So I've studied a lot of martial arts over the last 18 years or so, and like many people on this board, I firmly believe that training with active resistance (an opponent who genuinely does not want you to be successful as you try to apply a technique) is one of the only ways to separate out the garbage and gain the skills to apply either in real life or in a ring. As a physicist, I have to further emphasize that philosophy. No matter how awesome a theory may sound, if it doesn't hold up to real-life testing, it's garbage.
I have read a lot of the threads here on Wing Chun (and watched a lot of videos), and while many of them quickly digress to your typical internet arguments, some key points that really stuck with me are the genuine lack of success of wing chun in an MMA setting, and what appears to be a tendency for fighters going style-against-style to stray from (or abandon) wing chun as they fight.
On the other side, a lot of the principals behind wing chun seem not only sound, but clever and efficient from a physics point of view. I know garbage in martial arts very well, especially when it comes to bad science. Wing chun has plenty of it, just like a large number of other styles, but my gut tells me there may be some substance in there too.
So, I decided a little while ago, that I was going to make my next style Wing Chun, and I would give it an earnest, full-hearted chance. I don't know what the result will be. Do I find a few useful things I can bring to a more robust style later? Do I find a style that can be considered sound and useful only in specific ranges/circumstances? Do I find a style badly in need of a few safety gear innovations in order to make active resistance possible? Do I find a style that has just drifted too far away from reality as its practitioners no longer have chances to test it out in real life? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.
Cheers!
Full disclosure: I'm not giving up training in other styles, or live sparring in those other styles, and I'm going into it with a long history of martial arts training, so I do not represent a typical student, and any success or failures I may have in a setting with active resistance could easily be attributed to my prior training, so I am not a reasonable candidate for testing styles against each other or testing the validity of the style of wing chun in general. The results of this endeavor will be fact-finding only, and should I find something in need of testing, more suitable individuals should be picked for that scenario.
I have read a lot of the threads here on Wing Chun (and watched a lot of videos), and while many of them quickly digress to your typical internet arguments, some key points that really stuck with me are the genuine lack of success of wing chun in an MMA setting, and what appears to be a tendency for fighters going style-against-style to stray from (or abandon) wing chun as they fight.
On the other side, a lot of the principals behind wing chun seem not only sound, but clever and efficient from a physics point of view. I know garbage in martial arts very well, especially when it comes to bad science. Wing chun has plenty of it, just like a large number of other styles, but my gut tells me there may be some substance in there too.
So, I decided a little while ago, that I was going to make my next style Wing Chun, and I would give it an earnest, full-hearted chance. I don't know what the result will be. Do I find a few useful things I can bring to a more robust style later? Do I find a style that can be considered sound and useful only in specific ranges/circumstances? Do I find a style badly in need of a few safety gear innovations in order to make active resistance possible? Do I find a style that has just drifted too far away from reality as its practitioners no longer have chances to test it out in real life? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.
Cheers!
Full disclosure: I'm not giving up training in other styles, or live sparring in those other styles, and I'm going into it with a long history of martial arts training, so I do not represent a typical student, and any success or failures I may have in a setting with active resistance could easily be attributed to my prior training, so I am not a reasonable candidate for testing styles against each other or testing the validity of the style of wing chun in general. The results of this endeavor will be fact-finding only, and should I find something in need of testing, more suitable individuals should be picked for that scenario.