I have been practicing Wing Chun (WC) on and off for several years and I was lucky enough to be exposed to 4 different lineages of this art, each of them slightly different and each of them asserting to be the best.  My deepest knowledge is in the Austin Goh system that I have practiced regularly for nearly 4 years.  I consider myself an intermediate practitioner of WC and I enjoy training it occasionally and using some of its basic principles in everything I do when practicing martial arts.

When I first heard of WC, in the early nineties, I was at the beginning of my exploration journey in different martial arts.  Growing up in a small provincial town with just a Judo, Karate and Kickboxing school there wasn’t much to learn about other martial arts.  And while videos were simply not available (or unaffordable) there was no Internet that allowed having a look around.

In 1991 while speaking to a colleague from another town I found out about the existence of WC.  The description I received about this martial art was somehow confusing and the concepts described were just not possible to be visualized, at that time.  The fact that many school teach to their students to avoid giving demonstrations or in depth explanations of what and how they practice doesn’t really help, does it?

Description

If you have experience in various styles of Kickboxing, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Tang So Do and Kung fu you will realize that, more or less, kicks are kicks, punches are punches and stances are stances.  More emphasis here or there but you can see a common line of evolution and many commonalities.  Discussing WC you hear concepts like sensitivity, touch reflexes and central line and that can be a bit disorientating.  The guards and the stances are initially awkward but every makes sense once you get used to it and you have a full grasp of the whole picture.

A fundamental concept of WC is contact training: the average distance of two people practicing with each other is about the one of their elbows extended forward and when practicing you are always in contact with your partner.  You always work with both hands keeping in touch with your opponent’s arms and each technique is always meant to strike: even when certain moves are erroneously classified as blocks they can always be used to attack.

WC is ideal for short distance fighting and for this reason the expert practitioner will seek the short distance by bridging the gap (distance when opponents cannot touch each other) and get to a distance where kicks would be difficult to use.  Being a martial art orientated to fighting and self defence kicks are minimally used and limited to the waist and below (groin, knee cap, leg in general).  Depending on the style there is more or less emphasis on kicking techniques but literally negligible compared to other styles.

History (inspired from the WC Federation site)

WC is a subtle and complete system of Chinese Kung Fu, developed over hundreds of years, with its roots in the Shaolin Temple tradition. Legend has it that in 1645 a Bhuddist nun by the name of Ng Moi devised the system and taught it to a young girl called Yim WC, who successfully used her newly learned skills to defend herself against a local bully who attempted to rape her.  Originally a very secret system, the sophisticated art of WC was only passed on to family members and close, trusted friends. It was only when the legendary Grandmaster Ip Man (now sadly passed away) arrived in Hong Kong that the style was taught more openly.  Ip Man happened to teach to the early Bruce Lee that started to teach WC as soon as he arrived in USA and then it used it as the basis for his Jeet Kune Do and he depicted the art in several famous movies.

What I like about WC

Here are the main points on which I advocate WC to be a great martial art:

• WC is a no frills, very immediate and direct martial art: it can be practiced effectively by people of any shape, body shape and size and it can be very useful ad a practical self defence system.
• The contact training allows metabolizing the adrenaline and stress of fighting at a very short distance: you learn to cope with fear and minimize your reactions to any kind of attacks.
• The way techniques are usually taught help relaxing and most muscles in a position and status that allow maximum reactivity at fast speed while instinct would suggest stiffening and becoming slow.

What I don’t like about WC

There aren’t many things I don’t like about WC as a martial art but, to keep my tradition in “My Thoughts about …” I will list a couple:

• The level of fitness required to practice WC is substantially lower that other more physical styles: this means that while it will keep your body in decent shape you will have to integrate WC with something else if you want to be super fit.
• I also dislike and disapprove the too many political actions between the various schools, driven by mere personal interest of a few top guys.

Conclusions

WC is a great martial arts; it teaches very clever concepts that can be applied to the practice of many other martial arts.  I would suggest to anybody, whether she is a total novice or an expert black belt to give it a try, with an objective view.  Make sure to find the right school though.   Some of them are not too friendly and they have a very arrogant way of positioning themselves: I was lucky enough to meet some of the good ones but I heard of some very bad…

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I was recently guest at a Wing Chun seminar run by sifu Benno Westra organized by my friends at Cambridge Kung Fu.  Wing Chun is a martial art originated in the South of China and it’s predominantly an bare handed based system that was initially defined by a woman: advanced forms use butterfly knives and long pole but the majority of applications and demonstration are done empty handed.  Wing Chun is a martial arts that to my knowledge has no sport application and it is taught primarily as a simple, direct and no frills self defence system.

Wing Chun is in reality a family of different styles and I personally trained many different ones: it is intriguing to see how each of them is similar more or less to the others while it interprets various aspects in a totally different way.  In general emphasis on one or the other technique is due to the lineage, the master or grand master that defined the style and his/her personal taste for one or the other aspect.

The first impression of seeing and meeting Benno Westra is warm, friendly and encouraging: a big step forward compared to many high ranked people in the Wing Chun arena that like to look down to the common mortals and use intimidation and nearly mystification to justify their position.  His practical approach to Wing Chun is meant to enable any practitioner to have a good structure and a no non-sense preparation to situations that can happen on the street.

Given my exposure and years of training in other styles of Wing Chun I was some times performing instinctively in a way that was substantially different from what being practiced.  When he corrected some of my techniques he was explaining and justifying why in his style things work that way.  I appreciated hearing a number of times how there isn’t a right or wrong approach to one or the other situations: that leaves a great level of freedom to analyse and appreciate what works and what doesn’t for yourself.

Starting from a simple drill that was deflecting punches to the face we built in a number different variations of lat sau, using wu sau as a central, main technique for the day.

It’s difficult to measure results out of a 4 hours seminar, because it depends very much on what you expect to get out of it.  My approach is usually to go with the flow, experience and see what comes out, trying to be totally unbiased, objective and to learn something: I was happy to exceed my expectations in this occasion.

I liked Sifu Benno’s style of teaching: he uses many interesting metaphors and humorous stories and jokes while presenting top quality techniques and offering comparison to many other martial arts of which he has practical experience himself.  I am looking forward to the possibility of participating to another seminar.

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While a book cannot teach you a martial art it can explain concepts that sometimes could be lost or not necessarily explained in lessons.  Putting in writing certain concepts will force the author to think them through and be very specific about them: this is a typical example.

Why Wing Chun Works

If you move across styles and train various styles of Kickboxing, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Tang So Do and Kung fu you will realize that, more or less, kicks are kicks, punches are punches and stances are stances.  More emphasis here or there but you can see a common line of evolution and many commonalities.  When you talk Wing Chun you hear concepts like sensitivity, touch reflexes and central line and that can be a bit disorientating.  That’s why when I found this book and read the introduction in a local book shop I bought it and read it in a short time.

The book

Why Wing Chun Works had a great influence on my martial art experience and I like to go back to it and read a few paragraphs every so often.  I was so intrigued by the reading it that at the end I decided to send an Email to the author, Alan Gibson, and invite him over for a seminar that I organized.  That was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration and friendship.  This book was entirely written by Alan and based on his personal experience and discovery of this art of which he is a prominent representative in the UK and internationally.  This was the first experience of Alan Gibson writer: he wrote and produced himself this first edition in 1998: it is spiral-bound and with hand made drawings.  The book had several editions after this one and recently Alan released “Beginning Wing Chun” that is an improved version with some extra material.

Description

The basic style described here describes the Ip Chun lineage and it is based around the principles of pivoting around the central line.  Wing Chun is not about learning systematically and rehearsing situations like: if this happens do this, if that happens do that and so on. It’s about absorbing, at subconscious level, subtle movements that allow to react, attack and defend in a continuous action.  All “techniques” are described as “concepts”: each concept applies to various situations.  The book also describes how Wing Chun principles such as straight line attack and economy or motion can be applied to problem solving and other aspect of life, not necessarily related to martial arts or to fighting.

What I like of this book

If you are a total beginner of Wing Chun or you don’t know what it is this is a great guide to discover the art and its many principles.  If you are already practicing it can be a great help to understand the various concepts at a deeper level, having time to think about them while away from your usual practicing venue.

Conclusions

Why Wing Chun Works should be in every martial artist’s library: no matter whether you are a Wing Chun practitioner, a curious or simply passionate about martial arts. Don’t expect to learn Wing Chun by reading it but you can definitely improve your thinking around various techniques and, ultimately, refine them.

If you would like to buy this book, or other interesting ones, please have a look at our book store that contain a little collection of the books I read so far.

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I was recently awarded best answer in Yahoo! Answers by replying to the following question:

For someone who is looking into enrolling in a security course, what is one of the best martial arts to learn as a ind of background into self defense. I have heard that Ju Jitsu is good as far as grappling goes…. Any ideas

and here was my answer:

I agreed that ju jitsu can be the first and correct answer to your question it is also true that aikido offers as well great level of joint locks that are excellent for security work. They will surely protect you against people pushing and grabbing you although they might not be the best answer against somebody attacking you with punches or other strikes at short range. For those I’d suggest Wing Chun that also allows great attacking skills when needed. Another interesting alternative could be Silat that offers both attack and defense against strikes but with a broad range of joint and limb locks and grappling techniques.

For any of the above, in any case, you should consider a consistent practice in order to learn and assimilate the techniques: by no means expect to be proficient in a martial art within a few weeks or months.

All the best in martial arts

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After the post about Summer Camp 2008, follows now the video:

Enjoy!

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