A Story

I was again away from this city this past weekend. Ran into some people who were discussing their martial art (muay thai) and brought me into their discussion. Of course, I keep my mouth shut about my experience with WT since no one asks and just let them describe how great the art is (which I completely respect). Totally understanding that excitement they feel, I let them do their thing and bask in that happy feeling in a completely open minded way. For those of you who know me, hopefully you can attest that the last thing I would do is march in and either “show off” how good WT is or how bad non-WT arts are. (I’m more of the perspective of “it’s the singer, not the song”.)

Anyway, the conversation then (of course) goes into “dissing mode” and these guys start dissing the likes of aikido, karate and kung fu..”kung fu’s great for movies but not real life” I agree with them..cuz I believe the same (that the kung fu portrayed in movies is generally more for looks rather than application). Finally one guy asks me what I do. I say, with pride, “kung fu” and a smirk. The next question is “what style”, and I reply with “wing tsun”. Then the usual “you guys only fight close range” or “you’re good at hand trapping, right?” and the “you guys don’t kick above the waist”..followed with ..”that’s a girl’s style!” Anyway, Iet them continue with their questions and try my best to answer it in a professional manner and how this and that is true or are misconceptions “we can/do fight long distances, we can deal with circular attacks, the history of WT is not well known. Blah blah blah”

So then, like clockwork, comes the part where they want to see it in action. Mind you, these guys are studying thai boxing – brutal and hardcore with, like me, years of “on/off” attendance. So in typical WT fashion, we cannot show them a move, instead we respond to “throw an attack”. Given that I know he’s a thai boxer, I thought he’d come in w/ the low roundhouse. Knowing how painful they can be…I was nervous and slightly tense from the anticipation. That tenseness and nervousness morphed into this revving energy where I just wanted to pummel right through the guy. Arms were not as relaxed in class, feet were not as flat on the ground as they are in class. Ankles, knees, thighs were ready to peel off the line and my arms were not super relaxed, but slightly tense yet (in my opinion), pliable.

Maybe I got lucky, but the guy stepped in perfect distance to land a right low roundhouse kick. Again, it was almost like clockwork – probably not fair since what I anticipated came true..and I simply charged forward with one step to intercept his step/kick initiation and landed a palm/push straight into the facial area just enough to let him know. His amrs tried to parry/cling onto my attacking arm and it was “so forced” that my second chain punch/hit followed with chocolately smoothness. These were not strong hits by any means, just enough to let him know of who’s got the advantage.

Distance opens up. So I let him “try again”. This time he tries a punch or something..i don’t even really remember but I was so roaring to go that I just rushed right into him at the earliest of commitment of his attack and that seemed to have shut things down again. Last try..he jab/fakes and tries to go for his take down. For you BJJ guys, to his credit, I don’t think he’s had much experience (he could’ve been a newb). Natural reaction was to control the head and neck, which I was able to and back up he came. I said, like in class, to “continue attacking” from his compromised position and somehow I locked his arm. He was using a lot of force, so I had to use more than what I thought I would have needed to as well.

At this point, I made my point and that’s all I cared about. This is when they were really curious about this “wing chun”. Gave me a better opportunity to explain the misconception of WC and how, in my experience, WT takes things apart and teaches in a more non-chinese way to handle non-WC attacks. The next thing guys tend to pick on after this is that our hits don’t look powerful, especially with the palm/push or whatever..since well there’s no actual hard contact. This is when I showed them the inch punch or something like that and give them a few good thumps to the chest and stomach just to give them an idea of what a hit to the nose may do. Now I can’t say if it’s true or not but they did tell me they were pretty convinced and surprised to see this – they’ve never seen kung fu in application before. And before WT, neither have I.

Of course, they’ll still stick to the muay thai and I’ll stick to my WT.