Do you see the problem?

[Zaine]

Attached is a youtube video of a wing chun practitioner who entered a karate studio to challenge one of the students there. No other description is given, and I didn't watch it with sound, but what it seems like is that this guy wants to test his skill against a harder style.

For me there is a lot of arrogance in this video. First off, this isn't the age where one just goes into another studio out of the blue and submits challenges. I would personally have kicked the guy out. For me, getting a call or an email a few days in advance as a challenge would be acceptable. I would happily accept the challenge as it would be an excellent learning experience for not only my students but the practitioner. What I saw here was not only holes in technique coming from both side but a lack of exposure on the side of the karate studio. The karate guy clearly had no clue how to handle the wing chun practitioner because he had no clue what was in store. Was absolutely unfamiliar with the fighting philosophies of kung fu and honestly looked like a fool. The wing chun guy had a bit more exposure, but not enough to know that in karate there are many systems at least somewhat comfortable with going to the ground, although when it did the karate guy seemed to be extremely clueless as to how to handle himself.

The driving point to this post is to ask yourself this. Do you, as teachers and students, expose yourself to the opposite end of the martial arts world? Do you make sure that you or your students understand the principles of the other styles? Most importantly, are you and/or your students sufficiently equipped for a challenge such as this?

[Wastelander]

Attached is a youtube video of a wing chun practitioner who entered a karate studio to challenge one of the students there. No other description is given, and I didn't watch it with sound, but what it seems like is that this guy wants to test his skill against a harder style.

For me there is a lot of arrogance in this video. First off, this isn't the age where one just goes into another studio out of the blue and submits challenges. I would personally have kicked the guy out. For me, getting a call or an email a few days in advance as a challenge would be acceptable. I would happily accept the challenge as it would be an excellent learning experience for not only my students but the practitioner. What I saw here was not only holes in technique coming from both side but a lack of exposure on the side of the karate studio. The karate guy clearly had no clue how to handle the wing chun practitioner because he had no clue what was in store. Was absolutely unfamiliar with the fighting philosophies of kung fu and honestly looked like a fool. The wing chun guy had a bit more exposure, but not enough to know that in karate there are many systems at least somewhat comfortable with going to the ground, although when it did the karate guy seemed to be extremely clueless as to how to handle himself.

The driving point to this post is to ask yourself this. Do you, as teachers and students, expose yourself to the opposite end of the martial arts world? Do you make sure that you or your students understand the principles of the other styles? Most importantly, are you and/or your students sufficiently equipped for a challenge such as this?

The walk-in challenge seems very old fashioned and disrespectful to me as well, but aside from that I have to say that I feel bad for the karate guy. I'm not sure what style of karate they practice at this dojo or how much they spar and how, but he did not look very good at all. That said, neither of them had any groundwork at all, despite obviously knowing some takedowns. The Wing Chun practitioner definitely did use trapping and counter-striking off of his trapping effectively but, as you mentioned, it also seemed like the karateka had never seen Wing Chun before because he had no clue what was going on, which seems weird to me in this day and age.

My instructor enjoys perpetuating the Shorinkan curriculum as it is, but he is also the kind of person who is CONSTANTLY trying to learn more and improve his own personal style of karate, and in doing so he helps his students do that as well. He routinely works with people from other styles and incorporates the techniques that he finds useful (and some that he doesn't, in case we might) into our training. We also invite people to our dojo periodically (like that open sparring event we did last month) and work out with them. Exposure to many different methods of fighting is always a valuable experience, especially when you get the opportunity to actually practice with them. Doing this challenge matches seems stupid to me, since it's a good way to bruise egos and burn bridges. I would much rather see them arrange an open mat session where both schools can get together to practice and learn from each other, and spar if they want to in a friendly setting.

[Zaine]

We also invite people to our dojo periodically (like that open sparring event we did last month) and work out with them. Exposure to many different methods of fighting is always a valuable experience, especially when you get the opportunity to actually practice with them.

My teacher was constantly inviting kung fu practitioners to our classes so that we could get that kind of exposure. It wasn't just kung fu, anything that wasn't Shorin Ryu. It was really important for him to expose us to many different styles and he encouraged us to attend seminars of other styles and, after we got past a certain rank, to start cross training so that we could introduce new things into our style.

[sensei8]

Imho,

The Wing Chun practitioner pretty much owned the karateka; both standing and on the ground, even though, they both have no idea what they're doing on the ground, and in that, they both need to remain on their feet.

Edited April 29, 2012 by sensei8

[Zaine]

He certainly did be the karate guy pretty soundly.

[vantheman]

My school encourages cross training and will integrate concepts of other arts into training occasionally. For something like a punch, kempo focuses on speed. Against someone whose done BJJ, that means they could be KO'd before they saw it coming. Alternatively, if the fight goes to the ground, it may be the end of the Karate student. With cross training, you get the benefits of both.

[Groinstrike]

Nice Find Zaine!

Couple things there, yes a good understanding to ground fighting could have when a long way for the karateka. There was a point he has full double underhooks and does nothing with it.

Also, I love how a fight between a karateka and a wing chun man ends up this a guy in side control hitting the other guy with hammer fists.

[MasterPain]

Nice Find Zaine!

Couple things there, yes a good understanding to ground fighting could have when a long way for the karateka. There was a point he has full double underhooks and does nothing with it.

Also, I love how a fight between a karateka and a wing chun man ends up this a guy in side control hitting the other guy with hammer fists.

This.

Also, it is nice to see Wing Chun used full contact. So often, it is practiced by people who do no hard sparring, so in the full contact arena they fall apart. So thumbs up for pressure testing.

I can make no moral judgement on the challenge, as we know nothing of the backstory and context. Can anyone here translate what they say?

[sensei8]

Do you, as teachers and students, expose yourself to the opposite end of the martial arts world?

Just as often as I can. Whether, it was at my old Kyuodan dojo and/or at the Hombu, I was/am constantly inviting any and all styles of the martial arts to train with us and/or to conduct seminars for us at either location. I personally have made it a habit of mine to train with anyone and everyone that would allow me to train with them.

Why? No style is perfect! No style flies a banner toting that their style is the best/better; that's an illusion, imho. Shindokan has its positive things and its negative things, and this I knew from when I was a kyu student, and our Dai-Soke said that Shindokan has it's flaws, and we're not to think that Shindokan is superior to any style of the martial arts.

I encourage my students to go outside of Shindokan to see what's out there beyond the protection of the Hombu/Dojo.

Do you make sure that you or your students understand the principles of the other styles?

Absolutely YES!!

Most importantly, are you and/or your students sufficiently equipped for a challenge such as this?

Yes. I don't accept challenges because I don't live in feudal Japan and the like. I don't accept challenges because I've nothing to prove to anybody and/or any style. My dojo and/or the Hombu is not the place for this nonsense. The last time I was challenged back in the 90's, I told him to leave my dojo immediately and don't ever come back. He refused to leave, and as I approached him, a student of mine identified himself to this person as a state trooper sergeant and this person hesitated until my student showed him his badge.

[JusticeZero]

We aren't because we can't do things with the light intensity that is appropriate for standard sparring. The mechanics of wringing circular kicks mean that they take a long distance to accelerate or decelerate. Acceleration can happen before the foot starts to move, but slowing down is hard.

You can pop them out very quickly without too much trouble and they will have very large amounts of force in them, that you are going to keep thanks to conservation of momentum. But if you need to hit someone at say 30% power, it will slow it down to a painful crawl. So if we toss a kick at a lower level of power, it moves very slowly. If we don't, if we hit something like a floating rib (a common target), we could break it. We might even be tiring ourself out more than usual because we have to hold our leg up while it moves, and we aren't getting back as much energy either.

Then, the other guy uses techniques with a decayed structure and linear techniques that can be done just as fast powerlessly as with power. He flicks his hand at us three or four times in that extra window of time while the kick drifts. Then he sneers at us, and says "See, your style doesn't work."

If we try limiting ourself to techniques we can spar with, we lose most of our breakpoints and ability to flow, and we end up looking like we aren't even using our art, so we're still way behind and still get "Pff, you aren't using your style, your style doesnt work."

It's really just a waste of our time to even try.

We welcome people in the roda who are within the same overarching art of capoeira, of course. The whole art is open source like that. but our format works for and is built mutually around the structural quirks of the art.