All is said in the title, so not much words needed in the body. What are your thoughts, and perhaps more effectively reliable, your experiences? (being told 'its not the art, its the practitioner' is already taken into account, so no need to go down that road if that is/was what you were thinking)
Im actually in the minority that feels its as much in the art and how its practised as in the practitioner, put an average person in a school which pressure tests, trains high percentage movements and drills the basics over and over against real resistance and they will get better and be able to look after themselves in most situations, Put an average person in a club which doesn’t train against pressure or use much contact, which doesn’t use modern protective equipment to allow you to train safely with a decent level of contact, which drills largely cooperative movements and low percentage techniques against an unrealistic attack and these people will come unstuck in most real situations And to be honest the majority of wing chun I have seen, felt or trained is rubbish, and when your experience in an art is its rubbish, when the vast majority of peoples experience you meet and talk to is the same, when you can’t find a decent clip of an art being used effectively in a full contact environment or a clip anyone can agree looks like wing chun in action against a resisting opponent then id say the art, well s*cks I have no doubt some people can and have made wing chun work, but those tend to be guys who could take up tiddlywinks and still use it in a fight, for the average student the art seems woeful from a self defence purpose in that there isn’t much contact work, not much work under pressure, no real grappling or clinch work all of which for me mean the art doesn’t stand up well when it hits the fan Now even if you ignore all the above for modern self defense an art needs to cover pre fight confrontation, weapons defence, awareness, law implications of what you are doing and how you respond and a few other things I have never seen covered in a wing chun class
95% of SD is Threat Awareness & Evaluation and Target Hardening, 4% is verbal de-escalation, 1% is physical techniques (when everything else has gone wrong and it is your lest resort). As a consequence, I don't see it matters that much what art you train, as in most scenarios you will be striking pre-emptively, based on your knowledge of the rituals of violence to determine when and if it is necessary.
A large part of self defense is actually body language. Arguably much of the benefit of a martial art is that it cultivates a relaxed, assertive body posture that makes you less likely to be selected as a target.
Thanks for the replies, especially to Icefield. The whole SD thing about prefight calculation is one thing, I am only worried in this thread about: when the fight is on, would wing chun be a system to win it. I suppose the main thing that I am thinking when I look at this MA is the trapping ability. Do you think that (the) traps are effective for a real fight? If nothing else, please let me know your thoughts about trapping in a real life context (against someone with or without training (yes a generality, but I think you get my main point)).
I'd say yes and no. Yes: temporarily restricting your opponent's striking angles/limb movement is very effective. No: the formulaic, and generally over-complicated, training methods I've seen/experienced WC practitioners using are not very effective outside of WC classes.
Wing chun should be about hitting your opponent, you trap only f his arms are in the way to stop you hitting him, you trap to remove said obstacle them continue to hit him (problem is people seem to spent way too much time on trapping and not enough on hitting) Trapping works best from what I have seen against someone else also from a centerline art, some else with an extended guard looking to occupy the centreline and who doesn’t want to enter the clinch. If you both agree to play the same game, stand at the same distance arms in the centre and throw straight shots for the most part trapping works great, if your opponent decides to either go straight past that distance to clinch, or decided to keep his hands close and go under over or around the centreline then you are in trouble. Centerline arts in southern china had a nightmare with northern systems such as hop gar when they came south, they simply refused to play the game the way wing chun, old frame hung gar, etc wanted it played Watch any MMA fight and hand fighting/trapping works best on the floor or against the cage where you can limit your opponents movement, it works second best in the clinch alongside a good clinch game, and works least well in open fighting simply because people don’t stand there and allow you to play with their arms, simple traps like parrying etc work well but them you don’t need to do wing chun to learn them lol
What an awesome answer icefield, thank you doubly bro. Thank you as well David. I see what you are saying with the freedom to move, and the not standing still to play with arms. I think going for 10 traps in a row with the idea that they will just leave their hands out seems flawed, I would imagine that close to the best idea is to keep it as a simultanious trap-hit, or a single trap then on to the immediate hit. A short and sweet 1-2, and then don't plan on a three unless it comes to you. That's my thought anyway. Good answers guys, thanks for helping enlighten me. I still gotta play around with it more to make sense according to my own muscle memory and that kinda thing, but I think this gave me some good points to consider. (This doesn't mean I consider the thread closed, however, feel free to post)
