CONCEPT OR CONCOCTION?

 

We must decide if we are learning to fight or learning Wing Chun, there is a difference, and the devil is in the details.

MANIFESTING THE FIST LOGIC OF WING CHUN.

A lot of the things we are shown, especially in the beginners phase, the  first 5 years or so,  are ways to explore the IDEA of  Wing Chun, an introduction or prologue and not in fact directions to take forwards and most certainly not techniques, I have for a long time now been of the opinion that there are no techniques in Wing Chun at all. 

The methods we learn should be looked on as ways to handle force, once we do this we see that they all do the same thing, and to a certain extent that there is only one movement in all of Wing Chun.

When we watch videos of Wing Chun people in fights against other styles the ones that do poorly are the ones that try to use their Wing Chun training, the ones that never managed to move on from the preliminary introduction.

The Wing Chun people that win in these fights, and there are many, usually just fight and allow their choices to be influenced by their Wing Chun training, in a fist fight adhering to the principles of Wing Chun is far more effective than using specific moves from specific Forms.

Fighting is always about the choices we make, not the moves.

Wing Chun is a concept based Martial Art, or at least that is how the story goes, but who out there actually knows the concepts?  I have trained with some of the worlds top Masters and when I asked them they just shrugged and said S.L.T.

But what does that mean?

If any one does know the concepts please leave a note in the comments.

If we genuinely do believe that Wing Chun is a concept based martial art we need to accept the position that there is no ground zero, there is no single Big Bang Theory to back us up, to have any hope of understanding Wing Chun we must firstly understand what OUR OWN CONCEPT is.

A concept is an abstract notion from which we can formulate Ideas, the more abstract the notion is, the more creative and numerous are the ideas formed.

By their very nature concepts can create movement in opposite directions to each other, IDEAS that when viewed side by side are contradictory or self defeating.

Internal – External arguments exposes this perfectly, in isolation they are both strong, exciting and fundamentally sound approaches but looked at together they clash, they both highlight the foolishness of the others approach and as a result tend to invalidate each other.

After more than 25 years continues training in Wing Chun I have come to the conclusion that it is what we do not do that defines us a great deal more than the Forms or Chi Sau, Internal or External.

What I see as a fundamental stumbling block with Wing Chun is the lack of meaningful contact in training, but ironically bringing meaningful contact into training would create major complications from the perspective of being a counter attacking martial art.

Sparring always becomes a mess that just looks like really bad boxing, Chi Sau sparring turns into grappling or some type of tug of war and Forms offer little if any interaction with opposing force.

How can Forms or Chi Sau bring genuine contextual understanding?

We must establish our own concepts to guide our own training.

We must decide if we are learning to fight or learning Wing Chun, there is a difference, and the devil is in the details.

FIST LOGIC requires that if we are touching an opponent then we must be punching them, this is the basis of simultaneous attack and defence, it could be any strike of course not just a punch, this is not always possible in the chaos of a violent encounter so simultaneous attack and defence becomes a concept to work from, to try to manifest.

This is all theory, reality is rarely similar, fights care little for style or lineage, to give ourselves the best possible chance of surviving a violent encounter we need two things above all others.

1, the ability to move efficiently so as to be in the right place at the right time to deliver the perfect shot.

2, the ability to be able to hit with power from the wrong place when we find ourselves there.

Both are skills that need developing, exploring and understanding, neither can be learned by moving slowly or standing still.

Most students think they understand motion but when you watch them practising there are some obvious grey areas, things like rhythm and timing, three dimensionality, how do we affect it and where does it fit in? 

Wing Chun footwork is portioned out in drips through the Chum Kiu, Biu Gee, Knives and Pole Forms, it is a conglomeration that is not plug and play, some assembly is required.

How do we deal with variability, accept it as a threshold and not allow it to become dogma and bully us? Is it more important to control our own movement or our opponents?

Treating  movement as a concept instead of a methodology will revitalise and enlighten the Forms.

By far the most important and misunderstood aspect of  Wing Chun is the concept of counter attacking, how we perceive this will change everything we do in an instant, counter attacking is not simultaneous attack and defence, we can counter attack without defending.

Exploring what counter attacking is will be a long post, one that I am working on at the moment, apart from anything else it is complicated by the very fact that it requires someone to attack us and that could take any shape or form that the other person can think of, it is multi layered, it is not attacking, it is not defending it is not even fighting.