Nick_UKWC

I think Wing Chun could be used effectivly against any martial art, but the key would be making them fight your fight and not trying to stay at a Karate or MT (or whatever else) range. I don't have experience to back this up but it seems logical to me.

Wing Chun! What kind of thing are you interested in?

I train in Bishop's Stortford with the UK Wing Chun Kung Fu Assosiation, under Sifu Nick Martin.

It sounded like it was mainly about egos and money. Not what martial arts should be (but all to often are) about.

Hmm, I've found ours to be helpful and supportive, as well as offering an organised way to train. I don't doubt there can be bad ones though.

draws your central plane?

I have a hard time grasping how you can make urself face his center without making him face yours. Could you add to this quote? It might help to think of it like this. The centre line is not a line down the front of the body, think of it more like a pole down the middle of you. You can face/attack their centre line from any angle.

A couple of us were chatting to Sifu last session and he mentioned briefly that in the 80's there was a lot of rivalry, people turning up at Dojos and the like, challenging instructors things like that. He said it seems to have calmed down a bit these days but I was wondering if it was just less obvious. Does anyone have any experiences they want to share?

When I'm ill I go, but I don't take part, just watch. I think talking to your instructor is the best option here. He can just say 'I know there are a lot of colds going about at the moment so if you feel under the weather I'd just ask you to sit out for a few lessons because obviously we don't want anyone else getting ill' or something to that effect.

Don't you have an association or syllabus or experience that can help you with this? seems like a slightly odd thing to be asking on a web forum to be honest.

My girlfriend is visually impaired. Her disability doesn’t actually affect the clarity of what she sees, but causes what she sees to shake very slightly all the time. This can be very tiring on her and uncomfortable after a few hours of concentrating or using her eyes a lot. It also means she has no depth perception. I think all sides of martial arts, physical mental and spiritual, would be of benefit to her and she’d quite like to start learning something. I’ve obviously recommend Wing Chun as I enjoy it so much and it also has quite an emphasis on touch sensitivity, something she could be good at without putting to much strain on her eyes. We’d really appreciate any feedback from anyone that can relate to this situation and offer some advice. Thanks a lot Nick

I thought that JKD was a set of priciples, not a style so to speak. Like I train Kung Fu but it's actually Wing Chun, a JKD guy would actually be training Jun Fan or such like. Or am I way off base here?

I concur, if there is one thing I can't stand (I'm a guy) its women being equal when it suits them, and feeble when it doesn't. I've talked about this with the guys at our Wing Chun class. Some of them feel they have to go easy on the girl that trains with us, I think that attitude is deplorable. If she had to use her Wing Chun in a real fight against a guy she's going to have a totally warped perception of her abilities if everyone takes the softly softly route. I hardly think 'go easy with me I'm on my period' is going to help her (or you) win any fights either, JKDkid2.

The oldest guy where I train is 47. He can't learn a damn thing. He's been training at least 3 months and he can't do a centre-line punch or a circle step. You can't blame Sifu either, he helps him a great deal and everyone else has learnt just fine. I taught my sister to do it better than he can in about 15 minutes. I'm sure this is not indicative of all older people going into MA though, it's probably just him.

Wing Tzun first...I'm impressed

I'm interested in what you've got to say Judoguy, could you give some more details? Where they to slow, unable to use any techniques, overpowered perhaps? Who were they fighting against a street brawler or someone with training? If it was someone with training were they able to use their techniques more easily, or effectivly? I'm also interested to hear what anyone else has to say about this. Wing Chun has been mentioned as effective numerous times on these boards and in training I've always found it to be quite straight forward and logical in its approach and having effective strikes and defences. I'd say the striking aspect of it seem in principle at least as effective as the limited Kick Boxing I did, can anyone else compare them with more experience? The main problem I have is timing, to correctly recognise what I'm seeing and feeling and being reactive to it with my Wing Chun. This is something I expect to improve with training and sparring. I'm very keen to spar with people from other arts, or indeed with no training at all because I doubt I'll ever have to fight another Wing Chun guy in the street and I think that unpredictability is important.

Watching that second clip makes me furious. Bunch of cowards.

I don't think Wing Chun really fits with most people’s idea of Kung Fu; it's not full of superfluous rubbish as far as I can see. If I was to criticise it, I'd say the kicks although practical from an application stand point (you aren’t required to do a spinning reverse kick to the temple at 1 foot range while the guy is trying to punch you) are rather hard to land effectively because of the highly specific targets.

Gets to the guy paddling out and stops for me

I've heard that it's not a great idea to cross train until you have something really set in your mind, could see it being confusing. I quite like the sound of this San Soo, might have a look into it. Wont be training it any time soon though

As a few people have said I think this is really down to the way people train, boxers just tend to be stronger, fitter and tougher. That said if you put two guys with equal experience in all terms together Karate probably has more options and more devastaing attacks. Pro western boxing is a sport, after all. As such it has rules which don't allow for leg breaks, eye gouges etc and as such they are never trained. Well I assume they're not!

I have read many versions of the history of Wing Chun, of course I have no idea what is right. You can read a couple of takes here: http://www.ukwingchun.com/history.htm http://www.wingchunkwoon.com/history.asp