and then adding in the footwork of the dummy and the power generation of the pole form...hows is blending all that any different than blending boxing with karate and wrestling?
Basics of the systems they study. I wouldn't be using William Cheung As an example Who are you to say that I don't? And when there's video of it and multiple people trained in the different disciplines agree that they don't then bingo, we have a consensus. Because one is an example of people who have been trained wrong either because their sifu wasn't trained properly, taught them wrong on purpose, or learn properly through a fault of their own and one is an example of someone who didn't learn properly because they haven't invested sufficient time training in an art to gain sufficient understanding of the body mechanics and technique. They're both bad and possibly for the same reason (lack of sufficient time in the art) but there are more possible explanations for the first than the second. Because the body mechanics are all integrated and highly compatible. It's pieces of one art which fit together. It's like asking how you can integrate the punching and kicking in karate. Rather than using an example of making use of different components of one system it would be appropriate to use an example of blending seperate arts. For example blending aikido and judo is not necessarily difficult because the power generation is similar and highly compatible however blending something like Silat and wing chun would prove more difficult and especially without sufficient time investment.
a consensus like the one the majorit of the wing chun community has against what alan orr does saying it isnt wing chun even though both he and his teacher say it is? who is right and who is wrong there? And who are we to believe on william cheung you or him, afterall he trained with yip man its all about points of view and personal experience As for the wing chun not being a good example ok lets take hung gar, originally it was a close range centre line art with a lot of the same techniques as wing chun, then WFY added both long range strikes and lower stances plus an internal set, who is to say he was right but someone trying to blend wing chun, clf and tai chi is wrong after learning the first one or two sets in each art, they may not have the basics as their instructors would like down pat, but if they can make it work for them then why is it bad?
Hmm large community of martial artists in the style + video evidence that it doesn't resemble the style vs. a guy and his teacher. His sihings and sidais who say that Cheung was not instructed in the whole system or instructed properly in addition to his moronic claims of having the one true wing chun. It's not which art is good or bad for comparison it's that you were trying to use the example of using elements in one system versus blending elements of disparate systems. If someone can make it work for them then more power to them but more often that not what I see is folks who haven't trained long enough to know why the techniques they're doing work, how they're integrated into the rest of the system they're taking it from, and don't have enough of a grasp on the mechanics to be able to successfully extract elements from one system and integrate them with extracted elements from other systems. More often than not it ends up looking like a bad amalgamation of moves and techniques than something with a core to it.
People make the mistake of comparing a fulltime martial artist like WFY from the past (doing NOTHING else but training and fighting, like a pro MMA guy) to a hobbyist doing 9 hours a week.If someone knows 7 months of Silat, i'm sorry but then he doesn't know anything about silat. Just some minor basics. If you start combining too many styles too soon, you just collect techniques. Low kick from thaiboxing, punches from wing chun, sweeps of silat. Just a bunch of techniques. Like a bunch of stones to build a house without a proper foundation. In the end off course is looking at your goal. If you want to defend yourself on the street against the average joe? Just join a reasonable krav maga class and you're finished. Hit to the face, kick in the nuts, look for the nearest exit. I've seen several blackbelt instructors having 35 years of MA, teaching big classes and having trained in Silat, Kickboxing, Kali, BJJ and Wingchun combined and the same guys would probably get an orange belt in our system. Nice guys but horrible quality. If you really want to understand the art with all of it's intricate aspects, better stick to one MA, maybe two. It's also a matter of mathematics. If you train 9 styles for 9 hours a week. You train one style one hour a week actually. If you train 1 style for 9 hours a week, i know who has a more solid foundation.
Some sources put WFH learning iron wire at 13 years of age, hardly a full time master then the shadowless kick was picked up elsewhere also in his teens, he then added lama in his 20s etc all the time learning to be a bone setter and traditional doctor, its not like all he did was just kung fu 24/7 but I understand your point but at what point does it stop becoming a jack of all trades and become integrated? Who is to make that decision? For instance according to some in wing chun bruce lee never learned the full wing chun system and didn’t understand it when he developed JKD, was he a jack of all and master of none? Who decides when it is right to integrate, heck most people cant even agree what the basics of their system is and when a good foundation has been developed Above Sketco said the majority of wing chun community don’t think what Alan Orr does in his guys fights is wing chun and since they are in the majority they must be right….yett that same majority cant find a single clip which they all agree IS good wing chun in a fight, does that mean none of the sifu out there teaching wing chun have a good foundation and have the basics down? So none of them should be learning other arts? When does someone have a good foundation, 6 months, a year 2 or 5? For example The first form of hung gar is a pillar form and includes most of the principles and techniques in the art, if you learn that you could argue you know hung gar well enough to learn other things, others would say you don’t know hung gar until you have learned the iron wire form, but some village lineages don’t even include that form so who is right? In bak mei certain weapon forms and advanced empty hand forms are kept for in door disciples and only they can be said to have the system and to truly understand it all, but a lot bak mei people will say if you know 9 step push you know bak mei, so should you wait until you have finished the style or until you hit a certain point, and who decides that point? So what is a foundation? Personally if someone trained boxing an hour a week, judo an hour a week, thai a hour a week and wrestling an hour a week, BJJ an hour a week, Chinese wrestling an hour a week, shooto an hour a week and sanda an hour a week id put them up against anyone training a single art for 8 hours a week after 6 months of solid training because their foundation in fighting I would argue would be better than the other guys, but I suppose it really relies on what foundation you wish to build and what you are training for
So you'd put someone training eight of those different arts one hour each a week against his twin brother doing say boxing four hours a week, wrestling four hours a week and the same physical conditioning and bet on them to win?
when have you learned enough in a system? To me when you can fight with the principles and the style of the system. And i'm not talking about learning some silat and then kickbox your way through a fight. Sadly what i'm talking about is becoming increasingly more rare. Actually I was surprised that the guy in the MMA fight on the video showed the amount of Silat he did. Usually it's nothing more than kickboxing with some silat posing. Although probably the guy had plenty of other training beside silat. Most Silat used to have a specific way of hitting, a specific way of kicking etc. What you see now is that most silat adopts karate punches and karate, TKD or kickbox kicking. Silat groundfighting is usually very specific and nothing like BJJ groundfighting. So switching over from 'Silat' karate punches to 'Silat' thaiboxing lowkicks to 'Silat' BJJ groundwork, to me has nothing to do with Silat whatsoever. What is the silat part you would then do in your 'own style'. Doing a 'puter kapala' technique in a kickbox fight doesn't mean you use silat in a fight. The same discussion you have about Wing Chun. that is also a very specific style with a specific strategy, way of hitting and kicking. So in my view...using a thaibox-lowkick in WingChun, is contrary to the principles in Wing Chun. Same would go for boxing punches in Wing Chun, or even using boxing gloves in WingChun. Principles like 'use the shortest way from a to b' should always be valid, not sometimes.
so in your view there are very few good examples of good silat or wing chun out there dispite people having spent years/decades learning the art...does that say something about the art or the way its taught rather than the people doing the art?
To be honest, wrestling and boxing is quite different from hand to hand combat. Marines go through just a few weeks of a version of Krav Magra. It doesn't take long to get proficient and thats kind of the point. Doing the mixed MA I do, even though its a lot, like I said, I really train in 3. I do knife fighting, sticks, finger strikes, etc, but those aren't useful unless, man I don't know, something REALLY bad happens. Doing a few systems at once doesn't make you less capable, its supposed to make you more adaptable. Also, I dont deny at all that a trained boxer couldn't stand his own against a multi trained fighter. But a big part of what I do is meant to throw someone off. So if you expect X, I'm going to bring Y. Hope that makes sense.
I think there's a certain trade off between quality and quantity. Personally in training multiple systems I prefer to train a smaller number of systems and invest more training time in each rather than training a bunch of systems and not being able to invest sufficient time in each.
if im not mistaken what US marines go through is basically short MMA style program via MCMAP, Fairbarn Skyes and Gracie combative style stuff. Royal Marines go through fairbairn skyes (they used anyway, but its very much the same development as MMA) and are encouraged to participate in judo and boxing and how do you personally know that boxing and wrestling are different from hand to hand combat?
