Wing Tsun is crap. It's unrealistic, the stance is weak and immobile. It's behind the times of MMA, cross-training and full contact fighting. It's only good for its demos but have no real competitors in MMA. It's filled with "arm-chair" instructors, has a drawn out curriculum, costs an insane amount of money for very little, and is no where near hardcore in its training as, let's say kyokushin, thai boxing or brazilian jiu jitsu. Oh, and the common excuse given by many studying the art is "I could do it, but I don't want to hurt you." Boztepe is a fraud (as he's shunned away from some challenges), Leung Ting is all about the money. They have no idea of what a real grappler can do nor any sense of fighting against a truly uncooperative partner.
So for those of you that practice WT - what say you?
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3 comments:
That’s a nice summation of the common attitudes towards WT in certain groups, most strongly the keyboard warriors who frequent the forum at Bullshido.com. The place is an echo chamber for anti-WT thinking.
How did it end up that way? Most of them are reasonable people, after all. One huge factor is their insistence on 'proving' that your martial arts system works. MMA established a proving grounds, and jiu-jitsu, muay thai and wrestling have been declared the winners. Most new martial artists today will pick one of these ‘big three’ or just train MMA as an art in itself. Those three things work in the UFC, and the UFC, we all know, is ‘as real as it gets.’
Or is it? Are you sure it’s not ‘as real as the Nevada State Athletic Commission will let it be’? Because I’m thinking of an even ‘realer’ fight with no weight classes, no 5 minute break if you get kneed in the junk, and no time to warm up. There are probably 100 things you could add to the list of ways a fight can get ‘realer’ than MMA.
WT’s ambitious goal is to prepare you for a truly real fight.
You can tell me that’s a foolish goal, but you can’t tell me that WT isn’t the best way to reach it. The difficulty is proving it. Video doesn’t convey WT and attempts to explain how it works to anyone of the Bullshido mindset is only going to convince them more that WT is all just a fanciful theory.
If I had never crossed hands with my instructor, I would probably be in full agreement with the Bullshido crowd. It was the actual physical demonstration that convinced me. So, I end up saying what many WT/Wing Chun people say: ‘If you only could get a feel for what my instructor can do, you would be convinced!’ I can’t even generalize and say that any Wing Chun instructor will do, because, sadly, there are probably many decorated instructors who don’t really have much true skill. It’s not the style that empowers the individual, after all, but the individual who empowers the style.
So where does the leave my effort to ‘prove’ my art to others? They can point to endless examples of their art working in the context of MMA. I can only say, "Fly to my home town, drive to my school, meet my instructor and then you will see!" It’s not going to happen. So be it.
Thanks Rob! Let me play devil's advocate. 1) Why does one have to see what your instructor can or cannot do? Why can't YOU show me (or whoever it may be), if WT is truly that good? 2) Let's say we assume no rules as you've suggested. MMA vs. WT. There is no room for mistakes. Within seconds, either the MMA guy gets the WT guy down to the ground, or WT guy can knock out the MMA guy. Who cares what rules exist or not? Sure you can hit the groin, but the question is does the WT guy have the ability to do so against the MMA guy (or vice versa)? If the WT guy is stuck on the ground, and the MMA guy has control, ya, the WT guy can bite, scratch, claw, but so can the MMA guy - and more so, no? I think regardless of what the answers are, nothing will be solved until some WT guy steps into the ring with the balls to really show the world what he can do WITH rules. I mean, if he's that good and can win WITH rules, imagine what he can do without them. If his structure is that good and his punch is that powerful, who cares about a breather from a groin strike?
I think the latest post makes an important distinction which I left out from my earlier comment: the difference between fighting and self-defense. I can’t go around saying that WT is ‘more ambitious’ than MMA because it takes away fairness and preparation, without admitting that it is far less ambitious insofar as it is only a system for self-defense and not for competition. These are two very different purposes. You say WT will be proven when a WT fighter succeeds in MMA; I say MMA will be proven when an MMA fighter successfully attacks a WT fighter in the street!
There are several practical obstacles preventing WT from ‘proving’ itself in MMA. One is that, currently, MMA is big in North America and Japan, where WT has very little presence. WT is very big in Europe, where MMA has very little presence. Second, MMA attracts great athletes. That means, for a fair comparison of the two arts as fighting systems, we need a great athlete who has mastered WT. Unfortunately, few natural athletes are drawn to WT. It is too theoretical, too non-competitive, too counter-intuitive and yes too traditional for most people born with natural fighting ability. That might sound like an excuse, but consider this. If you take identical twins and put one in MMA and one in WT, I would bet the WT fighter will be the better fighter after a few years. MMA fighters simply use what they have, whereas WT (if you put the time and effort in) makes you a better fighter.
Eventually, I believe, some WT fighter will do well in MMA on a large stage. But it will take some time, because of the things mentioned above and because it will require a great WT fighter who feels the need to prove WT to others. (FWIW, I don’t exactly think that’s a good quality in a martial artist).
When it does happen, it might not be the victory for WT you might expect… The fact is, WT fighters have entered small MMA competitions in Europe with some success. There have even been some videos posted at Bullshido.com. The response from the forum? They said the WT fighters in the video weren’t using WT! The fight footage didn’t look like WT; it looked like MMA. So, in most people’s opinion, the WT guys must have ‘cross-trained’ or simply left their WT training at the door. This of course stems from ignorance of WT’s exercises and what they are for. These people in the forums actually expected the WT fighter to somehow ‘chi sao’ the guy or at least to use classical form and positions. They didn’t understand that WT training is meant to establish functions, reflexes and power that will not in the end look like anything particular at all. Because people don’t recognize this fact, there is a catch 22: WT has to succeed in MMA to prove itself, but if you succeed in MMA, you must not be doing WT.
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