A man of real combat

[Shaolin]

On 2002-03-10 04:22, YODA wrote:

On 2002-03-09 23:53, Shaolin wrote:

 

By way of example - imagine what would happen if Wing Chun was passed down to students with all the forms intact, a couple of drills and punches here and there but missing the basic theories and idioms of Wing Chun and Chi-Sao. All information about the Centerline etc all theories erased. The students would be left in the same predicament that many students find themselves in today - wondering how to fight and how to use their system as it was intended.

 

This is exactly the problem I have found with the WC people I have trained with. They only seem to have a very basic understanding of the fundemental principles that the system is based on. Like I've said before - I have every respect for the system but have not seen it performed as I believe it can be - apart from by JKD people.

 

No question that there are lots of people who cannot 'do' or use the system. But I don't know why you met so many lousy Wing Chun people. Have you met anyone from my lineage? Still, I know plenty of guys that I trained with that couldn't defend themselves against an angry 8th grader.

 

In Moy Yat's school there were basically three kinds of students: First the students who were just there because they wanted to be part of the clan and be cool or get the name. Not too much to work with there.

 

Two, there were some really nice people who just didn't have any killer instinct or physical ability - they would never really develop. There was one very nice guy who seemed to be a fairly typical guy about 30 years old or so. But he simply could not learn anything we tried to teach him - not even a Tan Sao could he do. But even with lots of effort he finally told us - thank you very much for trying so hard but he just couldn't do it.

 

Third were the people who really wanted to do the system. They asked questions and tried applying their Wing Chun in different situations. Some of these guys at the meetings you would hear, before things started, from the other side of the room saying, "Okay, you ready? Here it comes.." using full power barehanded attacks to work on intercepts or whatever. Many of the serious people, like me, came from sparring heavy karate and could more easily apply the concepts taught in the school.

 

For me it was like 'the dream' because I had been given almost nothing to work with in my old karate school but there were loads of goodies to be had in Wing Chun. At the karate school we learned tools but not really how to use them, except fake low hit high, etc. In sparring we were told not to use the blocks we practiced all night because they didn't work. I found my lead hand shooting up in a rising block motion in sparring and getting nailed. Students were forced to figure it out themselves and the results sucked. At least I felt that, considering the amount of training I was doing, that I sucked, and couldn't improve very much or very fast. So I read up on JKD, also had a couple of nice talks on the phone with Chris Kent, who is a really nice guy, modified myself and tried to improve my moves, kicks, which helped a little, getting me more roundhouse (JKD hook kick) scores and better overall but it wasn't enough.

 

After about a month or so at Moy Yat's school I took what I learned and did it on my sparring partners. I was shocked to find that they could rarely stop my new Wing Chun attacks and were so easily overwhelmed. I took the theories that I had learned and applied them in sparring fearlessly - shooting in using the Centerline and blitzing them with straight punches and using leg jams and so on - even at that stage I could blow away even my good partners who used to kick my butt about 90% of the time. I finally had something to use besides a punch or kick - I had a concept and one that worked.

 

The serious people in the school were really good and some of them are absolute terrors - like Pete Pajil, who worked in a max security prison, Miguel Hernandez who was familiar to street fights, William Moy who took out three guys in the subway who ‘asked for his jacket,’ and Mickey Chan - who introduced equipment into Moy Yat's very traditional school, was sort of the 'door man' and mentor to us all - he was also known for whooping a$$ while keeping a big smile plastered on his face. There are others and many were just amazingly deadly. Most of these people can really use the whole system and many have in the street. Many of the serious people would also train quite often. I trained 5 days a week averaging 4-5 hours each time. We would normally go from 6:00pm weekdays to 10:00pm and 11:00am - 10:00pm Saturdays. It was great fun.

 

Anyway I am surprised you never came across any of the really good people, I hope you do someday - they are out there.

 

Jim

 

 

 

_________________

 

 

Moy Yat Ving Tsun

 

Rest in peace dear teacher, dear friend, dear brother, and dear father: Moy Yat Sifu

 

 

 

[ This Message was edited by: Shaolin on 2002-03-14 05:35 ]