Wing Chun - an overview of its training methods and effectiveness.

[jubaji]

I have never taken martial arts classes for more than a session or two.

Then why don't you STFU until you do? Then you will be in a position to compare all your other experiences with what you are being taught and see what accords with what you 'know' and what doesn't. Until then, you're just going to be telling us your life story over and over and trying to impress with dramatics and anecdotes. I'm bored already.

[Ghost]

The first time that you roll a dead body to the morgue from the ER you’re no thinking about it much. You’re too busy taking mental notes from the nurse next to you who is barking procedures to you like there is no tomorrow.

“And always lock the wheels down good after you put them in the freezer” she barks.

I remember that one because it was a visual order, not the one about what I was supposed to write down in the log book about so in so. You wheel the body down there, unlock the door, log in the body and then properly place it in the freezer. There is a little more too it than that, but that’s the basics. You would think that it was an easy job really, but after a while, no one wanted to do it. I didn’t understand why at first.

By the third body the nurse is getting tired of escorting you down to the morgue because it is, after all, your job and not hers and she is still thinking about the other patients that in her charge back in the ER, not the one that is all ready gone. Now, instead of trying to overcomplicate the job to you with orders she is trying to keep it simple so that it is quick and she can get back to her other work. You get it over with pretty fast. All the I’s are dotted and get out of there. You still haven’t really had time to think about things yet, and even if you did you think it might be something simple like, “Poor bastard” “You shouldn’t have let yourself get so fat” or something simple like that. You still don’t know why none of the ER nurses or guards wants to take dead bodies to the morgue. But you think it’s because they are just squeamish or overly religious.

By the fifth body there is no one escorting you to make sure that you do it right. You take your time making the trip because you don’t want to go back to guarding the psycho baker act patient in room one again who not too soon before just tried to bite you. It’s the first time that you sit there for a second and think about the “Poor Bastard” on the “Slab” as they call it. After you die your name is always “Poor Bastard” or “Fat Guy” or something like that. No one calls them Judy or Tom anymore after they die except the family and friends. I sat there for a second and thought about “Poor Bastard”. I never saw his face. I think he came in on the shift before me so I never actually met the guy. It was also the first time that I felt like saying some kind of prayer, but I didn’t. I just closed the freezer door, signed the log book and went back to the psycho in room one.

As a side note, all the psycho’s were put in room one because it was the ER only had one room set up with a camera in it and a restraint system. It used to be that they could close the door to the psycho room as long as there was an ER guard there with the patient because it was all on camera. But that changed when a Baker Act patient snuck in a scalpel in the room and killed a guard by cutting his throat. Damn near cut his hear off I hear. I was surprised that a scalpel could do that. So then they made a policy never to shut the door to the psycho room.

By the tenth time that you wheel someone down to the ER is when things start to go wrong. It takes about ten times before something breaks the routine of just shutting the door and signing the log. My tenth time happened entirely on my shift, which I was to find out is always a bad thing. What I mean is that I was the one who helped the EMT’s bring her in and stood guard outside her door while they tried to save her life before she died. She was 19 years old. A popular girl from a local high school they said. Decent grades, nice family, well liked, that sort of thing. She was apparently the unwitting victim of some guys GHB laced Mountain Dew drink. It happened in a bar somewhere downtown. Some guy gave her his mountain dew to drink on the dance floor. He made it seem like he had just bought it from the cooler girl in the bar and apparently had just gave it away carelessly to any girl who wanted it. He of course knew exactly who he wanted to have it and orchestrated the affair to go that way. The drink was still cold and with the loud music I am sure that the girl didn’t realize that the drink had all ready been opened or pierced with a needle and drugged.

Her friends say that she danced and drank just a little of the drink and then collapsed on the floor of the club. They at least were smart enough to bring the drink with them to the ER for testing and analysis. Sure enough, it was loaded with GHB. The careless person who laced the drink didn’t calculate at all the proper dosage. The drink would have killed anyone who drank more than a quarter of it.

But I was there outside the door to her room keeping out her family and friends. Her parents were allowed in, but not her brothers and sisters. There just wasn’t enough room for them. She was shaking violently in the bed. A GHB overdose is not a quiet way to die at all. It was hard to get the IVs in her to attempt to flush her system of the chemicals that were killing her. Eventually, I got the call to take her to the Morgue. It seemed like the entire hospital was crying that night. All kinds of people showed up in the few hrs it took for the GHB to take her away and of course all got the bad news at the same time. She put up a good fight I guess, better than others I saw from drug overdoses.

There was the same old nurse with me this time. Not because it was procedure, but just because this time the nurse wanted to say goodbye. Every nurse has their soft spot. You hardly ever see it, but if they didn’t really care about something very deeply then they wouldn’t be nurses for very long. This nurse was a charge nurse, a career ER nurse. She had seen it all and then some. It was valiant the way that this nurse tried to save this young girls life. She moved as fast as she could, she seemed to do everything right. But nothing it seems was going to save this girl.

When the outside morgue door closed she broke down. Sometimes it seems that ER personnel can only talk to people who don’t work in the ER directly. It’s like they can’t break down in front of other staff, especially ones that they are supervising. But I was a guard; I dealt with crying people a lot. My post was with usually in the ER waiting room with people crying about loved ones being treated in the trauma room. It was OK for a Charge Nurse to cry in front of me because everyone seemed to cry in front of me because I always had to be where things were happening around people who cared. She said a tearful goodbye, a very nice prayer, and a sort of I’m sorry this happened to you and quietly left the room.

I stood there for a minuet, just outside the freezer door and just looked at the dark bag lying on the slab. I tried to distance myself from all the crying family and friends, the charge nurse’s tearful goodbye, the dead 19 year old victim in front of me, but I couldn’t. This time it was different. This person in front me was a victim, not “Fat Guy” or “Poor Bastard”. This was a 19 year old girl who was either murdered on purpose or by accident. This was someone who by all accounts of her trusted people and was kind and cheerful all the time. This was someone who did not deserve to die.

I came to my senses, shut the door, made the log entry and went back to the ER. I went to the cafeteria to sit for a while. Guards always know the best places in a joint for peace and quiet. Most often times, it’s places that you wouldn’t think of. At night, the cafeteria is closed and only the security lights are on. NO one goes down there at night, so I could just get a drink out the machine and sit there for a while and think about things for a bit. If they needed me they would call me on the radio for sure.

I told myself that I would never take a drink from some person in a bar, no matter what. Such a simple rule really, but I had just got done wheeling the body a person who lost their life because of not following a simple rule like that. That was when I realized why people don’t like the duty of taking bodies to the morgue. It’s because sometimes you will get attached to the person that died. You can’t help it. You’re not a human being if you don’t.

But the danger is when you start making all kinds of rules for every victim of a crime that you wheel into the freezer. Over just a few months the list had grown from “Never take drinks from strangers” into always carry a “window breaker in the car” and “wear gloves as best you can even if it’s hot.” Eventually, you come to the realization that life is simply dangerous at all times. You realize that no where is really safe and you can’t protect against everything, not matter how strong or smart you are, or how much you train or prepare.

But seeing all the people who die at the hands of other people in your section of the city you start to get bitter and extremely defensive about your life. You constantly tell yourself that you refuse to let yourself become a victim like the people that you wheel into the morgue. I think that anyone who in charge of other peoples lives should be forced to wheel bodies into the morgue for at least a year. I think that everyone who teaches martial arts should have to do this for a year as well and see the people who end up there who supposedly had training.

When I guy dies because he was stabbed to death you tell yourself that you might want to wear a chain mail undershirt on occasion. Each and every violent death isn’t a name in the paper or a headline on TV. Instead, it the “Poor Bastard” that you have to touch the bag of in order to make sure his body doesn’t fall off the slab and onto the floor of the freezer in the morgue. You become an extreme realist of life and not a bystander. You see things, perhaps for the first time, as they really are. You realize that your life, and everyone else’s, is just a few mistakes away from the “slab”. You fully understand that people die all the time. Everyone, young, old, big, small, everyone.


Most people think they understand this but they really don’t at all. They haven’t had it drilled into time and time again by wheeling dead bodies around that only moments ago sometimes you were talking too.

But in the time that I was there, the people who died who were martial artists were surprisingly very few. They didn’t have diabetes, and they usually at least survived violent encounters. They weren’t overweight and dying of heart attacks every day like the “Poor Bastards”. Strangely enough, they didn’t even seem to get shot up like “Gang Banger” or “Dumb Thug” did all the time. For about a thousand different reasons, Martial Artists just seemed to “Survive.”

I don’t want to take martial arts because I am young and I might think that it’s cool. I don’t want to take martial arts because I think that I will be able to take on 10 guys at a time like they do in the movies. I want to take martial arts because I know from real truths in life that they have better chance of living a long and happy life than most others.

When i was having go at you is was because your perceptions of BJJ were really out of line with what BJJ was about and were inaccurate to say the least.

I dont mean this even slightly in a pisstake way but i think you need some basic counseling to talk about this stuff.

[Hot_Wings]

This forum is a waste of time

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

I have gone over many threads here looking for experienced advice and mostly, like most other waste of time forums, I have only found useless crap opinion with little to no supporting information. To those who told me to do shut my mouth until i learn more, go **** off. People like you contribute nothing. you only make these forums useless for the rest of us.

Way to go moderators! You let another forum go shit becuase of a few arrogant asses!

To anyone with half a brain, take my advice and don't waste you time here.

[Ghost]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

I have gone over many threads here looking for experienced advice and mostly, like most other waste of time forums, I have only found useless crap opinion with little to no supporting information. To those who told me to do shut my mouth until i learn more, go **** off. People like you contribute nothing. you only make these forums useless for the rest of us.

Way to go moderators! You let another forum go shit becuase of a few arrogant asses!

To anyone with half a brain, take my advice and don't waste you time here.

you have contributed nothing but a pile of tripe of an opinion on several martial arts, none of which you have any experience of.
You then went on to back up your lunatic ideas with tales of woe and military service.

Let me ask you this, if i were to make sweeping statements about the military in iraq that made little to no sense on a military forum do you think it would be ripped apart? do you think that then it would be intelligent to back up my statements about the military by detailing my martial arts training and ring experience?
No because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

I pulled you up on the most obvious statements in your long winded post that made the least sense, there were others. You then had no reply for that but to go on some rant about dead bodies and nurses.
You then get told to shut up by jubaji, and probably quite rightly.
Your next comeback is to tell us that we lack and real life experience because you cant find any evidence of it on this forum.

Unlike you we dont give a detailed account of the depressing episodes of our lives. You think we havent lived, what do you know? For instance you have no idea who i am or what i have done and seen in my life, and your evidence for us having "not lived" is because we havent detailed our life experiences on this forum.
I have also dealt with dead bodies and people dieing in front of me, as part of a costal rescue service in the uk, ive attended autopsies and pulled dead people out of the water, so what?, deal with it, it doesnt give you a valid point on this thread or any other and it isnt, real world experience, its just one side of the world. thats all, get over it.

You cant stick to topic and you are mentally unstable. You also have wild notions and fantastical ideas about things you have no experience of and no knowledge of. These are the rantings of a mad man.

[lucidmist]

To Thai Bri

I have never taken Wing Chun. I have only taken a few martial arts classes over my lifetime. I am no expert at martial arts. I’m barely a beginner really. But your post and the lack of in depth answers to it has surprised me and prompted me to investigate it. Here is what I found. I am buying a book on Wing Chun to further my investigations. The problem, as I see it, with many martial artists is that they do not evaluate their own system in the real world.

In my experience, anyone interested in any kind of martial arts should first learn about Bruce Lee and his personal frustration in his own personal experience with martial arts being used in the real world. His creation of Jeet Kun Do is a worthwhile read and study for any new martial arts beginner, no matter what method of martial arts they are taking, because it immediately gets you to focus on whether what you are studying is actually practical in a real fight for your life.

However, I feel that the Chinese martial arts are worth intensive study because they fully include in their system the use of many weapons. The problem is that many dojo’s do not teach weapons to beginning students. So, a first year BJJ bully looks for first year Karate students to wrestle on the ground with and beat up in high schools all across the country. However, the real world is not the controlled environment of high school. Ambush wrestling practices are a fool’s game against armed or multiple opponents. This is why the BJJ bullies most often go around in gangs because they know the weaknesses of the “sport” against armed opponents.



http://www.moderncombatives.org/

Weapons are a real part of life, and wanting to bring a real world fight to the ground when weapons are involved is the worst thing that you can do. Imagine next time that you see an UFC bout that the opponents have kubotons or knives in their hands instead of padded gloves. Imagine watching that BJJ guy getting hit in the head repeatedly with spikes while he is attempting to wrestle his opponent in a choke hold. That’s the reason that outside of ring matches and controlled environments like high school you do not see to many people wanting to wrestle people on the ground. To me, BJJ is just a sport, not a martial art. I would probably get much the same “ground fighting” experience from learning wrestling then I would BJJ.

UFC fights do not include eye gouging, groin shots, biting, and many other valid real world tactics. When I saw my first UFC bout on TV and Gracie immediately dove at the opponent’s feet, I turned off the television. It’s just foolish in a real fight.

That being said, I do the value of the training in BJJ. I know, contradictory huh. The value in it is in the wrestling aspects and learning and practicing effective Brass Knuckle punches and kuboton strikes against BJJ. Foolish kids like to tackle people in ambush type fights. Being prepared and familiar with this style of fighting is only prudent for defense. As well, BJJ trains students largely against other students. So, like the military training it should be quick to learn and practice. I can imagine that with training partners outside of the Dojo to increase the actual one on one practice time, then six months of BJJ training should be adequate familiarization with the techniques and defenses against ambush tackling practices. As well, most police training and military training these days all ready teach Judo and ground fighting techniques.

But I can fully understand your frustration with Wing Chun. Bruce Lee had this same frustration after a lot more training in Wing Chun than you have done. SO, don’t feel alone there for sure. Punching air is a fools practice. However, you must remember the roots of Wing Chun. Wing Chun was training designed specifically to get a girl to defeat a male opponent in a ring style fight, with rules, in less than a year. A small young Chinese girl does not have, nor will develop, strong punches against larger opponents in less than a year’s time. So, naturally, the training involved speed, not power. Most bouts, as the girl “Wing Chun” had to fight involve point systems, not knock out blows. That means that if she wanted to beat the male that she was fighting then she needed to score many hits, more than have effective ones. These are where the roots of the Wing Chun system started, which is why it is called Wing Chun (the name of the girl who trained to fight a public bout).

To quote the U.S. Army’s new Combatives training manual on page145…



The words, “Recognize that stand up fighting skills are difficult to master” are the most important words in that entire quoted paragraph. I don’t have the answer for you on what to take, or even how to train best in a Chinese system for the real world. But, that is exactly what I am trying to find out myself. Hung Gar seems to be a system designed from the male standpoint and not the female and seems to focus more on power instead of pure speed. Obviously, both are important; however, I would start with a system that is designed around larger males, and not one that began with public bout fighting for females.

In my area, there are not too many Kung Fu places around, however, there is a place called TOAS Nabard Kung Fu that seems to be someone who has taken a Chinese type system or variant and modified it to be more effective in actual combat. I have yet to take classes there, but firm plans are once again on the board when my work schedule changes in January.

Basically I would stay away from a place that does not teach weapons to beginning students. Why? Because the idea that one needs years of hand and footwork before learning a weapon is flawed. There are countless stories in history of untrained farmers and hastily trained soldiers beating out well trained armies and gangs in hand to hand combat, not because of years of training, but because of a smarter choice of tactics. In essence a spear beats a short sword any day of the week, no matter which person is better trained because of the tactical advantage of the spears focused thrusting power and greater range over that of the short sword.

The best line I ever heard from a martial arts instructor about self defense was, “Get a gun and learn how to use it well before you do anything else.” However, I am going to take some Kung Fu type classes myself and see how it goes. I suggest that you have a private talk with the person sunning your classes and tell him the cold hard facts that you have presented here. Say, look man, I fight with people all the time in my real everyday job" "What I am learning here isn't helping me at all" "I need something that really works for me and starts working quickly." "What am I doing wrong, or how can you help me progess more quickly to be able to use this stuff in the real world now"

Why are we advocating weapons? And when I was in the army, many of my buddies couldn't fight for nuts even after having gone through years of training. It doesn't mean just cos someone was in the army, he can fight. It doesn't mean cos someone's born a Thai, he can do Muay Thai and fight well. Besides, most of the traditinal Chinese arts actually teach defense against opponents weilding weapons. If we can't even master our body, we shouldn't bother trying with the extensions in that much of a hurry. My senior in a Chinese art called Khung Chang was already trained in using the spear for years, but there was one incident where he almost took his own toe out cos he misgauged the retrieval distance after swinging the spear out. Imagine what would've happened to a beginning student who hasn't even mastered using his primary body. It's even possible to cut your own hands just using a small knife, if you haven't been mentally conditioned to sparring/fighting situations. Weapons for absolute beginners, I think it's a bad idea. Just an opinion.

[jubaji]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

I have gone over many threads here looking for experienced advice and mostly, like most other waste of time forums, I have only found useless crap opinion with little to no supporting information. To those who told me to do shut my mouth until i learn more, go **** off. People like you contribute nothing. you only make these forums useless for the rest of us.

Way to go moderators! You let another forum go shit becuase of a few arrogant asses!

To anyone with half a brain, take my advice and don't waste you time here.

Ah, the dramatic 'leaving' speech! Just F-ing go then. You come in saying you've never actually trained in anything then proceed to make all manner of assumptions and hang your whole justification on 'experience'. Then the defensiveness comes, and the anger, and finally the soap-opera dramatics. Feh!

[Thai Bri]

This forum is obviously a waste of my time. I woln't be visiting back. This forum has been completely taken over by arrogant kids who who haven't had the life experience of a insect.

But that's the beauty of the place!

Haw Haw Haw!

[bodhisattva]

I trained WC for approximately 1 year. I put my heart and soul into it and rarely missed a day. Even when there was no lesson I spent my time refining what I had been taught.

From WC I took some of the parrying movements and the bil jee (which I have now rejected in favour of other ways to throw the fingers). Not alot to show for all that work.

Yeah, I agree with all that you typed. The sad truth of Wing Chun is that the (few) things it DOES pass on can be obtained much faster (and more completely) in other systems.

[bodhisattva]

there are many who have trained in muay thai or western boxing or wing chun for years but still are not good at fighting.
.

Seriously? There are many Thai Boxers and Western Boxers, with YEARS of experience who can't fight?

You're off your lid!

[Knuckles&Knees]

Hot_Wings said:

To Thai Bri

I have never taken Wing Chun. I have only taken a few martial arts classes over my lifetime. I am no expert at martial arts. I’m barely a beginner really. But your post and the lack of in depth answers to it has surprised me and prompted me to investigate it. Here is what I found. I am buying a book on Wing Chun to further my investigations. The problem, as I see it, with many martial artists is that they do not evaluate their own system in the real world.

In my experience, anyone interested in any kind of martial arts should first learn about Bruce Lee and his personal frustration in his own personal experience with martial arts being used in the real world. His creation of Jeet Kun Do is a worthwhile read and study for any new martial arts beginner, no matter what method of martial arts they are taking, because it immediately gets you to focus on whether what you are studying is actually practical in a real fight for your life.

However, I feel that the Chinese martial arts are worth intensive study because they fully include in their system the use of many weapons. The problem is that many dojo’s do not teach weapons to beginning students. So, a first year BJJ bully looks for first year Karate students to wrestle on the ground with and beat up in high schools all across the country. However, the real world is not the controlled environment of high school. Ambush wrestling practices are a fool’s game against armed or multiple opponents. This is why the BJJ bullies most often go around in gangs because they know the weaknesses of the “sport” against armed opponents.

Not to revive acrimony that may already be dead, but in the possibility that you may browse through and read this, Hot_Wings, I'll just offer a friendly and respectful suggestion to you in case you decide to pursue a combat art.

BJJ is actually a very complex art in it's very subtle nuances. In fact it differs greatly from folkstyle wrestling (Roman-Greco based wrestling style found in U.S. high schools) in its lack of reliance on raw muscle power.

BJJ is an art that's also effective against a single opponent with an edged weapon. It's fair to say a skilled BJJ player will break the arm of his enemy that threatens him (the weapon arm/hand).

Your great military units that were involved often in close range combat like the Romans, Greeks, Samurai, and Mongols all specialized in grappling when it came to hand to hand and not stand up striking (though of course a mixture of both is often involved).

The military - and I was once in it - is good at what it specializes in. Turning out individual gladiators is not one of them (and no the spec ops are not individual gladiators over team players). Various cultures in the civilian world are *much* better at this e.g. boxing gyms, BJJ schools, prisons and so forth.

Both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have redone their form hand-to-hand combats to adopt more ground grappling techniques due - I believe - to BJJ's proven effectiveness.

Also, most people, in my opinion, don't grapple in civilian altercations for two major reasons: 1) They don't know how to. 2) Many cultures or subcultures like the U.S. inner cities emphasize stand up punching skills. I came up in a culture that emphasized and glorified the hands (needless to say my ability was naturally more there than wrestling)

Think of it like the cultural differences between U.S. inner cities and Brazilian favelas when it comes to basketball or soccer. The Brazilian came up in a culture of soccer, the U.S. stud a culture of basketball.

Just because the U.S. kid is raised in a cultural social history of Sugar Ray Robinson doesn't mean Sambo or Judo from the East are ineffective. And yeah... many of us in the U.S. were raised up on "Black Belt Theater" which glorified the Chinese styles, but let that not blind us to what BJJ has proven itself to in the octagon. (real gladiators)


Peace.

[Red Rum]

Good post.

I think however BJJ is street applicable as fights close very quickly

Every fight I have been in, someone has grabed me somewhere. This sets up opportuniy for grappling arts

What you have to remember is that if you take a fight to the floor there is a danger of another opponent to join in, or for submissions to not really be effective

Yet, despite this, BJJ is an extremely useful art to have even a basic knowledge of

[Hot_Wings]

“Both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have redone their form hand-to-hand combats to adopt more ground grappling techniques due - I believe - to BJJ's proven effectiveness.”

Proven effectiveness at what? The effectiveness that the military is looking for is not life threatening self defense, but instead preserving the life of the enemy in a submission hold.

The military has redone their ground fighting techniques because the role of the military has changed. Many people have thoroughly criticized the militaries new hand to hand combat manuals. In the days of yesteryear, the old military manuals included almost no ground fighting techniques. This is because taking fights to the ground is a fool’s game, militarily speaking.

Each soldier is given a combat knife in times of war. Stand up knife fighting techniques were the pinnacle of military hand to hand combat training in years gone past. If someone was dumb enough to want to tackle you and fight you on the ground then it was just plain old common sense that you would whip out your k-bar and shank the idiot who tackled you. But letting the enemy get close enough to tackle you without first drawing your knife was mistake number one.

But the military is now trying to fill the role of a police force and not a defense force. The needs have now foolishly changed from defending a soldier’s life at the expense of the enemy to, instead, preserving the life of the enemy perhaps over the life of the soldier. Political Correctness has once again foolishly pervaded military training.

Instead of killing the enemy, the mission has now changed to putting the enemy into submission. Many soldiers will needless get killed by this approach. Most of the militaries new hand to hand combat manual covers unarmed combat. But just like serious street crime, unarmed combat is a rarity in times of war. But our military planners know that most of our future engagements will be in third world crap whole like Afghanistan and Iraq. They know that the war itself will be quickly won over these technologically deficient armies in third world countries.

Military planners now understand that peacekeeping roles are more important for military soldiers than warfare roles. It took 4-5 years to win World War two. Training a soldier to kill the enemy was the priority. Now, it only takes a few weeks to overcome a third world country’s military forces. However, it still takes years of occupation to instill a functioning new government. During these years of occupation, military soldiers have to “play cop” to the civilian population. They can no longer simply kill anyone that comes at them. Instead, they have to play nice and attempt to preserve the life of their attacker. They are told to do this now so that the civilian population is not further alienated by the occupation forces.

Essentially, our soldiers have to risk their own lives in wrestling combatants on the ground instead of simply taking them out. That’s why the military has changed its hand to hand combat manual. It is not because it is what is best for the soldier. It is because it is what is best for the militaries new “police” role on the global stage.

The number one way that a police officer dies is either being shot or stabbed, not being wrestled to death, ring style. Don’t be a fool and think that taking a fight to the ground is the preferred way to defend yourself. It is not.

Is learning wrestling moves and BJJ a good thing to know? Sure. Any techniques of wrestling and hand to hand combat have their place and time. But what I see going on in America these days is the fool’s game of people thinking that Wrestling and Ground Grappling is the “preferred” method of self defense. It is not.

Going to the ground is what “can” happen, not what you want.

[jubaji]

Say, didn't you make a dramatic 'leaving' speech?

[Laura]

I train in turning style and have been a student for more than five years nows. Every school of Wing Chun is different. My belief, is maybe you didn't have such a great Sifu. We don't do forms in my school, primarily for the reasons stated - but then Sil Lim Tao is more like moving meditation that is practiced for a number of reasons, self defense not being one of them. It's not Karate. If you really don't have a good school, drop out and try something else. Personally, I'd love to find a good teacher of Bak Mei where I live, but for now, I've got a good teacher of Wing Chun so I'm not killing myself looking....

Good luck.

[Thai Bri]

Yet more contradictions from the pro Wing Chun folks.